Tender Forever is the musical project of a Bordeaux-born, US-based singer called Melanie Valera.

Alas, she's a mere 'de' short of achieving massive curiosity and instant fame in Ireland. Imagine her playing at the Fianna Fail Ard-Fheis, for example. And who better for the Phoenix Park big top than the near-namesake of Aras an Uachtarain's illustrious former tenant?

However, as 'de' means 'of' in French, your blogger has been getting a strange thrill in reading French magazine articles about 'le nouveau disque de Valera', 'le son electro-folk de Valera' and so forth.

Hopefully mademoiselle Valera will find fame in Ireland regardless of her unfortunate 'de'-lessness. Tender Forever make the sort of idiosyncratic electro-folk-pop that should appeal to fans of Bat For Lashes, Feist and the like.

Valera has just released her second album, 'Wider'. We've no idea if she's aware of how evocative her name is in Ireland - and she has no Irish shows in the near future, so we can't gauge the reaction she might get.

Still, you can listen to some tracks off 'Wider' on her MySpace page. Here's the video for 'How Many':

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Fans of good music and great music writing will have spotted this year's new and expanded edition of 'The Dark Stuff', Nick Kent's collection of his more memorable articles.

The legendary music writer has been living in Paris since the early '90s, and these days he contributes occasional articles to The Guardian and its French counterpart, Libération. He also works on scripts for TV music shows - most notably 'Rapido', the innovative Anglo-French music show from the late '80s.

As a result, Kent is in a good position to offer his insight into French music - so it's interesting to see that the 2007 edition of 'The Dark Stuff' includes among its new articles a piece on France's greatest pop icon, Serge Gainsbourg.

The essay, originally published in The Guardian in April 2006, tells the story of Kent's only encounter with Gainsbourg, in the winter of 1988 when Serge was suffering the decline of both his talent and health. The two men crossed paths in fairly improbable circumstances; both were judges at a film festival in the Alpine ski resort of Val d'Isère (Sex Pistols documentarist Julien Temple was another judge).

 The English writer admits that, at the time, his knowledge of the French singer was limited to (strangely enough) Gainsbourg's film appearances and (more obviously) 'Je T'Aime (Moi Non Plus)', pop's most notorious Number One.

Kent paints an unflattering picture of Gainsbourg. Apparently aware of his irreversible slide into decrepitude, the ageing Gallic icon spends the week-long festival making an absolute show of himself and pushing his hosts' adoration to its limits. He throws screaming fits when told to stop smoking in no-smoking areas, stumbles drunkenly from one engagement to the next, and holds court at the bar nightly with yes-men and flunkies.

Anyone looking for some words of insight from the doomed Frenchman will, like Kent, be disappointed - the writer couldn't understand any of Gainsbourg's slurred and drunken attempts at speech. "He looked (Kent writes) absolutely terrible - his face and body utterly polluted from alcohol abuse, his eyes ugly unfocussed slits, his voice a sneerful rasping whisper." As an encounter between France's greatest pop songwriter and England's greatest music journalist, it was a crushing anti-climax.

 But Kent, always with a sharp eye out for a peek into the dark heart of his rock stars, still crafts an intimate view of Gainsbourg. At the screening of music documentary 'Imagine' Gainsbourg bawls self-indulgently at the image of John Lennon's murder; Serge "knew he was going to die soon", says Kent rather fancifully; "there was absolutely no doubt about this."

Gainsbourg lived on for just over two years more, eventually passing away on 2 March 1991 after a heart attack. As for Kent, he met his future wife at the Val d'Isere festival and moved to Paris soon after. He ends his article by graciously praising the quality of Gainsbourg's musical legacy, but expresses his fears that the worst aspects of the alcoholic Frenchman's boorish behaviour (exemplified by his TV chat-show encounters with Whitney Houston and Catherine Ringer, singer with Les Rita Mitsouko) were being glossed over by his devotees.

From a writer whose stock in trade is to lay bare just that sort of tragic and sordid detail, this is hardly surprising on Kent's part. However, in France those notorious '80s chatshow clips of Gainsbourg have reached the infamy of, say, George Best's drunken appearance on 'Wogan', and it would be hard for anyone to not be aware of both Gainsbourg's peerless music and Gainsbourg repeatedly calling Ringer a 'whore'. Outside France, where these clips are never seen, that's a different matter. That said, it's simply a fact that our society mythologises dissolute and tragic artists, often at the expense of paying due critical attention to their work. And some would argue (perhaps unfairly) that Kent himself has contributed to this.

