MOVING PARTS présente PAPY PAYNE

MOVING  PARTS

présente

la lecture d’un scénario de film de

Jeff  Taylor

PAPY  PAYNE

Celtic Legends Fell Feline

Since it was on in our village theatre we succumbed to temptation and forked out 25 euros to go and see Celtic Legends.

The Great British Army

Grandfather George was a cook in the Great British Army. A veteran of several campaigns with the Royal Kents in the Boer war, he was, by all accounts, a popular man. As a ten-year old child, my father, another George, was fiercely proud of his Dad in uniform. He cut such a fine figure, with his clipped moustache and row of medals along his chest, a glossy metal identification medallion hung hidden around his neck.

The Wan Zoreille

After making a brash exit from St Denis – the provincial capital of the French overseas département of La Réunion – the RN1 widens westwards into an anxious dual carriageway road, complete with worrying warning signs and dazzling danger lights. Thus alerted, it penetrates into a skinny coastal strip of strewn boulders that runs in the shadow of an imposing stand of sea-cliffs.

The Good Galleon

Stepping gingerly on Saturday around the dog dejections on the way back from La Poste, I found myself walking in the wake of an African lady. She was sheltering her considerable bulk under a multicoloured headscarf that had been wrapped about her noble prow in such a way as to make her seem taller than she really was.

The white bird’s final flight

Roy’s wife cried more tears into a flagon of grief on the day the great white bird so graceful rose for the last time into the skies.

Caramba, lumbago!

Grin and bear it señor and it will pass, that’s what I always say.  

Le dernier vol de Concorde

La femme de Roy versa une larme de plus dans le grand seau de son chagrin le jour du dernier vol du grand oiseau blanc si beau. D’ordinaire, elle n’avait plus la force de pleurer car à force de pleurer, ses yeux se sont séchés. Elle en était tout de même à son dixième seau…

Spare a Tear or Two for Sophie

This Sunday April 15, 2007, as pearls of sorrow slide damply down the chill walls of a sad morgue somewhere near Nantes, where Sophie’s lovely smile is frozen timeless in death, 4000 people walk slowly sobbing through the streets of the Breton capital.

Ethel and Officer Merde

Back in the early seventies, my French wife Jos and I spent our honeymoon working in a street market not far from St Tropez. In those days our prized possession was a battered and dirty old grey Austin minivan called Ethel (named after a battered and dirty old grey aunt of mine).

Bonjour Starbucks, Adieu la France

A decade ago the neighbourhood bistros that were an integral part of French life were one by one bought out by McDonalds as the country entered the fast-food age. McDo, as we call the chain over here in France, was quickly followed by several others and now your average Frenchman under 25 doesn’t know the difference between an entrecôte and a faux-filet. Now it is the turn of the traditional French café to bite the dust.