Night Ride Through Civilization

It’s rather convenient to have a palace courtyard in which to exercise at night. I don’t go to a gym. Usually I swim but the local Olympic sized pool is closed thanks to a hunk of concrete roof falling into the pool two months ago (see my blog “And then the Roof Fell In”). I have thus taken to riding Daisy Belle 2 around the Cour Napoleon and the Cour Carrée of the Louvre. Insulated from traffic sounds and sheltered from the worst of the wind and rain by the deep walls of this palace, I am doing my circuit training in the most extraordinary historic environment, far from modern banality.

Tonight was no exception. I powered through the Cour Napoleon, past the glittering glass Pyramid and up the slope that leads via a long arch into the Cour Carée. The Louvre itself dates back to the medieval times when Paris was confined largely to the Isle de la Cité. The stern towers and prison like walls of Philippe Auguste’s Louvre (meaning defensive fortress) situated to the West of the Cité were demolished in more enlightened times and replaced in stages by the glorious Renaissance edifice that is the Louvre today. The transformation from stark fortress to sumptuous palace dates back to Francois I whose own residence was a rather modest little mansion in what is now the south west corner of the Cour Carrée, one end of which overlooks the Seine. Marie Stuart played here as a child. Since her days, Henri IV, Louis VIII and Louis XIV added to that building to create the square called the Cour Carrée—meaning Square Courtyard—keeping to the Italian Renaissance style of the original François I palace.

This is where I speed around on Daisy Belle 2. Tonight a niggardly drizzle needles my face as we circle the central fountain and ride in a wider arc closer to the walls where the lighted windows of the ground floor reveal displays of antiquities. I pause to admire the eight black marble statues of the lion headed Egyptian goddess Sekhmet, who in her role as the destroyer goddess of ancient Egypt removed many an evil leader or exposed a corrupt practice.

As we circle over wet slabs (avoiding very bumpy cobbles) we are accompanied by the strains of a lone cellist whose classical repertoire enriches our ride. The lighted galleries around us (kept open for the cleaners) reveal painted ceilings where cherubs and buxom ladies drift against angelic turquoise skies. These Renaissance works of art are part of the building itself. But, inside and outside, the Louvre takes a lot of upkeep, which is why the North façade has been shrouded in scaffolding for almost a year.

Our views as we flash around the central space also includes glimpses through the arch that looks south towards the Seine, of the gold trimmed cupola of the Academy Français, poised on the Left Bank end of the Pont des Arts. Another, to the West, reveals the Pyramid, glittering with reflections from internal lights, and a third the delicate tower of St Germain d’Auxerrois whose carillon chimes the hour. Not now though because I am riding in the late evening. In a few minutes at 10pm the huge iron gates that open onto the Cour Carrée from the four arches will be closed.

Daisy Belle speeds me back to the Cour Napoleon, past the romantic cellist whose profound gaze and divine music follow us through the arch. We take a few turns around this vast wet space. The fountains are switched off as the hour of ten arrives but one can still hear the gurgle of the overflow via the artificial weirs that empty the black pools surrounding the Pyramid into who knows what Stygian reservoirs.

We pass under the small Arc de Triomphe going West towards the Tuileries, out onto the rue de Rivoli and past the gilded statue of Joan of Arc on her horse. In moments Daisy Belle is back her own stable in the Place Marche St Honoré and I walk the couple of blocks to my street. As during our ride through the palace courtyards, there’s hardly anyone around. A welcome glass of champagne awaits me after I pull off my damp clothes. A November night’s work out in the heart of civilization: it beats sweating it out in a stuffy gym.

Naughty Flanby and the London Scene

As you may know, ‘Flanby’ is one nickname of France’s Socialist President, based on a commercial crème caramel pudding thanks to his flacid photo images. Also nicknamed Noah, by me, thanks to the rainfall records accompanying his arrival at the Elysee, and continuing, you could also call him ‘Mr Tax anything that moves.’ He’s doing it and by now nothing is moving, other than backwards: but he’s still taxing. His pedigree as a Socialist includes the fact that he hates the rich and hates the Middle Classes, the ‘Bourgoisie’ as they call ’em ’ere.

Pay attention to what I’m going to tell you. I’m not new to breaking exclusives and if you want to be on top of French breaking exclusives, join this blog. I made my name as a scoop writer from South Africa in the 1970’s. No hacking.  I have my methods and I get to sources other people can’t reach.

