| September 12th, 2005 10:31 AM |
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| keith_tif |
A good article on Mick Jagger's life in LA FOURCHETTE in LE MONDE Newspaper.
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3230,36-688137@51-633431,0.html
Sorry, it's in French! |
| September 12th, 2005 10:41 AM |
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| glencar |
I know "ici" means "here" but after that it's all Greek to me. Translation available? |
| September 12th, 2005 02:32 PM |
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| tumbled |
Here is the not so perfect Babel Fish translation from altavista which gives someillumination:
Nutile to seek on the small pocket of the new disc of Rolling Stones, Pocé-on-Cisse does not appear there. One can wonder besides why this small village of the Indre-and-Loire, a few kilometres from Amboise, would be reproduced some share on the small pocket of the last album of the "Stones which roll". The answer is simple: it is there that the supergroupe world rock'n'roll conceived and was confined of its last album, A Bigger Bang. A priori, with its 1 610 inhabitants, its last farmers, its some vine growers and its three small castles, Pocé-on-Cisse really does not enter the prize list of the "connected" localities of the doulce France. It is even for that that Mick Jagger, singer, type-setter and "chairman" of Rolling Stones, pass there a great part of its time. A quarter century already that Sir Mick, annobli by Its Very Gracious Majesty Elisabeth II of England in 2002, offered the castle of Fork (XVIIIe), residence of the duke of Choiseul (1719-1785). A beautiful high rectangular residence of a stage and a roof in attic, posed with the foot of a slope in tuffeau and brood with the c?ur of a park of a score of hectares. Of course, the castle of Fork is not the only residence of the rocker. At 62 years, including forty on scene, Jagger is also owner of some pied-à-terres in London, in New York, in Hollywood, like in Moustique, the island with billionaires of the Caribbean. Its castle of the Loire Valley however occupies a particular place in its c?ur. Here, in Touraine, the lord of Fork enjoys a royal peace. Never, if it were not the case, it would have asked its accomplices Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ron Wood to join it in the small studio of recording arranged with the castle. The realization of the album required two meetings of several weeks: the first end 2004, the second in next spring. Nothing filtered. The presence of Stones in Touraine did not leave the village. Of course, the inhabitants knew that they were there. The outward journeys and arrivals of the large cars and the vans of delivery, the landings of helicopters in the park, without speaking about the features drawn from the employees from Fork, did not leave any doubt. As usual, Pocéens kept silence. "We always took care not to importune Mr Jagger, explains Claude Courgeau, mayor of the commune and local principal. It wants peace, and we respect that." With the passing of years, the elected official does not hide it, a tacit kind of "entente" settled between the lord of the manor british and the frenchies of the vintage. Like known as a close neighbor, "people from here are rather proud to protect its peace. When people external at the village ask me where is the castle, it is able to me to send them in the opposite direction ". It is that Sir Mick is almost a son of the country. Child, Michael Philipp - her true first name - often came in camp-site with his parents to visit the Loire château. Come glory and fortune, its love of softness ligérienne combined with the proximity of Paris (220 km) brought back it towards Fourchette. Mick Jagger buys the masonry in 1980, for 2,2 million franks. At the time, it hopes to spend only a few weeks there per annum. The advertisement of its arrival however gives birth to some concerns on the edges from Cisse, small tributary of the Loire and paradise of the fishermen. Rolling Stones already lost, in this time, of their sulfurous reputation, but it is still, for much, a group with scandal. The neighbors fear the unloading of hordes of dépenaillés fans and fear harmful effects openly. In particular sound. It of it will be nothing. Mick Jagger has already only one obsession: to find a haven of peace to receive his/her children during the school holidays. Large amateur of history, the star of Stones very quickly will launch several phases of work to Fourchette. Advised by an international cabinet of decoration, the Master makes renovate the interior of the castle, furnishes it with old pieces of furniture, canopied fourposter beds, room Louis XVI, library Empire, etc. The gardens are entirely redrawn according to plans' of a landscape designer English. A swimming pool and a pond with cascade and Japanese pagoda are dug. A tennis court leaves ground. The small vault of the park is equipped with a new frame. Hundreds of trees are planted around the property to dissimulate the sight of it. It was said, the artist wants peace. To the end of 1980, it will go until "convening" journalists of the New Republic of the Mid-west to make hear its lament against a vague project of motorway under consideration in a common neighbor. Some time later, it is a project of camp-site which threatens quietude of the gentilhommière. To prevent it, Jagger repurchases the hectares located opposite. Sir Mick in Touraine, it is the reverse of Fried Bolkenstein in North. For twenty-five years, the singer has made work people of the corner. Its plumber is not Polish. He is of Pocé-on-Cisse and he lives just beside the castle. Mason, painter, cabinetmaker, roofer, carpenter, electrician, monumental mason, glazier, plasterer, layer of parabolas, the near total of the craftsmen who will intervene in Fourchette are corner. Former peasant reconverted because of a failing spinal column, Jean-Claude Septseault, the appointed tapestry maker of the castle, lives Saint-Ouen-les-Vignes. "For nineteen years, he has been my best customer. I am not a large tapestry maker, entrusts he. But it trusted me and it helped me to progress." Mr. Septseault is unaware of the number of armchairs and chairs of time that it repaired for Fourchette. Just it remembers its more beautiful works: shepherdesses out of