Snip! Snip!

There are so many parts of my life on the cutting room floor, literally.

Recently I've managed to access copies of a couple of movies I acted in during the early part of 2010. They came out much later and I didn't get to see them at the cinema so it's just recently I've been watching them only to discover all my hard efforts have ended up edited out.

The first movie was Yogi Bear 3D: thirteen uncomfortable hours filming outdoors in unseasonably cold winds in Auckland, New Zealand, January 2010.That was the day where, due to a very early casting call, I missed the opportunity to confront my scoundrel French boyfriend who had been stringing me along for two years.  Well, blink and you'd miss me. My only appearance reduced to a nanosecond where Yogi and co are at the shopping mall and a plane flies over with a banner. That's me, a shopper, looking up at the plane. Snip!

Yesterday I finally got hold of a copy of ICE, directed by Nick Copus, and starring such big names as NZer Sam Neill, Stephen Moyer (True Blood), Richard Roxburgh, Claire Forlani. According to imdb.com this movie is about:
Environmentalist Prof Thom Archer, warns of a new ice age and points a finger at sinister energy giant Halo. The multi-national is drilling on the Greenland Glacier and causing it to melt. But his warnings are ignored. Then, after a colleague is murdered, Thom realises he must put years of desk-bound theory behind him and fight for his survival and the survival of Earth itself.

 This started out as a movie, but it was so bad they decided to release it an American mini-series instead. The first third isn't too bad but the rest? I really didn't think these top actors would be involved in anything so unrealistic in plot line and special effects. It could have been good, but under this director it gains less than 5 stars on imdb. I actually bought a suit so I could act in this movie because that item of clothing was a requirement. I also had to supply the rest of my costume changes.


They spent a lot of effort on my hair for one scene; sort of a very corporate Princess Leia arrangement on the back of my head because this area of my anatomy was supposed to be important in one shot. Really? Elaborate, odd. I walked across a floor which was supposed to be the British Parliament but was, in fact, the Auckland War Memorial Museum. So many takes and my hair and I don't appear at all, nor does my determined descent down the museum steps, and the scene in the lift with Sam Neill? Horrors, they've chosen the take with a skinny young thing instead of me. I had my doubts at the time as they kept changing their minds as to how they wanted to run it.

It was a bit weird looking at this film and recognising the locations. There was my old workplace, Waitakere City Council (council chambers and external shots), doubling up as some British climate change conference venue (very appropriate as it was NZ's eco-city).

Sam Neill kept to himself and didn't mix with the extras between takes, just reading his newspaper while the huge camera crane swung over the set. I got paid half-peanuts for 12 hours, spent $300 on a suit that never appears and which I could never really fit into again. Ah, the price of being snipped!

I've been snipped many times in my life. Another occasion was when I was appearing in two theatrical productions at the same time. Grease and Camelot. The Camelot audition was really tough and we had to be able to dance on cue. I secured the part of Nimue (Merlins' love interest) and had to create a seductive dance around him to distract him away from King Arthur to be with her, casting my magic. I also had lines to learn but rehearsal times were radically changed and Camelot now conflicted with my performance dates for Grease. I chose to drop out of Grease because I had a more important role in Camelot. Oh disaster! Camelot ran out of funding and was cancelled half way through rehearsals so I ended up with nothing, Snip!


Jean-Claude is facing a snip too. He has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and is scheduled for surgery on the 3rd of December. We hope this cancer has been caught in time. Chances are it has, but he'll be out of action for a couple of months at least. There are many surgical techniques but the one he seems to be having is the one with all the holes in the tummy, rather than the perineum or right up the urethra. Risks include permanent incontinence and impotence. A message to the doctors - snip but don't slip!

What's realistic and what's just modern pressure?

Sometimes the media is a curse, and especially social media. It shows me things I don't want to see. Like 80 year old women doing advanced gymnastics on double bars.

It's starting to irritate me as I'm getting a wee bit sensitive about my aging and each day I wake up wondering if I'll be able to do what I had to do or wanted to do yesterday, today.