Nonetheless, however obnoxious Gainsbourg may have been as a person in his later years, the music of his mid '60s to late '70s heyday has kept a Dorian Gray-like freshness and beauty.

If you already have the original edition of 'The Dark Stuff' you can check out the online Guardian version of Kent's article on Gainsbourg. The most appropriate Serge song right now is probably 'Requiem Pour Un Con'; 'con' is the French equivalent of calling someone a c*nt. Who says this blog isn't educational?

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Your blogger's chosen sport (and yes, it was a conscious choice) is long-distance running, including the Dublin Marathon in 2004 and the 2007 Paris Marathon last April.

So, just a quick word of support for any CLUAS readers taking part in the Dublin Marathon 2007 on Monday (a bank holiday for you, but not for us in France - our day off is next Thursday, 1 November).

And if our encouragement isn't enough, you can always follow the example of rock's greatest marathon runner, Joe Strummer - the Clash singer ran in two London marathons (see picture evidence below right) and (like your blogger) the Paris Marathon, the latter in 1982 during his 'disappearance' in April of that year.

By now you'll have done all your training, but there are still some valuable tips to bear in mind for this last weekend and the big day itself:

• Try to relax and get plenty of sleep tonight and Saturday night. Chances are you won't sleep at all on Sunday night with all the excitement, nerves and getting up in time for the early start to the race.
• Drink plenty of water this weekend, during the race and afterwards. Don't drink too much in one go - a little water regularly is much better. It goes without saying that you should stay off the beer this weekend - alcohol and caffeine are diuretics (in plain English, they make you want to go to the toilet and lose all your body's water).
• Eat a good, solid, healthy meal the night before - this will be your fuel for the race. On Monday morning have your usual breakfast (unless it's Jack Daniels over cornflakes) around three hours before the start of the race. Yes, this means getting up at the crack of dawn; no one said the marathon was easy.
• To avoid cramp, a lot of seasoned marathon runners take a couple of bicarbonate of soda tablets just before the race. Your chemist will have some. Glucose tablets are also a good source of energy during the race. Eating solid food during the race isn't a good idea unless you think you'll be longer than 4 hours.
• Rub some Vaseline between your toes, on your inner thighs, nipples and shoulder blades to prevent very painful chafing. An ordinary T-shirt will get soaked with sweat, weigh you down and chafe you - try to wear a running singlet or a breathable running/sports top.
• Arrive at the start in good time. In the hour before the race you should jog for five minutes to warm up your muscles.
• Make sure your number is displayed clearly on your front (not on your back!) so that the course photographers can take some excellent pictures of you in athletic action.
• During the race, make sure you take a bottle at every water station, and have a drink even if you don't feel you need it. By the time you're thirsty it's too late - you're already dehydrated. This weekend, practise drinking while running. There are two actions involved - first, fill your mouth with water; second, swallow. Not as easy as it sounds. The water/feeding stations are usually slippery underfoot, so be very careful - watch out for those orange skins!
• If you feel unwell during the race, slow down or stop. There's no shame in finishing the marathon by walking.
• You'll ache for the following couple of days! The best remedy is to keep active - swimming is probably the best and least painful way to recover. Laying up in front of the television will only make the pain worse.
• Have someone at the finish to meet you - and celebrate with you! It's really motivational to know that there's someone waiting at the finish line for you.

The Dublin Marathon always attracts large numbers of supporters along the way, especially through Dolphin's Barn and Rialto (where it feels like those crazy mountain stages of the Tour de France). The sense of accomplishment afterwards is immense.

Good luck - and enjoy the marathon!

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Bob Dylan has (cue mass rumbling of moral indignation) gone and done an ad for Cadillac to help them sell one of their top-of-the-range SUVs.

It's easy to get outraged by this sort of carry on, especially when you consider the anti-establishment line that defined his first decade as a performer. But, it's really no big deal.

Dylan nailed his colours to the corporate mast many a year ago (hell, there's probably some pompous heads out there who would try and tell you he did so back in 1961 when he signed to Columbia Records). There's been plenty of huffing and puffing at the various points when Dylan made it clear that cutting deals with various corporations was fine for him. There was that corporate gig Dylan did for Applied Materials employees back in 2002. Then in 2005 he got into bed with Starbucks for an exclusive deal to distribute 'Bob Dylan: Live at the Gaslight 1962'. And then last year he lent his hand (and silhouette) to Apple's iTunes division for some exclusive terms with the release of his last album 'Modern Times' (that included a pre-sale ticket tie-in with the devil incarnate TicketMaster).

