History of the Great War and the Stories Behind It

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.


Further Reading: 

• Remember the Fallen
• Little People, Big Hearts
• La Der des Ders
• Lest We Forget

All Saints' Day Survivor

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!

A Matriarchal Society

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.

Plus model wife, mom and feminist Tess Holliday urges you to #effyourbeautystandards

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.

Glamour model, drama queen, mum and a loose woman who rules her roost: Katie Price

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.).

Neither male nor female: YouTube beauty sensation Jeffree Star

• 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 the transience 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 incompatibility is 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.


Further Reading on Cultural Marxism:

• The Frankfurt School and the War on the West, by Bill Muehlenberg
• The Frankfurt School, Western Subversion by Design, by Smash Cultural Marxism

Mireille Darc, a Role Model for French Women

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 Darc, the quintessential French woman!

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.

Mireille Darc and Alain Delon: each other's biggest love in life!

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.

On screen and off screen (pict source)

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.

No Future Without a Past

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.

George Washington's Mount Vernon

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.

The Confederate soldier statue at Old Durham County Courthouse, NC, was torn down on 14th August.

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.

Donald J. Trump's Twitter account, 17-Aug-2017

_________

*“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?



*Last updated 03-February-2018*


P.S:  The Destruction of Beauty, a visual case study of Birmingham's Chamberlain Square, by Architectural Revival.
 

'A nation that does not respect its past does not deserve the respect of the present and has no right to the future.' - Józef Piłsudzki

InstaGlam - Dolce & Gabbana

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.

D&G Alta Moda Collection, AW2015-16

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.

D&G Alta Gioielleria, Palazzo Gangi Valguarnera, Palermo

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!

D&G Sneaker Patches

Espadrilles with Attitude

My love of espadrilles knows no limit: I would be lost without them! They are my essential Corsican Summer footwear, inside and outside. I don't just wear them, I wear them out: a pair lasts me a season (sometimes less according to the quality/ finnish or the wear and tear I put them through). When I lived in colder climes I would wear espadrilles essentially at home during the Summer in lieu of slippers (much more pleasant) and out, weather permitting. My love story goes back a long way: I first started wearing them as an 8-year-old, if I remember right, and have been wearing them year upon year ever since.

My pair of Little Marcel espadrilles, which I have worn a few times...

Talk about versatility: espadrilles are available in every colour and pattern under the sun, from basic white to coastal blue, via chintzy Liberty fabrics, warm Catalogne/ Basque Region stripes, pastel shades and polka dots... Along the way, fashion designers have pimped up the pump with gusto: dressed up in leather, adorned with sequins, laced up, filigreed in gold, propped up with a wedge heel... Anything goes.

'Madcarina' Wedge by Christian Louboutin: espadrille-inspired braided rope and a chic turban twist toe detail

Espadrilles are a social leveller in my book. Everyone can afford them at their most basic. Their understated chic makes them preppy, while their vivid colours and bold patterns lend a boho vibe. Their restrained Summery look makes them resort. Their overall design makes them as comfy as a pair of no-frills sneakers. Depending upon their colour and the way you wear them, you could get away with wearing them at church, at a town hall meeting, at the doctor's surgery or a garden party without anyone blinking an eyelid. Just dress up your attire and lend a little sassiness and confidence to your step.

'Vogue 125' Sandals by Soludos

I doubt orthopedists would recommend the regular wear of espadrilles because in all honesty their canvas upper and basic jute sole combo does not support the feet adequately like a pair of good quality flats would. Though for pottering around the house and garden, running a few errands, driving, and walking down the beach and back, they cannot be faulted. Despite the fact that I do routinely walk miles in them (flattish urbanised terrain of roadside and pavement - and the occasional dirt track), I wouldn't expect anyone to trek rocky terrain in those: this is not what they are made for! Consider the espadrille a week-ender, a city slicker with a garden for countryside, not a country lass per se.

SoludosⓇ for J.Crew Espadrilles in Chambray

Despite their very basic no-frills construction (no Air Max technology, ergonomics or air-cushioned soles here folks!) and their identical right foot/ left foot, espadrilles are comfortable for what they are, then again strictly for dry Summertime (not weatherproof unless you upgrade to the Sea Star Beachwear Beachcomber Espadrille) and to be worn on flat terrain. Their canvas upper makes them tempered and breathable. So no nasty sweats like you would with plastic beach sandals or even with the not-so-innocent flip-flops.

