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Yesterday was the 99th anniversary of the end of the Great War: Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, Poppy Day, Veterans Day. Whichever name and vernacular we apply to it, it remains that the ending of WWI summons questions around whether WWI should ever have been started in the first place. Does the official story not center around the assassination in Sarajevo of a mysterious Archduke nobody amongst the populace had ever heard of: Franz Ferdinand? Did we have to escalate this into a World War and sacrifice 41 million people in the process as some form of retaliation? Or was there actually more than meets the eye?
War journal of French soldier Louis Barthas (1879-1952)
Those four years stood as the biggest wipe-out humanity had ever experienced in its entire History. August, 22nd, 1914 was the bloodiest day in French History, with 27,000 French soldiers killed. WWI tolled the end of times and destroyed the courageous, patriotic, hard-working young able men and their families, neighbourhoods and countries at large. Those who survived would never be the same again.
WWI is no shrinking violet territory. It is utter brutality. The scope of its horrors defy the imagination of even the most seasoned amongst us.
Hell on earth in a way we, 3-4 generations later, find hard to fathom in our relatively cocooned existence. The Great War was a bloodshed beyond comprehension that the French poilus (WWI soldiers) described laconically as grande boucherie.
Journal of Jean Galpin (1892-1915), lieutenant at the 119e French Infantry Regiment
Holocaust on the battlefields, in the trenches, across the blitzed-out towns, out at sea and up in the skies. It was the first all-encompassing war: on land, off-shore, underwater and airborne. WWI catapulted the West into the XXth century and heralded the rise of the nefarious military industrial complex and the coming of age of ruthless dynasties which have been calling the shots in the shadows of world governments and banking institutions ever since: the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers.
One year short of the centenary, we can safely argue from the comfort of our homes whether we can find 99 reasons why there shouldn't have been a war. In no way though would this resurrect the dead and heal the injured. The best we can do is to keep on honouring the brave and hold a flower in our hearts for the fallen. Pledge not to forget them and draw lessons out of the meaninglessness of war and the abject cruelty it inflicts upon the innocent that the elites summoned to fight their game of chess out for real.
Illustrated science lesson on sea mines by school teacher Aimé Vincent (1867-1933)
It serves to have at least a rough understanding of the war, its battles and key dates, from a historical perspective. But what is of greater service, in my book, is the collective of individual, personal stories and snippets of insightful information gleaned out of those who lived and/ or survived the War, soldiers and civilians alike, and which they passed down. Our duty today is to ensure those accounts, anecdotes, letters and other memorabilia are preserved and shared amongst us, and especially to the younger generations. By doing so, we keep alive the memory of those ordinary folks with ordinary lives who extraordinarily got thrusted onto the geopolitical scene and put their lives on the line for all of us.
Their patriotism, nationalism, the pride they held in the Nation State, means we stand here today in pacified nations which we can still call our own.
Each one of my four great-grandads, Louis, Marcel, Antoine and Joseph, fought in the Great War. I do not hold a personal detailed account of their whereabouts during the Great War as such but I remember a number of anecdotes. Those stick in the mind. For instance, Antoine and his comrades being out of drinking water in the trenches at some point had no other option than resort to drinking their own wee... On the Chemin des Dames front, Louis and his comrades were forced to imbibe strong potato liquor as way of Dutch courage when they could no longer fight their way across trenches and minefields, a desolate landscape that resembled nothing more than the death planes of the afterlife.
Illustrated war account by Marius Astier, accomplished in 1927
To stop indulging in our self-importance is paramount. We owe our WWI elders the respect and remembrance they deserve. We owe it to them to have honoured and served our nation the way they did, with infallible pride and bravery. We must make it our mission to not allow for our history to be edited by the Ministry of Propaganda. Oppose the deriding of national pride and its bizarre amagalmation with fascism and white supremacy. Support those who seek the truth and fight corruption on our behalf, whether as private entities, public figures or members of the Alternative media.
