Rain

Il the Carcassone region, it is normal to get 50 to 60 mms of
rain for the month of October. They got 180 mms at one go!!

source: Wikipedia

DrearyB

One of the most dramatic flips in cultutre in my life
experience has to do with movies. Used to be movies were
potential masterpieces of univeral appeal. Once
identified, a director of talent would be given some
resources and told to make one, to be eventually
rewarded with an Oscar and, in Europe,  serious consideration
by critics.

Am I the only one to have noticed this: today's big budget movies
are niche topics, preachy and boring. They are compromised from the
get-go by their subject or message, what might have been  made-for-
television healthy fare in earlier times. And forget the critics: films are
assessed in the financial column, so many millions invested, so many
returned in x weeks. Dreary business to be sure.

Thankfully, the human spirit fights back. One might find, wasting away
on YouTube, low-budget made-for-television stuff that is actually rather
good. I have two candidates below: the first, billed as a comedy, actually
brought me to tears, and is a brutal and lucid examination of mental
health issues. The second, in such colloquial French as to be hard to follow,
punched me out with a bombastic Québecois character as one of the gang.
A first, and rather funny!

As we, the forgotten of Web referrals like to say, Enjoy!

Conformity

Below, yet another YouTube uptake on the obesity issue.
There is an interesting element here. At one point,  a sociologist
of the body discusses the history of the pre-occupation with  the
overweight. He points out - and this is true for me as well - that in his childhood,
there were just some people who were 'des gros'. Nobody expected them to
change, body was destiny and they were accepted for who they were.
But then something happened in the late 1980s: all of a sudden, fat people
were expected to want to join the thins. And it would be morally corrupt of them
not to.

The program doesn't directly answer why or how this happened, but did
point out how - all of  sudden - people were taking planes everywhere and interacting
in public as never before, often then, as strangers. This might be part of the answer
as to how grossophobia came to be so prevalent. It is now a much smaller world, 
and body conformity is expected.

Tonight!

And it's tonight!

St-Jean-sur-Richelieu hosts an annual night
party with a string of invited DJs!

My local IGA even promises S'Mores and coffee till midnight...

Sane

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, defeated candidate at the last French
Presidential election, has apparently developed a bit of
an obsession with the notion that Emmanuel Macron made
six million phone calls in the three days before the election.
According to Libération, he did indeed. A pre-recorded message
was phoned in to home phone numbers, and a press 1
would activate the candidate's voice on why one should vote
for him. Otherwise, one was merely reminded to go
out and vote.

Reading about this reminded me that the CAQ candidate - now our
provincial prime minister - used the same technique in the recent provincial
election. And there was no invitation to press 1, either. Just the candidate's
voice to the effect that it was time for a change. I remember thinking
at the time that the CAQ was obviously on a roll, and expected to win.
I hung up on it.

Is there room for concern, here? Well, the narrative in the message was
off. Premier Couillard was wrapping four years in office, not that long.
Nor were we seeing a campaign about corruption in government. In fact,
the campaign had been close to issue-less. Why was it time!?

Election campaigns everywhere are taking on new modalities in the
digital age. Is there no concern about keeping things clean... and sane?

Royal W.

So I marked the Royal Wedding in my own way: abandonned
my usual black coffee for a mochachino, with a buttered bagel.
And oggled the clothes shamelessly on the Web.

This bride is a true royal, and her gown was awesome, and
expressed her personality perfectly. This is what is nice about
such public events: one gets to see clothes from the best artisans in a
real situation.

Loved it!

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/celeb-style/princess-eugenie’s-royal-wedding-dress-designer-revealed-as-she-ties-the-knot-with-jack-brooksbank/ar-BBOhiMZ?li=AAggNb9&ocid=spartandhp

D-Word

But diets don't work, the smart thinking goes.
Whether one is a hardened yoyo veteran - who has
regained, time and time again - or a pudgy novice, discouraged
at the prospect of ever getting one off the ground, the
(gasp) regimented, hungry obstacle course of
weight loss through diet has bad press.

Well here is one that does work, and recommended by
a nutritionist specialized in weight loss. It is also difficult
to follow, but will take off a few actual kilos in a hurry in an
emergency: an artist who needs to perfom, someone who needs
life-saving surgery.

How does it go? There are three meals to the day, each
consisting of two egg whites (one boils the eggs and discards
the yolks) and a 0% fat fromage blanc or yogurt. That is all!!
 One is not hungry. One can also walk off 200 calories per day,
but exercising while dieting is tiring. Be kind to yourself on these days.

The diet is good for a few days; a week absolute max.