'Elisa' Espadrille Wedges by Tory Burch

The sole is natural woven jute (which absorbs perspiration like a dream), usually with a thin rubber underside, and sometimes with the insole lined in canvas (which I recommend because it will make your walking experience more comfortable).

'Baja' Satin Espadrilles by J.Crew

Espadrilles, especially if worn daily over a whole Summer, will harden the soles of your feet, yet by the same token you will never get a blister wearing those little darlings: bonus for a carefree Summer and to keep those tootsies in tip-top condition!

'Joanne' Embroidered Espadrilles, by Polo Ralph Lauren

Espadrilles are affordable if you are looking for basic ones (less than €10.00/ $11.50/ £8.80). But how high can you go in price? I mean some of those featured here are pimped up, dressed up variants, still reasonable in price and they may last the distance by a few more miles than the standard espadrille.

Wearing my (now worse for wear) Mellow Yellow Liberty Espadrilles on the beach with Tickle!

Espadrilles are essentially still manufactured in their locale of origin, the Pyrenees, Catalogne and French and Spanish Basque region. China and Bangladesh now produce them too. Regardless of how you look after them, one downside is that overall quality can be flaky, and funnily enough I find that this is not dependent upon the country of origin. The weakest link is the stitch that frays and comes undone and/ or poor-quality fabric that gives way and/ or splits in the big toe area or the heel... 

The Chut Charlotte espadrille atelier in the French Pyrenees

Espadrilles are flats with attitude regardless: versatile, slip-on, unisex, easy-going and still able to pull a dressed-up look together. They are comfy but not sloppy, and no matter how much you put them through their paces, they shall never lose that vacational, continental, sun-kissed, sand-filled, sea-salt-stained mojo!

Lovely & Nice

Towards the back end of the 19th century, as the quaint small fishing harbours and coastal villages of southern France (Provence and Côte d'Azur) started morphing into the famed vacational hotspot now known as the French Riviera, Nice already was at its cutting edge: it had metamorphosed into a pretty butterfly, opening up to the pleasures of the sea and spreading its wings towards the future, embracing the Belle Epoque follies and later Années Folles (Roaring Twenties)... Its seaside mystique and splendour stretched beyond WWII, yet with less of its earlier upmarket gusto and panache, but this is a story for another time.

La Réserve, c.1900: a fantasmagorical - surrealist - folly that could have been dreamt up by Magritte!

Nice by name was Nice by nature back then: an almost pristine natural canvas of dramatic proportions, lending its coves and curves to architectural wonder, integrating the natural environment - its masterpiece - with style and elegance. The reworked landscape became imbued with a tangible frond of the exotic: imported Phoenix canariensis palm trees and other floral exotica that would lend themselves beautifully to the Orientalist trend of the times.  

Saint-Nicolas Cathedral, c.1935: testifies of the importance of the Russian community in Nice

La Promenade des Anglais would come to epitomise the renowned coastal seafront with dreams of odysseys to faraway exotic locales. A French Ipanema, a wide, tree-lined, five-mile sweep of a boulevard which was (and still is to this day) a destination point for leisure pursuits, parades and ceremonies, dotted with elegant Winter homes that later doubled as Summer villas, set in landscaped grounds and a seaview to boot.

Excelsior Régina Palace, 1912: fit for Queen Victoria

The properties unashamedly belonged to British and Russian aristocracy (and later the nouveau riche) who - it seemed - altogether led the way in terms of the resort culture before the French had even conceptualised it, at least outside their colonies. Progressively the Winter resort turned into a seaside resort with the construction of residential apartments, and leisure establishments such as luxury hotels (palaces) and casinos celebrating luxe, leisure, insouciance and joie de vivre. 

Nice, Jetée-Promenade, c.1900: an exotica showcase to itself!

In terms of turn-of-the-century architecture, we find a marked influence towards neo-classicism, with oodles of orientalism and a hint of Victoriana: Le Negresco Hotel is a perfect example. Or how about the (now defunct) Orientalist-inspired casino of the Jetée-Promenade? The concept was influenced by the Brighton Palace Pier, while Crystal Palace was the initial inspiration to the project instigator, marquis d'Espouy de Saint-Paul. The casino was designed by British architect James Brunlers. There is no denying that Brits shaped the French Riviera.

Nice, Jetée-Promenade, 1897: the Orient has landed!

La Promenade would be further celebrated with the advent of the automobile era as a G-spot of sorts. Any show-off driver and social climber worth their salt would make a point of showing up and down the Promenade. Success, it was thought, would rub off if only you showed up on the Promenade, unashamedly pretending to be someone you're not for a part of the action while secretly standing in awe of it all.

