Happy Mothers Day - from France

Those of you in other parts of the world may well be scratching your heads at the moment, thinking that I've got my dates mixed up.

But I haven't, as Sunday (June 7) was indeed Mother's Day in France.

Mind you, anyone living here could be forgiven for being more than a little bewildered.

Most years (in France) it falls on the last Sunday in May (which would have been last weekend) unless that happens to be Pentecost in which case it's pushed back a week.

And that of course is exactly what has happened this year.

Still Confused? Well perhaps there's a good reason to be.

The problem is that there's no one single day set aside internationally to pay tribute to what's often described as one of the most thankless and least appreciated jobs on the planet.

Just looking at when different countries "celebrate" or "remember" or "pay tribute" shows maybe how out of step we are with one another.

This year for example in Norway apparently it fell on February 8.

Back home (for me) in Britain it's always the fourth Sunday in Lent - which was March 22 this year.

In North America and a whole chunk of Europe - including Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands - along with many other countries throughout the world such as Australia, Brazil, Pakistan and South Africa to name but a few - it was as it always is, the second Sunday of May (10).

In fact rather than list every single place in the world, I would be better off providing a link to wikipedia - so so here you are.

When my mother was alive and I lived in Germany, I (understandably perhaps) got into a right pickle trying to remember the date back "home".

She insisted that it didn't matter if I forgot, but deep down I knew she was dead chuffed when I remembered.

Mind you, she had to put up with some of the most horrendous gifts down the years, especially when I was a young.

Encouraged by teachers I would put a rather dubious artistic bent to full use and pitch up with a painting resembling.....well very little really apart from colour splattered on paper.

Or, if I had been allowed to watch Blue Peter (a long-running BBC television programme for children), she was presented with a useless piece of nothing made from plastic bottles, egg cartons and sticky-backed plastic.

Eventually I moved on from "art" and one year - I must have been around 10 years old - I put what I thought were burgeoning culinary skills to use and my poor mother's tastebuds to the test when I decided to tackle a 10-egg (yep you read correctly) pancake complete with several tablespoons full of.....salt (rather than sugar - far too high a quantity of anything in any case).

I realised my mistake before the monstrosity made its way to the table, and in an effort to compensate emptied the best part of a container of pepper into the mixture.

My childlike logic told me that pepper would cancel out the effect of salt - I clearly wasn't the brightest spark.

My ma, when she finally made it down to the smoke-filled kitchen (which of course she would later have to clear up) showed stoicism, patience and the utmost love as well as a huge amount of courage in both praising my gastronomic stomach-turner and even attempting to eat (some of it).

Teenage years saw a return to "art" of sorts (I clearly never learnt from my earlier efforts) with a selection of wooden "thises" and metal "thats" from craft classes, ranging from a chopping board, a cheese grater (she proudly kept it until she died, although I never saw her use it) and a blunt knife. Oh yes, I was full of thoughtful presents.

With hindsight it must have come as something of a relief (to her) when I started earning and actually bought presents - although unimaginatively perhaps I stuck to chocolates and flowers - a safe bet.

Anyway this post - and just as importantly the accompanying video* (the former is also an excuse to share the latter with you) is to tell my ma, wherever she might be, "Thank you" and to pass on belated reminder to those in France who might have forgotten and whose mothers are still around that Sunday was Mothers Day.

And hey, even in those countries where it wasn't officially Mother's day, how about turning around all the same and telling them just how much you love 'em.

* The accompanying (probably timeless) video is a rendition of a song with lyrics written and originally performed by the US comedian Anita Renfroe set to the music of the finale of Rossini's William Tell Overture.

It's fast, furious and has something of a ring of truth to it.

Sarkozy's D-Day diplomatic faux pas or outright snub to Queen?

June 6 marks the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

There'll be a special ceremony hosted by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, with the guest of honour being his US counterpart, Barack Obama.

Not present however will be Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.

She hasn't been officially "invited".

Over the past week sections of the British press have worked themselves into something of a tizzy over the lack of an invitation with the tabloids of course initially interpreting it as a "snub to the Queen"

The British monarch was reported to be "fuming", a claim later countered by Buckingham Palace officials and the British ambassador to France, Sir Peter Westmacott, who denied on French national radio speculation that the Queen was ""upset"".

After Luc Chatel, a spokesman for the French government, said the Queen would "naturally" be welcome as the British head of state, the tone in the media across the channel changed somewhat.