The President of France proclaims that he owns no property. According to his biographical blagues (meaning lies or jests) he rents a modest apartment in the 15^th (yuppie arrondissement) with his “First Umbrella Carrier,” Valerie Rottweiler. His former companion, Segolene Royal lives elsewhere and his four kids may or may not be renting apartments: we have no transparency about these arrangements. We know how its done here in France: the apartments will be owned through companies whose tax status will relieve the President of any direct connection or even fiscal deductions. It’s legal but invisible to the masses that vote for socialist representatives.

Here comes the real, exclusive, dope. Mr “Fatty Flanby, ‘hate the middle classes”, Hollande’ “owns apartments in two central London buildings. He has not declared them to the state for public scrutiny, which the rich are obliged to do. But the government does know that he owns them. It has not yet become public knowledge. Nor is it likely to do so since the activities of the “top” people are not usually reported in the media here who collude with the politicians (even to the point of bedding them and moving into the Elysee Palace) to conceal the hideous con trick being perpetrated on the average, heavily taxed individual.

Does that make him a crook?

Frankly, yes, but thanks to the French laws of privacy which I commented on today in a news item to Radio Wales, Cardiff, with reference to the Leveson Enquiry, the French media do not report matters of such seminal interest to the French public. Thanks to the political-media collusion, they remain silent about the financial and sexual aberrations of their political bosses. So, only insiders know the truth and it will stay that way in France because information about the secret activities of French politicians, sexual or financial, is suppressed and does not become visible in the media.

Books seem to be the way in which confidential information, i.e. scoops, become visible to public scrutiny. The media will report exclusive news that turns up in a newly published book. This may not go on. Who knows what new tricks the high up manipulators of public opinion will resort to next? It’s a pity that the more open media culture in the UK has not only condoned outright invasion of privacy for ordinary citizens or celebrities but has concealed historic sexual abuses now being uncovered.

In France, privacy laws that apparently allow photos of foreign celebrities (viz Kate Duchess of Cambridge) in private circumstances, to be published contrary to the law, (the publishers are fined modestly, but still make a world wide killing) and yet allow the secret financial manipulations or sexual aberrations and lies re top politicians (e.g. Dominic Strauss Khan’s sex life or Francois Hollande’s financial investments) to remain hidden, cannot be to the benefit of a democratic country.

And Then The Roof Fell In

No, I am not referring to Flanby’s taxes announced in his 2012 budget. Nor to the seismic effects in high places of the revelations of his paramour’s convoluted love life. This roof falling episode is more seriously symbolic of current events than those. Perhaps you can detect a faintly mocking tone? Yes, thanks to Flanby, (President Hollande, nicknamed Noah by me for the floods accompanying his election) the rich are moving out of France. Chief among these is Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH who says he’s taking Belgian nationality. Evidently Belgium is bright enough to keep its taxes low enough to attract top earners. Arnault, who built his company himself—by aggressive mergers, acquisitions and asset stripping-- and is the world’s 4^th richest man and Europe’s richest, has also been knighted in London (as Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for his services to the luxury goods industry in Britain where his company employs 3,000 people. Only three thousand employees to get a Knighthood? That’s really cheap! Come on you small business owners, get mobilized. You could be next.

But back in France the Captains of Industry are complaining. The current CEO of L’Oreal, the worlds biggest cosmetic company, says France will not be able to attract top talent to run its companies due to the tax of 75% on incomes over 1m€ per annum.  If the idea is that French top talent will migrate to other more lucrative locations would this government care? Certainly no foreign CEO would want to run a French company unless paid offshore. But does France want superannuated expatriates running its bigger companies? For decades L’Oreal was run by a Welshman, Owen Jones, who started at the bottom in Normandy as a traveling salesman for Dop shampoo.  He had to retire at 60, the French rule. That’s a lot more ridiculous than having to move to Belgium. But Arnault, already 63, does not have to retire. He owns the shop.

Perhaps the socialist Hollande doesn’t want powerful private companies with highly paid CEO’s who might start telling him what to do. He’d rather have state run companies like EDF or Areva whose CEO’s are paid less fancy salaries than is the rule globally for the private sector. Indeed, Flanby doesn’t like the private sector at all. Nor does he like the rich or even the middle classes.