Now caught as we are in our First World problems (sic), the European Union Ponzi Scheme and DC Deep State, Cultural Marxism and its institutions engineering the hostile take-over of our society through globalisation stealth of our once-sovereign, Christian, economically-solvent, industrial powerhouse Nation States — would we be able at this point to regain enough bravery and nobility of heart to stand up to a horde of flag-burning millennial brats, and serve our emperiled nations should a call to arms be deemed necessary tomorrow in order to save them? This is no chess game: the ball is in our court.
In the Christian calendar, November 1st is a celebration of the dead, All Saints' Day, a bank holiday in France. Traditionally families purchase chrysanthemums, heather or cyclamens (usually impressive potted displays) and take them down to cemeteries in order to fleurir les tombes, flower their (loved ones) graves. Needless to say, florists and garden centres make a tidy profit that gears them up into the festive season, by then less than 8 weeks away!
Mum's the word! (June 2017)
You guessed it, All Saints' Day has been co-opted into a consumerist feat, with a sea of floral displays that pours out of the flower shops onto the pavements and inflates in volume by the day, in the run-up to November 1st. Then plants migrate from flower shops to car boots and from car boots to the tombs, and before Christmas most will have migrated from the tombs to the cemetery bins - in heaps! Incredibly wasteful and downright ridiculous but this is the way it has been programmed into the French.
Because sadly family values in France are not as sacred as they once were and catholic religion has taken a nosedive, graves are rarely visited, although All Saints' Day remains the one and only yearly reminder still anchored in the collective psyche that encourages the modern busy Christian to pay graves a visit - and leave a proof of their visit behind, in the shape of a big fat chrysanthemum that battles it out for space with other relatives' mums! Don't you bother watering your offering because par une opération du Saint-Esprit, by the Holy Spirit intervention, pots will somewhat self-water or at least absorb little morning dew they can in order to survive the run-up to Winter if they don't get knocked off the tomb by the competition and the elements and roll down the alleyway like a poor cosplay version of Jackie Chan to end up wedged between the tool shed and a bench.
Chrysanthemum to the left, nasturtium to the right, under the watchful eye of Némo! (Sept. 2017)
Life as an All Saints' Day chrysanthemum is all about survival: it's mean out there. Tampered with genetically in order to yield all sorts of crazy colours and patterns, chemically fattened up in order to grow fat and fast like a Christmas turkey of the floral kind, produce blooms ten a zillion that will magically burst open in time for the Day of the Dead. Showtime in the graveyard but by November 2nd there is no-one left around to admire the flowers! Then the draughty unforgiving graveyards take a toll on their petals into a crumpled-up, dried-out worn-out affair. Lack of care its toll, and the trip to the bin is a short, disdainful and unceremonious whack and go.
Through this tale of doom and gloom interspersed by a brief showtime stint and casting couch moment on the florist's shelf, one of those mums I saved from the basket of deplorables. Now it takes pride of place on my south-facing terrace, pampered and watered and whispered to! I saved it from my village's overflowing cemetery bin last December as I was gingerly walking past with Tickle, casting a sideways glance in search of a discarded, unloved, unrequited empty flower pot container (or filled with a dead plant) which I could save from trash and call my own and take home to repurpose into a pot for my Winter seedlings.
Pride of place! (Nov. 2017)
The mum was totally dried out, a browned-out crispy sorry sight! I took it home, disposed of the dead twigs and stored the pot with the soil in it in the cellar for a good month, almost forgetting about it. Then one day I noticed a shoot on the surface of the soil and then another one! I took the pot out onto the terrace, took a long hard look at those incredible green shoots battling for survival. I watered them and witnessed the gradual resurrection of the mum! It has since rewarded me with several flowerings. It is currently a feast of multicoloured blooms of white, canary yellow, orange and magenta red, a rainbow of delight! Let me tell you: I am the proud mum of one proud mum!
The moral of the story: when everything looks dead and done, give it another go, it might surprise you!
