"That's not enough!" (French for beginners)

Please read this...it's only one paragraph  from the London Review of Books connecting our recent Foucault post (by Mr. E.) with our own faux-French background with our quest for happy endings (just so that you know, Alain Robbe-Grillet was the inventor of the nouveau roman)...please read this:

Alain Robbe-Grillet

"By now, most readers in France had ceased to care [about Robbe-Grillet]; even his intellectual champions lost interest, although  [Roland] Barthes stood by him. ‘Transgression’ had come to mean l’écriture féminine and gay erotica; Robbe-Grillet’s hetero-sadist fixations looked decidedly démodé, quite possibly reactionary. (Fredric Jameson wondered whether his books had become ‘unreadable since feminism’.) At the party for  Barthes’s 1977 inaugural lecture at the Collège de France, Foucault confronted Robbe-Grillet: ‘I have told you this already and I will say it again, Alain: when it comes to sex, you are, and always have been misguided!’ Barthes rose to his defence, reminding Foucault that Robbe-Grillet was, at the very least, a pervert. Foucault replied: ‘Ça ne suffit pas!’"

«Amis pédophiles, à demain!» (reposted)

Nikolas Sarkozy, former French president, was arrested yesterday for money laundering.

Remember our post of Nov. 23, 2010 about the then-French-president Nikolas Sarkozy and billionairess Liliane Bettencourt? He're the post again:

The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, to journalists, in response to questions about his role in the Karachi affair (one of countless French scandals involving money being redirected into the coffers of the governing party):

«Et vous, j’ai rien du tout contre vous. Il semblerait que vous soyez pédophile… Qui me l’a dit? J’en ai l’intime conviction (…) Pouvez-vous vous justifier?».

(Translation: And you? I've nothing against you. It looks like you are pedophile. How do I know? I'm thoroughly convinced. Could you please justify yourself.)

Then he waved goodbye to the journalists with the words:"«Amis pédophiles, à demain!»

French for beginners (Maud)

The view this morning

6:02 AM

Yes, we're back in France, folks, since May 4, in fact, and I haven't posted since, out of sheer exhaustion. We'll be off to Switzerland next Saturday, expect to hear more from us then. Cheers, Michael (& Chang)

Les voiles de St. Tropez

Sacha sends an email asking whether we would know a way to get on a boat and watch Les voiles de St. Tropez closeup. We suggest to rent a powerboat, but before anything clicks he has already found somebody else. We sit at home and cry, cry like John Lee always cries when he has lost Alex again. And then, the next morning, Sacha calls and re-iterates the rental idea --- it was so great yesterday, and he really needs to get closer to the tall ships with his professional camera than the sailing millionaires would let him who gave him a sail yesterday (don't worry, just read the sentence a few more times). So there we are, with Sacha's official picture of the event:

Creole, Hamilton

Dominique Strauss-Kahn stark naked (2)

