August 11, 2005
a culture utterly saturated with bureaucrats
The Evening Standard published my letter to them on Tuesday, the 9th of August. The Standard is the big London evening paper that all the commuters read on their way home (Click on image to enlarge etc.).
I referred to French culture as “calcifying” and “a culture utterly saturated with bureaucrats.” This is the main reason, I suspect, why blogs are so popular in France (roughly 10 times per capita as the Brits).
Though I am terribly fond of both France and the French, the young folk there seem to have fewer ways than the Yanks or Brits to express themselves. At least when it comes to being entrepreneurial. Blogs help fill the gap.
Loic, what do you think? Also, what are the chances of getting the French bloggers to try South African wine?
[AFTERTHOUGHT:] Liberty vs. Libert
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How is it like that there?
Is it just a cultural thing or political or what?
Interesting that you associate yourself with englishcut.com, rather than, say, gapingvoid.
Shameless suit pimp, that’s me
It’s more that I thought, with your ‘personal brand’ you’d be more solidly attached to gapingvoid. I can certainly see some benefits to associating with English Cut in a British paper.
I could taste some Stormhoek. And so would a number of other french bloggers I know.
That said, there is some steep hill to climb when it comes to selling foreign wines in France.
The problem is mostly because they’ve only been marketed by big stores and the like on the basis that they were “cheaper for the same quality”, or some other target-the-masses bullshit. The result is that in the french psyche, foreign wines (especially from english-speaking countries, go figure) are seen as cheap replicas instead of being worthy of a proper look and taste.
So it would be a great experiment to see how it would be if “real people” started talking about Stormhoek and its qualities; since it’s the complete opposite of the way french marketing works, so far.
(Oh, and don’t miss The Wine Blog. I’m sure Laure and other authors there could have some words to say; they’re the only french wine blog I know of.)
Courage in the Workplace — Constructive Opposition
As a consumer and producer I am responsible for what I believe, say and do. For example, as a producer, I sell enterprise blogging services to businesses. I make claims that we guarantee those services using an agreed upon outline of the services to be pr
You definitely would have no problem getting people to taste it over here… I’m afraid the screw-cap would be a major hurdle tough. We usually tend to associate that with cheap wine.
Down in New Zealand I still think screw caps are the province of cheap wine, though all the mid-to low-range brands do it now. It
Back to the original post, any thoughts on whether there is a correlation between stifling political cultures and the number of blogs? If Red China were more affluent (with more computers), it would likely be a good case study.
Isn’t Hugh’s offer to Loic a bit disingenuous to say nothing of downright blog-link-pimpery? He doesn’t ship the stuff to France, let alone Spain — where I have to endure vinegar dressed as wine!
Wine & Technology
Hugh MacLeod’s blatant blog-link-pimping for Stormhoek wine got me thinking aobut a couple of things. Apart from being a great experiment in viral test marketing, Hugh is addressing the issue of open feedback. When test marketing, the hope is that…
Since when were we not shipping to France? Heh.
I’ve had a good Spanish wine from a screw top bottle. As a ‘newer’ wine enthusiast I think I’m more open to new ways of doing things with wine bottles. Or maybe I’m just a fool.
No fool Brock — despite the snobbery, screw-caps will keep the wine better longer.
Intentional or not, looks like your sensationalism may get a large and influential group of people talking about the wine.
And with some possibility of a nice coup — French cred for Stormhoek.
Nicely done.
“Down in New Zealand I still think screw caps are the province of cheap wine, though all the mid-to low-range brands do it now. “
Ata Rangi ‘aint cheap
Prefer screw tops myself. I’ve had enough of buying expensive vinegar.
Excellent, 14 comments and not a single one going “hmpff, French culture is not calcified!“
Must be spot on then, fact of life, not even worth a discussion etc.
Hey Hugh,
Just came across this blog post about the various types of closures including screw caps. May be of interest, given the previous comments:
http://winecask.blogspot.com/2005/08/corked-wine-must-read-pb.html
Hi Hugh’s club
I am sort of happy to arrive late in the discussion to see that nobody argues on the French “calcifying” culture and the bureaucrats.
The explanation is probably that everyone agrees including me ?
I agree there is not enough creation currently in our country and it extremely slow moving and changing, like a fat cow with the french being well installed in comfort.
I would not quote however the U.K. as much more creative forward looking either, it is just the same in all old Europe, we’ll look more and more to China and India for that…
Except for entrepreneurship, agreed.
Now for selling South African wine, that’s easy, there are more and more Int’l wines being sold in France, just go in front of the Madeleine church in a huge wine supermarket there and you’ll see how many countries represented.
“La France, une culture calcifiée composée de bureaucrates”
C’est Hugh MacLeod, un des blogueurs les plus influents d’Europe et ami anglais, qui le dit sur son blog et dans le Evening Standard. N’hésitez pas à aller gueuler un peu sur sa note, il y a quatorze commentaires
“French culture is calcifying and utterly saturated with bureaucrats”
It’s not me saying that, it’s Hugh, and not only on his blog, also in the Evening Standard. Here is the comment I have just left him: “I am sort of happy to arrive late in the discussion to
This post about the link between blogs and France is a little bit funny. Bureaucracy can’t explain everything in France, failures or success
. And France has not the monopole of bureaucracy (I hope so). I think about other European countries such as Italy or Germany.
Blogs are booming in our country and to my mind there are two main explanations:
1) French people like to talk
Loic,
I guess you are living in France. Why don’t you leave the country if it’s so calcified? It seems that somehow this system is profitable for you.
Our culture is probably “calcifying” thanks to the amount of good cheese we have (that usually accompany non south african wine, btw).
All this meaning, at least, WE do have a culture — even if you have to scrape more and more to (hopefully) find it — and WE do have good cheese.
Also, saying our bureaucrats are “calcifying” is inappropriate since most of them are just neurotic:
http://www.wouarf.com/blogtk/index.php?2005/07/10/64-quelques-causes-psychologiques-de-la-nevrose-des-elites-francaises — et-quelques-consequences
Probably Lo
You can say that France is calcified and that there is a big bureaucratie. It’s true. It could be BAD for your culture and your world’s view where everything is about money and anglo-saxon references. For french view, your things show that we have in France other interests than money and “performance” in anglo-saxons referees.
)
May be you can understand it with very good newspaper in your world; the Idler or if you can read french, you have to read books from Albert Cossery.
In France, there are people that know or remember that “working” and money are not natural and are sort of illness. As we have chance to have system that can feed us , we use it..
Please, excuse my english, i never learnt it in School, it’s too money and action oriented language. As french, i prefer langage of the Glande but i say you THANKS YOU for all your jobs to earn money for occidental world and then for us too when you spend it in France
i am so calcified that it is hard to move now!
jm
Hopeless debate. If numbers had shown UK having more blogs than France you probably would have written how retarded was France. Such comments are not very useful neither do they help any comprehension of French (or British) society.