Delved into my bookmarks and consulted good old oracle Pinterest in order to compile an Autumn menu with recipes slightly out of the ordinary, without obsessing about it - and a hint of the unexpected. It had to be a poetic menu to spell out loud, with each dish almost akin to a verse by Edgar Allan Poe...
Think velvety monochrome textures, smoked flavours, dark syrupy fruit, gooey sauces, messy blends, unusual colours and rare alcohols, to keep you warm inside and chill you out at the same time! Red splatters to keep you on your toes... All in all, a grown-up Autumn menu without the hearty pumpkin chowders, versatile enough to celebrate not only Halloween but also All Saints' Day (Catholic calendar, 1st November) and Guy Fawkes Night (Great Britain, 5th November) without stating the obvious!
So let's get those taste buds into overdrive and that kitchen ready to sizzle!
Cocktails that are odd beyond the odds, The Gibson's Cocktail Menu has it by the muddler! Their cocktail list flirts with the quirk and the bizarre in equal doses, if not the borderline bootleg (Scandal in Bohemia, a mixology 'high' of Sweet Grass Steeped Woodford Rye Absinthe + Hemp Cannabis Poppy 'Opium' Oil + Preserved Oriental Lemon Brine + French Confetti Candy Syrup + Forbidden Jelly Ice + Smoking Wood Mushroom)! You couldn't make this one up if you wanted to! For a cocktail slightly less far fetched in terms of ingredients, the Way of the Dragonmight persuade an enlightened Classic D&D gamer to give it a try, if only for the rambunctious dragon that is served with the drink: 8 years old Bacardi + Gibson's Seabuckthorn Liqueur + Madeira Wine + Lime + Fresh Rambutan & Mangosteen + Butternut Squash & Walnut Conserve + Galia Melon. Good grief! I'll have a simple G&T anytime!
Gauguin, Voyage de Tahiti lands upon our shores as a compelling welcome distraction to an otherwise calamitous September of hurricanes, earthquakes, civil unrest and threats of WWIII. Despite its languorous title, it promises no Tropical bliss or frangipani blossoms as it whisks us away from our daily contrivance and the Autumn chill for the Paradise atolls of French Polynesia, the backdrop to the last decade in the life of anti-conformist 19th century French Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) who had fled modern civilisation in order to live the simple life, immersed in nature.
Few of us will have been aware of Gauguin's life beyond his enchanting Polynesian portraits, and the film by Edouard Delucattempts to remedy that. Be warned though that any hope for a smooth, fancy-free voyage across lush lands and ombré waters sprawled below heavenly Summer skies is 'compromised' as our voyage is in fact a tale of trouble in Paradise... and this means dark clouds!
Soon the landscapes of the island merge with the landscapes of a troubled mind. This is no blockbuster, no special effect in sight, no big budget, and no unnecessary pathos. It commands however a certain curiosity and sensitivity on the part of the viewer in order to appreciate such a movie. Here we have a painter's tale of Paradise lost.
Gauguin, Voyage de Tahiti depicts Gauguin the artist (Koké as the locals called him) entertwined with the man himself, who had rejected the French Establishment, relinquished wife and offspring who he could no longer financially support, only to get caught up by his demons and by Establishment again thousands of miles later. This is a tale of artistic genius, moral dilemma, financial destitution, a tale of redemption and disillusion, a quest for identity and authenticity, a depiction of mysticism and a rejection of the so-called civilised world.
Paul Gauguin could have enjoyed a comfortable existence should he had kept to the conformist route he had taken as a marine merchant and a stockbroker's assistant, but then there would be no Paul Gauguin the artist. He died a pauper instead, yet rich within from the life and travel experiences he acquired along the way. His frugal livelihood contrasts with his oeuvre dotted across the world in art places and private collections, testimonies to his posthumous glory and recognition. When he relinquished his privileged upbringing and financial stability in order to embrace the artist's lifestyle, Gauguin embarked upon the exciting, harsh, morose, unpredictable, temptation-laced, financially unstable existence at odds with the traditional family life, the picket fence and the prim and proper.