silk of Lyon and hangings in fabric of Egypt which have constrained it to cancel one week of holidays. "For him, it is often necessary to work within very short times. But it pays quickly, in the huit-quinze days which follow. Mr. Jagger is really not a enquiquinant customer. And it is not somebody of proud. Y' is some which look you top when one goes on their premises. Not him." The author of Sympathy for the Devil ("Agreement with the devil") is an angel, says you one. According to an investigation carried out by the Magazine of Touraine in 2004, Mick Jagger would have invested, in twenty years, more than 3 million euros in installations of Fork. If the figure is not confirmed by the personnel of the castle - a manager, a gardener and a couple of guards -, it goes without saying that the recourse to people of the country to embellish the residence and to occupy themselves some with the daily newspaper contributes largely to the good relations that Jagger maintains with its vicinity. To be richissime - its personal fortune was estimated at 257 million euros in 2003 -, the lord of the manor however does not make in excessive prodigality. He does not distribute tips to car-larigot and pay "correctly, without more", underlines a former collaborator. "As any person who does not like to throw money down the drain, it peels the estimates, of course. It is Mr. All-the-World, what... " With this close the Mister largely makes turn the local economy. Even most negligible, as the newsagent testifies some of the village, which sold this summer a good hundred postcards of which he is the single agent in the world. And due! This chart which shows several sights of the castle was carried out in "coproduction" with Mick Jagger itself. "It recovers half of the postcards, which it uses as calling cards. Me, I sell other half with 30 centimes the unit ", explains the tradesman. Its shop is close to the grids of the castle, but the man refuses to offer to the fans of passage tee-shirts, gadgets or magazines associated with Stones. "I could, that would be sold very well. But one does not want to obstruct it." Beautiful abnegation... A few years ago, it even refused to place in its front the small posters of the magazines "people" which reported the marital vexations of the singer and his wife of then, the mannequin texan Jerry Hall, mother of four of her seven children. The man with famous the lippe does not want to give the image of the inaccessible lord of the manor cloîtré in his ivory tower. He looks after his tourangelle integration and is authorized exits without bodyguards. Testimonys abound: Mick sat at table with the pizzéria of the village, Mick strolls some with scooter in the streets of Amboise, buying Mick of the screws with Bricomarché, Mick carrying out its jogging in the vineyards of the AOC touraine, Mick visiting the zoo of Beauval, Mick pagayant under the arches of the castle of Chenonceaux, etc. The singer who speaks French rather well from now on, though with a strong accent british, was seen with village fêtes where never none of its fans would have imagined to find it. One saw it with the Festival of ducks of Cangey (780 inhabitants) in 2000, with the Festival of marrow with Montreuil-in-Touraine (648 inhabitants) the following year, like with the air meeting of Dierre (498 inhabitants) in 2004. "a few years ago, it made a short appearance with the inauguration of our center of leisures, remembers Claude Courgeau, the mayor of Pocé. The director had sent an invitation to him. It moved by courtesy. It wanted to see what occurred to the village." Small landed proprietor out of jean and tennis shoes, "Mr Jagger" does not like anything as long as to leave incognito, thing completely impossible in London, New York or Paris. "Mick nevertheless knocked about the world much, it made the turn of the things. It wants to now return to simplicity ", advances a British friend, Krishna Lester, wine grower in Saumur-Champigny and organizer of a club of cricket whose founder of Stones is a honorary president. Two or three times the year, Sir Mick also move in Saumur to practise its preferred sport. It goes there how? At the wheel of its old woman Peugeot 505 station-wagon, much more discrete than Ferrari or Cadillac of the Thirties which sleep in its garages troglodytes of Fork. This exaggerated taste for anonymity can to even play him sometimes of the turns. "One evening, while leaving at home, tells baby Dahan, owner of a Moroccan restaurant with Tours, Mick wanted to take a pot. We went in a night club of the downtown area. It was equipped simply. The physiognomist did not recognize it and did not want to let it enter. Its look did not correspond to the image of the box, appears it. Mick did not insist. One went to drink a blow elsewhere." Mick never insists. Or almost. Sometimes, it is nevertheless allowed to send packing in a muscular way if it is needed the importunate ones which wants to photograph it with his/her children. It rail also copiously against the tourist helicopters which fly over of too close its field. Regular, but too fugacious, its escapades out of the castle did not enable him to be done many friends in Touraine. Except - all the same! - among the aristocrats of the vintage. One counts thus, among his "relations", some great landowners, like the marchioness of Brantes. "It is simply because I am American, therefore anglophone, and that my daughter has the same age that his", the gente injury entrusts. Do not prevent, "Mick likes the gentry, estimates a couple of friends in front of their manor house. He appreciates quite high people, of a certain level of education, who have the taste of the old stones and the same approach of Touraine as him. It is not snobbery, not. It behaves as a lord of the manor. It likes to discuss with people who do not react as a fan vis-a-vis to him. It has horror of that and it can become icy." The marchioness of Brantes remembers a dinner in its castle, in Authon. "a neighbor, very rural, asked him: ' And you, young man, whom you in the life make?' " Mick adored. Nothing astonishing? It for practice did not have to present itself at the owner, now deceased, of a tearoom of Amboise with this formula: "I am Mick. Of Fork "? A simple man, one says to you. |
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