But while he looks after the business side of things, Dylan also keeps his eye on the artistic side: there have been many a gem on his studio releases of the last decade, and recent years have seen him get his fingers dirty in some notable ventures (such as the "No Direction Home" documentary & the great read that was his book "Chronicles Volume I"). Nonetheless it's important to draw the line at his live performances of the last decade. The ones I saw were, to say the least, a bit touch and go.

Yeah, he doesn't need the money and flogging SUVs is well dodgy. But - and now I turn into a complacent crank - so what? Last time I checked life was a bit too short and, sure, we'd all be better off if we kept our outrage bottled for more worthy stuff than a gruff genius who is creaming a bit off a few corporations.

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There's no verb in French for 'to rock'. Amazingly, the likes of Voltaire, Zola, Proust and Camus somehow overcame this obstacle in writing their classic works. This only serves to prove their resourcefulness and genius, of course.

By contrast, Downpatrick band The Answer depend for their very existence on the verb 'to rock' - for how else could they describe themselves, express themselves, BE themselves? It's an existential conundrum worthy of the intellectual cafés of Paris, the city where the Norn Iron foursome happen to find themselves these days.

Not for them, however, some poncy philosophical Left Bank café. When The Answer want coffee (and maybe a sticky bun with it), they'll settle for no less than the Hard Rock Café. The Café of Rock. Not soft rock, molten rock or kinda-sorta-semi-solid rock, but Hard Rock. Rock!

[Sorry. We'll stop that.]

Tonight The Answer continue their French detour from their current jaunt around Holland - they're playing an acoustic gig in the aforementioned H.R.C. on the Boulevard Montmartre (which, as our Paris-loving readers will know, is not in Montmartre). Wouldn't it be gas, right, if they met a man called Pierre, because 'pierre' means stone, and they like rock, and he's French, and... ah, forget it.

Their plugged-out show tonight follows their support slot with American band Black Stone Cherry (keeping with their love of rock in all its forms) at the Trabendo last night. The lads also supported The Rolling Stones (see what we mean?) in Dusseldorf last week as late replacements for Amy Winehouse, whose favourite type of rocks would probably be [Snip! - CLUAS Legal Department]

The Answer got considerable exposure in the Paris press today - commuter freesheet Metro (the fine French equivalent of what you in Dublin litter the DART with) featured the band in an interview ("Q: Who would you like to collaborate with? A:  A girl!") and full colour spread, including a photo of them backstage at a recent  London gig with Jimmy Page. By contrast, Paul McCartney's show at the Olympia last night (tickets on sale earlier that day, one per person - cue pandemonium on the streets of Paris) only got an article half the size.

Does this mean that The Answer are twice as good as the man who wrote Let It Be? Decide for yourself by visiting the band's MySpace page ("Influences: ... Van Halen, Motley Crue...") and website (motto: Keep Believin') to check out some of their tunes. They're currently promoting their re-released debut album 'Rise' - from it, here's their single 'Under The Sky':

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The list of nominees has just been announced for the 2007 Prix Constantin, France's equivalent of the Choice, Mercury, Shortlist and Polaris prizes. The award, France's most prestigious for music, will be presented at a ceremony in Paris on 15 November. The shortlist announcement was made by this year's jury president, rai-rocker Rachid Taha.

The award aims to recognise the year's best new or emerging act. Unlike its Anglophone counterparts, therefore, it's impossible for an act to be nominated more than once.

You may have noted the qualifier 'emerging': an eligible act can have released any number of under-the-mainstream-radar albums during a long musical career - the only stipulation is that none of their recordings have ever attained gold disc status in France, i.e. over 75,000 sales. For instance, Phoenix were nominated for last year's prize on the strength of their third album, 'It's Never Been Like That'. If these rules had applied to the Mercury then past winners such as Suede, Franz Ferdinand and the Arctic Monkeys would not even have been eligible for nomination.

Another peculiarity of the Prix Constantin is that it's not confined to French acts. The regulations only demand that the record have been released on a French label. It's not even necessary to sing in French. Again, last year's nominees included a case in point: German-Nigerian jazz chanteuse Ayo, who sings in English. Theoretically there's nothing in the rules to stop an Irish band from coming to France, making an album here, releasing it on a French label... and winning the Prix Constantin (it's more likely than an Irish band ever winning the Mercury, says you cynically).

So, who are this year's nominees? Well, you should all be familiar with Justice by now - surprisingly, they haven't reached gold status in France, despite D.A.N.C.E. being a huge airplay and dancefloor hit here. You might also know Keren Ann -  the Israeli-born Dutch-raised English-language singer-songer (there's this year's non-French exception) whose Leonard Cohen/Lou Reed-influenced fifth album (again, hardly a 'new' act) has received favourable reviews internationally.