Nice unfolds from the Mont Boron, 1891

Only a small number of the original villas are still standing on the Promenade today. Some look sorry for themselves, locked in limbo, in need of refurbishment. Land value comes at a premium on the Promenade and it is likely that some of the older properties are locked down in hostile takeovers, expired leases, inheritance issues, tax conundrum or other legal and financial predicaments, ultimately pending a demolition order to make way for yet another high-rise. In the world of real estate emotion hardly has a say, even less so when the matter at stake is located in a sought-after, world-renowned tourist area.

Nice Opera, 1885: all about flamboyance!

Sorry to rub it in but as it stands today the Promenade has lost its lustre. Now it is easy for nostalgia to cloud one's judgement and I recognise that I sometimes allow it to take over my objectivity, yet I approached this particular subject with an open mind and visited the Promenade on at least three separate occasions that I can recall over the last seven years and everytime the lack (loss) of architectural cohesiveness hit me.

Promenade des Anglais and Palais de la Méditerranée, c.1930: cheek to cheek

Clearly building clearance took its toll. Relentless since after WWII, it has left battle scars in the form of an incongruous mish-mash of styles, some of questionable appeal. Cue the gutted Palais de la Méditerranée, whose Art Déco façade was salvaged at the eleventh hour... in order to be incorporated to the Hyatt behemoth. Elsewhere the Promenade is compromised by styleless cheap-looking condos and other bland hotel chains like Le Méridien (which replaced the stylish Hotel Ruhl). These modern structures may unashamedly steal the seaview; they however steal neither the looks nor the spirit of a time where elegance and refinement were the byword.

Avenue de Verdun, c.1920: just off the Promenade

It is understood that Nice City Council wishes for the Promenade to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site contender, and therefore is currently sprucing up its image. Who are they kidding? In this vanity exercise no amount of landscaping or carpark redesign will compensate for the negative architectural impact caused by waves of property clearances that made way for a non-descript, non-cohesive Promenade.

Nice from the Jetée-Promenade, c.1900: a view at your beck and call

The Nice seafront is certainly a tale for the unashamed: bold and beautiful yesterday, bland and brash today. What remains of its bygone golden age, if not found in pockets in-situ, will be appreciated pictorially in the comfort of your home. Prolific and talented French photographer Jean Gilletta (1866-1933) made sure of that by taking thousands of pictures that wrote all to themselves an anthology to Nice, Marseille, the Riviera as a whole, the southern Alps and further afield! He followed the muse and she never left him! His photography froze people, places and time for posterity, immortalised a depiction of Nice that is both haunting and promising, an epoch where all seemed possible...

Motorcar, c.1925: sweet and fancy!

Source: All photography by Jean Gilletta. Take a peek at his impressive collection... and sweet dreams to you! Hey, happy shopper: all the (repro) prints featured are for sale by the way!

'Bateaux dans le Port de Nice', by Tony Minartz (1870-1944)

Further Reading:

• [English edition] La Promenade des Anglais, by Paul Tristan Roux, published by Editions Gilletta (July 2016), 64 pages
• [in French] La Promenade des Anglais, by Nice City Council
• [in French] Le Casino de la Jeté-Promenade, by Jean-Paul Potron, published by Editions Gilletta (October 2014), 176 pages.

Transience, Pillar of Modern Society (Part 3)

Transience is supposed to be a temporary, transitory stage, yet we shall see in this third and final part of my essay how it is being made to drag on so as to become a permanent fixture of modern society. Transience applies geographically and figuratively and relates to transition, waiting for a change to manifest one way or another.

Transience is a state of limbo that occurs somewhere between a departure point and a destination point when events are fluid and uncertain. It summons aimless errance, perhaps drifting, with an element of waiting for circumstances to change for the better. It is the state of not knowing what's next and not belonging anywhere in particular at a moment in time and for whatever reason this might be. There are no roots to transience, no anchorage. It is the free agent for change, hence for uncertainty and unpredictability. It belies a period of unstability.

