And the winners are....

Monette has been described as a chic Parisian cat, but the truth is that while she is fairly chic, she is - or was - Parisian in the sense that de Valera was Irish or I am a Durham lad.

Monette's home for a few days
Picture: bigskyred

In other words, she was born far from the land she called her own. Not quite as far as de Valera from Ireland (New York) or Randall from the North East (Hove), but far enough for a cat.

A few days into her life as one of a litter born at a restaurant at Giverny, where the house and gardens of Monet are on public view (and well worth the drive weat of Paris), this scrap snapped at the heels of a table where two couples were rounding off their visit.

One couple fell in love with the kitten and were promptly told they could take her. Since this was a girl, she couldn't be Monet, so she became Monette.

Several readers of Salut! were able to identify her with ease. No one, I am sorry to say, came up with that 50,000 hits home page from the blog.

But then, my web man Craig McGintywas always iffy about the idea and somone else was kind enough to send me an image of the Stat Counter on my site stuck on 60,000 to show how easy it was to fiddle.

I chose not to withdraw thatvpart of the competition, since you'd have to be especially odd to sit there making the counter say 50,000 just to win a book on curries.

There was the risk, of course, because I had only to receive more than one saved image to know that one, both or all were cheating. But what the heck....

So, the witching hour having been reached, I apologise to those who sent in correct answers to the cat question and do not now see their names.

But I found a use for a pile of pristine Daily Telegraph visiting cards, wrote the names of each correct respondent on them and asked Mme Salut! - Monette being unavailable - to draw two of them.

And the winners are: Mason Norton and Steve Bushnell. Both sent charming e-mails with their correct responses.

Neither, however, supplied a postal address and should do so, once again by writing to colinrandall2001@yahoo.fr

The prizes will then be dispatched in the next few days.

Otherwise, one or both may end up going elsewhere - perhaps even to Louise, whose name went into the hat despite her lack of affection for Indian cuisine and would go into it again if a re-draw were necessary.

Competition time (2)

For those allergic to cats............... I also propose to award a prize to the reader who is able to save and send me a copy of the home page of Salut! showing the counter on 50,000.

This should also be sent to me at colinrandall2001@yahoo.fr

I realise that a really determined individual could sit from now to 50,000 refreshing the screen until the magic number comes up. But then again, how would they know that others were not up to the same trick and might beat them to it?

The prize, returning to the theme of my painstaking search of France for a good Indian curry, is a splendid sounding book by Reza Mahammad with the self-explanatory title of Rice, Spice and all Things Nice , published by Simon and Schuster.

Another fine publication, 50 Great Curries of India by Camellia Panjabi and published by Kyle Cathie, is the reward for coming up with my cat's name - and being chosen from among all the correct answers received by next Wednesday, 6pm French time.

The more alert will know that perhaps the best curry I have eaten in France was served by a friend using a recipe from the French version.

The 50,000 milestone was reached a short while ago. I will let you know if anyone succeeded in the mission set be me earlier.

Coup de Tête pour Nice en fête

Get the idea?
Picture: cjwooduk

We hate Man United. Well I don't as it happens, but this isn't really a football posting so I'll come back to that in a minute.

Where I should start is not at the Nice carnival either, but on the Corniche, which I have just been able to enjoy for the first time since I saw Edward Fox whizzing round its perilous cliffside bends in The Day of the Jackal.

That was a long time ago and I have naturally travelled along the same coastline, from Cannes to Nice, many times since. But enjoyment of the spellbinding scenery is, on the whole, impaired when you have to take care not to drive into the sea.

So I insisted on leaving the car at Saint Raphaël and continuing to Nice by train.

Rail is easily my preferred means of transport and I know there are several spectacular train journeys in the world. But this was a real treat, from the exhilaration of racing along parallel to the Mediterranean shore to the pleasure of trundling through cuttings ablaze with mimosas.

One carnival goes rather a long way for my tastes, and I had been in Bormes-les-Mimosas only a week earlier when Bernadette Chirac opened the corso there.






But the current Nice festival does boast a number of outstanding floats representing the efforts of people from each quarter of the city, and was well worth half a day. We also found an excellent stop for lunch, the Indian lounge, run by a family from Pondichéry and now added to my short list of good French Indian restaurants.

When the procession got under way, the giant caricatures of Chirac (and Bernadette), Ségo and Sarko and the other presidential contenders were especially impressive.


And then there was Zinedine Zidane. Which brings me back to Manchester United.

That statement of hatred in my opening line is also the opening line of a refrain heard, with varying force depending on which club's supporters you are listening to, at most English football grounds.

In France, just now, they hate Man Utd, too. The French naturally prefer Arsenal in any case, given the stronger links that make them seem almost part of Ligue 1. But in normal circumstances, they also respect Man Utd for the mighty club that it is.

The new antipathy follows last week's match against Lille. Everyone by now has a view of the events involving Man Utd fans and French police, and also of Giggs's quickly taken free kick that won the game; there has been comment here as elsewhere.

But limiting myself to the free kick controversy and Lille's petulant walk-off, I couldn't help feeling, as I watched the Zidane character in the Nice carnival parade, that double standards were at play in the French reaction. Man Utd's sense of fair play has been put in question and the referee has been pilloried.

