Pen-Slinger: 2025

Monday, July 14, 2025

Mont Saint-Michel 360 deg.

Last week we took our annual beach holiday on the Normandy coast with our grandchildren, to get away from the sweltering heat of Lyon. This time, we took a cottage further down the coast, instead of in the vicinity of Honfleur, which we usually do. The sleepy village which got to experience the full blast of our three granddaughters throwing tantrums and generally raising hell was Dragey-Ronthon. Poor perishers.

Dragey-Ronthon is in the Bay of Saint-Michel, just 16km as the crow flies from the celebrated island-abbey of Saint-Michel, the second biggest tourist attraction in France after Eiffel Tower.

Blandine found us this lovely Norman cottage, which we hired for the week...

Here we all are, our first look at the beach, a short drive from the cottage. It is cloudy and a cool wind is blowing, a refreshing change from the baking 32C back home.

Here is our first look at Mont Saint-Michel, across the bay.

Mont Saint-Michel, as you might know, is a 9th Century Abbey on a semi-island that gets completely cut off from the mainland at high tide, but can be accessed by a pathway at low tide. We did drive down to Mont Saint-Michel one day, obviously. But we did not enter the walls of the abbey. We had already toured it extensively a few years ago, when I first came to France, and the thought of entering again those narrow, claustrophobic lanes bursting at the seams with tourists was enough to quail the stoutest heart.

Instead, we did something we hadn't done the first time. We joined a guided tour of the mudflats surrounding the abbey at low tide. You need a guide as the mudflats are full of sinkholes and you can quickly get trapped if the tide comes in too quickly.

Here are the photos I took of Mont Saint-Michel from all directions during our tour. Barefoot, I might add, toes squishing in the gooey, slimy mud!

First, here is a shot of Mont Saint-Michel across a meadow with haystacks while we were driving there.

Here are shots from various angles, during our walk around the abbey.

A little hillock from across Mont Saint-Michel, that has a romantic legend associated with it. It is supposed to be the grave of a princess who committed suicide in the bay when she got news of the death of her beau in a battle sometime during the 100 Years War between the French and the English.

Here is a shot from the garden of a farm not far from our cottage, where you can enjoy the most delicious farm-made ice cream while admiring Mont-Saint-Michel and the bay. By the way, if you are in this region, don't forget to check out this farm. It's some of the best ice cream I have ever had, outside of Italy. It's called "Sol Roc glace de la ferme"

Here is the Google maps link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/tZ4m1XTRzykWCos38

Another couple of shots from the beach near our cottage, at low tide.

Sunday, July 06, 2025

Diagonal Days - 136

Diagonal Days: The comic strip based on the character of the Diagonal Lane novels

Monday, June 30, 2025

Wet Leg V2.0

The biggest, baddest news item of 2025.

In an era when not one, but THREE nuclear wars may break out at any time at three different points on the globe, the climate is going down the chute, and grumpy old men have taken over this planet, there is one little piece of info we can all smile about: WET LEG ARE BACK!!!!

You are underwhelmed. Who, or what, is Wet Leg, you ask? If they are back, it presupposes they went away. Did they?

Let me take your questions one by one:

What is Wet Leg?

Wet Leg is simply the greatest rock band since Nirvana. The first rock band the 21^st Century has thrown up, that can go chin-to-chin with the iconic bands of the 60s and 70s. Check out my series of posts on Wet Leg

Did they go away?

Yes, sadly. Shortly after their 2023 Grammy for a pathbreaking first album...

... they did a concert in Rio where they made a mysterious announcement about it being their last concert for a while... (check out the Rio concert of 2023, where Rhian and Hester shock the audience with tearful goodbyes. Skip to 43:40 in the video, just after Angelica and before the closing song, Chaise Long)

....and they disappeared from public view. They bobbed up only to collect another Grammy in 2024 ...this time for a remix of Depeche Mode’s Wagging Tongue ...

... and a few odd concerts in UK that were pre-scheduled, but other than that, they maintained complete radio silence. No Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TV interviews – nothing.

We fans were distraught. Have they broken up, we wailed? Has something happened to them? We posted message after message on their Instagram and Facebook accounts, without a response. This went on almost two years.

And then, glory be! Just as suddenly as they had disappeared, they were back, with a bang! New songs, new album, new sound, new look! In short: Wet Leg V2.0!

Here they are, doing two of their new songs on 3VOOR12. The 3VOOR12 sound and camerawork outstanding, as always, as I have mentioned in previous Wet Leg posts.

Here are the same two songs, Catch These Fists and CPR, on Jools Holland:

Here is a complete recent concert, in Porto:

This is the artwork for their new album, which will be officially released on July 11. They have been performing live only a handful of the new songs until now. So, lots more new songs coming up soon!

Cover Art of Wet Leg’s new Album: Moisturizer – coming out JULY 11!!!

Here is a recent interview in Crack Magazine, where Rhian talks about their big break from touring, and the new direction that they have taken.

https://crackmagazine.net/article/profiles/wet-leg-cover-story-interview/

Another nice interview in The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/apr/04/this-weird-dream-just-keeps-going-wet-leg-on-overnight-success-sexual-epiphanies-and-facing-fears

It seems the band had taken a beach house in Southwold, Suffolk, and holed up there for six months, to work on their new album without the distractions of constant touring. In the meantime, Rhian had found love again (we fans are so happy for her). So, most of the songs on the album are supposedly love songs, and not the bad-boyfriend songs that the first album was full of. Although, if CPR is anything to go by, Rhian has her own unique take on the love song!

Going by the few new songs that have been released to date, their new sound is darker, more aggressive. Much of the flippant humor that made their first album so endearing has gone. The clever wordplay and the zany outlook on life is still intact, though.

About the new look, I’m not so sure. Rhian and Hester’s infectious smiles, their playful goofing-about on stage and their adorable, girls-next-door look was such a large part of the Wet Leg charm. Now Hester has taken to facing the back of the stage throughout the concert and never appears in person for interview or faces the camera. She had tried to overcome her social anxieties the first time around, but has now decided to take a step back. It’s so sad. Maybe she’ll find the strength to overcome her anxieties again. We’re with you, Hester!

Rhian has been working out and now appears on stage flexing her muscles and scowling. She has bleached her eyebrows and taken to wearing aggressive new costumes. I dunno. I guess this is her way of coping with unwanted attention from the Romeos and Lotharios who no doubt used to badger her in the past (which the song Catch These Fists seems to suggest), but one can’t deny it’s somewhat jarring for us old fans. Oh well, I guess we’ll get used to it, eventually. Actually, if you watch the concert footage carefully, you can see the old Rhian slipping out from time to time. This new look seems to be some kind of protective mask. Maybe she’ll go back to being the old Rhian we used to adore one day.

If you have never seen Wet Leg V1.0, here is one of their finest moments, at La Route du Rock, Saint-Malo 2022. They never looked prettier, they were never funnier, and their sound was never so exciting, as on this glorious summer day in France:

But I guess they couldn't go on being like that forever. That was a particular point in time, at a very early stage in their fame. A time of innocence. They've moved on, and we fans had better move with them, instead of pining for what was.

Anyway, the good news for us Frenchies: Wet Leg are coming to France not once, but THRICE this year!!! I’ve got the tickets to their Caen and Lyon concerts, and I am counting the days….