Month: February 2011

A French view on town criers

· Leave a comment ·

Since moving to West Dorset this Frenchie hears “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” at many local events of note (and I must say I couldn’t believe my ears that you should use old French, again).

I assumed that town criers had just never disappeared in England. A bit of research when I posted my photo of David Craner, our local loud voice, proved I was wrong.

Ancient and Honourable

The first thing I came across on the net was the ahgtc (Ancient and Honourable Guild of Town criers). They have a website where I was hoping to find out how many town criers there are and a bit of history.

‘Latest news’ section was not quite what I had in mind. The fact that town criers can rent their loud services to private firms to advertise their wares or events in a theatrical way was not spelt out anywhere that I could find.

Instead, this is what I found:
19th February 2011
John Thomas had died.
8th January 2011
Eric Watsham has died.
And so it continued.

I suppose the Guild is there mainly for their members so to honour their lost friends is fair enough, even admirable. The poem that accompanies the obituaries is very touching. The Guild also claims to help with the marketing of Town Criers but I must say that they do not seem to be doing this in a traditional 21st century way. Then again, what did I expect?

In fact, the most informative website I could find is our own David Craner (for Crewkerne and Beaminster) the first town crier I ever came across. There are 220 town criers in Britain mainly representing towns and cities (although sometimes Lords of the Manor as well).

When I last spoke to David he explained that he hoped to go to France to promote the art of ‘crieur public’. I understand he has been approved by the twinning associations so he is a step closer to getting there. Town criers may have spread William the Conqueror’s laws and news after 1066, they have pretty much disappeared in France.

There is a small revival but they are mainly volunteers in city centres, spreading private love messages, recipes (this is France!) and community events that locals ‘post’ in their box or cage, found in the local convenience store or café. Some have links to tourist offices but unlike in this country, they are not linked to civil events and Councils.

It is interesting that daily newspapers (and literacy) should have been the reason for the disappearance of town criers. A revival in town criers cannot be linked to the drop in sales of newspapers but nonetheless, I can’t help but smile at old fashioned ways coming back to entertain us and local papers struggling to find ways to inform us.

I wonder, should newspapers employ town criers to read excerpts of their news and entice people to buy the papers?

Can you hear it? “Read all about it!”

For a history of town criers, you can visit David Craner’s website:
http://www.davidcranertowncrier.co.uk/History.html

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!

Oyez! Oyez! Les Anglais ont 220 crieurs publics

· Leave a comment ·

et ils commencent souvent leur harangue par ces mots, parvenus en Angleterre par le biais de notre cher Guillaume le Conquérant en 1066.

La renaissance des crieurs

Tout comme en France les crieurs publics avaient disparus avec l’arrivée des journaux. Dans les années 80, il y a eu en Grande-Bretagne un engouement pour les films d’époque et une certaine nostalgie pour le bon vieux temps, alors que le pays se transformait sous la main forte de la dame de fer.

Ceci étant dit, les Anglais adorent se déguiser. Point. Toute excuse pour se parer de costumes d’époque, même si l’audience n’est que de quelques dizaines de villageois, est bonne. Les crieurs n’ont peut être pas d’énormes chapeaux en fourrure comme les Gardes Royaux (heureusement pour les ours) mais ils ont un tricorne et s’habillent de façon à ce qu’on les remarque.

Qui dit crieur dit ville

Au début 2011, la Grande-Bretagne compte 220 crieurs publics. Ils sont en fait des ‘crieurs de ville’ et ne peuvent s’appeler town criers que ceux qui sont reconnus par leur mairie. Ils appartiennent à l’Ancienne et Honorable Guilde des Crieurs de Ville. Certains crient pour plusieurs villes. La plupart crient en privé aussi, pour arrondir les fins de mois. En fait, ils sont souvent volontaires, à la retraite et ce sont les événements privés qui leur permettent de continuer à crier.

Notre crieur local, David Craner (town crier pour Beaminster et Crewkerne), dont la voix porte fort loin, essaie de trouver des sponsors pour venir présenter ce ‘métier’ quelque peu bizarre et pourtant si vieux à nos petits écoliers par le biais de l’association de jumelage.

Crierons nous plus en France?

Moi je dis bravo. Dans notre monde ou les ordinateurs envahissent notre vie sociale sans que nous nous en rendions compte, requinquer une tradition de recevoir des nouvelles de vive voix me plait bien.

Fast-food a fait naître slow-food, peut être que les crieurs publics, éteints par les journaux, vont faire renaitre les nouvelles. ‘Live’, pour de vrai.

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!

Voulez vous visiter le Dorset?

· Leave a comment ·

If a French persons wants to visit Dorset and speaks English, they’ll be fine when they try and find information on the net. Just about. But what if a French traveller prefers to search for his holiday on the net in French? After all, it’s pretty likely. He may write ‘visiter dorset’ on google.fr. He’ll find this site (Pardon my Franglais) in 5th place before visit-dorset and dorset-newforest.