Vincent Cassel wears Paul Gauguin's role like a glove. One of the most prolific, versatile, immersive French actors of my generation, he excels at playing troubled characters with heart and soul: the known and the unknown, the modern and the period, the suave and the slick, the affable and the utterly despicable. In a nutshell, he lives and breathes and inhabits each of his roles. Cassel took up art classes to get under the artist's skin and learn the ropes like how to hold a paintbrush properly and how to apply paint. He caught the bug and ended up painting for himself in his spare time!
From the outset, the film appears to incarnate French cinéma d'auteur in the manner in which it explores the life of its main character. The methodology is by way of a close-range character study, down to the minutiae of glance,
heartbeat and sigh. It strives for detail, and an intimate - intimist - soul journey, a stark-naked biopic portrayal in its varied facets that distills the character with spirit and truth, no embellishment or happy ending for the sake of it. It soaks in the atmosphere and takes us on with it.
The film hasn't been out a week that it is already being criticised for its lack of objectivity. It conveniently - controversially - glosses over the fact that Gauguin then aged 43 fell in love (in lust?) with a 13-year old local Tahitian girl called Tehura (also known as Teha’amana), whom he then married. The girl was a juvenile! A closer look at Gauguin's biography reveals that his private life was dissolute: a life-long philanderer who contracted syphillis along the way, which he then transmitted to his conquests. Some will wave it off as an element of Bohemian territory - oh lovely!
Yet not looking at discrediting the critics, it must be added that the History of France and the world at large demonstrates that however morally wrong it was (is), the mature man-young girl 'paradigm' was (is) no rare occurrence, especially in the Arts, the Royal courts and under certain ideologies!
Digression aside, such straightforward revelations in the film would have dented an already morally-questionable complex, flawed character but a glossing over ends up as a disservice and as an unvoluntary form of complicity. Truth hurts, so does its misrepresentation by way of a lie.
Those of us who had been blissfully unaware of Gauguin's dirty little secrets until today, are likely to be left confused, tainted, unsure as to whether still respect the artist, or dissociate his paintings from the man: respect the oeuvre but dislike (repudiate?) the man. Artist and man being intrinsically entertwined, this is simply impossible. My only surety in this is that I will never look at the portraits of Teha'amana and her virginal, innocent girl friends in quite the unbiased way I used to.
It remains that Paul Gauguin was a creative genius, the precursor of Modern Art and a visionary in his own right. His Art navigated the troubled waters of his soul in a spellbinding way. To see and think of him as a painter solely is restrictive: he was an accomplished artist whose Art encompassed printmaking, engraving, sculpture, ceramics and decorating. His creations are showcased in the most prestigious modern art galleries of the world, including Guggenheim and the Art Institute of Chicago, as further testament to his worldwide recognition.
"Gauguin was radically creative throughout his career. He never stopped experimenting with new methods, and his art continues to fascinate because it remains unpredictable, contradictory, and enormously varied in medium, form, and content." - Artist as Alchemist, the Paul Gauguin exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago (June 25 - Sept. 10, 2017)
Gauguin, Voyage de Tahiti, directed by Edouard Deluc, starring Vincent Cassel, Tuhei Adams, Malik Zidi and Pua-Tai Hikutini, out now in France.
P.S: There is an interesting parallel to be drawn between Paul Gauguin and Scottish novelist, poet and travel writerRobert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894): both artist contemporaries from the second half of the 19th century, travellers and adventurers, who both died in Polynesia (Stevenson in Samoa), in middle age. Stevenson documented a particular segment of his journey to France as a short story, 'Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes.' If Stevenson is still fondly remembered in the Cévennes to this day, it is because - according to a local politician and historian - 'he showed us the landscape that makes us who we are.' Such a statement may well apply to Gauguin too, in relation to Polynesia.
