More important things happened this weekend.Putin's mates committed a war crime by parading prisoners-of-war in the heart of Donetsk (maybe two war crimes, given the wretched state of the captives). The Sunday Times claimed to have unmasked the monster who beheaded James Foley.
And amid crisis in the French government, Manuel Valls resigned as prime minister. François Hollande immediately asked him to form a new government; I'd have been inclined to stay resigned and prepare for the 2017 presidentials. Isn't Valls the only electable candidate of the sort-of-left currently on offer?
Meanwhile, I took some photos ...
Which buffoon decided in 1964 that the cinema-going public of the English-speaking world could not cope with a word as complicated as gendarme?
Back then, when scratching their heads and wondering how to market the French comedy film, Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez, for a wider audience, the movie industry suits came up with The Troops of St Tropez. The likeliest culprit/s will have been French, aware that the National Gendarmerie is a branch of the French armed services and unaware that such a concept would not really travel to, say, the UK or USA. So he/they came up with "troops", making it sound like a seaside war film (à la Carry on Battling?).
The star of the film, Louis de Funès, died in 1983 but was in the news again recently, because the centenary of his birth was July 31.
My photo does not show him but a chap who can be found posing in the old-fashioned uniform outside the old gendarmerie building St Trop. In fact, there are at least a pair of imitators; I have seen them on the port, blowing their whistles in mock seriousness at passing tourists or each other.
From les poulets, as gendarmes are known, to the hen.
With London hibernation looming, this may have been my final visit to Saint-Tropez of the summer. So I joined the happy snappers and doctored the result to add a historical flavour.
Then to the beach. Franck the photographer is a fixture of Le Lavandou summers, charming visitors into posing for pictures that will serve as souvenirs of their holidays if they pop to the shop before they go home and part with quite a lot of money.
It is rare for a day on the beach, or evening on the port, to go by without coming across Franck. In the winter months, he and others plying the same trade will typically be found doing the same sort of thing in the Alps. Franck does his job well; I have watched him persuade reluctant groups or friends or family to accept his attentions and end up smiling, perhaps customers. We've succumbed, too, as the interior walls of the house readily demonstrate. Our granddaughter adores him.
As the season draws to a close - one or two places have already shut up shop and it's still August - here is Franck in action after chancing across the unmissable opportunity of a French hen party - they have a better way of putting it: l'enterrement de vie de jeune fille.Unless I have underestimated changing ways on France, I bet they didn't end up as drunk or inclined to vomit as a British hen party and I bet business will be brisk at the photographic shop.
Click either image for a slightly better view. Franck's job is clearly under no threat.
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