No, I'm not being morbid. Quality of life, being able to do the things that really matter to me is getting difficult, if not impossible and like so many of these sorts of issues, the media isn't helping. Nor are those folks who say one must just accept things and be grateful and that we are healthier than our parents and so we should be cos the modern world makes it possible. Life expectancy could be beyond 120 years in the near future. Really?

I've noticed an increasing tendency for TV and Facebook to disseminate videos of elderly people who seem to be eternally youthful, capable of marathons and gymnastic marvels and, of course, everyone admires them as some sort of role model. Magazines are full of happy smiling retired people leading full energetic lives and life just goes on, and on like this... apparently.

Facebook had the effrontery to put one of those links to an article that said anyone can get back the muscle strength they had when they were 30. It just takes the right sort of effort. Really?

I think that the media paint a picture that is not that realistic. We are told we can have the muscles of a 30 year old if we really work at it. They don't say that the bones and ligaments won't support that. This insistence on being eternally youthful baby boomers and how we are so much more youthful than our parents isn't easy to swallow. I know I'm more active than my parents were, who never exercised for health, but the reality is I've made much more effort than they ever did yet suffer the same, if not more pain (due to years of effort to stay' healthy') but I feel under much more pressure than they ever did to 'stay young' and I have to work a lot harder in life just to get by, than they, my parents, did. 

 
You're only as old as you feel - ha. My brain 'feels' eternally young though in practice it's much less supple than it was and just won't memorise like it used to. That's why older folks like me find it hard to learn a new language, that and the fact I'm becoming deaf and can't hear the words much of the time, but the rest is a big disappointment. 

My mother has dementia. I suppose she's forgetting what she's missing. She's a real face of aging. My best friend has prostate cancer and major problems even walking. He's had to buy a special chair just to minimise the pain of sitting still or standing up. Is this the real face of aging? It's worse than I imagined but it's staring me in the face. It doesn't match up with the image.
 
There's such a gulf between what a few well-gened individuals can do and the rest of us. If effort and determination was all it took, lots of us would be gardening for 6 hour stretches, dancing on stage, carrying our suitcases without much effort, running across the road (remember running?).

Regularly I'm faced with people around my age who struggle to do the basics, like put on their own shoes. Folks who've had their anus removed by cancer, have had to give up all their beloved hobbies no matter how sedentary they are, because of pain and degeneration. Most of my own daily pain is a result of my efforts to stay fit and youthful by gym workouts, yoga and dance in the past. I'd probably have had less musculoskeletal problems if I'd been a couch potato.
My sports doctor once told me, "Frances, there are two types of people; those for sprinting and those for marathons. You're a sprinter. That means nature designed you to be very flexible when young, fast to escape being eaten by sabre-toothed tigers. Now you're middle aged nature doesn't need you to to be like that, you're surplus to reproductive requirements so your collagen has made a rapid exit, and arthritis and tendonitis have made a grand entrance." He's probably right. Some women don't have such a rapid loss of collagen and other post menopausal problems. My mother is an example of that but she was content to be overweight and do no exercise at all.

Any sort of real exercise results in faster deterioration but is it just me or is there a wall of silence out there where the truth is not spoken, where we're supposed to be age-defying boomers. Even that word age-defying on the pots of skin cream says it all. Are we just being defiant? It'll all be rather pointless in the inevitable end.

There will always be individuals outside the norm who can do things the rest of us cannot but my beef is with the pressure and 'expectations' put out there of what aging is all about. Who's telling it like it is? 

I don't know what to expect of myself. I don't know what's normal because each body reacts differently to life but my generation seems to expect or believe they won't be nodding off in an armchair in the afternoons, or avoiding kneeling down to pull a few weeds. Those problems are for old people, not those of us aged somewhere after 50 and less than 90.

On a forum this week late-middle-aged and elderly members were discussing what to do about dead bodies, funerals, can we 'go' eco-friendly, that there's a product in development that will reduce us to non-toxic atoms quite ecologically, being developed. We'll need it, with all us age-defying elders popping off on mass in the nearish future - no room for traditional send-offs in future I suspect.

These photos are of me celebrating being youthful through my life when I was aged 9-57. I wish I'd done even more physical stuff before I was 35.

