Arcadia Discussion Zone

That's a shame about the dog; he was very friendly, as you say. I've always liked the way in which dogs are typically allowed to wander about French restaurants without getting shoo-ed away.

The hotel website does have some very good parts to it, particularly this Path of Shadows page, which they describe as, "A mystical recital of the story of Montségur, its mountain and the lost fortified hilltop village", and which is full of poems, history, folklore, photos and illustrations.

http://aubergemontsegur.com/Montsegur/P ... hadows.htm

And this one, trying to imagine how the original castle might have looked.

http://aubergemontsegur.com/Montsegur/R ... tution.htm

They also have pages on various other castles in the region, and other places of interest, including a "sites mythiques" section.

http://aubergemontsegur.com/a_visiter.htm

Santa Cruz just last month opened its "high street" and businesses (on a voluntary basis), to dogs, after a 35 year ban, so there are quite a few friendly beasts wandering our shops and restaurants now. It's actually quite amazing that the ban was ever enacted in the first place, given the counter cultural, carnival like atmosphere here in the 70s (and to some extent still, albeit much subdued). Halloween this year, which is always quite something to behold given the 15-20,000 revelers downtown, was even more spectacular than usual, with the addition of costumed canines!

I've just been reading about that in the LA Times ("new leash of life"!), and a piece in the Santa Cruz Patch about how "Mutt Strutt" on main street heralded the start of the new relaxation; and how it was campaigned for, on DogFriendly.com, eventually getting carried by four votes to two. A good outcome, not before time, by the sounds of it.

In France, in my experience, a dog that goes to a restaurant often gets more fuss made of it than anyone else in the party, and dogs who belong to a restaurant are like part of the furniture. There are places I've been back to over the years where I know the name of the dog, but not the people running the restaurant. This is the last such dog I met, at a country hotel and restaurant in the Dordogne on my way home from RLC, an enormous great thing, so large that his back was the same height as the tables in the restaurant, like a little horse, who spent the evening plodding about, occasionally getting into a stand-off with the hotel cat.



Very gentle and friendly. Similar dimensions to the Pyrenean Mountain dog at the Montesgur hotel that Gabrielle and I mentioned. I'd be much less inclined to go back there in the future if he's not there any longer, I think.

"If dogs don't go to heaven, when I die I want to go wherever they went" Will Rogers


I love that quote!

My personal favorite memory along these lines was about ten years ago in the absolute "middle of nowhere" - specifically at Fry Canyon Lodge in Southeastern Utah, the only structure on a 120 mile highway. I was there following the writings of one of my heroes, Edward Abbey, on sort of a literary/canyoning combined quest. We arrived late at night and were greeted by a huge Golden Retriever as we pulled in. He led us to the office/cafe, where the only other human was located. The next morning, the proprietor told us about some Amerindian ruins in a remote slot canyon and said that Hayduke (the dog) would take us to them if we wanted - I was skeptical at first, as the entire area consisted of hundreds of eroded slots, but sure enough, he led us through the labyrinth to a completely obscure, beautiful, hidden location! And more importantly, back out again!

Still capitulated to the Germans in six weeks (10 May - 25 June 1940). Maybe they should eat better.

Incidentally my parents were due to get married on 10th May 1940. Hitler screwed it up. Dad was in the army and they canceled his leave but he managed to get a 24 hour pass. They got married and not only didn't they see each other for the next ten months but my mother didn't even know where he was, just got a telegram every now and then from the army to say he was still alive.

When he finally got home for his next 24 hour leave my mother was in hospital with an appendicitis.

And the army wives whinge now.

My father fought around Caen in June, July and August 1944. He was present in the action which saw the end of the German tank ace Michael Wittman by Joe Ekins in a Sherman Firefly. The British and Canadians ambushed him because for once the Allied intelligence was better than the Germans because by now the allies had realised not tell the French too much as they were passing it on to the Germans. Most of the early failures to take Caen was due to the Germans knowing all the Allied plans thanks to the people they were trying (and dying) to liberate. There's a lot about WWII that doesn't get spoken about.