South East equals South West?
When I searched ‘visiter angleterre dorset’ dorset-newforest came first, tripAdvsior second, South-East Visit England third. I know, non sensical: South-East is not a typing error on my part. Pardon my Franglais comes 8th. Destination Dorset is not on the first page. I didn’t bother with the second page, most Google searchers don’t.

Attitude problem?
To think that Pardon my Franglais has been created for my random ramblings, does not get updated regularly, does not get many hits yet gets views from French people searching for a holiday in Dorset (and how to eat cheese in England) confirms something I already knew. English speaking people have a language attitude problem. I should know, I’ve lived here for over 20 years now.

English, the only language in the world?
If England is finally going to invest time, money and effort into tourism to show the rest of the world what a beautiful country this is (and what an outstanding county Dorset is), it may be time you lovely Brits realised that not everybody speaks English.
You can convince yourself (and many French speaking people) that your language is the first in the world. After all, Americans have done a good job of imposing their cinema even in France or insisting on international meetings begin held in English (how fair would you find them in French?) but that does not mean that they (and you) have succeeded in killing the other main languages altogether.

Who is losing out?
Is it not a shame to miss out on a huge market of French speaking (and Spanish speaking) potential customers? The only time British people speak to me in French is when they’ve had a few drinks. The other thing that often comes up after a few pints is how the British had a great empire (unlike the French of course). Living in the past does not always help the future.

Welcome, bienvenue, willkomen, blablabla
When will tourism professionals realise that languages are an important part of a service like hospitality and tourism? From the web searches of potential clients to the welcome of the staff. How nice is it when you travel and the waiter greets you in English? Do you take that for granted?
I am yet to go to a restaurant in England with my French speaking father and get any help from a waiter in translating a menu for him. I find my dictionary heavy in my handbag and waiting for my phone to connect and give me the answer really frustrating.
When in France, if I have to translate for my husband, there’s a good chance I’ll get some help if I get stuck, sometimes without asking.
When in Morocco, they’ll try in both languages, for good measure.

Food for French thoughts.

How reliable is TripAdvisor?

· Leave a comment ·

I read with interest a review for the Wild Garlic restaurant in Beaminster on Trip Advisor from georgeporgepuddingpie. George could be a woman called Georgina but as the ‘reviewer’ did not leave a real name, I’ll assume it is a male George and call him ‘he’ to ponder on the veracity of his claims.

I swear it’s true, or is it?

George claims to be a local who parked behind the restaurant and heard what can only be Mat (Follas, BBC Masterchef winner, who runs the Wild Garlic) swear and bad mouth his staff.

You can’t really park directly behind the Wild Garlic. There is a private parking area but it stands closer to the Pizza place. Was it Mat he heard? Did he really hear anybody swear?

He saw “one of the men in chefs white buying pastry from the Coop”. Did they have Wild Garlic written on their whites? Was this man in whites working for the chippie, the Pizza place or the Chinese? Was he buying a bit of pastry for his wife before the rush of evening service?

Does family man = children’s menu?

“To say Mat was a family man, I was shocked not to see a childrens menu“. What did he expect? Fish and chips, sausage and chips or burger and chips?

Of course georgeporgepuddingpie is totally entitled to dislike the Wild Garlic or any other establishment. He can have a problem with Mat and his Kiwi ways -supporting the wrong rugby team and all that. After all, Mat is somewhat famous and we know that celebrity status can bring positive and negative consequences in its wake.

Give the chef a chance

The thing is, if the food was cold, why did our anonymous reviewer not send it back? If the mash was unseasoned, did he tell the chef? Why do English people often sit there, say nothing and pay the bill? Why do they not give the business a chance to make amends when there is a problem with the product or the service?

To write an anonymous review on Trip Advisor about a local restaurant is not only cowardly, it sends a very negative message to the world about the local town. If we’ve eaten there, said our bit to the owner and nothing’s changed, then yes, we should review what we thought was a problem for all to see. I bet georgeporgepuddingpie does not run a B&B or a shop.

Are you being serious?

Thankfully for the Wild Garlic, Beaminster and the area, any foodie reading georgeporgepuddingpie’s review is unlikely to take it seriously. As with many Trip Advisor’s reviews with titles like “DISGUSTING !!!” and only one entry from the ‘reviewer’, it doesn’t take much imagination to read between the lines: “I have a hidden agenda”. Whatever that may be.

User generated content websites and personal grudges

The problem is, not everybody knows how to use a ‘user-generated content website’. If there is only one review and no profile, how do you know that the reviewer likes the same things you do? All the same, these often personal grudges are there for all to see, leaving a doubt in the reader’s mind.

The consequences can be very negative for a business; which is exactly what these ‘reviewers’ are looking for. I cannot help but wonder whether the Georges of this world run a business themselves or are always Perfect. Should have called himself Peter.

Is this the way forward for English hotel rating?

There are talks at the moment that the government is thinking about getting rid of the star rating from Visit Britain. The likes of TripAdvisor could replace this costly system.

This little example should be food for thought.