Yet all Giggs did, apparently without breaking any rule of the game, was to make the most of an advantage awarded because of some unfair play by Lille.

Why on earth should a free kick on the edge of the penalty area be delayed to the convenience of the offending team?

Even if that view is open to debate, surely we can at least agree that no verbal provocation justified Zidane's actions in the World Cup final, much as some have charitably expressed understanding of them.

Yet in Nice here was further evidence that far from being a matter of personal disgrace that also tarnished the image of an admirable French national side, Zidane's show of yobbish aggression can be seen as a source of pride.

The carnival caricature had the great man's head thrusting forward as it had towards the chest of Italy's Marco Materrazzi last July.

And the city authorities treated the crowds to repeated bursts over the sound system of that cuddly French hit, Dance of the Headbutt, glorifying the footballer's moment of madness. Without wishing to rain on the carnival, I cannot help thinking that this sends out a depressingly wrong message to youngsters who idolise great sportsmen.

Paris: hits and misses, and a miss to miss

This blog is no longer the preserve of a Parisian, so perhaps it is too early to be too dogmatic about what to look back on with a smile and what to be glad to see the back of.

But here goes anyway:

Picture: JammyCat.

What I'll miss:

* The sheer man-made beauty of both banks of the Seine

* The Métro. Parisians complain, of course, but it almost always worked for me

* Eurostar within easy reach

* Being able to get Indian food delivered to the door (even the Parisian version is better than nothing)

* Rebecca. Who is Rebecca Schofield? Bill Taylor asked the question when I used Rebecca's computer to make an e-mail response to his photo website.
She is, or was, my assistant. As an Englishwoman living in Paris (with a rural bolt hole), and as wife, mother, go-getter and unrivalled collector of friends, she knows just about everything about living in France

* And Rebecca will miss being reminded of Robin, the young work experience visitor who wrote in his subsequent school project of her dynamism and her ability to keep her desk tidy "amidst general disorder". He also lopped 15 years off our ages

* That view. I tried my best to give the impression of being blasé, but you cannot keep a straight face for long while feigning indifference to a panorama that begins with the Louvre, takes in the Tuileries with the Musée d'Orsay, twin spires of Ste Clotilde and the Assemblée Nationale as backdrop before arriving at the Eiffel Tower via Invalides and the Champs Elysées. Breathtaking

* Keeping relatively fit by fast-walking circuits of the Tuileries

* Parisian jazz

* Lifts to Parisian badminton clubs from Ming Lam, my friend from the Auberge des Gourmets Chinese restaurant.

* Being able to walk to functions at the Elysée, Quai d'Orsay or British Embassy. In fact, being able to walk to most places in the city centre

* Easy access to live English football whether or not you secretly have one of those Sky cards at home

And what I won't:

* The price of everything from mushroom omelette and chips to an unremarkable baguette in the 1st arrondissement

* The army of beggars. Paris seems to have more than most cities and a large proportion seems genuine, distinguishing them from the shift working professionals I have seen in action from Lyons to London. If the current wave of protests in support of France's SDFs - sans domicile fixe - inspires effective, humane action, it has my blessing

* Having to count a few extra seconds as drivers whizz by after pedestrian crossing lights turn green, and even then venturing out warily

* The feeling at the height of summer that there is no escape from the clammy heat

* Clanking old lifts that spot heavy bags a kilometre off and render themselves en panne

* And yes, there has to be more. But for once, I have run out of negative thoughts.....for now.

Salut! salutes Asian royalty

Just when I had decided that my famous search for a good Indian restaurant in France was a fool's mission, I chanced upon this unexpected gem.

There is a mention in my updated France in Flashes posting - up to version number 8 now with new additions, though these did not quite justify lifting the file to the top of the blog again.

Le Royal Shah Jahan is out in the Parisian suburbs at Enghien-les-Bains, where the intermittently pleasant Val d'Oise meets the often very unpleasant Seine-St-Denis. The well known Enghien lake is just along the road.

It took an age time to find anywhere to park, but everything about
the restaurant itself was right.

My old standby, chicken tandoori, was by a long shot the tastiest I have come across in France. All that was missing was the sizzling onion, but I have given up expecting that here.

My wife and her friend from childhood have both lived in England, so asked for their vindaloos to be hotter than the Pakistani-owned restaurant would normally serve to squeamish French customers. Both expressed delight with the results.

Peter, the friend's British husband, who has lived in Paris far longer than he hasn't, was slightly less impressed with his chicken tikka masala. Maybe that is a dish best sampled only in the place where it was invented - Britain.

But even he was content when the waiter produced some Indian lager, which may be not be that much better than the usual Kronenbergs and Heinekens, lager essentially being lager, but somehow always seem so.


Curiously enough, we dined there only because our friends' first choice was full. Since we're very much in countdown mode now - leaving Paris between Christmas and New Year - there is no time to try the restaurant Peter and his wife had intended to take us, Le Diplomat in Argenteuil.

I already know nothing better awaits me in the Var. So the Le Royal Shah Jahan can take comfort that its new crown, from Salut!, is safe for now.