White Lady turns Grim Reaper

Lighthearted though this blog aims to be, you can't live in the shadow of the Mont Blanc and not pass comment on what has been one of the deadliest summers in recent years on the 'la dame blanche'.

The devastating avalanche which swept 8 eight sleeping climbers to their deaths last week was shocking enough to make the front pages across Europe and beyond, a sad piece of news made worse by the fact that retrieving the bodies is a hazardous, and for the moment impossible, task.

This particular group were hit in an area near the summit, having taken the 'Tacul' route to the top (accessible by cable car), rather than the more popular 'Goûter' track, which starts in St Gervais. It has to be said that neither is an 'easy' option, and the summer death toll is testament to the risks involved. But to get things in perspective, up to 200 climbers per day attempt to reach the summit from the high level "refuges" (mountain shacks to the uninitiated) on the 'Goûter side alone. So that's not counting the riskier and more challenging set-off points.

The notoriously unstable snow and ice in the Tacul area are no strangers to the local and national press. In 1987, a group of 60 climbers were delayed in the cable car on the way up, and as a result missed a huge avalanche in the area. If they'd left on time, they would have found themselves directly in its path.

Add to that local stories about 160 people who are stuck on the Mont Blanc in frozen graves, gradually relinquished as the glaciers melt, and you've added even more fuel to my desire to never join the brave who set their sights higher than most - and risk paying the ultimate price.

Boozy Brit arrests on the increase

Super Bock
Originally uploaded by Captain Mayhem

Moan though they do about the increase in property prices (supposedly) due to wealthy British investors, the French have always largely escaped the drunkenness among my compatriots that plagues other European destinations.

But according to a report just published by the UK Foreign Office on British Behaviour Abroad (the second of its kind), there was a 50% increase in arrests of UK citizens in France last year compared to 2006.

But let's not shake our arms about in a Gallic fashion and expel all the rosbifs on the next available ferry. After all, the figures for arrests, hospitalisations and general stupidity (like losing your passport) are impressively lower that those noted over the border in Spain, where over two thousand of Her Majesty's subjects were nicked for an array of usually alcohol-related misdemeanours (compared to just 153 in France) in 2007. Not bad when you consider that 14 million people travelled over the channel during this period, not counting the 200,000 'permanent' residents.

It seems that our dear friend the 'lager lout' is conspicuous by his absence in la héxagone, due possibly to higher prices in bars and the café rather than pub culture. That's not saying that the French are a nation of tea-totallers, frowning upon anyone who drinks more than they can handle - far from it. France's problem is that people get drunk at a friends house, and then think nothing of driving home, quite possible wrapping themselves around a lampost in the process.

In today's Dauphiné Libéré, the journalist reporting the story about British high-jinks kindly suggests that this over-indulgence might be a natural reaction to a sober and serious life back in the UK. Alas not - this theory is quickly dispelled by a visit to Newcastle on a Saturday night. Or indeed any night.

Warning: Man-eating reptile on the loose

tegu gonna get you
Originally uploaded by NataPics

Police at Saint-Baudille-la-Tour (38-Isère) have told locals to be on the lookout for a flesh-eating reptile, usually more at home in South America, photographed this week by a passing motorist who got more than he bargained for during a brief pit-stop in the area.

Contrary to how he appears in this photograph, the Tegu is not your ideal companion for a swift apéritif after a hard day's work. The metre-long cross between a snake, a crocodile and a lizard could give you a nasty bite, hence the vigilance demanded by the gendarmes.

It appears that the animal did not arrive via airports using a cunning disguise and a false passport - more likely it's former owners were keeping it in illegally unsafe conditions, and realised it into the wild to avoid the long arm of the law.