The Golden girls

Many years ago, not quite in a previous life, I kept chickens.

Actually I'm planning to again. The "Hen palace" has been built (not by my own not-so-fair hand, I hasten to add). It was finished months ago. All that's required now are the occupants to take up residence.

But I digress.

The brood of chickens - if it can be called that - was not exactly enormous. Just four, bought from a local farmer at around seven weeks and named after the characters in that long-running US comedy show the Golden Girls: Dorothy, Sophia, Blanche and Rose.

Theirs was meant to be a long and happy free-range life but sadly for three of them it was cut short by the unwanted attentions of a couple of my cockers.

Now they might not be the brainiest dogs around (add as many exclamations marks as you wish and don't hold back on the observation that dogs apparently often resemble their owners - or vice versa) but they are on the whole loving and tender creatures.

Unfortunately as I was to discover at the cost of three of the hens, their natural hunting instincts remained intact.

It was probably my fault for not having closed the gate to the pen properly, but one day I heard an almighty excited yelping from the dastardly duo and on rounding the corner, I discovered the scene of fowl play.

Dorothy, Sophia and Blanche lay bloodied and dead on the ground. Only Rose had escaped, unharmed.

Not the most propitious start, but I couldn't leave Rose alone now, could I? So another trip to the farmer and three more hens to replace those that were no longer with us.

Meanwhile I had learnt my lesson. The new arrivals remained unnamed (just to avoid soppy attachment) and the dogs were introduced slowly to them with an ever watchful eye and a barking command should they approach too close.

Fast forward a month or so and the eggs started coming.

But something didn't seem quite right - at least not with Rose.

Was she somehow still mourning the loss of her previous three companions?

Could that be the explanation for her more guarded and slightly less friendly comportment?

Whereas the other three would happily come when called (it was the period in my life when "cluck" became a regular part of my early morning vocabulary) she held back, seemingly eyeing me up with a look of disdain.

Was it it possible, I asked myself, for chickens to show contempt? Or was I just simply anthropomorphising.

But there was something else bothering me about Rose.

She was bigger, broader and altogether more masculine looking than the others, with a comb and a wattle to match that made her appear...well, different from the others.

And then it happened.

One morning I heard the distinctive dawn crowing and it seemed to be coming from MY hen house.

I charged downstairs to let the birds out and sure enough - Rose continued her call.

"She" of course was a "he" and had been all along.

It was just my inexperienced eye that had failed to acknowledge earlier what would probably have been patently obvious to anyone else; that Rose had been missexed.

Somehow I never quite got used to the idea of Rose being a "he" although that's most definitely what she was.

She proved it all the time, defending her girls and chasing the (now fully deferential) dogs around the garden. Oh yes how the proverbial tables had turned.

Gradually though, both Rose's aggression towards anything or anyone who came near her and the demands of her sexual appetite on the other three made her something of a handful, and not one I could manage.

So with a heavy heart I decided she had to go.

Not to the pot mind you. I'm sufficiently squeamish not to be able eat something I've named and raised.

Instead Rose took early retirement with the same local farmer from whom I had bought her on condition that she be allowed to live out her days ruling the roost - just elsewhere.

So Rose, this one's in memory of you. Perhaps not entirely appropriate as there was most definitely nothing "3e sexe" about you.

Friday's French music break - Indochine, "College boy"

This week's Friday's French music break has been chosen not so much for the quality of the song - you can be the judge of what you think about that - but more for the controversy surrounding the accompanying video.

It's "College boy" the latest release from one of France's most successful rock bands, "Indochine".

In essence, the song is about the bullying experienced by a schoolboy realising that to be accepted by his peer group will be an uphill struggle, to say the least.

But the video, filmed in black and white and shot by young Canadian director, Xavier Nolan, deliberately uses violence and relies on certain clichés to get its message across.

And therein lies the heart of the controversy.

(screenshot from "College boy" video)

Writing in Nouvel Observateur, François Jost describes what happens in the video.

"The victim of bullying is a boy coming to terms with his sexuality," he writes.

"He becomes the scapegoat, is tortured by some of his classmates, spat and urinated on while others 'watch with their eyes bound'," continues Jost.

"Finally he's crucified: two bullets through the body."

While Jost insists the video is no worse (and no better) than some US films which portray violence for its own sake and that it in fact depicts to an extent a reality which exists (he gives the example of the behaviour by some in France during the recent demonstrations against same-sex marriage), others have been more critical.

"The video is simple 'trash'," says editor-in-chief for culture at Le Figaro, François Aubel.

"From the paper balls thrown at the boy by his classmates through a whole series of images until his death...even though Indochine insist they're not looking to create a scandal, the whole thing smacks of being a marketing ploy," he added, pointing out that the group will embark on a sell-out tour in the Autumn and will also play Stade de France (one of the few French acts capable of filling it) next year.

Former education minister, Luc Chatel, is none too impressed either.

"Imagine a crucifixion, imagine a murder filmed at the heart of a school. That's not acceptable," he said on national radio when asked about his reaction to the video.

"I'm not certain that the extreme violence of some of the images is the appropriate response to the issue of bullying and harassment," he added.

The Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA), the regulatory body for the media in France, is still determining whether the video is suitable for broadcast on either television or on the Net in this country, so for the moment the full version is unavailable, unless you happen to live in Canada, where it was shot.



On Le Figaro's site though you can see so-called "soft" edited portions of the video - if you really feel so inclined.

Even those images don't make easy viewing.

Maybe though, the last word on the video should be left to the group's front man, Nicola Sirkis.

"We're not looking to be censored or to create a scandal," he says.


"We just wanted to address a problem that exists.  When it's possible for a person to buy weapons on the Internet and then turn them against innocent people, it's time for some urgent and serious political thinking."