"French D-Day surrender: Sarkozy makes U-turn and says Queen IS welcome at 65th anniversary," ran the headline in the Daily Mail in an article insisting that the French had caved in to the apparent "fury" there had been back in Britain over the failure to issue an official invitation.

That probably wasn't quite what Chatel had meant as he had also made it clear that the ceremony on June 6 was primarily a Franco-American one and that it had been up to British and not French officials to decide who would represent their country.

In other words, the fault lay fairly and squarely with the British government and the prime minister, Gordon Brown, to whom the invitation had been extended in the first place.

And so the story rumbled on. Of course the Queen's diary is not exactly one which allows a great deal of flexibility, with reportedly up to six months needed to prepare for events abroad.

So with just days before the ceremony was due to take place it was unlikely that she would be able to attend.

But a last-minute solution has been found, in the form of Prince Charles, who is apparently due to attend instead.

So who's to blame for what has after all been rather a messy diplomatic mix-up?

Maybe the kindest explanation would be that it was a simple faux pas on the part of the French president and his advisors or at the very least a clumsy lack of communication between French and British officials.

Maybe the fault lies with Downing Street and the British government, with someone, somewhere not doing their job.

But somehow it's hard not to feel that France should have "known better".

The Queen is after all the only serving head of state to have actually served (as a mechanic) in the war.

And saying that the ceremony is "primarily a Franco-American one", would surely seem to be more than a little insulting to the memory of those British (and other nationalities) who played their part in the D-Day landings, as well as compounding an error that should never have occurred in the first place.

Perhaps when all is said and done, the British media wasn't so far off the mark and the whole sorry tale was indeed an outright snub on the part of Sarkozy, who - if one were feeling less than generous - could be seen as preferring and hoping to bask in the glory of playing host to the US president without a possible shadow being cast over him by the presence of the British monarch.

Rachida Dati - set to music

It's often said that politics and sport shouldn't be mixed, but when it comes to politics and music it would seem - at least here in France - it's another matter altogether.

Proof if it were needed is the latest buzz surrounding a video posted on the Net just over a week ago; a love song dedicated to none other than the country's justice minister, Rachida Dati.

It comes courtesy of the French rapper, Dirty Dahn, and his sidekick Richie Rich, and the pair have come up with what is to all intents and purposes a (French) remake of another video posted on YouTube back in 2007 in which a young woman rather seductively lip-synched her way through "I Got A Crush...On Obama".

This time around though it's "Amoureux de Rachida" and while Dati might not be in the same league, politically-speaking, as the US president, since first appearing on the Net the clip has already received more than 130,000 hits.

The timing couldn't be better. With the European parliamentary elections due on June 7, Dati will give up her current day job if as expected she's elected.

Amoureux de Rachida
Uploaded by dirty-dahn. - Explore more music videos.

Dati, you might remember, was on paper at least, a pretty smart choice when she was appointed justice minister back in June 2007.

She was the first person, let alone woman, of North African origin to hold a top government post and she was seen as a symbol of just about everything the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy could wish for as he set about the task of "remodelling" the political landscape of the country.

But she has had a pretty tough time of it over the past two years. Even though there has been general political support from all quarters for the need for reform of the antiquated French justice system, Dati has been lambasted for total incompetence by many within the profession and her office has haemorrhaged staff.

She has been criticised for her high-fashion profile, regular appearances on the front pages of weekly glossy magazines, and being a spendthrift.

Once a close aide and confidante of the French president (and his former wife, Cécilia) Dati gradually fell out of favour, and the last straw seemed to be her highly-publicised pregnancy; she isn't married and has refused to name the father of her daughter, born in January.

Dati's now standing for election to the European parliament as number two on the list for Ile de France (the region of Paris and its surrounding area) for the governing centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) party.

It wasn't exactly a "choice" with which she appeared thrilled, leaving the domestic political arena for the European one, and was widely perceived as a decision Sarkozy forced upon her.

And Dati's lack of enthusiasm appears to have been reflected in the run-up to the election, during which she has been less than convincing on the campaign stump.

Since putting in a much-criticised appearance at a question-and-answer session at a meeting of young members of the UMP back in May when she seemed to many to have only an iffy grasp of European issues, Dati has taken a relatively low profile in the campaign.

But that hasn't deterred Dahn.

Although there has been no official response to the latest musical "tribute" from Dati herself, it's perhaps somehow fitting that a woman who has seemingly thrived on publicity during her two-year tenure as justice minister, should leave office with the words of true "appreciation" ringing in her ears with Dahn hoping maybe for a speedy return with, "J'espère que l'on va se voir bientôt."

Ah where would we all be without the Internet?