Maybe I’m reading between the lines but did we expect anything better from Francois? These several months since he first had sight of France’s accounts, he has been sitting in the back room at the Elysee, working on his sums. He can’t cut unemployment benefit or civil service jobs without upsetting the unions and causing riots, but he can tax the very rich; always a popular move. They are few in number, although agile at guarding their fortunes from the taxman. But even if they make a great example of the President’s wish to show how much he is penalizing the better off, he is increasingly unpopular with the French public. From May to September Hollande’s support has declined 18%; 11% of that during September when the holiday mood wore off. When a friend who works at the Banque de France told me he’d seen the recent figures and was appalled, I simply nodded. Yup. And you can also tell the country is in recession from the number of boutiques that close, the fewer customers in my rather upmarket supermarket after office hours, the widespread public building works. And that brings me to the matter of the roof falling in. It’s all about public works in progress, and this is the reason:

French Government Bond Yield for 10 Year notes declined 3 basis points during August. From 1990 – 2012 the yield went from 10.7 per cent to a record low of 2.1 per cent in August 2012. Thus making it historically cheap for the French government to borrow: hence, the huge outbreak of publically funded works going on all over Paris.

It may be a case of Grabbit and Run, since the future looks less rosy, but, thanks to this cheap borrowing, the French government is digging up the roads, extending the tramway and the Metro, funding archeological digs in the Tuileries, repairing the external facades of the Louvre and rebuilding the ancient Palais de Tuileries. How much are they borrowing? I’d love to know the truth. Meanwhile, a long planned 120m€ restructuring of the Les Halles park and shopping centre in the very hub of central Paris is underway and this is why roof started falling down.

This roof in question is that of the Olympic size swimming pool I have used since the Ritz closed its doors (for a two year refurbishment). It’s a short trip away from my apartment on Daisy Belle 2. Alas, about one month ago I turned up for my swim and discovered it was closed indefinitely. It seems a large chunk of the concrete roof fell into the pool and everyone ran out screaming. Fortunately no one was hurt but it has not reopened and may not for months. The digging of huge holes for the rebuilding of Les Halles is the cause.

Who cares? This could be the biggest reconstruction period for Paris since Baron Haussmann swept away the rat ridden slums in the mid 19^th Century. While the private sector starves; shops close or offer huge reductions, factories are shut down and mergers and acquisitions are stalled the government is spending like a drunken sailor. And the lenders may prefer lending a lot of funds at low interest when they know they’ll get it back on a programme of low inflation in a government dominated economy.

Forget the private sector, it’s not wanted on voyage. Nor is it even bankable compared to the Government of France.

So where am I swimming now?

In the Seine. Well not quite. I’m using a floating pool that filters river water, treats it with Ozone and minimal chlorine. A masterpiece of French technology, it works most of the time. And I get there, not on Daisy Belle 2, alas, but on the extremely efficient Line 14. It takes 6 minutes transit time between Avenue de l’Opera and Bercy. Another masterpiece of French engineering, it’s driverless so there are no strikes to interfere with traveling.

No private sector, no workers? Sounds like Paradise. As to who gets the profit from the higher taxes? Foreign buyers of French bonds.  Bi Bi Bernard Arnault. Sorry, I mean Sir Bernard Arnault. La France doesn’t need you, your money or your jobs. She’s borrowing in a market place that is frankly desperate to find a good bet, even if the rates are bargain basement low.

Postcard from Paradise

During the halcyon days since mid August, when summer finally arrived, I have been  picnicking with my pals in the Tuileries, sipping fizz and nibbling smoked salmon salads.

One glorious Sunday, I was on my way to share an early aperetif with a friend who had just returned form a week’s fashion course in London. As we walked towards the gate, she carrying some artisanal goats cheeses and the boxes of sumptuous fruit salad that she invariable brings to our feasts, and I carrying the bottle and glasses, we passed a mother who was hauling up the pants of a toddler who had just been peeing against a lime tree.

“Oh,” she sighed, “There is something so hopeless about Paris.” She added that in London she and her fellow students had been whizzed all over the city and the suburbs. In trains and tubes and streets from Shoreditch to Knightsbridge, they had not failed to be impressed by the energy of the Londoners. “Wherever we went, rich or poor areas, they were all getting on with it,” she said. In Paris, a city still, in these hard times, more dedicated to pleasure than pursuit of professional priorities, there is a marked difference of pace and one cannot help noticing an apparent lack of motivation. While in London one overhears snatches of mobile phone conversations as the speaker strides past--usually all about business, in Paris, the mobile phoners are talking about their last meal or holiday. One constantly hears the words ‘manger’ (to eat) or ‘vacances’ (holiday). Well I’m not against it but the flabbiness of the atmosphere zaps one’s energy.