Q: So, what does it all mean?
A: The end of Strauss-Kahn's (DSK) career, of course, and more.
Q: He could deny it; then it's his word against hers.
A: Well, first, he left his cell-phone behind, so he fled the scene. Equally important, a famous person is always guilty until proven innocent, especially in America.
Q: Could it be a conspiracy?
A: Sure, as always. He was the most important threat to Sarkozy's bid for a second term, so Sarkozy could have tried to engineer the whole thing. However...
Q: ...however...?
A: It would have been difficult for Sarkozy to do so, even with the French secret services at his disposal. It's unlikely the maid was an agent, since she was working at the hotel on a permanent basis (presumably), and it was unforeseeable that DSK would stay there...well, who knows, changing my mind, perhaps he's always staying there, in the same suite, in which case they actually could have planted her there, perhaps paying off the service manager to have her assigned to this suite (soon to be dubbed the Kahn suite). And so on and so forth.
Q: But the cell-phone?
A: Élémentaire, cher Watson. DSK will deny this is his phone, but the records, oh là là, the records, the most beautiful cell-phone records in the history of the French secret services.
Q: We're in full conspiracy mode now?
A: I'd say 60-40.
Q: Which way?
A: Don't know yet.
Q: Will the Euro collapse?
A: It's in the cards. Expect a weakening of the Euro tomorrow, just for starters.
Q: Why?
A: Sarkozy's ratings are the lowest in the history of the French presidency. He's unlikely to get re-elected, even if the whole thing was his conspiracy. So it's either a socialist next time (to our American readers: DSK was a member of the Socialist Party, no, the SOCIALIST party), but, with the exception of DSK himself, all other contenders are unreconstructed dinosaurs, real tax-and-spend ideologues, all of them, or it's Marine LePen from the Front National. France's standing as a debtor will be weakened, and the markets might fear its collapse, comparable with other members of the Club Med.
Q: This could mean the end of the Euro.
A: Yes, if France does not get its act together, the Euro will collapse.
Q: How about the extreme right?
A: Yes, good question. Marine LePen, the new, charming leader of the Front National is collecting followers left and right with her compassionate xenophobia and an economic program from the dark ages.
Q: How so?
A: Her economic program calls for France leaving the Euro, and for erecting high import barriers to save domestic jobs. To do that, France would have to leave the European Union.
Q: Is that going to happen?
A: Possibly not, since the French farmers would lose their European subsidies, and so on. But I would not rule out a debt spiral triggered by weakening French credit scores (rising interest rates on French sovereign debt raise the deficit, etc), which leads to France's exit from the Euro, the end of the Euro, the end of the European Union...
Q: The end of the world as we know it?
A: It looks bad. But 500 years from now, the only thing we will remember is that the 3rd world war was caused by a man stepping out of his bath room stark naked.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn stark naked (1)

A former minister of finance of France, he had been married to one of the most beautiful, intelligent, and richest women of the country: Anne Sinclair, who ran her own prime time talk show before they tied the knot. Nicolas Sarkozy, upon taking office, got him the top job at the International Monetary Fund, evidently to rid himself of a dangerous future rival for the second term of his presidency,  but failed, as DSK grew in stature abroad and was topping the French polls in anticipation of the presidential elections of 2012.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK)	"We have our spies"

And then, around 13:00 local time yesterday, a chamber maid entered Room 2806 of the Sofitel New York, 44 W Street — believing it unoccupied. The suite, which costs $3,000 a night, has a foyer, a conference room, a living room, a bedroom — and also a bathroom, from which a starkly naked Domique Strauss Kahn emanated and "attempted to sexually assault" her. "He grabs her [according to her account] and pulls her into the bedroom and onto the bed." Then, according to NYPD's Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, he locked the door to the suite. (We think something is wrong with the sequence of events here, but never mind). "She fights him off, and then he drags her down the hallway to the bathroom, where he sexually assaults her a second time."

The woman breaks free, however, flees, tells another maid in the hallway who calls the police. When the police arrives, DSK has left, apparently in a hurry, since he left his cell phone behind, next to other DNA-relevant evidence, as the NYT darkly reports.

It quickly transpires that DSK is on an Air France plane. The plane is held at the gate, and an officer of the New York Port Authority arrests the IMF president in the First Class section of the plane (10,000 USD for a one-way ticked to Paris).

DSK was to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel today in Berlin, but the meeting has been cancelled.

A year ago: Back from the races (reposted)

Terry, our neighbor, and his lovely friend Anne-Carole have invited us to the 7ème Grand Prix de Monaco Historique. We arrive by train. Terry picks us up, personally, at the station. We wouldn't get unchaperoned through security, he apologizes. “The richer you get, the more involved the logistics become," I think to myself. Terry chuckles politely, he can read thoughts, the déformation professionelle of a famous film producer.



Terry's apartment overlooks the harbor from the 8th floor. It's rented. His own apartment would be better (he owns apartments in Monaco, Paris, etc), but they put the grandstand for the races right in front of his view, so there is no view.



The view of the harbor invites a study of the rich and famous. I feel the inner Lee Harvey Oswald. All Kennedies look the same.

