I haven't written in a while. Work has taken me away again, this time to New York City. All very nice and big-apple-y, but I know where the real land of opportunity is. Only on Cote d'Azur one finds real cultural diversity, the proverbial melting pot. Senegalese men selling souvenirs from Africa on the Promenade, Romanian buskers playing the accordion on the beaches, Filipino yacht crewmen waiting... But enough enumerations. Let's elaborate a bit.
Take the Brits. They were perhaps the first to recognise the beauty of the Riviera, and of course they gave it its name. Starting with Queen Victoria, millions of them have come down to visit, contributing greatly to the growing economic prosperity of the area. And as you'd expect many of them never want to return to their rainy shores, and well, they don't have to! Property is so cheap here that in no time they can sell their house back in the UK and with the money buy a
mansion here. In fact, this deal even allows some of them to stop working: letting their house for two months in the summer while they return to see their family brings enough money to live reasonably for the rest of the year. As a consequence of this bargain, some towns have a 20% britimmigrant rate.
And how do the French react? Amazingly as always. They don't mind that this massive settling drives property prices up no end, rather they shrug and go make business importing Marmite and Range Rovers for their new friends. They learn English and the rules of cricket, they
serve baked beans with salad cream, they broadcast Sky Sports and sell the Daily Mail. Here, Entente Cordiale is alive and Well.