Recently, I was returning from London where I had raced from one dynamic meeting to another and was still exhilarated: but as I emerged from my local Metro on Avenue de l’Opera,  (the Mayfair of Paris) it was raining, and the street deserted. Two sloppily dressed girls, one pushing a pram, were waddling along in my path. Immediately all my London energy sprang a leak and I felt tired out.

It was that same hopeless atmosphere upon which my friend had remarked.

I can’t say its universal but it is prevalent and some of it may be due to the 35 hour week which floods the streets with people who have more leisure than they know what to do with, no ambition and no motivation except the next rendezvous with their friends.

My neighbourhood attracts tourists in large numbers. Rue St Honoré, around the corner form my building is usually congested with strolling groups of Italians (yes, they are still spending!) or other tourists. They slop along gazing at the shop windows.

My quartier is a former residential neighbourhood that has been colonized by offices. Lately an extraordinary number of those have had “To Let” notices posted on their windows. Is this a sign of the times? Rents are prohibitively high and the cost of office space often includes a year’s rent in advance as a guarantee, not to mention legal deposits and refurbishment.  Businesses that can function in suburbs outside Paris such as Levallois, Courbevois and La Defence, find it cheaper to do so.

Empty offices don’t make it any easier to find an apartment, but, they do diminish the crush at my local Monoprix in the early evenings, except when the tourists outnumber the remaining workers.

Perhaps this contributes to the sluggish atmosphere that pervades the streets as day shoppers, pram pushers and 35 hour a week leisured classes take over from the dark suited business workers (some of whom now jog off their suppressed energy in the Tuileries).

Yes, there is recession in France--hidden in Paris due to the fact that over 40 percent of the city’s workers are government employees. They may not have much spare cash, but their spending masks the private sector’s decline. They have jobs for life. But, that hardly creates an exuberant economic atmosphere.

As for the sense of hopelessness, I am reminded of a visit to Washington DC, long before I met my American husband and lived there. A student on my first US trip, I met a man from Brazil. He said he was Austrian (a euphemism for relocated Nazi). He told me, wearily, “South America is the Continent of infinite impossibilities and North America is the land of infinite possibilities.” He exuded an air of hopelessness.

In France even the most talented and energetic find it hard to move forward, to advance professionally, to create or build enterprises—reminiscent of the UK in the 1970’s when socialism suffocated initiative. The tax system limits ambition and enterprise.

Meanwhile, my small apartment is a powerhouse of projects in progress. And there is still the joy of  meetings with my workaholic lover, who finds solutions to every problem.

Pour me another one, please!

Mask-ara

A few weeks ago, my lover phoned me from Sephora, an international make up supermarket on the Champs Elysees. Was there something I would like? I mentioned mascara. Black and waterproof, I said and mentioned a low priced British brand. The dazzling array of mascaras, some that make your eyelashes curl out like spider’s legs, others that make your eyelids droop with the sheer weight of their lash thickening, top price for Dior at 39€, defeated him: he arrived shortly after, bearing lipstick of his choice—one that does not come off all over your beau when he kisses you. That is made by L’Oreal.

I’m sorry if you were thinking of getting some tips about the best water-proof mascara or indelible lipsticks to wear in this summer’s incessant rain, but this blog is not really about mascara. It’s about L’Oreal, and, more to the point, about ex-President Sarkozy and his mix-up in a recent episode of “Dallas sur Seine.” This nickname for Neuilly sur Seine, where Sarko has been Mayor since he was 27 years old, refers to the endless political infighting that goes on there. Latterly it has included the infighting of the Bettencourt clan, majority shareholders in L’Oreal, one of the worlds biggest cosmetics companies.

Liliane Bettencourt’s father Eugène Schueller founded L’Oreal. He also funded fascist groups and supported the Nazis. Liliane married French politician, André Bettencourt, who was a minister in three French governments in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, including one of Général De Gaulle. Liliane  is one of the world’s richest woman with a fortune of 23bn USD, that’s 31% of the company her father founded. A French observer informs me, ”Political power has been the mascara of this family who hide their love of money behind glamour.”