The cars practice on the road below. The noise is physical. The Séries G race (“voitures Formula 1, 1975 – 1978”) is about to start. It starts. It has started.



The cars are surprisingly slow. You’ve heard that phrase before, “everybody was secretly hoping….” Not us. It’s not our fault that the tailwind of a McLaren M26 turns yellow, then orange, then ultraviolet. I point my Nikon D80 with the purest of motives. A second car is blinded by the fumes, and we have an accident. Yellow flags are waved viciously. Nobody dies. The unfortunate, but lively drivers exchange views. Gentlemanly compliments, certainly, or proposals to a mutual duel on the most generous terms, before sunrise, at Agincourt. “Tirez les premiers, messieurs les Anglais,” they will say.



“If Joan of Arc would not have chucked out the English, the whole world would now speak French,” my late friend Paul always used to say, tears in his eyes.

Stay tuned. The story continues here.

À la recherche du temps perdue

We post comments to New York Times articles on their web edition fairly frequently ("follow me, follow me"), and today we posted a brief comment (no. 64) to Krugman's blog post on relative employment figures comparing the US and France. And so we invoked Marcel Proust, since Proust must have been an expert on unemployment. You've read Proust, right? À la recherche du temps perdue? Do you remember anybody ever holding down a daytime job there, except for the occasional domestique? That's what we were trying to get across to Krugman, although we doubt he will ever read our comment.

Now, this brings to mind a short episode at the FNAC, the leading French bookstore with outlets all over France, including Cannes. Our collection of À la recherche du temps perdue is incomplete, and so we travel to Cannes to buy more Proust, and we enter the book store, and climb to the third floor (all other floors have been taken over by flatscreens (the largest on offer: 99,999 EUR (I'm not making this up)) cell-phones, blue-rays [sic], blue-rays disks [sic], I-tunes, I-pads, I-phones, A-gizmo's, C-gizmo's, etc.. Sokrates, who opposed the newfangled fashion of literacy in his day ("κακή για τη μνήμη κάποιου"), would have been disoriented, Sokrates.

We make it to the third floor and ask a salesperson about Proust. We say "bonjour" first (we've learned our lesson: you don't say "bonjour" first, they will say "bonjour" to you in a way you won't forget), and then inquire about Proust. Marcel Proust. Sure, the salesperson replies, and takes us to the comic book counter. All thirteen volumes. Here's Volume Two:

Good Night and Good Luck (Olberman got fired or something). Bye now.

Bye.

Plateau de Calern above Grasse

North of Grasse, at ca 1200m altitude, the Cote d'Azur features a plateau of surprising dimensions, built into the mountains, as it were, and split by the Gorges du Loup, the local version of the Grand Canyon. We've never heard of it, but Doris & Dirk, who own a house just above our's in Le Trayas, go there at least once a year. 

The plateau hosts the French Astronomical Society and its telescopes, which are now used for the detection of stray asteroids (that could hit the planet on a bad day), and the eponymous gamma bursts, the most violent events in the know cosmos (one telescope can swing to any part of the sky within 10 sec, which is important since the gamma bursts don't burst very long).

"As much as I appreciate the cosmological dedication to Gamma Bursts," Doris comments on the spot, "I do regret that black holes are apparently low on the astronomical shopping list." And then she goes on and tells about a friend of her's, Monica, who got almost caught by a black hole in the vicinity of Willem-Voltaire on the Swiss border. As Doris elaborates further on Monica's sex life, her emigration to Texas, her disappointments in Texas, more on Monica's sex life---especially during Monica's travels to Africa where she meets extremely shapely Kenyans whose skin glistens in the sunlight when they are aroused---as Doris elaborates further, the elves of the plateau conspire into fluffy gray clouds and dance across the sky.

Joanne and Robert Hall, murder at the chateau (2) (Jacky, Sacha)

Robert Hall

Robert Hall, murderer to his beloved wife, Joanne, went without a picture on the internet. How suspicious (even yours truly has one). But Jacky heeded our call, and found a picture in the Local West Yorkshire News, together with more dirt about Robert.