I know there will be many readers who will disagree with this post but I'm wondering what losses are acceptable and which ones we need to keep battling. I'm losing what's important to me; the ability to fall down and get up again, waking up refreshed, gardening, playing musical instruments, dancing, getting out of bed within 3 seconds. How do we deal with loss through aging? So far aging has not provided the compensations some people say exist.

Corsica - Corte, Pigna and Saint-Florent

In this final post on Corsica I'd like to introduce you to some must-dos. I found Corte an interesting city. It was once the capital of Corsica though was not established by the Genoese.

Independence leader Pascal Paoli stormed the citadel in 1755 and took it for Corsican independence. Naturally there are statues to this leader. The citadel, built in 1419, is in quite an outstanding location on a rocky outcrop. Goodness know how Paoli and his men got up all the steps and took it.
Napoleon initially admired Paoli but they eventually had a falling out, with Bonaparte taking the side of France and setting out on his path to immortality by consequence.
 

The Museum of Corsica is located inside the citadel but our tour didn't, alas, include a visit. Just getting up to the viewing platform to look at the citadel can leave you puffing a bit, but the view  of the citadel and city is worth it.

Corte is smack bang in the middle of Corsica and has the only citadel not on the coast. I was captured by Dr Gaffori's house in Place Gaffori. While fighting the Genoese to defend the town, the good doctor was killed in a hail of bullets. A statue recognises his valiant defence and you can clearly see the bullet holes peppering his old house. They've been left there to illustrate history.

There are quaint alleyways full of old-fashioned shops, plenty  of cafes catering to tourists. There's also a university, originally established by Paoli, alive and thriving in the city.

Our group visited the small town of Pigna. There's not a lot to see, though it is a good example of a perched town with its cute stone houses and narrow streets inviting discovery. I think that if you want anything ceramic from Corsica, this is one of the better places to buy some. I came away with my second (and last) souvenir of Corsica from here; a beautiful beautiful blue vase that reminds me of the sea that splashes the coast of Corsica.

We spent several nights at Saint-Florent in the north of Corsica. It's a handy base from which to explore the Cap and surrounding areas. I didn't find anything particularly note-worthy about the place though it's pleasant enough. Each night we dined in a restaurant jutting over the sea, watching the sun go down in brilliant red and pink hues, lulled by the sound of water lapping the old stone buildings at the water's edge.

In summing up. I'd say that if you like the climate of the Mediterranean in summer, an island that's French but is even more Italian in flavour, wine that's not as good as the rest of France, cold cuts that get a bit monotonous, local honey and jams, bullet holes ancient and modern, sharp knives, mountains and coastlines, Napoleonic history and a rather too-laidback approach to enterprise and service then you'll feel right at home. It's not like the rest of France, and it doesn't want to be.
Below - the gorgeous 'ceiling' above us as we lunched one day.

Corsica - Cap Corse, Calvi

Moving along the coastline of northern Corsica we discovered Calvi (Always Faithful). This name referred, at the beginning, to its loyalty to the republic of Genoa which originally 'owned' Corsica. During the war with Revolutionary France, British forces under Admiral Nelson and captured the city in the Siege of Calvi. It was during the bombardment of Calvi that Nelson sustained the injury that cost him his eye.

There are also references here to Napoleon 1. In a square stands a stature to him, possibly an example of early PR. The statue of Napoleon clearly isn't fashioned after the Emperors' real body type- more like some sort of Apollo. Our tour group chuckled as we contemplated it.

Calvi's a pleasant place and gains most of its revenue from summer tourism. You can take a boat trip, or a little train trip. Other than that, and walking, there's not much to do other than soak up the laid-back atmosphere and historical points of note.


What really intrigued me were the toilets people had 'in' their apartments. Most of the buildings were built a long time before indoor toilets so what to do when there's no room to create one? Well, you build an out-house on your balcony. This phenomena can be seen in other parts of Corsica too, but the ones I saw in Calvi were rather striking.

This little city is said to be the birthplace of Christopher Columbus. We noted the house reputed to be the one in which he was born, and the monument to his endeavours. Of course nothing was said about the brutality that followed his contact with indigenous people.

Naturally, there's a citadel on a hill. It can be visited though there's little to see there other than great views. It's a daunting climb up all the steps so we just window shopped in the town and found a waterfront cafe that actually made a decent tea and coffee.