In order to visually grasp in one quick swoop the extent of Britain's heavy industrialisation during the 1920s (notwithstanding the fact that the bulk of its Industrial Revolution had already been through by then), seek no other evidence than photographic - and better still the aerial shots! Britain from Above has made this possible, not only for institutions and corporations but also for the general public, by releasing its impressive photographic archive collection (over 82,500 records for England alone!) which provides the tools for a spot of investigative geography and history, right from the comfort of your home. And fascinating it is bound to be to anyone with a connection to Britain and curious to discover the face of its past!
Second to none, Manchester was once my second home; I spent 16 years of my life there. Naturally as soon as I came across Britain from Above, curiosity got the better off me and I sifted through Manchester's photographic records, seeking the familiar neighbourhoods I had lived in and semi-familiar environs which I had travelled through, worked in or visited for one reason or another. Needless to say that present-day Manchester bears little resemblance to its bygone self, bar for specific landmarks: town hall, churches, flagship stores (the Lewis's department store, now Primark), canals, railways, certain roads and playing fields, and the odd pub here and there that has survived the accelerated nationwide 'pub cull' of the last 20 years.
As shown in the Beswick ward above, like elsewhere throughout the working-class areas of the city radiating right out of its centre, row upon row of identikit 19th-century brick terraced and back-to-back factory houses used to be tightly laid out, taking up every inch of available space for cheap low-rise high-density working-class housing - which was turning to slums by the 1920s. Nineteen thirties Manchester was a crowded place; its population had peaked at 766,311 inhabitants in 1931 before steadily shrinking, in line with the collapse of the textile and affiliated machine tool industries, down to 404,861 by 1991, a massive 52% fall in numbers within 60 years! By 1991, the slum clearances and industrial wastelands were lending a surreal urban landscape, especially east (Ancoats to Ashton-under-Lyne axis) and northeast (Cheetham Hill to Oldham axis).
From such a bird's eye view, from such a height, with eveything appearing like distant patterns dotted upon a canvas, it is all too tempting to feel nostalgic and gloss over a time period that was actually anything but kind and sweet. Although full employment was on - except during the Great Depression, it still came at a price, even by 1920s standards: harsh working conditions, long working hours, low wages, poor health, cramped and unsanitary living conditions, not to mention the smog, a deadly combination of smoke pollution (from factory and domestic coal burning) and fog, creating pea soup, which plagued industrial cities with a thick yellowish toxic shroud, bringing asthma and other respiratory ailments and drastically reducing visibility.
Furthermore, the nation was still recovering from the throes of WWI, where 23,792 men and women from Greater Manchester alone had lost their lives on the front! Extrapolate this to the number of households affected by loss, the mothers, widow(er)s and orphans, the harsh economic reality of daily life sharpened the grief some more. You can be certain that the photographed households you are looking at are testaments to pain and hardship.
Nick Hedges Photography has explored over the last 50 years the reality of life for working-class Britain, via the Slum Housing & Poverty series (late 1960s/ early 70s), showing the impact of sub-standard 19th century housing and economic deprivation. The City That Was explores working-class culture at the turning point of post-industrial Britain, while New Dawns Old Nightmares depicts the depersonalised 1970s utilitarian housing estates that came to replace the torn-down terraced housing communities - the solution to a problem became a problem itself.
You may or may not have realised by now that our Western societies are moving full-throttle into matriarchies. Their manifestations are multi-fold and encompass feminism, gender theories, identity politics, equal pay, and body positive movements, all facilitated by the PC brigade, mainstream media (MSM), social justice warriors (SJW), the one-way liberal free speech and the art of virtue signalling.
Yes, we are firmly treading buzzword territory here, yet instead of shrugging it off as some passing fad, we should be worried because the rise of matriarchy goes hand in hand with the neutering of male masculinity, which historically has led to system failure and societal collapse. Change agents are at play in the remodelling of the West that we used to know as kids, into a new paradigm that seems at odds with traditional values: you are not losing the plot, this is all part of Cultural Marxism! It all looks good and promising in theory though - superficially - giving us the impression that we are moving into an egalitarian, fair, sustainable and empowered society. But take a harder look and you will see for yourself that we are moving into a fractured society instead.