This brings to mind Miss Marple. Somewhere in her novels she observes that newcomers to St. Mary Meads would never have been complete strangers in the old days -- somebody in the village would know them at least indirectly, through cousins, lawyers, or former prison guards -- and she bemoans modern times where new people could be completely anonymous. But things have changed again, thanks to the internet (and to Jacky).

Meanwhile, Sacha sent this link, which speaks for itself.

Joanne and Robert Hall, murder at the chateau (1)

You study philosophy at the Free University of Berlin, and you see yourself as a midrange intellectual all your life, and you cringe at the notion---what are the professional expressions?---sex, drugs, and rock'n roll?---no, not quite---blood and bosom?---doesn't sound right---boobs on the third page?---no, sounds wrong, too---anyhow, you get the gist, we mean the notion that sex and crime sell, and nothing else.

Château de Fretay

And then you start a blog, and you have these meters installed that tell you which search terms work, and it takes only a few days to discover that sex is infinitely more attractive than your musings about the weather. And it takes a few month to discover that crime also works. Now we have Mark Weinberger on our right column, nothing more than a malpracticing nosedoctor from Illinois, and he is almost outdoing the naked girls (also working: politicians who are "not gay", or Arab princes who rape their servants to death, but are "not gay" either).

Time to turn the page to another episode, Murder at the Chateau, and it's really quite a story. Joanne and Robert Hall are involved, he as the murderer, she as the murderee (we mean, you know, like invitee, but when it ends badly), and it happens in France, and it's all very French, in particular because the couple are English.

Joanne and Robert arrived 10 years ago with a dream: create a golf course in the lovely French countryside. They buy the chateau (looks more like a big farmhouse, but that's OK, the French call any larger private dwelling a "chateau," especially when it has a tower, which this one doesn't, OK, bear with me) with its 100 acres of grounds (ca. 41 ha). Robert never learns French, also quite typical. They are very much liked in the community. That's non-standard for non-speaking Brits who linger too long.

Let's stir some blood now (from the Guardian story):

On the evening of 4 September, Sourdain [the local mayor] got a call from the gendarmes – something had happened at the château. It is a French custom for the gendarmes to call the mayor, as the representative of the people, to the scene of a crime or a terrible accident. He arrived to see the oldest son, Christopher, 22, with the gendarmes as they stood in protective suits breaking up a big block of concrete. Robert Hall was inside the house, crying.

"After 24 hours, concrete is like biscuit," Sourdain explains. We're sitting in his office in the village of Le Chatellier, two miles from the chateau. "So the gendarmes were crumbling it with their hands. And after a while they discovered a ring. They asked Christopher, 'Is this your mother's ring?' He said, 'Oui.'"

Robert Hall had told the gendarmes that 24 hours earlier he'd had a drunken argument with Joanne during which she accidentally fell, hit her head, and died. Then, during the hours that followed, he set her body on fire, put her remains into a builder's bag, poured in concrete and hauled it on to the back of a lorry. All this happened behind the house, near the back gate, next to a row of half-built holiday cottages.

Then he stopped. He telephoned Christopher. He said he was going to commit suicide. Christopher called the ambulance, who called the gendarmes, who called the mayor.

And now lets stir some more blood. Flashback. Joanne is still alive, it's 2008, and they have an appointment with Fabrice Fourel (recall the couple wants to build a golf course):