After exploring for a bit we joined the group going on yet another boat trip, so it was time to swallow yet another sea-sickness pill. I have to say, the boat trip was a bit pointless. There's little of interest. Sure there was the odd sea cave but hardly worth 1.5 hours in a boat chugging along the coastline.

We saw a few ruined towers in the water, looking rather picturesque, a few cows mooing nearby, the odd sea bird but really, give it a miss, it's not that interesting.






You can always fall back on visiting a few churches. With Corsica's Italian history you must expect a few of those along the way.


What did interest me, as we drove along the east coast, was the view of the Island of Monte Cristo (yes, the one Alexandre Dumas immortalised) and just along from that the island of Elba (yes, immortalised as Napoleon's first island exile and the one he escaped from before the One Hundred Days). Monte Cristo is not inhabited though pirates and refugees had made attempts over the centuries. It's rather inhospitable and is a nature reserve now. Only 1000 tourists per year are allowed to set foot on it. People do live on Elba and you can take a boat trip to visit it but there's not much to see there. So those two islands lie between Corsica and the Italian mainland.

Here's a map of Corsica I found on the internet. http://www.go-to-corsica.com/tourism_corse-map_of_corsica-102.html 

The next, and last post, on Corsica will feature Saint Florent, Corte and Pigna.

Corsica - Bonifacio, Porto, Les Calanache

They grow kiwifruit in Corsica, at least that's what some tourism blurb told me. I didn't actually see any. Olive oil, cheese and sausages are the order of the day in this Italian-flavoured part of France. It seemed every day at almost every lunch or dinner we were served charcuterie. This is an antipasto plate of cold, raw, dried and smoked types of pork. I tried it but didn't really like it. The texture was stringy and, well, raw meat muscle-like and the spices didn't always hide the fatty flavour, so I resorted to bread and butter. That's the funny thing; normally in France bread is served alone, not accompanied by butter, yet here in Corsica knobs of butter were added to the antipasto to spread on bread.

JC likes to take guided tours as holidays. That means everything is comfortable and easy to manage. Normally. I hadn't counted on the rugged, winding, mountainous roads in Corsica.

All my life I have suffered travel sickness and boy did I suffer in Corsica, all week. Especially day two. I was so ill I couldn't look out the window and could barely walk when we stopped off at Porto, a picturesque town on a rocky bay. We had 30 minutes to wander and recuperate.  The sea air revived me a little and I bolted down a chocolate ice-cream to line my tum.

A man in our group must have noticed my body language and asked how I was feeling. He said he is always travel sick and takes pills constantly for it. He and his wife kindly gave me some to tide me over till I could find a pharmacy. It helped slightly, for which I was grateful, but I was always exhausted by the physical effort and the French immersion, since I was the only non-French person on the trip.

Too ill to get out of the bus to photograph rocky outcrops, I sent JC off to take the photos for me. Les Calanques or Calanche de Piano are sea and wind-eroded granite rocks. They are impressive, more so with the naked eye than in photos. While JC was off doing that I contented myself watching the Corsican pigs; wild boar, wandering the road, having dust baths and looking very  at ease with tourist buses. Then it was on to what would be a sejour of two nights in Bonifacio, southern Corsica. So be warned. Bring medication to offset travel sickness if travelling  in Corsica as there are hills, and boats, everywhere.

Bonifacio is located directly on the Mediterranean Sea separated from Sardinia by the Strait of Bonifacio It is a city placed on the best and only major harbor of the southern coast of Corsica. It's an unusual and pretty place.

The town is on two levels. The top has a citadel which is quite ancient with fascinating covered walkways. Yes, the stone walls have steps and they are quite covered from the weather by stone 'tunnels'. The houses look extremely precarious and are best viewed from the sea. The ocean has eroded the limestone cliffs which are 250 feet high. One day, those houses will tumble into the sea.

We took a boat ride out into the Med to see what they looked like. The coastline is white and deep blue. We saw Bonifacio in summer but it must get bitterly cold in winter. back at the town we took a little train from our hotel at the top of the hill to a restaurant at the bottom. It was basic but the waiting staff were jolly.

