Friday’s French music break - Alma, “Requiem"

And so the decision has been made. Alma will represent France at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Kiev in May with the song “Requiem”.

None of the beating about the bush, endless domestic competitions or public voting to determine who would fly the tricolor. No, that’s not France’s style.

Instead it was a simple announcement by the public service broadcaster France 2, that Alma (Alexandra Maquet) would represent the country.

Alma (screenshot “Requiem” official video)

Flushed with the “success” of last year’s sixth-placed finish (yes only the French could deem sixth as a “success”) all hopes are that Alma will be able to go one - or even five - better than the 2016 contribution from Amir (Haddad), “J'ai cherché”.

Keeping to a tried and trusted recipe (sort of) “Requiem” has been written by  Nazim Khaled, the very same person who composed the 2016 entry and who has penned a number of hits for the likes of former Voice winner Kendji Girac such as “Andalouse” and “Conmigo”  or Popstars’ season 2 (2002) participant - and now mainstay of the French music scene - Chimène Badi with “Mes silences”.

So, Khaled’s ability to write a catchy little ditty isn’t really in doubt, even if “Requiem” reflects the same sort of musical heritage as many of the hits he wrote for Girac (Spanish-gypsy-north African flavours) and has just the slightest hint of Belgium’s electro-pop music maestro, Stromae to it.

The weak link perhaps will be the 28-year-old Alma’s ability to perform. She doesn’t have the greatest of voices (on reflection, maybe not a pre-requisite for doing well at Eurovision) and, as you can see from her live performance during Ukraine’s televised national final to determine its representative, lacks stage presence.

All that set aside,

The omens are good(ish) even if the song isn’t particularly (and since when did that matter at Eurovision) and  2017 could well prove to be France’s year.

The presidential election campaign (how on Earth did that make its way into a piece about “music” - stretching a point is what it’s called) has been pulling the attention of political pundits from around the world. That’s a rare occurrence during the campaign stage and perhaps due to the presence of a) the far-right Front National’s Marine Le Pen and her chances of making it through to the second-round run-off, b) the dour refusal by the right’s candidate François Fillon to admit there was anything wrong earlier in his career in employing family members - wife and children - as parliamentary assistants for the modest sum of almost €900,000 and c) the 39-year-old golden boy of the moment Emmanuel Macron, who has never held a politically-elected position in his life but has quickly become the “darling of the nation”.

Then there’s the chance of Paris being awarded the 2024 Summer Olympics. All right, so it has at least a 50 per cent chance as there are only two cities (Los Angeles being the other one) left in the race. And, if it doesn’t convince International Olympic Committee members in the September 2017 announcement in Lima, it could still see itself appointed as the 2028 host city - although that remains but a rumour.

Something that is more than speculation and indeed a fact, is the country’s triumph at Miss Universe 2017. That title was claimed by the 24-year-old Iris Mittenaere, Miss France 2016, in February although it somehow slipped under the radar of the French president, François Hollande, who neglected to send his congratulations or even acknowledge the win.

Mittenaere though, along with Amir’s “success” (really, the inverted commas are obligatory), Khaled’s songwriting “skills” and Alma’s “singing” talents all bode well for possible victory in Kiev…n’est ce pas?

Cough, cough. Splutter. “Enjoy”.

World Cup fever - let's get a grip

What is it with football?

Yes the World Cup - warts (Fifa) and all - is a major sporting event.

There's no doubting that.

But really, does it mean our elected leaders can afford to forget the really important things happening in the world to ride - albeit briefly - the crest of the feelgood wave they hope might somehow benefit them?

Russia reduces its gas supply to Ukraine "raising the possibility of disrupted transit of gas to Europe" and a difficult winter ahead if things aren't sorted.

And what are our illustrious leaders up to?

Well, the German chancellor Angela Merkel hot-footed it over to Brazil to watch "die Mannshaft" make clinical mincemeat of Portugal (with a little help from an imploding Pepe early into the game)

Back in France as the country limps through its economic muddle, now complete with the inevitable industrial ("non") action from SNCF employees and les intermittents du spectacle, how did the president François Hollande spend his time during Les Bleus' opening game?

He ostentatiously invited 200 people (and the cameras) to la salle des fêtes at the Elysée palace to gawp ("with collective passion") at a giant screen as France ran out victorious over mighty Honduras in their first match.

Giant screen at the Elysée palace (screenshot BFM TV)

Oh well. Winter is months away, so why should politicians care about gas supplies right now?

Perhaps the football commentators will help jog their memories by broaching the subject during Russia's first game against South Korea on Tuesday!

Nigeria kicked off its tournament on Monday with a thrilling 0-0 draw against Iran, and in the meantime the 200 or so missing schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram in April are still being held hostage. They've been located apparently, but still haven't been freed.

Never mind. Who gives a damn anyway?

French TV news reports spend an inordinate amount of time analysing and speculating on the Les Bleus' chances, interviewing individual French players and managers - past and present - wheeling in the "experts" to give their opinions and asking the man and the woman in the street what they think.

