Picnic Areas and Picnic Sites

Robin Ramsay writes:

Two days after Picnic Publishing asked me to do a blog for my Politics and Paranoia I went to Paris. (My brother-in-law works there and his flat is available some weekends when he comes back to London. It’s 7 hours door-to-door by train.) In Paris,  I had a quick squint at the famous bookshop opposite Notre Dame, Shakespeare and Company, which has been supplying English-language books since the days when James Joyce is said to have done some of his writing there.

Just before the tourist hordes had made it there from their hotels, in the second-hand boxes on the pavement outside the shop I found two books which I wanted: William Domhoff’s The Higher Circles (1971) and David Brock’s Blinded by the Right  (2002). These books sort of bookend my reading/writing life, the contents of Politics and Paranoia, and recent US politics. Domhoff is an American sociologist who analysed the American ruling class (see also Who Rules America? 1967)and was one of the names I came across early in my journey through the card indexes on American history in the University of Hull library in 1976.

Meanwhile, Brock’s memoir, as well as being an insider’s view of the ‘vast conspiracy’, is a fascinating warts-and-all portrait of many of the major players on the Republican Right in and around Congress and the Senate in the 1990s. And what a bunch of screwed-up, hypocritical, intellectual and moral pygmies they were! Brock’s account puts new life into the old world view of the left that those on the right are either stupid, venal or psychologically damaged. I’ve spent nearly twenty years trying my best to shake off that view of the right only to have it revalidated by Brock.

 
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Meribel
Savoie
France
by Madeleine Brioche

Grated carrots, black olives, raw courgettes in rye bread cut square because it fills you up more. The mixture might not appeal to all, but as my sense of smell, and therefore taste went about 35 years ago, it works for me. We are sitting on a large fallen branch as the ground is still wet from the dramatic mountain storm the night before. We have a hot sun on our backs, mixed with cold air as we are 1810 metres up, above Meribel, in the Savoie region of France: at 45°24′06.25″N 6°34′56.08″ E. Two thirds down on the right of France/4 o’clock position if you prefer.

This is a large ski region in winter, and the ski lifts work in rotation in the summer. Today however we have walked up with our backpacks and Jack Russell. The views are stunning. We can see for 30 kilometres around: we could see much further, even to Mont Blanc if we walk to the top. It feels like being in Heidi country with scattered old farms, and cows and goats with bells of different tones gently clanging as the animals feed. We can see and hear many mountain streams. We walk up slowly as the air is so thin that we get breathless easily. We love the extreme and variable weather: we can have snow and hail in August too. Yesterday we were cycling in unbearable 30°C heat near Lake Annecy: today is a perfect counterbalance.

We dive into the forest and are surrounded by mountain plants: canterbury bells, aconite, blown dandelions, thistles (with separate names here: Le Cirse, Le Carline, Le Chardon . . . ), clover, arnica, rose bay willow herb, yellow foxgloves . . . If we went higher, as high as the bare rocks, we would be among edelweiss, gentians and saxifrage. Wild animals are nearby: we can’t hear, smell or see them, (wild boar, marmots, hare, deer, foxes, pine marten) but we know they are there because our dog strains on the leash at them

We find the fallen branch, partly covered with hanging Spanish moss, and break open our sandwiches: our dog is partial to carrots, so we share. We drink water with picnics now, having discovered sadly that real walking and wine do not mix: you just want to lie down on the ground, which isn’t terribly useful for getting you back home.

Today is a gentle day, and we meander back down the long way round, diving down unknown paths for the pleasure of it. All we have to do after we get home is discuss what we will have for dinner: this is France after all.

Madeleine Brioche

Photos, Copyright: Jackie Norman

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