Fabrice Fourel works in a bright office in the nearby village of Saint-Étienne-en-Coglès. Posters advertising successful Brittany tourist endeavours line the walls. I am sitting, he says, exactly where Robert and Joanne Hall sat when they came to him in a flap regarding their golf project, in September 2008.
"They were lost," he says.
Fabrice's job is to be the middle man between prospective tourist businesses and the labyrinthine French bureaucracy.
"What were the problems?" I ask.
Fabrice sighs as if to say, "Where do I begin?" "They wanted to clear some trees. French law says you have to plant three trees for each one you cut down, not necessarily on your property, but in the region." He pauses. "It was a big problem. In fact, the administration was angry with the Halls because they didn't follow the procedure. We had to calm everything."
 "How many trees would they have needed to plant?" I ask.
"Around 20,000," Fabrice says.
Fabrice says people basically already have all the trees they want. If you go to people and offer them trees, they tend to say no. And that wasn't the only problem. The Halls needed sprinklers, enough electricity for thousands of visitors…
"We quickly noticed a gap between the financial needs for such a project and what they had," Fabrice says. "A project like that could cost €20m (£17m)."
"Was it a big gap?" I ask.
Fabrice indicates with his hands a very big gap.

It's getting unbearable now, so we have to stop. Stay tuned.

PS: We can't find pictures of the tragic couple on the internet, please help.

PSS: Now the washed-up scriptwriter from Kazakhstan chimes in:
-"I tell you, my next novel will be titled: 'Murder at the Chateau'."

«Amis pédophiles, à demain!» (French for beginners)

The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, to journalists, in response to questions about his role in the Karachi affair (one of countless French scandals involving money being redirected into the coffers of the governing party):

«Et vous, j’ai rien du tout contre vous. Il semblerait que vous soyez pédophile… Qui me l’a dit? J’en ai l’intime conviction (…) Pouvez-vous vous justifier?».

(Translation: And you? I've nothing against you. It looks like you are pedophile. How do I know? I'm thoroughly convinced. Could you please justify yourself.)

Then he waved goodbye to the journalists with the words:"«Amis pédophiles, à demain!»

(Translation: exercise)

Liliane Bettencourt

And while we are at it: In a mysterious series of burglaries, numerous journalists investigat-ing the Bettencourt affair (one of countless French scandals involving money being redirected into the coffers of the governing party, this time with the added titillation that Sarkozy, being Mayor of Madame Bettencourt's town at the time (Neuilly, a suburb of Paris), may have received well-padded envelopes from the L'Oréal heiress himself)...let's start this again, numerous journalists were burgled last week, and the perps stole (1) two computers with Bettencourt material from the offices of Le Point, the magazine, (2) a laptop of an editor of Le Monde, the daily, with Bettencourt material (3) two computers, an external disc drive, and sound tapes, all with Bettencourt material, from the office of the on line-magazine Mediapart. ("We do believe in coincidences, doon't we," Fisher's inhouse whizz-kid, Alberrt, will say in installment 13 of our feuilleton).

«Amis pédophiles, à demain!»

Back from the races

The 7ème grand prix historique of Monaco is still on, while I am introduced to Alastair, the master of the black holes. Yes, he is a computer scientist at CERN, where the new quantum ring (located conveniently under the town of Willem-Voltaire that erected a minaret recently in the honor of Prince Willem’s sexlife)...where the new quantum ring was built to make newer and better particles.

Alastair	black hole

The problem is, some of these buggers might coalesce to form black holes---BLACK HOLES---ultra-dense objects that exert a merciless gravitational grip on their environment and could, once created, swallow up the planet in a nick of time. Alastair keeps his cool. "Don’t worry," he shouts across the sound barrier of the vintage cars below, "cosmic rays would long since have created similar black holes,"---the implication being that the holes would long since have swallowed the planet. That’s a comforting thought, and I tell everybody.

Ann-Carole in the middle	Rasender reporter

The glasses are filled again, and we dance to the sound of the vintage decibels to celebrate our new friends, the counterfactual cosmic rays.

Terry and Josie, another neighbor

De Lempicka in Monaco

We are still watching the 7ème grand prix historique of Monaco. (Click here for the first part of the story). The champagne flows, more up here than down below on the decks of the superyachts. Is this a good or a bad sign?