And at the same time Sunni Islamist militants have taken control of Iraq's second city Mosul and are now approaching Baghdad.

The world watches - says little and does nothing as the focus of media attention seems to be elsewhere.

And that "elsewhere" of course is Brazil - the host country, profiting from the glory and the money it's not going to make and the prestige the whole tournament will bring as an answer to its social problems.

Just ask South Africa, the host of the 2010 tournament.

Don't get me wrong. I love the so-called beautiful game. But I also care about other things.

And a World Cup which is as much about business and displays of exaggerated patriotism (whatever that might be) as it is sport, surely simply deflects attention away from those other things that really matter.

Sexy "blow job" commercial - soft porn, fun or simply sexist?

Smutty probably isn't the right word to describe the latest advertising spot that went online just a week ago and is, according to the national daily Libération, under attack from some French feminists for being sexist.

(screenshot of 11footballclub commercial)

Soft porn would be nearer the mark as once again a company is creating a stir by using that age-old advertising tool to sell - sex.

It's for 11footballclub, a French online store specialising in football garb - mainly the sort you can wear - and which is planning to open its first retail outlet shortly in the western French city of Nantes.

Time then for a spot of publicity - anything will do, as long as it gets the company noticed and everyone talking about it.

And the commercial certainly does that.

It features a sexy (of course) red headed woman on her knees apparently - so the ambiguity of the camera angle would have you believe - about to give a man oral sex.

Of course that's what you're meant to think because as the camera pans out out you see that in fact she's helping a customer try on a pair of shoes.

There are the customary sexual groans and moans (because the shoes are too tight - naturally) , very little dialogue (after all who needs it in erotica) and mood-setting background music.

Highly creative - not.

It's meant to be amusing, as Benoît Defois, co-manager of the company told the free daily newspaper 20 minutes.

"The message of the ad isn't to denigrate women, but just to say we take care of our customers," he said.

"The next episode in the the series - which might run to four or five in total - could well see a man kneeling in front of a woman," he continued.

"We might release it just before the Euro 2012 (scheduled to take place in Poland and Ukraine from June 8 - July 1) to promote women's football."

Yes that would seem entirely logical.

The intended humour though isn't how one feminist group sees it.

For the Nantes-based "Collectif radical anti-sexisme et homophobie" (Crash) it's both sexist and offensive.

"We can't constantly laugh at sexism and machismo, when we know that a woman is raped every five hours in France," a member of the group told 20 minutes.

"If a black man were in the place of women, I don't think it would make many people laugh."

Judge for yourselves.

Ukraine's stray dogs - a victim of Euro 2012

Football fans will know that next year sees the finals of Euro 2012.

It's a footballing feast held every four years and a showcase for the Beautiful Game in Europe.

This time around it's being hosted jointly, by Poland and Ukraine, who together with 14 other countries will take part in the tournament.

Millions of television viewers will doubtless be glued to their screens from the kick off in the Polish capital Warsaw on June 8 to the final in the Ukraine capital Kiev on July 1.

Concerns have been voiced over the past couple of years by Uefa (Union of European Football Associations) - the game's governing body in Europe - especially about the infrastructure and progress of the scheduled venues in both countries.

But the marketing and promotion machine is now in full swing and everything looks set to kick off as scheduled.

Except in all the hullabaloo and spin in the run up to the tournament, there's one subject that hasn't been getting so much media coverage: how Ukraine is going about the job of getting rid of its stray dog problem.

Stray dog in Ukraine (screenshot from RT report)

And it is a huge issue as Russian-based RT television news recently reported.

With "tens of thousands of animals roaming the streets of the country's cities" Ukraine's stray dog population presents a health risk. People are apparently being bitten regularly and there's the risk of infection.

The solution as far as the authorities are concerned has been to "remove, kill and burn stray dogs in a mobile crematorium".

But the methods used have apparently outraged animal rights activists in Ukraine who deem the practice cruel and claim that some of the animals are still alive when they're being burnt.

They've been gathering signatures in an online petition for some time now in an effort to bring wider attention to the way in which authorities have been going about the clean-up campaign and to urge former French international and current Uefa president Michel Platini to use his influence.

And last week they were joined by the French animal charity Fondation 30 millions d'amis.

"Is the killing of thousands of animals in the most squalid conditions in keeping with the image of a world class sporting event?" asks the Fondation on it website.

The answer, as far as the charity is concerned, is clearly "no" and it has launched its own petition in an open letter to both Platini and the Ukranian president Viktor Yanukovych.

It's demanding that a stop be put to the "massacre" and a suitable sterilisation, transportation and rehoming programme be set up.

Watch the RT clip (the presenter warns that the images might be disturbing) and see what you think.

While there's little or no likelihood that Ukraine will be stripped from hosting Euro 2012 - as some animal rights activist have called for - perhaps it can be discouraged from destroying stray dogs in the way it has been doing recently.