The latest and long running episode of Dallas sur Seine, containing elements of the best soaps --a mix of political power with money-lust and feuding--refers to the Court battle to gain control of  Liliane Bettencourt’s fortune. The legal action by Liliane’s daughter resulted, in October 2011, in 89 year old Liliane being deprived of control over her own fortune on grounds of incompetence. A long running scandal with press reports based on her butler’s recorded evidence of conversations with her guests revealed that La Bettencourt had been handing out wads of cash to certain politicians to help them in their election campaign. Sarkozy was one of her visitors for elegant afternoon tea at her Neuilly sur Seine house, who allegedly went away with a fat envelope each time. 

The cash was supposedly for his 2007 election campaign. This is why,  last week (July 3^rd) as I travelled to London on the Eurostar, the Paris police were raiding Sarkozy’s two homes (his own flat and the house of his wife) and his law company’s offices, in search of incriminating evidence in the case against him. The likelihood of the police finding any evidence at these locations of the alleged crime—illegally taking money for his 2007 election campaign--is slight. But the raid underlined the fact that the ex-President is no longer protected from the long arm of criminal law. How the mighty do fall! Humiliation and worse, haunt the horizon.

As there are strict laws about how election campaign funds are raised, the matter of the envelopes is very serious. Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy’s predecessor at the Elysée, is currently serving a suspended sentence for his own chicanery: misuse of public funds to pay 19  “staff” who were officially working for the Mairie, while he was Mayor of Paris, but unofficially working for Chirac’s campaign to be elected President in 1995.

Related to Chirac’s Presidential ambitions, another nightmare may descend on Sarkozy, More sinister and far more threatening to Sarko’s future liberty, that one is named “Karachi”. It involves a web of conspiracy in which Chirac is also involved and which led to the deaths of eleven French engineers in a bombing in Pakistan in 2002 at the time of Chirac’s re-election to the Presidency. The conspiracy, based on an arms deal to Pakistan, occurred while Sarkozy was Minister for Budget and treasurer of the then Prime Minister (1993-1995) Eduard Balladur’s campaign for the 1995 Presidential election.
An illegal retro-commission was to be paid back by the arms dealer into Balladur’s campaign fund. Chirac won the 1995 election, but as Balladur had reneged on a promise not to stand against him, refused to go on paying the commission. This resulted, after discussions with the arms dealer and his dubious allies (Pakistani military men close to Islamist groups which they finance), in the 2002 revenge bombing of a bus in Pakistan that took eleven French lives.

If the Eurozone crisis ever allows enough room for this in the headlines, the convoluted history of the “Karachi” conspiracy will play to packed houses while Dallas sur Seine and the wads of cash from the L’Oreal heiress that flowed into Sarko’s 2007 campaign will fade into insignificance. The ‘Karachi’ mascara, mixed with French blood, is indelible.

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Thank God It's Thursday!

One Thursday, I gave a concert of jazz and love songs on a bar boat on the Seine. One of my audience brought a visitor from Israel who asked me if the weekend wouldn’t be a better time. “The weekends start on Thursday here,” I replied. “Oh but of course the French don’t work do they?” He slapped his forehead in recollection of the easy lifestyle of the average French person. Thanks to the 35 hour week Thursday is the new Friday in France and the voluble stress release seems to make Friday a rather quiet night in comparison. 

As I bike home from a Thursday session at the swimming pool, I pass bars bulging with whooping and squeaking “workers”. These bars have boards outside announcing “Happy Hour” from 17h to 20h, or in one case at Les Halles, from 15h to 21h. They list cocktails at 5 Euros. Cocktails you may ask? In the land of wine? ‘Fraid so: Margaritas, Pino Coladas, Tequila Sunrises and other exotic mixes seem to be the popular beverage. But are the Happy Hour drinkers happy? If noise levels are anything to go by, yes, they are ecstatic.

At El Tonel, the Spanish bar at the foot of my building, there is no ‘Happy Hour’ price discount but the customers don’t object to paying 8 Euros a glass for endless rounds of these brightly coloured, sticky innovations. And they’ll sit there for 2-3 hours swallowing them. A few stalwarts drink beer while others share jugs of Sangria. A simple glass of red , white or rose wine is an exception and no one seems to order a bottle of wine for two or three with which to wash down their tapas. A glance at the glasses of the drinkers could form the basis for a survey into the changing drinking habits of French people.

The 35 hour week gives the option of working four or even as few as three longer days to gain that extra day’s freedom from the boulot—slang for daily grind. But what are they doing with the extra time? It seems that drinking is taking up a lot of it.