Lockheed JetStar and the 1960 Lincoln, via Plan59

I have identified herein five transience-generating areas within our modern society. The list is not exhaustive: -


 *  Paradigm Shifts:  Our governments, in cahoot with the media and corporate elites, have upped the ante to engineer a generation or two of confused kids (a.k.a. snowflakes): dumbed-down propagandist education system, gender theory, reinterpretation of the family unit, weakening of Christianity, radicalised angst-ridden feminism, political correctness, forced multi-culturalism, the sharing economy, and other paragons of humanist (undertand socialist) ideology jar with traditional homogeneous family values in terms of tradition, culture and history. We witness societal confusion, a shift in points of reference, landmarks sliding away. What used to be held in stone, held as truth by our socio-political system has now been questioned, deemed untrue. Reciprocally what used to be considered a lie is now held as truth: a fluid set of rules!

Under European rule, Europeans are getting the feeling of not belonging anywhere anymore, not to their own country that they do not recognise as it is losing the characteristics that used to make it unique. Their national/ federal government is alien to its people and to the voice of discontent. Europeans do not feel allegiance to Europe either. They feel distrust towards this unelected body ruling unilaterally over a conglomerate of countries bundled up together due to our close geographical proximity. We are all under the ludicrously remote, faceless, authoritarian governship of Babel (I mean Brussels).

This forced Europeanism on its way to the larger picture of globalism is a representation of transience. It stunts our organic growth as individual countries and puts us in limbo.

Labour to leisure: Parc du Haut-Fourneau U4, Uckange, eastern France

 *  Depressed Economy:  When jobs have been forced out of our Western nations to the Far East en masse - as a result of our governments' over-regulation, corporate taxation and other economic burdens, companies have restructured and fierce competition has increased, the job market gets tougher and job security weaker. Lucky is being left with an entry-job for life (i.e. no or little scope for promotion and a career) and the general dead-end retail/ service jobs that keep you on minimum wage for the duration of your working life (white-collar poverty).

Employment opportunities are scarce across all age groups, including those over-qualified graduates. You live in fear of not finding a job, being unable to keep it, ending on the dole, failing to make ends meet and falling onto hard times. There is no self-sufficiency, no financial independence in the picture; loans, mortgages, debts chain you down further. When unemployed/ on low pay, the State takes care of you with little subsidy it provides, putting you in that shadow category, outside the world of workforce. Volatility in the workplace and the depressed economy translate a lack of durability; retail shops open and close fast. The retail institutions that have survived one generation are becoming a rare commodity.

Lack of self-sufficiency, no sense of belonging, constant fear and discomfort are by-products of transience.


 *  Planned Obsolescence:  This good old trick that kicked in with Henry Ford in the 1920s is what keeps the production/ consumption machine oiled up to the hilt. It goes hand in hand with the fickleness of fashion and fast-moving trends that play right in the hand of disposability, and genuine technological progress whose pace has accelerated in recent years. Shorter lifespans and shelf lives, and little to no staying power... Even couture designers like ex-Dior's Raf Simons are burning out, complaining about the frenetic pace of the catwalk and fast turnover of fashion collections.

When you are on a constant move and feel you are playing catch up all the time, this unanchored, unsettled state is called transience.

Spend, spend, spend! Gucci Spring Summer 2017 Set, via Gucci's Instagram account

 *  Transhumanist Agenda:  Transhumanism is the science that correlates human and machine via AI (Artificial Intelligence). It demonstrates how technology is set to benefit us by increasing our mental, intellectual and physical performance with bionic aids, and in certain ways triggering our brain to think like a machine. Multi-lingual websites that are machine-translated subtly but surely show a facet of the transhumanist bias.

Transportation, media, telecommunications and information technology have transformed our lives beyond compare over the last 30 years. Meanwhile social media, a relatively new kid on the block, has already deeply changed our ways of communicating and interacting with others. Besides the treatment of information has taken on a strong transience bias. Instant messaging/ posting puts you right in the moment for the moment. The present has a very short, fleeting - even fickle - window of operation and lifespan. Through our technology-driven communications, we are bombarded with so much information that our attention span is continuously challenged and titillated by other facts to consume fast without time for a thought. We end up being present within a very short timeframe before being challenged and veered off a tangent again. Not forgetting the idiosyncracies of technological progress that keep us on our toes: constant updates and upgrades, forcing us to forever having to adapt to the latest version of an app or programme. This may be a given if you are a teen or young adult, less so for your parents and grandparents!

We are literally drowning in an-ever expanding sea of news, visual distraction and solid ambient noise. Information is fed through technology, at the mercy of it being tampered with, manipulated, updated, upgraded, unplugged. Transience is right at home there!