A matriarchy is a society ruled by women, as opposed to a patriarchy, a society ruled by men. More broadly so, a matriarchy is characterised by female dominance over a family (microcosm), a corporation, government, or society at large (macrocosm).
Here is what to expect from a modern matriarchal society and note that we have already ticked every box of it:
Emphasis is placed upon the individual within society, for their own personal needs and aggrandisements to be met: me, myself and I! Selfies galore testify to the obsessed, narcissistic reflection that has been promoted, encouraged and engineered. The quest for fickle, instant, brief fame is on.
Permissiveness in society and emancipation of women are emphasised and blown out of proportion, misleading the young, the gullible and the confused into believing that with nothing being sacred anymore, all taboos being lifted, you can just behave any way you want, without repercussion! A society that lets go of its moral compass, that operates without bearings, and whose rules and goal posts of virtue are always shifting, is dysfunctional. Paragons of virtue, a thing of the past!
A society run on emotion and feelings instead of reason, pragmatism and logic, makes it volatile and unpredictable!
Questioning men's traditional role within a couple/ family, as the head of the household, bread-winner, protector, nest builder and DIYer. Questioning and attacking manhood, misinterpreting it as machismo. Men have it tough as it is nowadays: no male role models or mentors who can help shape their formative years (absent fathers, no close family members, fairweather friends, peer pressure, Mcjobs, unemployment, etc.). Compulsory military service used to bring structure, obedience, independence and used to be a rite of passage from boyhood to manhood. Besides the collapse of christianity and fragmentation of communities has also led men astray. Meanwhile equal pay between man and woman in the workplace is not a sign of equality; it is falsely empowering the woman by disempowering the man. It is also sending a signal high and clear that men are no longer considered bread-winners of the family and may be dispensed with. Patriarchal values are shaken up and belittled.
Breaking up the traditional man-woman family set-up and ruling it out under this newfound no-holds-barred permissiveness is a sure way to undermine both the male and the female, and break down family values once and for all. We run the risk of ending up with generations of confused kids who come from test tubes and surrogacy, plus those who suffer the consequences of divorces and illicit affairs. They will have no idea who their biological parents are. Such a confusion erases in effect personal family history: no more lineage, no more anchorage, no more roots, no more identity.
Promoting the gender-neutral agenda to kids: deterring little girls from looking girly (no more pink skirts and flowery cardigans!) and little boys from exclusively playing boys games (electric trains, football, etc.).
Metrosexuality, androgyny, and asexualisation: ultimately what we are witnessing is a blurring of the physical, cosmetic, societal, and moral characteristics between male and female. This comes to light as artificial intelligence and the increased robotisation/ automation of our lives are coming into force. We are losing the humane side of our human selves and turning bionic. Transgenderism is part of thetransience of modern society.
Beauty standards are retuned and redefined. Sexualisation of pre-pubescent girls and boys on catwalks, fashion advertorials and in the entertainment industry. A body positive attitude towards obesity and its polar opposite might sound encouraging yet this brushes aside health implications and moral issues; it encourages the individual to pursue their hedonistic or punitive ways, not to aim for a balancing act. Sports and entertainment personalities are turned into heroes and role models (the Kardashians, here we go!) and given status and airtime.
Empowering the odd and the misfit:
as harsh as this sounds, it is true. Anything goes, a woman can be fat
and sloven, tarted up like a tart, tattoed up like a sailor, swearing
like a trooper, polyamorous (new spiel for promiscuous), woman one day
and man the next, working traditional men jobs (as an army chief, a
miner or a roofer for instance), proudly sporting body hair as a badge
of honour! A woman is given permission to be unwomanly. Shun at your
peril and the little SJW worms will crawl out of the woodwork to give
you an earful!
A lenient judicial system
that fails to protect traditional values and puts women at risk,
victimising the victim: 'She was wearing a skirt, walking home late at
night, she was looking for trouble'.
