Got a few emails asking me whether its really true that you can buy surf brand underwear. Some of you must think its an urban legend. Well, it is true and here is the proof.

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The name of Pugwash, the Dublin power-pop heroes led by Thomas Walsh, is causing some intrigue here in Paris.

A recent edition of French cultural mag Les Inrockuptibles reported on Neil Hannon's current movements - the Divine Comedy man being one of the musical heroes of the Parisian bobos. Anyway, the magazine reports that Hannon is currently working on an album by "his obscure compatriots Pugwash".

The piece continues: "But that's not all: Pugwash has, and it's perhaps even more amazing, also succeeded in securing the services of XTC's Andy Partridge, who co-wrote two tracks on the album, entitled '11 Modern Antiquities' and to appear later in the year. Andy Partridge and Neil Hannon on the same record: the dream of every normally-constituted pop lover" (translation mine). 

To pass the time while waiting for this mysterious new album, you can test your French by reading the original article. Otherwise, you can listen to some classic tracks on Pugwash's MySpace page. And if that's not enough, here's 'It's Nice To Be Nice':

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Last weekend, I got an email from TurfnSurf.ie in Bundoran telling me about a beach party that they are holding in August to raise funds for a township building programme in South Africa. Earlier in the year, surfers from the East coast of Ireland took part in a fund raising drive to raise awareness and money for people who suffer from Cystic Fibrosis and on August 11th S.I.R.F will hold its annual fundraising paddle in Strandhill to support its school building project in Indonesia. In fact, they are presently building their third kindergarten. Its a long way from the popular image of the lazy, drugged up, selfish, stoopid surfer as immortalised by Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) in 'Fast Times At Ridgemont High" and surfing is all the better for it.

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Junior Brown & The Beach Boys

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Paris offers the tourist everything - except the sea. In this regard, Paris always loses out to Ballybunion and Bray. However, every summer the city hall tries to remedy this - et voila! The beach comes to Paris!

'Paris Plages' (now in its fifth year) is a temporary beach on the right bank of the Seine, starting below the Louvre and running upriver past Chatelet and Notre Dame as far as the Gare de Lyon. From mid-July to September a riverside road, the Voie Georges Pompidou, is closed to traffic (as it is every Sunday, to facilitate walkers and rollerbladers). Tons of sand are dumped on it, and the improvised beach is then garnished with palm trees, sun loungers and so forth. This being France, there's also pétanque, or bowling.

The beaches are enormously popular and always packed - despite the obvious drawbacks. For one thing, there is a busy road up above at street level, so there's no escape from noise and pollution. Also, there's no privacy - tourists take photos of sunbathers from above on the street and from the decks of the bateaux-mouches (river cruises). Still, some people may like having that paparazzi feeling.

Another problem is the strangeness of being on a beach but unable to swim in the nearest body of water - i.e. the Seine. Now the old river is no longer as polluted as it was centuries ago when it would actually go on fire. Your blogger lives down the river from Paris and there are anglers on our nearest bank. There was also a swimming race recently (similar to the Liffey Swim).

But despite former Paris mayor Jacques Chirac's 1987 pledge to make the Seine fit for swimming, it's still completely forbidden to swim in the central Paris stretch (there's the old joke that if you fell off a Paris bridge you'd be dead before you hit the water). The city fathers have therefore set up floating swimming pools on the river. We presume that surfing is not allowed either - sorry, Jules. However, Juliette Binoche is allowed to go waterski-ing. Who could refuse her?

'Paris Plages' really comes to life at night, when there are free events such as the 'Indétendances' series of concerts featuring new and established acts (including the fantastic psychedelic pop of Izabo, who we featured recently). One of the joys of summer in Paris is going down to the river at night and sharing wine with friends. So far the French summer has been a bit cool (still better that the Irish one, of course) but last weekend we went to the canal at La Villette, where there are also 'Paris Plages' activities. Life is good in Paris.

