Salut!

The Tour de France. Where the real winner is the breathtaking French landscape

Years ago, at Salut! Sunderland, the fan site then still in my hands (what has become of it, despite the bold ambitions theoretically held then by the new owner, is a minor tragedy of football journalism), I ran a short series in which contributors were invited to talk about another team they quite liked, or another sport they enjoyed watching or playing,

Watching TV footage of the stunning landscapes of France during this year's Tour de France (not forgetting Spain at the start of the event), I was reminded of one outstanding instalment, my friend Pete Sixsmith's colourful account of what had grown into an annual must-see for him.

It's well worth a read even if, like me, you are less than excited by cycling as a sport and even if you read it when it first appeared in 2010. I shall reproduce it without changes except to my introduction so please expect some references from then ...

 

When I lived in Paris, writes Colin Randall, part of the finale of the Tour de France took place in the street five floors beneath my front window on the rue du Rivoli. It left me cold. All it meant was that it was a lot harder to get around and watch while people I barely knew would ring up, feign close friendship and ask if they could come watch.

Pete Sixsmith begs to differ, and just loves those scrawny, “Steroids .. me?” beanpoles and their pelotons. Here's how he described his other sporting passion back in 2010 (I reposted it in 2019; we believe in recycling around here) ...

 

Emma Mackey: from Le Mans to Le Booze

 

What do Emma Mackey, winner of the Bafta rising star award, and Mme Salut have in common?

Well, three things to be totally accurate. Both were born in Le Mans, both headed when young to northern England and both encountered the same cultural shock once there.

 

Emma Mackey

Monty’s and Indian/Nepalese cuisine: bouncing back from an unfair defeat

 

 

When it comes to Indian food, I have grown to be a bit choosy.

The proliferation of basic curry and tandoori houses around Britain means that standards have, in my own view, fallen. It is much easier than used to be the case to eat badly and/or feel ripped off. You can dine very well indeed but that often means splashing out on posh Indian. 

When I lived and worked in Paris, and my duties as The Daily Telegraph's correspondent covering all things French included a blog for the paper's newish website, I embarked on a leisurely and haphazard search for France's best Indian restaurant.

It was a popular initiative among readers and, even more so, to me. In this strictly professional cause, I ate at the newspaper's expense at just the right number of places, once even taking the TGV down to Angoulême to check out a recommendation.

Then, just over seven years ago, I compared experiences at two restaurants, both long established and both familiar to me: the Gandhi in Saint-Tropez and Monty's just around the corner from Ealing Broadway station in West London.

It was a deeply flawed exercise, the outcome influenced by a rare disappointment at Monty's, and Gandhi came out marginally on top. 

 

La Grotte de Sainte Marie-Madeleine: a steep learning curve

A solitary figure, a monk with book in hands, sits in silent reflection at the the church built in the cave we know as the Grotte de Sainte-Marie-Madeleine. It's probably a prayer book and the location is high above the village of Plan d'Aups, on the border of the Var and Bouches-du-Rhône départements of southern France.

Maybe he was just tired. I was, after the challenging 2km ascent of an uneven, sometimes unmade path. "The route is up, up, up, but you can reach it in your own pace," someone from Finland wrote on TripAdvisor, adding (correctly): "It is definitely worth it."

It took George Floyd's death to rid Bristol of the Colston statue

 

My photo from just pre-lockdown. Sorry about the lamp post. It shall be toppled into Avon Gorge asap

Some years ago, I covered the industrial tribunal case of a young man who complained of unfair dismissal after being sacked from his position at a job centre in Bristol because he deliberately sent black applicants for interview by employers he suspected of being racist.

I remember only a few details of the proceedings but, very vividly, the response of a few readers of The Daily Telegraph, then my employer. I made a point of stating in my reports that the job centre clerk was white, since this seemed entirely relevant.

Photographic reproduction at the Telegraph was some way short of perfection at the time. I received several letters, some of the green ink, exclusively upper case variety, accusing me of trying to hoodwink readers by presenting the applicant as white when he, so evidently, was a person of colour.