I suddenly realize (it must be the alcohol) that two suspiciously small paintings of Tamara de Lempicka, the art deco painter, adorn the room. I try to get the message across, but nobody is interested. Tamara had a run of auction records with paintings selling above US$ 7 million recently, much to the dismay of M&’s favorite art critic, Souren Melikian, who never fails to mention “Edelkitsch” in her presence. The paintings here on the wall should be worth millions, I tell the other guests. Still, nobody is interested. One, out of sheer politeness, mentions that one should never insure in France, what with those leaks at the assurances.

Are these de Lempickas real? One is signed, one is not. Closeup, they look suspiciously flat, as if printed. But they do raise interesting questions, like, “where is the kitchen,” and “is this the right or the left bosom?”

The 7ème grand prix historique race continues with a parade of vintage models, while an alien spaceship lands effortlessly on the shining Mediterranean outside, and then transmogrifies into the super cruiser, The World, the home of homeless billionaires.

No, I stand corrrected. It's not The World, it's just some minor cruiser of the Holland America Line, a hopeless outfit for the toiling masses.

Stay tuned. The story continues here.

Off to the races

The giant wave: the mysterious visit of Donna Pérignon

Saturday night. The wind howls around the house, the timber creaks, the rain beats on the windows, the sea roars below.


The doorbell rings.

On the intercom, a female voice. "Excusez-moi de vous déranger," the voice says, "je ne peu pas expliquer trop, mais je suis Donna Pérignon," (Sorry to disturb you, I can't explain too much, but I am Donna Pérignon)." "Donna?", I ask, and she replies: "Yes, Donna like in Ma-Donna, or Donna-stag, or Donna Versace, or Gianni Versace, or Giorgio Armani, or Emporio Armani, or Emperor Napoleon." I push the remote for the gate. Michelle Pfeiffer emanates from the dark.

-"You can't be Michelle Pfeiffer", I say.
-"How so?", she replies.
-"You are without your entourage."
-"Elémentaire, chèr Watson, she replies.
-"Enchanté", I say.
-"I am coming for ... ," Her voice trails off, her sentence ceases. Then, in French: "C'est urgent, mais d'abord, Pérignon."



A pause. She gazes at me through her shades---she wears shades at night, radioactive vision, cool. What can I say? "Pérignon, Pérignon" I say to Chang. Chang gives me the Marx Brothers look. "Any Pérignon left in our cellars?" I ask, kindly.

Chang has been a fan of Keeping up Appearances, the BBC tragedy, all his life. He disappears, and while I am helping Donna to undress (only the coat), a cork pops in the kitchen, and Donna takes notice, and Chang reappears with three champagne glasses, filled. "Dom Pérignon", Chang says, handing out glasses. She raises her glass. "Santé," she says. She drinks.

Chang refills her glass, artfully hiding the label on the bottle. This bottle does not look like a Pérignon bottle to me (they have a special shape), and it does not look like a Pérignon bottle to Donna. She drinks some more. "Truth to be told," she says, "a great champagne tastes differently every day. Show me your blog."

We proceed to my desk.


"La vague géant," she commands, more Brigitte Bardot than Michelle Pfeiffer now. She sits down in my Eames aluminum chair. I bring up the giant wave posts on the screen (pictured). She studies the pictures, carefully, intently. Then she gets up. I need a cigarette, she says, and proceeds to the terrace outside. There, her glass is refilled, her cigarette lit.



She returns after a cigarette length. "The blue tulips," she commands. I'll go and fetch a blue tulip. She sniffs at the blue tulip.
-"Elementaire, chèr Michael", she says, and then, "Je dois partir maintenant" (I have to leave now). She claims her coat. We refill her glass. She sniffs her tulip some more. "Il n'y a pas des secrets" she says. She posits her empty glass on the secretaire in the hall, blows kisses, makes her exit, makes more of her exit, exits, is gone.

A moment in time: la Croisette, Cannes, France

Our entry in the New York Times feature A moment in time. The idea is "to create an international mosaic of images" shot at 15:00 UTC (17:00 our time).