Any cultural incompatibilityis
played down instead of being addressed. Thus the incompatibility
between a matriarchy and an ideology that is intolerant towards women's
rights and liberties (ex: Islam), this being exacerbated under the
West's open-border policy and lenient immigration legislation.
When males have been stripped out of their masculinity, of their role within society, they are left with nothing but asserting their masculinity through derisive cosmetic enhancement: bushy beards and tattoos. Enough said.
Men and women shouldn't be competing against each other no matter what. They are biologically different. Men's built and musculature naturally means that they are more suited to physical tasks than women; they also are more pragmatic in their approach to life's problems.
Likewise women tend to have an attention to detail and an ability to multi-task and empathise that men do not quite get and this is fine. Biologically-speaking, men are the hunters-gatherers (providing food and shelter) and women the nurturers (looking after the home and kids). There should be no reason for a battle of the genders in the name of fighting sexism. Men and women complete each other. Within the partnership, women bring sensitivity to men's sensibility and vice versa. Equality is about complementarity of the fortes and the highly-strung feminists out there who are pushing ahead with matriarchy are failing to recognise this.
Mireille Darc was more than a French actress and a household name. I would go as far as describe her as France's sweetheart - and by the same token as the understated embodiment of the French woman inside and out. With a first name that sings the sunny South of France (my mum's name!) and a surname that is a tribute to Joan of Arc, you are off to a good start!
Mireille was a leading actress in her younger days, a valeur sûre: effortless, true to self, a natural. Yet her film portfolio might not be considered consequential by those cinema purists who shun popular modern-day stories and comedies of errors about ordinary life. No superheroes, special effects, Shakespearean tirades or costumed dramas in sight. What interested Mireille was to portray life as it happens, without artifice.
A word of caution: to confine Mireille to her movie acting days would be to rob her of her vibrant off-screen personality, philanthropy, grace and kindness, her business acumen, her second career as a successful TV documentary-maker, and her involvement in TV series and theatre roles later in life. The smouldering beauty was also a muse - not least to the love of her life, the incandescent French actor Alain Delon, and a loving second mum to her stepchildren.
Mireille was driven: a plate-spinner, fingers in many pies lady. Starry-eyed and an award-winning dancer, she left her native Provence at the age of 21 for Paris where she intended to make it. She never looked back!
Unlike many of her contemporaries (Jeanne Moreau, Brigitte Bardot, Claudia Cardinale), Mireille remained timeless, ageless. She kept her slender figure, impeccable dress sense, elegance and positive attitude. Not to mention her fresh face, trademark sleek blonde bob, beautiful gleaming smile and a glint in her eye that made her the endearing mother, sister, best friend and confidante all along. She didn't let age get in her way: who would have guessed she was in her late 70s?! She kept her health problems under wraps, behind close doors, only for the very close few; she wouldn't have allowed it to vanquish her.
Even after splitting up in 1983, those two remained close till the very end! (pict source)
Mireille's legacy is multi-fold: she is a case in point, not only to young actresses but also to women in general. She shows us how to incorporate longevity into a career, stay grounded, focused, true to self, open to opportunities that ring true to us. Follow your heart, love with all your might, stay loyal. Stay strong and do not get mislaid by the deadly temptations of the art world, excesses and burn out. Ironically very few actresses paid their respects to Mireille on her funeral yesterday. Yet the populace was there, crammed outside the gates of the Saint-Sulpice Church in Paris: they didn't let her down! Mireille was one of us and never left us. She lives on in our hearts.
I have been incensed at the sight of the Confederate statues falling prey to the cultural marxist treatment, unceremoniously torn down, either by the local authorities or by private individuals themselves, then kicked about, trampled down and spat on. The proud, serving, dutiful, Confederate soldier and general, mocked, ridiculed, disrespected, by a bunch of savages who oscillate along that very fine line that separates the pro- from the anti-American.