Whereas the traditional French way of relaxing is over a three course meal among friends with wine, the changed lifestyle of single yuppies now involves bars and cocktails with or without the big screen for football matches that arrive with ever increasing frequency.

In France, time off almost exceeds time spent working. The other day I heard a girl wishing her friends a “Bon weekend” on a Wednesday.

Yes, leisure is the new opium of the people, of that there is no doubt, and while some of the yuppie population are using it to exercise--I’ll write about that later—many seem to use it for getting drunk. Due to the 35 hour week’s longer weekends, Thursday is now the night of big de-stressing. It’s not as though they’ve been working since Monday. No, the week for these people seems to start on Tuesday and end on Thursday afternoon. And half of them have Wednesday afternoons off as well. But this is not the case with everyone. Senior managers and other top professionals work extremely long hours and, my concierge, a warm hearted young Portuguese with a hard working husband and ten year old boy is devastated by the noise coming from El Tonel. She tells me that she is awakened before six by municipal garbage collectors who come to empty our bulging bins, charmingly called Poubelles. On Thursdays, she closes the heavy door to the courtyard that separates our elegant entrée from the street and El Tonel, which like many bars stays open until 2am. She goes to bed at 10pm but the screams and yells from the bar prevent her from sleeping. One of the worst aspects, she says, is girls laughing hysterically. Yes, I’ve heard them. Hyenas would be impressed. Screeching girls are also new in France, but that too is another story.

I confessed I had dropped a plastic bottle filled with tap water from my balcony onto the street adjacent to the bar whose terrace is sheltered from above by an arcade. This was at 2am when I had been bothered by the noise all evening. I’m a night owl but I like the peace of the night and don’t want to have to listen to drunken noises while I write or relax. I can’t play my piano after 10 pm so why should these mindless goons be allowed to disturb us? I jokingly asked her at what time she would prefer me to start dropping bottles of water. She laughed. “Whenever you like,” she said.

A couple of weeks later she cautioned me. Apparently the police had been told of falling bottles of water from my floor. “Be careful,”” she said. “Next time, make sure you switch off your lights first.“ I’ll be even more careful that that. I’ll pour water slowly in a steady stream. In fact I have just done so. It seemed to work. But tonight is only Tuesday!

Bruni Brouhaha!

Last Monday, French media were reporting that Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy were in a Moroccan palace as guests of the King. But Carla was in Paris, coyly sitting on the lap of a handsome guy in red socks. This was at the shooting of a scene for her sister Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s new film. She was playing an extra in an auction scene at Sotheby’s in the rue Faubourg St Honoré: the latter doubling as Sotheby’s London in which the scene is scripted.

I was there, also playing an extra and as the day’s work went on all afternoon and into the evening had ample time to study Carla. Wearing a faded print dress, and bare legged in open toed sandals (despite the thrashing rain outside) she posed for cosy photos with Mr Red Socks and later (after Red Socks had left) with a tall silver haired actor. Her technique was to cuddle her cheek up against theirs, pull her hair around on one side and pout into the camera.

The film tells of a rich Italian family in hard times, auctioning their antiques and the scene involves a dramatic interruption when the character played by Valeria herself (who was also directing) tries to withdraw a painting seconds after the auctioneer’s gavel has fallen.

Valeria's and Carla’s mother was in the film. Madame Bruni Tedeschi was seated next to Valeria with whom she clearly has a good relationship. But Carla sat far away from them and never once spoke to either of them. Nor was she ever on camera.

Valeria, a successful and award winning film-maker may be telling her family’s own story based on the tragedy of her brother’s death from HIV complications. Clearly stressed at the double role of directing the scene in which elegantly dressed English speakers played the audience, Valeria then had to deal with a violent outburst from a big name star who was playing one of the bidders for the painting.

Omar Sharif, handsome and distinguished in grey pinstripes suddenly began yelling at Valeria. He had already done some cutaway shots with the only camera and was now sitting some distance behind Valeria as she made repeated takes of her scripted outburst to the auctioneer (played by a handsome real life auctioneer). Sharif appears to have nodded off to sleep and someone had awakened him. He now yelled out that Valeria had had him sitting around doing nothing for five hours. When she tried to reply he yelled at her repeatedly to shut up and sit down.

As for Carla, she remained off to one side, head down for the most part. No doubt she was anxious lest her presence in Paris be too noticeable since she was supposed to be in Morocco with her husband and baby daughter. But about one hundred and fifty people can hardly have failed to notice her presence, or that of her double, at the Sotheby’s shoot.