The Firefly was a British modification to that mobile cooking pot called the Sherman tank. It turned a piece of crap into a half decent fighting machine by equipping it with the British 75m anti-tank gun. The only advantage that the Sherman had over the German tanks is that there were lots of them. The British called the Sherman The Ronson because as the advertisement said "It lights every time". The Germans called the Sherman tank "Tommy Cookers".

My father said that you didn't need to simply watch the Germans. The French told the Germans what was happening, the American Air Force bombed you from the air (my neighbour only had one foot thanks to a bomb from a P38 Lightning, the British didn't fly the Lightning because it was crap) and the 51st Highland division laid a mine field when they retreated and didn't tell anyone where it was. This caused Operation Goodwood to fail, well that and the American Airforce dropping their bombs on a Canadian Division almost wiping them out.

As for the French.

Never did like anyone that sets off Nuclear weapons in someone else's back yard and then commits AN ACT OF WAR against an unarmed BRITISH vessel trying to protest. And they've NEVER even apologised.

There's only one thing wrong with France, it's got French people in it. I get a hard time in France simply for being English. I usually point out that I don't see rows and rows of French soldier graves in England.

They're OK in the Languedoc but they're not French, ask them?

Oh and by the way.

William Wales (Wallace) (correct spelling, he was after all WELSH) supposedly killed the ENGLISH sheriff of Lanark, William de Hazelrig. What kind of f_____g ENGLISH name is DE HAZELRIG?

Vieille Alliance - Auld Alliance? Ha! Yes that ENGLISH king Eduard Plante-Genet sure liked his roast beef and his bangers and mash on his forages up t'north.

Mary Queen of Scots? Now there's an enigma. Scottish by virtue of the facts that she was a direct descendant of Robert DE BRUS via several French marriages. Robert DE BRUS' (Norman) mother was the illegitimate daughter of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth King of Wales. So tell me, do the Scots have any input at all in the BRITISH Royalty stakes? After all it was one of you Jocks who started the United Kingdom then promptly left the throne to a German.

She married a Frenchman so he could attack ENGLAND and inflict Popery back into England. There's an old saying, if you go out looking for trouble don't whinge if it finds you first.

You know it bloody gets me. There we were getting bombed by the IRA in England and all the Northern Ireland Protestants are Scottish descent.

Time you sweaty socks sorted out exactly who your enemies are.

The English population comprises of Insular Celts as does Scotland. There are few Insular Celts in the Shetlands and Orkneys, perhaps they should have independence from the Scottish Parliament and land their oil in Norway.In fact indicators are that they may well do this rather than be taxed to hilt by the Tartan Tories.

it's always better to get things off your chest...well done laddie, and about time too....and now i see why you can't get along with me....... i'm half Scottish and half French.

Sout Piel

I can't get along with you because I see someone who, despite all the spin, refuses to look at anything that doesn't fit any preconceived ideas they may have and then lectures people who doesn't agree with them.

You know nothing, you're about ten years behind the true research and currently happily dancing down a blind alley made by someone who miraculously appeared immediately after the Da Vinci Code Band Wagon started up. He couldn't find the Holy Grail so he made one up.

Now mostly I couldn't give a toss about this. However what annoys me is that this has become the ONLY idea discussed on here and it drives good people away.

By the way

The best friend I ever had (apart from my wife) came from Killwinning, he was born in the Gorbals and had a hard time when he was young because his father was an American GI who went home after the war, his mother died an alcoholic and his auntie brought him up. He became a senior design engineer at British Aerospace and his daughter swam for Scotland (she beat times set by Johnny Weissmuller at age 14). She would definitely have made the Olympics had she not discovered boys and abandoned her twice daily training. I would be telling him what I said on my previous thread if he was still with us. No doubt I would be getting rebuttal remarks from him but that's OK, he would still be my friend and I his. When they diagnosed him for terminal cancer after he told his family the next person he phoned was me.