Interstate 30 East of Dallas, for Portland Cement Association (1960), by Stan Galli, via Plan59

 *  Emperiled National Sovereignty:  Open-border policy and its resulting engineered mass migration is the thorn in the side of the West right now. It acts as the wide-scale resettlement of an uncapped number of individuals (in their millions) allegedly fleeing war-torn, poverty-ridden countries (otherwise classified as emerging countries, Third World). They are essentially relocated to Western countries, which are economically richer, deemed politically stable, and with a welfare system in place.

Migration is a spur-of-the-moment, open-door policy that prides itself in being unchartered - and seemingly unregulated. The modern day migrants are mostly driven, angry young Muslim men, wearing fashion attire and technology-equipped. They land upon our shores with an erased past, a low IQ, high expectations and no expressed desire to integrate. No proof of ID required (which would technically have them qualified as illegals or refugees except they're not), and not a penny to their name. I shall add:-

When you erase someone's history, you undress them from the riches and depths of family, tradition, heritage, culture, self-worth, identity. You uproot them, cut the anchors. You isolate them from their true self. Someone without history is not free and grounded; they are transient in their body, mind and spirit, on a quest to find out their origins, their true selves. When you erase their history, you are left with a blank canvas. You may rewrite it for them, remould it as you see fit. This doesn't serve the individual, it serves the global agenda, which is all about short-term memory, superficiality, and transience.

This incentivised mass population relocation is coordinated by a plethora of super-connected NGOs and not-for-profits financed by benevolent philanthropic elite corporations and tax-exempt foundations (The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Clinton Foundation, George Soros's MoveOn.Org and Open Societies Foundation, etc.). What have they in common? They are New World Order and work in unison for a global socio-economic and political model that will fathom a rootless, pastless and futureless populace living in the moment for the moment. Transience in all its grace and glory!

Dissected/ Distorted reality? Matrix LED Screen, via MoMA Store

This forced multi-culturalism of sorts that is being expedited under globalisation personifies transience in modern society. It shakes up by its very essence the host countries' fabric in terms of republican, secular and religious values, national identity, safety, homogeneity and unity to the core. Regardless of political affiliation, one must admit that migration in its current high numbers is not sustainable, and neither is this extended transience in itself. Meanwhile the natives feel invisible and unheard, as all sorts of eccentric, unreasonable demands are placed upon them by their increasingly undemocratic governments, in order to force them to surrender their nation to the global agenda that lies ahead, as the EU is increasing its governance over our lives - and we have no word in edgeways on the matter.

As for us indigenous populations of the West, we have to be/ remain mobile - transient - within our own countries, for work or personal purposes and it could take most of our adulthood before we are finally able to settle down in one place. Rural exodus is not a trend of the past. After peaking through the Industrial Revolution and the 20th century, it is set to carry on depleting the countryside. As a direct consequence, cities are soaring, a trend that is encouraged under Agenda 21. This uprootedness is symptomatic of transience.

"Man without history, culture, nation, family and civilisation is not free: he is naked and condemned to despair." - French Canadian sociologist Mathieu Bock-Côté (translated from French)

P.S: Note the difference between migration and (legal) immigration. Legal immigrants move from their country of origin or residence to a new specific country where they settle down with their family. There is an immigration protocole for them to follow in order to become part of the local society: for example, visa, application for residence and Green Card if in America. On the other hand, migration is an open model of immigration without a roadmap or demand, uncommitted to responsibility, including that of integration, and who whimsically follows the pick-and-choose-a-country formula as it is presented to them. Migrants are the no-history, no-fixed-abode and no-fixed-destination travellers with the risks that such can bring: social misfits, drifters. Note the Houdini trick here: illegal immigration has been cleverly merged into migration. This legalises and legitimises illegals instantly and automatically (cf. Paradigm Shifts section).

P.P.S: Nomadic tribes are not technically classified as transient because their nomadism is a pillar of their society structure. They have a history, culture, way of life that revolves around travel, follows a specific habitual pattern, in relation to seasons, transhumance (seasonal migration of herds and humans from lowlands to the mountains), customs and traditions, availability of produce, and trade. Their nomadism is no aimless wander.

The steady unrelenting erosion of national sovereignty paves the way for globalism, a paragon of transience all to itself as its aim is to level down all countries to a pre-made model, where we will be formatted to think the same, speak the same, dress the same, live the same, behave the same and essentially be the same. This Orwellianism has become a feat of realism as it is already happening right before our very eyes. History is erased or constantly readjusted: yesterday's truth is today's lie.

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Transience, Pillar of Modern Society is a 3-part series:  Part 1  |  Part 2  |  Part 3