So that you can share some of the 'Paris Plages' vibes, here's Serge Gainsbourg singing 'Sea, Sex And Sun':

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"Now the greasers they tramp the streets or get busted for trying to sleep on the beach all night / Them boys in their spiked high heels ah Sandy their skins are so white /  And me I just got tired of hangin' in them dusty arcades bangin' them pleasure machines / Chasin' the factory girls underneath the boardwalk where they promise to unsnap their jeans" Copyright © 1973 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)

Immortalised in Springsteen's music, not alot of people know that Asbury Park has a workable surf break although it is illegal to surf there. According to a Surfline article on the area, you will avoid the crowds but you won't avoid the crims. I briefly passed the area once when I was visiting NYC and it kind of looked like, eh,Tramore...only cleaner.

Here are some dudes catching a wave down in Asbury Park.

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1) The video for 'Double Je', the first single by Christophe Willem, winner of 'Nouvelle Star' (France's version of 'Pop Idol'), comes on television and I immediately zap elsewhere before hearing a second of it. After all, no talent show winner has ever made a decent record (Girls Aloud being the exception that proves the rule), and the video - singer sings his woes to a self-help group - looks about as funny as Monday morning. Zap!

2) A wonderful cut of stomping '80s disco-pop is playing on the radio of every shop and café I visit, but I keep missing the title. 'What', I ask myself, 'is that fantastic song? Who sings it? And how come I never see it on the telly?'

Naturally, the song in question is 'Double Je', the first single by Christophe Willem, winner of 'Nouvelle Star' (France's version of etc etc). So much for your eejity blogger's pop snobbery (just to be sure, we listened again to Rhianna's 'Umbrella' - still a boring song, as we've always thought. Get over it, English-speaking world!).

Tall, gangly and square-spectacled like Jarvis, Willem is nicknamed 'La Tortue' (the turtle) for his strange way of hunching up his shoulders when he sings, often while wearing a turtle-neck sweater (i.e. a polo-neck jumper). He's clearly a Michael Jackson fan, right down to the moves and the falsetto voice - and 'Double Je' is as good a pop single as those by Justin Timberlake, that other Jackson-influenced pop idol.

The video is still crap, though, so here's Christophe Willem singing 'Double Je' on a French TV show recently. Yes, that's his real voice:

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Ok, the HBO blurb for this show is, "Set in Imperial Beach, California, the last great surf-break before Tijuana, where the U.S. meets Mexico, and water meets land, John From Cincinnati tells the story of the Yosts, a family of surfers whose awesome athletic talents have seemed for generations to come with a curse attached...The Yosts' reign and reputation, once defined in the curl of a perfect wave, have been eroded by years of bad luck, addiction and hubris. But just as things are looking like they can't get worse, a stranger named John arrives – and the Yosts' banal existence is lifted into something profound, miraculous and, possibly, universal."

Now, this show has been co-created by a guy called Kem Nunn, and this guy happened to write a novel called, "Tapping The Source" which went on to be the inspiration for 'Point Break' which, like it or not, every surfer I have ever met is able to quote at length. In fact, you could run a table quiz for surfers based entirely around trivia questions from that movie. And this is made by HBO who also made 'Six Feet Under', 'The Sopranos' and 'Rome'. Put those two things together and you have a series which although warm hearted is not going to be, exactly, family entertainment. Let's just say that the first ten minutes shows one of the main characters Butchie Yost shooting up smack and includes the line, "You just paid to see a donkey f**k a woman". In adddition, if the show is successful it will provide yet another avenue for musicians to have their music listened to since, as has been shown by Fionn Regan on 'Greys Anatomy' and by Bell X1 on 'The OC', synch licenses have become a fashionable and popular move for the artist on the up, and Kasabian's 'Sun/Rise/Light/Flies' is used over the climatic surf scene that ends Episode One. Oh yeah, and pro surfer Keala Kennelly is in the cast too.

Rather than do a long write on this I thought I would simply give you the link via i-Tunes to download the first episode, and also a couple of You Tube clips for the opening sequence and a trailer and let you make up your own mind. Comments are, as always, very welcome.

Opening Sequence

Series Promo

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