Sundry mumblings
On the France This Way site I have a section about ‘what people drink in France‘ so that you too can sit in a French cafe with an authentic green drink, or know how to drink pastis. And a popular little section it is too - funny the things people look for on the internet.
One of the drinks included is diabolo menthe, the green peppermint drink loved by children. Well, yesterday someone wrote to tell me that it was spelt wrong - I had called the drink diablo menthe, when it should be diabolo menthe. No big deal, it’s changed now. But the interesting thing is, when I checked in google, there are 26,000 references to the misspelt name and 94,000 to the correct name. How can 26,000 people be wrong? And if that many people are wrong, does it make it right?
Yesterday I also received an email asking for my help - a UK television company is trying to find people who were having problems with property renovation in France, or had a house they couldn’t sell in France. I get quite a lot of these type of requests, but their nature has changed over the last three to four years. Three years ago it was usually ‘we are looking for stories of happy smiling people who have successfully moved abroad’. Now it is usually ‘we are looking for miserable people trying to get back to the UK because it has all gone horribly wrong’.
Which I wouldn’t mind, but it makes you realise that what you see on the television is what they want you to see. If 90% of expats in France are happy and 10% are miserable, how will you know that, if the programme only shows the 10%? And obviously it works. A few years ago people staying in our gites would talk about their dream to live in the sun. Now they talk more of how ‘everyone is going back to England because it doesn’t work out’.
The first couple of times I received these queries I was flattered. Now I am sceptical. Mrs B got a request from a well known UK ‘female’ magazine recently, asking if they could do a feature about her interesting and challenging life, but she couldn’t be convinced either. I thought it would open all kind of doors to her - TV personality, chat show host, downshifting consultant, who knows - but I daresay she was right to refuse. Who wants fame and fortune when you’ve got a field in France.
Different subject. Somebody who I am preparing a website for was around yesterday, envious because I have broadband internet. Typically you need to live within a few kilometres of a town in France to get broadband, and he doesn’t. I don’t know how I would cope without it myself, since I like to chat away on various internet forums and discussion groups, prepare websites, and so on.
Forums are a funny thing. If you don’t know, they are places on the internet where people talk about the things they are interested in. Gardening, website design, marketing, cycling, whatever - somewhere there will be a forum for you. Now, if you don’t use the internet or belong to any forums you will surely think they are a terrible idea (as does Mrs B). Who wants to talk to lots of people they have never met and will never meet?
Well, whoever you are and wherever you live, you are not going to find 50 people in the street to give you advice about dog-grooming, search engine optimising, improving your fitness, or whatever your interest may be. And most people will fall asleep if you talk about your progress in swimming or new techniques in interior design every time you see them.
So imagine if you can a world where everyone is not only interested in the same thing as you, and wants to talk about it, but is also willing and keen to offer advice and help. Everyone is happy, everyone benefits, and you can always turn the compuer off if someone gets irritating, which is easier than asking someone to leave your house before you throttle them.
The forum I am most active on is one of the top 200 websites in the world (computer related) and has literally hundreds of people online all the time, many with new and interesting ideas and thoughts to offer. Great place.
Anyway I’m off to talk about traffic development (the big challenge of any website is to get more ‘traffic’ (visitors) - please feel free to link to this useful and interesting site; then I’ll go for a bike ride, improving my technique using the advice received from a cycling forum. Then I’ll get back to the list of tasks Mrs B has left me, if I have time.
And yes, it was somebody from a forum who saw my site and told me I had spelt diabolo menthe wrong. Have a nice day.
PS I have just updated the ‘About Mr B.’ section of the blog, because apparently that is where visitors to a blog usually start. Check it out if you want to, errr, know about Mr B.
