Only in France

Today I received a letter from my bank manager here, who wanted to reassure me personally (along with all the other account holders obviously, but it was a letter addressed to me) that despite his promotion to the higher echelons of the bank, he would be sad to be leaving behind the excellent team he'd been working with. Furthermore, that he had every faith in his successor in the branch to deal with my account and any accompanying concerns professionally and efficiently.

On the one hand, this may be a prime example of the excess of bureaucracy and paper wasted that typifies French officialdom (The Other Half received exactly the same missive) but, back in the UK, the Bank of Call Centre buck-passing (too ranty? try changing your name from abroad...) no longer places any relevance on branch membership, much less the idea of a personal touch.

When we visit our branch here, we can make an appointment with the same named advisor each time (who speaks English) and the receptionist knows us by name.

I may be miscalling it to say 'only in France', but it's definitely no longer British.

Fantastic Mr Fox

Remember when you used to take a video (a video) home from Blockbuster, watch it that night, and watch it again the next day before you took it back, maybe even more than once? There wasn't a commentary, or deleted scenes, you just enjoyed the film so much you wanted to watch it one more time while you had the chance.

I don't remember the last time I did that, until today although obviously I wasn't watching anything so primitive as a video tape (it's vidayo Maigrit). I was looking forward to seeing Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox' but was also a bit apprehensive (nervous and excited at the same time, you might say) given that it is one of my all-time favourite books. Within moments of the start I was giggling, not just at the funny lines, but also in sheer delight at just how cool it is. It quickly becomes obvious that there is no one better than Anderson to adapt a Roald Dahl tale. The author's very British eccentricity combines perfectly with Anderson's very American quirkiness. All his films depict characters who are just on the edge of reality, while the dialogue is at once beautifully naturalistic and full of the kind of confident witticisms that you wish you could come up with. In the world of Anderson Mr Fox's family makes perfect sense.

Added to that is the glorious deadpanning of Bill Murray, George Clooney and Michael Gambon, beautiful lo-fi animation and a really fun soundtrack including The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones and Jarvis Cocker in a cameo role singing a song that is "just lazy songwriting", making a film that bears many many viewings; definitely one of my top five children's films. Cuss yeah!

Launchpad

I met an Austrian on Friday night who said "Ah, Aberdeen...the grey city." Insisting on 'The Silver City', I met only scepticism. But if you haven't seen it in the sun...

That exchange helped me arrive at my blog title, along with some help from Iain Crichton Smith.

Aberdeen is the home that I chose. I'm currently expatriate though, having migrated south with my other half. During the year we've been away, I've been promising myself I'll start blogging, and here I am at last, ready to record reflections on the idea of home, culture clashes, expat living, language, teaching, books, films, or anything else that might interest me. Which doesn't mean I assume it will interest anyone else!

But I aim to write relatively thoughtfully. It's often assumed that English teachers are frustrated writers. I'm not sure if that's true of me. I haven't written anything seriously since I was at school myself, so as well as being a way of letting my proches know how I'm doing, this could be a training ground for my writing skills.

Hopefully I'll sparkle...