Break open the Bolly to fight the flu

"Feed a cold and starve a fever" goes the saying familiar to many of us.

Regardless whether it's true or not there is apparently a way to treat cold and flu symptoms that might - to say the very least - appear somewhat unorthodox, if not a little decadent.

With this season's number of flu cases in France now having reached the epidemic threshold as defined by the Groupe régional d'observation de la grippe (with the entirely appropriate acronym of Grog) it comes as a timely reminder perhaps that there is a way to beat the bug.

Well at least, according to the French health website Top santé.com, there's a surefire trick for dealing with the symptoms and aiding recovery.

It's a recipe, in all senses of the word, plucked from the pages of Remèdes de famille : Se soigner malin et naturel de A à Z by Henry Puget.


And it involves imbibing a glass of the fizzy stuff.

That's right, Champagne, albeit warm.

Just before bedtime apparently, you should pour one glass of bubbly into a saucepan, add two sugar lumps and bring to the boil.

Allow it to cool before drinking and drift off into the Land of Nod.

At this point you might be thinking a number of things. Firstly that Puget is something of a "Quack" out to make a quick Euro or two.

But rest assured he's a bona fide general practitioner living in Paris who, as the blurb tells us, "has been treating patients and successfully offering advice for the past 30 years by combining high tech with natural therapies."

And to cast aside any doubts you might have about the efficacy of the recipe (bearing in mind that it's not so far removed from a traditional rum-based grog) it works because "after drinking you'll sweat a lot throughout the night as the chemical action of the components of champagne mixed with sugar neutralise toxins from the cold or flu."

So if you feel a slight tickle in the throat or an aching in the joints, you know what to do.

Don't plunder the medicine cabinet for a bottle of linctus.

Instead follow the "natural" way of Dr Puget's advice and do as Ab Fab"s Edina and Patsy would without any hesitation.

Break open the Bolly!

A bottle of Bollinger (image from Wikipedia, author - Manchester2k6

Cheers.

French strikes - pensions and Champagne

Yes there is a link between the two; admittedly a little tenuous perhaps.

Strikes protesting the French government's pension reform plans are almost guaranteed to make the headlines here in France on Thursday.

But there's also another labour dispute that hasn't really grabbed too much media attention.

It involves one of this country's most famous drinks - champagne - and one of the best-known names at home and abroad Piper-Heidsieck.

Employees at Piper-Heidsieck have been on strike for the best part of a week now over plans by its parent company, Rémy Cointreau, to cut around 40 jobs from a workforce of 160.

It's a reaction to a reportedly poor company performance in 2009 and the need to "redress the balance through restructuring".

The timing of the strike couldn't be more awkward or delicate for the company as it comes right at the beginning of the annual grape harvest.

But a spokesman for the directors has reportedly insisted that, "There would no impact on the business".

As the national daily Aujourd'hui en France - Le Parisien commented, "Who said champagne wasn't being touched by the recession?"

photograph author, Jon Sullivan/PDPhoto.org from source

That strike of course will be overshadowed by yet another day of action over the government's pension reforms, and in particular plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.

Public transport services in particular are likely to be disrupted, not just in Paris, but throughout the country, in what promises to be another fun-thrilled day for those trying to make their way to work...and then back home again.

There are the usual warnings from SNCF, the country's railway operator, with a breakdown of the services likely to be hit and kind of delays everyone can expect.

And for those trying to get around the French capital, perhaps it's a good idea to check out the RATP site.

Parisian bunnies on the move

All right so it might not be the news to end all news but hey, sometimes the lighter stories in life also need to be told.

And this one comes to you courtesy of the local authority in Paris, which has found a more compassionate solution (of sorts) to the overpopulation of rabbits in one of the city's famous parks, the Bois de Boulogne.

Now put away all thoughts of Watership Down or cute and cuddly creatures with big floppy ears and a loveable if cheeky character à la Beatrix Potter's Peter and his three sisters Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail.

The rabbits in the Bois de Boulogne, even though they're part of the park's natural fauna, were becoming a "nuisance" as they had no natural predators and apparently the little critters had been breeding like...well rabbits, and the result?

Their number had reached a critical appoint according to the local authority, an estimated eight times more than the local vegetation could support which also left the total bunny population more fragile and predisposed to illness.

So the Powers that Be came up with a bright idea. Rather than culling, which might have been the easiest and more usual way of dealing with the problem, they called in the experts - l’Association de Lutte Contre les Espèces Invasives et Nuisibles (ALCEIN).

The plan was simple. Capture as many rabbits as possible - alive - and relocate them to another part of France, where there's supposedly a bunny shortage.

Association members, along with the help of the odd ferret or two, got down to business last week and successfully captured a grand total of 129.

Capture des lapins au bois de Boulogne
by mairiedeparis

Mission accomplished, the rabbits then spent a few days "behind bars" - oh all right then, in an enclosure of 50m2 - followed by a vaccination against myxomatosis before being moved into artificial burrows for a bit of R 'n R.

Next up is a trip to the Champagne region of France - about 200 kilometres away - not for a nip of the areas famous tipple, but instead to be released back into the wild.

So 129 happy bunnies who've escaped the threat of extermination in the nation's capital and instead they can hop away to their heart's content in the French countryside - until the hunting season starts presumably!