The culling of the Confederate statues is a historical and architectural auto-da-fé, promulgated under the pretence for equality. Sugar-coat it all you want, it is in no uncertain terms the rewriting of the past. It also indicates that a segment of the American populace still believes the War between North and South was a Civil War fought in the name of freedom for the black slaves. It was no Civil War, buddy, it was a Secession War: the Southern states had formed a confederate of states and expressed their wish to quit the United States, which is legal according to the Constitution. However the North didn't see it that way and anti-constitutionally declared war on the South.
Back to Summer 2017, clashes and riots have ensued the removal of Confederate statues across the American Old South, feeding the mainstream media's anti-Trump and anti-fascist (?) frenzy at the same time. Anything goes as long as it leaves a trail of destruction of wares and reputations. The obligatory culture of blame, laced with the Soros-funded political correctness/ minority campaigns vs. white male privilege, culminates into high-voltage politicised disarray. Summer of Love, it is not.
I said it loud and clear in the comments section of The Conversation and I will say it loud and clear here:-
A nation that erases its past stands no chance of raising a future, simply because without the past, there is no future. Cleansing a nation of its history is the first step towards dismantling a nation.
The danger is that in “our”* haste to obliterate the past and customise a present that is devoid of certain elements of said past, we end up uprooting ourselves and our identities - all in the name of political correctness. This is exactly what the global agenda ultimately has in mind for us: a rewritten, pared-down historical mish-mash.
*“Our” is a generalisation I use to describe our redefined, retweaked, society: its redesign purported by the loud Godless liberal left, cultural marxists and nihilists, under the auspices of the mainstream media. A society that destroys its past has no future to look forward to and this is exactly what the leftists/ communists have in mind. A dangerous game is being played here through this history cull. Destroying statues, effigies and other monuments of historical significance: which one will be next, Mount Vernon or Mount Rushmore?
Welcome to LBM and Mirabelle's brand new series, InstaGlam, which explores brands that celebrate the beauty of life on Instagram! We start off on a strong and vibrant note with Italy's dynamic fashion duo, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana.
There is something warm and generous about the Dolce & Gabbana brand, a little like a seasoned Italian mama: warm, spicy, friendly, coquettish, hands-on, streetwise and nurturing all at once. And no better way to appreciate it than via Instagram, where both D&G and Stefano Gabbana go beyond the call of fashion duty to share inspiration.
It is a sunny, vibrant, joyful, technicolor celebration of life, where the D&G man, woman and child lust for life. It is a far cry from certain couture houses out there that have a clinical, rigid, no-frills, monochrome approach to fashion and lifestyle, season after season. D&G is actually more than a fashion brand, it is a lifestyle umbrella.
Elements of nature, religion (Alta Moda Collection), tradition, artistry, and couture wizardry combine their threads to compose a tapestry of covetable craftsmanship with faerie-like, romantic, folklore and bohemian accents. Much detailing and ornementation are at play and those wearable works of art manage to pique our curiosity and send a message to those fast and furious fashion creators who have sent the high street bland and drab.
In our troubled times of transience and fickleness, and under the globalised aseptised world that elites are pushing us towards, D&G spells Italian heirloom, old money, oodles of originality, opulence and a waff of quirky flamboyance, not to mention an ode to cultural enrichment through the rediscovery of culture. In other words, they bridge past and future, like their flagship retail store on Via Montenapoleone in Milan.
Moreover D&G does not rest on their laurels. Their marketing and brand management is savvy, edgy and responsive. When a couple of months ago D&G faced a backlash due to their supporting US First Lady Melania Trump who proudly and consistently wears their outfits, Stefano Gabbana, a fervent admirer of Melania's style and persona, responded to his detractors boldly. He pre-empted any call for boycott on their part by actually launching a... #BoycottD&G campaign through social media as well as a matching tee-shirt range! No adverse publicity, just a smart move; what appeared risqué at first immediately brought limelight, coverage, and ultimately served the brand in a positive fashion! Well done!
D&G is fashion that sings and flutters and seduces like the Italian language itself. This is fashion lifestyle by a life-loving duo, and you can feel, breathe and eat it all you like! Bellissima pasticceria della moda!