Monette, the ungovernable French cat, is no more. RIP

My favourite photo of Monette, still a kitten, nestling on the mess that constituted my desktop in Paris

 

She took her name from her birthplace, a restaurant used by visitors to Giverny, home of the French impressionist Claude Monet, west of Paris, and of the water lilies he famously and beautifully painted. Monet died there in 1926, aged 86. Monette - her name was simply feminised - died in the less elegant setting of a vet's surgery in Whitton, not far from Heathrow, at sometime between Thursday evening and Friday morning. She would have been 16 in July, not a bad age for a cat though every member of the family is devastated by her loss.

Monette became the fourth of our family cats soon after Mme Salut and I moved to Paris in 2004. We had no intention of acquiring another but, on that day, this kitten only days old was making herself known around our feet as we ate following our visit to the house and gardens. And she was adorable. Joelle asked if they had one from the litter for sale and the waitress, after consulting la patronne, said: "Take her if you want."

The story is better told in an abandoned book project dating from 10 years ago. I shall repeat that below. The book idea - in the form of a feline autobiography - never got beyond this opening chapter after friends who know about such things said it had been done before and wasn't worth the effort.

But I am glad now that I wrote it. There would have been a later chapter about why I described her as Monette the ungovernable French cat (it was at one of those times when the French were showing themselves to be pretty ungovernable). 

Monette lived in Giverny, Paris, the south of France, London and Abu Dhabi. She died, I hope, in whatever knowledge cats have that she'd led a good and longish life and was a cherished pet, lovingly cared for in her last few days by our younger daughter Nathalie and granddaughter Maya. RIP.

A minor media empire shrinks with the end of Salut! Sunderland

The brilliant Telegraph cartoonist Matt produced three drawings for me during my career. This was one of them, marking my posting by the newspaper to Paris. My friend John Clark ('Jake') added colour

In 52 years as a journalist, I have witnessed the closure of several newspapers as an outsider. I was deeply involved in one launch - The National in Abu Dhabi - but have been fortunate to escape the sadness and pain of a closure directly affecting me.

Today I have an idea of how that last experience feels. Less than three weeks from the 13th anniversary of its creation, I am closing my football site Salut! Sunderland.

Mike Amos: in praise of a towering figure of journalism

You may continue to read Mike Amos's work at his blog, Grass Routes, which he describes as a 'thumbs-up journey with North East football folk'

When I heard the news that my friend and journalistic mentor Mike Amos had been told by The Northern Echo his services were no longer required - after 55 years or writing for that newspaper and its defunct stablemate, the Evening Despatch - I rattled off social media posts in which I was unpleasant about the Echo management and called Mike "as fine a journalist as the North East [of England] has produced". I was right about the Echo, wrong about him.

Eight years ago, I described Mike as "one of the finest journalists in the world". That seems altogether more accurate (see the obvious qualification below, where I reproduce the Salut! article in which the phrase appeared).

All I said about Mike in 2011, when he reached 65 and technically retired, only to continue to enhance the Echo's pages with two columns a week, remains true.

From chanson française - Brassens, Brel, Ferré - to Jain and Imany

The little Salut! empire likes to keep things broadly in boxes. That translates as not too much here about Sunderland AFC or the folk stuff at Salut! Live, and hardly ever anything about poor, neglected Salut! North.

But I know some people who come here quite regularly have a soft spot for chanson Française, whether in its old-fashioned form (Aznavour, Distel, Trenet) or relatively modern refinements (for example Gainsbourg and Biolay). Some of you even like Johnny Hallyday (actually, so do I on selected items).

On acquiring a new Mercedes when pushing 70. Late-life crisis or common sense?

Nine-and-a-half years ago, I wrote at a rarely updated and rarely read offshoot of this site, Salut! North, about the various cars I had owned or leased. There have been a few more since then so maybe an update is overdue.

Bill Taylor, a great friend of mine and of the little Salut! group of sites, has just made a new acquisition to provide for those days he doesn't or cannot rely on Toronto's public transport system. And it really is new, a Merc no less. If you like what you read, check back on his superb series of life as an Englishman in New York ...