I bought a Corsican vendetta knife as a practical souvenir. It was really useful for slicing up fresh mangoes in my hotel room. Fruit was  non-existant on the menu all week and I was desperate for some roughage since vegetables didn't appear often either, other than the ubiquitous salad with corn sprinkled over. It was all fish, fish, pork and fish. Creme brulee featured frequently as the dessert. Imagination was in short supply but that often happens with packaged trips.

There is only one tour operator for Corsica, that's Ollandini. The French folks on my bus made disparaging jokes about Hollandini (pronounced ollandini) for the French President. He certainly isn't liked and it happened that this particular week the president's ex-girlfriend published a show and tell book Merci pour le moment on their relationship. Well, he did deserve it - lying cheat. Two-timing with a young actress and having breakfast trysts on his scooter. Now THAT following relationship has gone the way of all of his previous. He just can't get anything right.

Conspiracies, controversies and bullet holes

How much do you know about Corsica? For starters it's located above Sardinia and is an island in the Mediterranean between France and Italy. These days it's part of metropolitan France even though it's not strictly in the hexagon, so it's not considered an overseas territory even though its a flight or moderate ferry trip from the mainland.


We'd heard it was spectacularly beautiful with an interesting history. Of course, Napoleon was born and raised there, it has a very Italian flavour to it and comes with it's own language. The Corsican language is alive and flourishing, spoken by young and old alike. Courses at the universities can be taken in this language. It cannot be compared to the virtually dead Breton language of Brittany (where there are also separatists and dual-language street signs).

Coming from NZ I'm at home on large islands so I expected to just sit back and enjoy the guided tour, despite the fact that, once again, I'd have to struggle with 8 days of rapid French around me, understanding maybe half at most.


Corsica is known for vendettas. They were rampant in the past, I don't know if they still exist but the bullet holes in the signposts told us that the separatist movement is alive and well. Our Corsican bus driver told us that Corsicans require respect from non-Corsican visitors; offend someone at your peril. From time to time someone will have their house exploded by plastic explosive, so there is a sort of mafia here but tourists won't see that.

Why the bullet holes? The separatists want Corsica to be independent, so they shoot out the street signs written in French. In most cases there are street signs in both French and Corsican. Only the French version is defaced with spray paint or bullet holes.


Our guide introduced us to two controversies: one surrounds the real parentage of Napoleon Bonaparte. His mother Letizia was young and very beautiful and very 'close' with the island governor, the  Comte de Marbeuf across the street. Napoleon's father Carlo was keen on getting ahead, socially and financially. Was Napoleon's true father the governor? It is highly probable that at least one of his brothers or sisters (probably Louis) was fathered by the Governor. Mister Bonaparte would have turned an opportunist blind eye. His family benefited from numerous political contacts in France.

The other controversy surrounds Napoleon's death and remains. Are the remains in the grand tomb at Les Invalides really those of Napoleon? These days DNA testing could say once and for all but the descendents of Napoleon, and the French government, refuse to answer this question. I supose if the remains weren't those of Napoleon they'd all look right idiots and tourism would certainly take a hit at Les Invalides.

Napoleon's death is attributed to stomach cancer (probably hastened by 6 months, due to bumbling medical action on St Helena) but the other side of the debate says he was slowly poisoned by arsenic which might account for the 'well preserved' state of the body 19 years after his death. There's a report that the corpse's teeth were is excellent condition though it's known Napoleon had dental problems leading to various extractions. Who knows? Whoever knows the truth is not about to tell.

For further reading on the Napoleon's Death  'conspiracies' try these links

http://www.napoleon.org/en/reading_room/articles/files/479165.asp 
http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/assassins/napoleon_bonaparte/5.html
http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/bonapartenapoleon/a/bionapoleon.htm

And for the dangers of Corsican Liberation Front bomb blasts? http://www.english.rfi.fr/france/20120514-twenty-one-blast-rock-corsica-over-weekend

Photos show house in Corte were Napoleon was conceived and his older brother Joseph was born, house where Napoleon was born in Ajaccio on August 15th 1769 , statue in Ajaccio, of Napoleon on horse surrounded by his brothers, various other sites in Ajaccio.