As for the other nominees, the current French fad for female first-name-only acoustic singer-songers is represented twice, by Daphné and Rose. There are three male singer-songers; Renan Luce, Florent Marchet and Ours. Meanwhile, Kaolin are the only indie band on the list, an under-representation which should tell you plenty about French musical preferences as compared to English-speaking countries, where alternative acts dominate prize shortlists.

Last year's winner was rapper Abd Al-Malik (left) with his album 'Gibraltar', and this year there's another rap nominee in the shape of the fiercely political Keny Arkana (who, despite her first name, is a woman). The shortlist is completed by duo AaRON (dig the upper/lower case precision), who had a minor hit this year with a maudlin piano ballad in English called 'Lili'.

Another difference to Anglophone culture: French people don't bet on anything except horses, so we can't enjoy the traditional pastime of speculating on the odds of various nominees. Your blogger may be tempted to open a book on the Prix Constantin, were it not for the fact that it's impossible for an outsider to call the winner - last year's beaten nominees included Phoenix and Emily Loizeau, both of whom made albums we're still raving about. On verra.

The 2005 winner was Camille (with her wonderful second album Le Fil), who accepted her award with the legendary words "J'ai envie de faire pi-pi" ("I want to pee"). We're still waiting for a follow-up album from her - lately she's been performing choral works by Benjamin Britten in Paris churches, and she sang the theme tune to Parisian-rat-in-a-restaurant cartoon 'Ratatouille'. The Prix Constantin was not her only victory of 2005; she also scooped the equally-prestigious honour of this column's Best French Tune of 2005 with her single 'Ta Douleur' - here's the appropriately idiosyncratic video:

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A reminder that China can be an unsophisticated place when it comes to freedom of speech, Internet users here as of yesterday can't log on to Youtube. The popular website joins others like Wikipedia on the lengthening list of sites which have fallen foul of the Great Firewall. The crack-down is perhaps because all this week the leadership of the country's one and only political party, the Communist Party, is meeting for its 17th Congress. Embarassing videos alluding to the Party's dodgy record on corruption and human rights would not be acceptable  during the grand pow-wow, held about once a decade to divvy up leadership posts.  The army of censors who patrol Chinese cyberspace may also have been ordered into action as a form of revenge towards the USA for awarding the Dalai Lama the Congressional Medal earlier this week. Such blunt logic would not be beyond Beijing's cadres, who have reacted as if kicked in the nuts by Washington's grand reception for the exiled Tibetan leader. Whatever, the people most angered by the neanderthal approach to free speech as the young Chinese who use Youtube to learn English and watch to western and Chinese music videos. Those who benefit are the folks who came up with toudou, a Chinese copy of youtube. It hasn't been blocked. 

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Live from central Paris, in the news for today's traditionally French transport strike. In fact, your blogger is lucky enough to live on a line that had a skeleton service this morning - at 7a.m. we hopped on a full (but not crowded) train and arrived at Gare Saint Lazare to be greeted by a swarm of journalists hoping we would look suitably disgruntled (and is anyone except your breakfast show DJ ever on chirpy form at seven in the morning?). No such luck - most commuters generally accepted the inconvenience and understood the train drivers' position.

Central Paris this morning looked like Beijing - the streets were full of cyclists. Some had succeeded in the wild-eyed search for public bikes; others had blown the dust off their old boneshakers and were wobbling precariously across the road, their first time up on a bike since the days of Bernard Hinault. And the taxi drivers are delirious...

Fortunately, the weather today is fantastic - a crisp, sunny day that really shows Paris at its most beautiful. A lot of people walked to work for the first time this morning - and many people we met have told us that they'll continue their new habit. After all, walking for thirty minutes through Paris is no hardship at all. Your blogger might stroll home this evening, stopping in some nice café in Square des Batignolles along the way. Again, no hardship in that.

Today's strike doesn't enjoy mass support; few other unions have joined the transport workers .Strangely, the staff of both the Opera and the Comedie Française (Paris's most prestigious theatre) have stopped work in solidarity.

No such strike contagion at Dublin's premier French entertainment, French Friday at Thomas House. However, we understand that tomorrow night's edition will be the last at its current location and for the near future.

We've only heard rave reviews from our Dublin friends who've been along, so we've no doubt that French Friday will return very soon. If you're heading there tomorrow night, bonne soirée.

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