Live Bloggin: Darty

The Darty man arrives. Yet another guy, two meters long, pouchy, funny haircut. He re-installs the induction hob, and then provides a lengthy explanation as to the causes of the second Samsung default. Not Samsung's fault. The alimentation. "Samsung est un produit excellent." We are impressed. We love Samsung. We are reunited with Samsung. A lover's spat. But she is back now. He is back now. Everything is forgiven. We can't remember why we struggled, and fought, and broke the china. We test. Test---retest. The bubbles appear at the touch of the booster switch. On all four burners. Chang has something to say about the sound of the alarm signal. He will call tomorrow to see whether everything is all-right.

Chang does not give him a tip. He leaves (pictured). We cross fingers and pray.

And tomorrow, we'll show the results. Today's Holsteiner Schnitzel. You wonder what that could be? Stay tuned.

Darty and the Samsung tragedy, part 4

The Samsung hob had been re-installed on Friday.

On Saturday morning, some desperate noises from the kitchen. "Michael." A pause. "Shit."
-"What is it."
-"The Samsung broke again."
I rush to the kitchen, but the little on-off fingerprint button on the hob is still alight.
-"It is still working," I say.
-"Yes," Chang says, "but you cannot switch it on."
I push the ON button, and the hob appears to react normally; it offers a choice of burners to be activated, even boosted.
I touch a burner button, burner no 1, and a burner boosts.
"See," I say.
Everything appears alright. We are happily married. I return to my desk.
"Michael." A pause. "Shit."
-"What is it."
-"The Samsung broke again."
I rush to the kitchen.
Chang explains some intermediate adventures with the hob in Korean (it's a Samsung, after all). The little on-off fingerprint button on the hob that indicates generic readiness is no longer alight.
-"It is dead," I say, trying to keep my voice neutral so that Chang won't feel my suspicion that it's all his fault.
Chang feels my suspicion that it's all his fault.
-"Have you checked the circuit breaker on the electricity panel," I suggest. The hob has its own circuit breaker on the electricity panel. Yes, he did. I proceed to the electricity panel to check the hob's circuit breaker. The circuit breaker does not break the circuit; electrons can reach the hob unimpeded. We are happily married.

We push (fingerprint) a few more buttons, but this is just to calm our nerves. Then I say, in the manner of Titanic captains who have seen the iceberg:"We have to call Darty."

I dread those calls; I am fairly shy and hate to bother other people with my problems. It's Saturday. But, come to think of it, that's actually a good day. The assistance téléphonique, which would normally protect the DARTY Repair Man from being bothered by desperate customers, is closed. The computer will put me right through if I pass muster with the voice recognition system that doubles as emergency service switchboard on Saturdays. I have to pronounce the number of our department, "clairement."
So I say "Quatre-vingt-trois." The computer appears to detect the touch of an accent. "Je ne peu pas vous comprendre. Prononcez clairement the numéro de votre département." "Quatre-vingt-trois."
We go through this loop for a little while---computers like loops---until the computer declares itself satisfied. Eightythree, he/she understands. Now the main question. What is my problem? The computer offers examples, like fridge ("frigidaire"), vacuum cleaner ("hoover"---no, I am making this up, it's "respirateur"). He/she does not provide an example for "hob." I'm nervous. "C'est votre choix," the computer commands. I bungle, interrupt myself. Computers like loops.

OK, you get the gist. There is a happy ending in the sense that my final attempt to enunciate "table de cuisson" is gracefully accepted. A human voice takes over and is receptive. They will send somebody, on Monday. Yes, they are sorry. The second time. Yes, they understand.

The Monday Repair Man arrives (he calls in advance to excuse a slight delay) and picks up the hob. This time, the hob will be put to the most serious tests in their atelier. We utter more principled complaints about Samsung, Darty, and the World. Yes, he understands. But it's not his responsibility, it's the responsibility of the chef du service. The chef du service will have to decide whether a second repair attempt should be made (we got the hob 2 month ago---no, the Monday Repair Man observes, you got it on January 11, that's more than 2 months), or whether a brand new hob will be rolled out. Chang wants his money back. "Ce n'est pas ma responsabilité," the Monday Repair Man says.

Stay tuned.