Les Franglaises

... AkkuV style.

To the Centre Culturel this evening to see Les Franglaises. A very French show; the principle is that they take well known pop songs in English and translate the words literally into French. Somehow this is funny, partly because it seems to emphasise just how idiotic the words of most songs are. But also because they add lots of stage business to the show, and they are very good musicians and dancers (eleven of them!) -- good enough to take the mickey out of what they are doing with great panache. We got the Beach Boys, the Eagles, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, the Spice Girls (les filles épicées) and more. Have a look ... I found the tall blonde particularly impressive as she has a great voice, can sing in a variety of styles from Nancy Sinatra to Edith Piaf, play the slide trombone, and dance as well. Pierre et roule ! (rock and roll)

An innovation this year is le food truck before the show. It turns out it's very popular -- we arrived an hour before the start of the show and spent 45 minutes of that time drinking wine while we waited for our hamburgers. Artisanal hamburgers of course -- they reminded me of the big juicy ones you used to get from the Brett's burger shack outside Oxford station. A great idea, giving people a chance to chat and mingle before the show.

Earlier in the day some young students in the first year of their IT degree at Montpellier university came to interview us about our business. We'd warned them we were atypical, but they clearly found it a bit shocking to be interviewing web developers old enough to be their grandparents, talking about things that happened before they were born. I managed to stun them into silence by reminiscing about the heady days of 1991 when you couldn't have images on web pages, and everything was in Times Roman. I wonder how they will report this to their peers...