Chantez! Chante Clarette

[peterbirks]

It rained this morning, quite hard, but by mid-afternoon it had stopped, so I executed a couple of strolls. Perhaps it was the cloud, but I took hardly any photographs today -- those that I did were mainly later on and "experiments with light", so to speak. And most of them were abject failures. Actually, that isn't true. Many of them were near-successes. It's so annoying when just one of the things goes wrong when you are taking a picture. At night, with so many variables, I seem to find that I fuck up the focusing - lol. One of the easiest bits.

One of my discoveries today was that the Nizzian alcoholic's tipple of choice, the equivalent of "Diamond White", as it were, is "Chante Clarette", an elegant little 11% Rosé or white wine that comes in a plastic bottle for about €1.70 a litre.

I also noticed what Roxanna, the lovely Rumanian girl who showed me the apartment, had muttered about with a kind of Victorian disapproval that I thought was the monopoly of the Germans. She said that there were now Sushi Bars everywhere. And she was right! "I prefer my fish cooked", she muttered darkly. For someone in her mid-20s, it was frightening how fluent she was in French and English (and, reputedly, Italian and Spanish). How do some people manage it?

A third thing I noticed was that one of the reasons I think I like Nice is the remarkable absence of sports fanaticism. Let's face it; in London it's hard to work out which is harder to avoid -- stuff about the latest Simon Cowell vehicle on Twitter; or stuff about football on Facebook.

Nice has very few sports bars. I only realized this when I happened to see one, and realized that it was the first one I had seen. Sports such as football and rugby are clearly left for the children in cities elsewhere. Even the Stade Ray, the home ground of Nice FC, struggles to attract crowds of five figures. Actually, in a moment of contrariness, I thought about seeing whether Nice FC was at home on Wednesday, so I could visit my first football game since 1972 (although, come to think of it, I did see a Nantes FC game in 1973).

On the Rue de France at night you get hawkers and buskers and panhandlers and all sorts trying to huckster a crust. There was a rather surreal moment/situation where a professional trio, including a violinist, were playing a jazzy-like number. Not 40 feet away was this tiny old lady - Edith Piaf would probably have had to go on a diet to match her weight -- who seemed to be playing her violin from a piece of sheet music. I attempted to hear what she was playing -- perhaps a bit of Mozart? By the time I got to withhin about five feet of her I could just about pick out the notes she was playing from those of the jazz ensemble behind me. It was at this point I realized why she was playing so close to the jazz trio. She was terrible. I mean, she couldn't really play a note. The sheet music was just a bluff, and clearly she reckoned that she might get some sympathy cash from people who thought the jazz band was drowning her out. Marvellous.




One from this afternoon. The vertical shafts of light were interesting. You can also see the lights of the airport quite clearly.



For my evening stroll, the pianist was back on Place Massena! I managed a better picture this time, compared with last November. Notice that he is well wrapped up! Thank goodness the weather is forecast to be much warmer for the rest of the week.



One of many attempts to get the colour balance right for the Nice streets at this time of night. Obviously the one that got the colour right was one of the less interesting pictures, sigh.


Panhandler can be spotted if you look closely. Same guy is always there, every night.


The best of many efforts. Not bad with just the street lighting. This was close to the beach and is not the most salubrious area after dark, so I had the added frisson of walking away from a camera and tripod that might suddenly get swiped. 2.0 sec exposure @f4.5, 36mm.


Flawed, but I still like it. I also noticed something intersting. Many of the streets in Nice do not have lampposts. The lighting comes from lamps attached to the buildings. 3.0sec, f4.5, ISO200, 36mm.

I hope to head off on a trip tomorrow, as the forecast is for cloud, wind, and warmth (23 degrees). Not sure where yet.

A bientot!

_______________

Comments

Nice Up Mother Brown

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

I believe both Facebook and Twitter are available outside the Metropolis, although you may be correct. Given the vapidity of the USPs, the implied admission that your life is empty and worthless, the complete lack of self-awareness implied by posting on Facebook or Twitter, and the extraordinary combination of self-importance and ignorance displayed in most of those posts, it's hard to see the target market as anything other than Londoners.

Liked the photos, btw.

Re: Nice Up Mother Brown

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I wondered what the hell you were talking about for a few minutes, but then I re-read my text a little more closely. Hmm, yes, what was I thinking? It was a bit like a Muse track -- starting off in one place (in this case, London) and ending up in another (in this case, the Internet).

Glad that you like the pictures. The more I look at the last one, the more I like it. I think it catches the "essence" of me better than any other one I have taken before. Maybe the mis-focusing helps!

pj

Re: Nice Up Mother Brown

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

The last one has a certain "nouvelle vague" about it. The signage was rather good, but my favourite is the colour balance one. If you crop the excess pavement off, then it's a rather lovely picture of an empty street.

Now do a Duchamp and stick a pointless urinal in the middle of the next one...

Three heroes

[(Anonymous)]

Good post. In the sitting photo, you look like a cross between Louis Theroux, Morrissey and Jack Duckworth - kudos!

James D