I learned more from him than I ever learned at school.

Anyway

Have YOU been anywhere near Montsegur Sheila?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_jkoVommEE

They'd probably hate you there, you being French an all.



Support independence for Occitania



viewtopic.php?f=30&t=3384

Always remember our resident thread destroyer Roger (now departed it seems) saying what a great site he's found. Right at the top of this "Great Site" was a picture of Puilaurens with the caption The Cathar Castle of Montsegur underneath. I nearly choked on my breakfast. Shows just how much he knew about the area.

You don't understand the country you live in Sheila.

Anyway after all those videos in a Language you don't speak Sheila here's some from the Ariege in that foreign language called French

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A78xF9Uc-HY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOQhV__2 ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVq1l82f ... re=related
Where's that music from Sheila?

I suspect you wont bother looking at them, you being someone with their fingers on the pulse and (how's it go) always asks questions.


Here's the view from Soularac (5 miles from Montsegur) at dawn to the East at the Equinox

The bump on the horizon directly under the sun is Rennes le Chateau.

Not forgetting the Elysian Fields in Paris of course.







Photographed on Beltane.

"We discovered a key-stone of a third arch; on removing it, the sun, having now gained its meridian height, darted its rays to the centre. It shone resplendent on a white marble pedestal, whereon was a plate of gold. On this plate was engraved a triple triangle, and within the triangles some characters which are beyond comprehension."

Part of the Masonic Royal Arch Degree ceremony





But hey it's ALLLLLLLL!!! coincidence.

basically 10 out of 10 for being wrong on every count..way to go English boy.

just in case you've forgotten Roscoe, i'll tell you one last time.



However, where i live in Occitania we still speak our own local dialect, it might not be officially recognised by the powers that be but it most definitely is recognised here in the Lemosin.

sounds familiar

i like to keep an open mind that's all...and i certainly have no preconceived ideas, quite the opposite actually, it's just Roscoe cannae handle anyone who doesn't bow and scrape to his oft-repeated "facts and figures" that he's dug out from someone else's book....he's been posting the same stuff for well over five years now.

So why don't you explain to me what you think? Or are you afraid to do so in case it gets ripped apart?

So tell me what you thought of Montsegur the last time you visited it?

You know perfectly well my views on the Cathars, or have you forgotten that as well.

Why would i visit a place that i have no interest in ?

Hmmm, look at the image right in the centre of des pommes bleues, if thats what they are
Regards
Nic

So what the flying f__k are you doing on this section then?

you've forgotten already, you twit.....my contribution was to answer somebody's question, no more no less......rs2008 wanted to know what the French was for "Afternoon tea"



.....at which point you quoted me, then started screaming your head off and followed up by hurling some insults at the French....basically you are losing it.

So you've not been to Montsegur and actually seem to pride yourself in this fact, despite being here planting your drivel over something you know nothing about. Who cares about the French not doing afternoon tea.

So

Have you actually been to Rennes le Chateau? Have you actually set foot anywhere near to the subject you pontificate to know all about?

The indicators are you're a distance repeater of theories who is beguiled by someone else's THEORIES who has also been nowhere near to Rennes le Chateau.

MONTSEGUR

Tell me it's not worth bothering with?

Get the Franks out of the Languedoc

And Bretagne.

i told you...no more discussion from me matey boy, i've had five years of interaction with you and enough is enough...i'm going to sit back and watch....enjoy your one-sided conversations.

Tell me something. Why don't you take this attitude BEFORE you've destroyed the thread rather than take it after you've been beaten to a pulp with facts you can't handle?

Just curious, Roscoe, but how would one go about determining who the "Franks" are in this day and age?

TCP

I guess those who run the entire blood-soaked Frankish set-up regime from Paris. Just like those who run Scotland from London. Oh sorry they do run Scotland from Holy-rood in Edinburgh. In a United Kingdom set up by a Stuart.

2014 will be the 770th anniversary of when the Holy Roman Church burned a group of people alive for their beliefs.

All in the name of Jesus of course.