I’ll leave aside corporations, etc. and keep the focus on the people I know for this section this time.
Friends
John is still very much one of the good guys. And has not just one site, not two, but three. One music-related, and one food-related (yum!), and one for your DIY fix.
This website has become a possibility following a great dinner chez John and Fiona and a few e-mails, and trying to close a very long loop, the ‘making music again’ projects having been slowly delayed through 2022, and I am indebted to him. Alternatively, you might blame him for it. 😀
Fiona, now officially married to John, has her website full of nice photos of cool places to travel to.
Dan is Australian but has travelled a lot. We go back a long way to his time in Paris when I’d just started working. Somehow as part of reconnecting with quite a few people, sometimes looking out for them, sometimes them coming back naturally (How did I get so lost all these years?), I found his website. E-mailed him and got a very touching reply. Anyway, he is now exercising his talents and sharing his experience in Estonia.
A couple of Arsenal-related blogs :
Arseblog is now a global concern and Andrew’s full-time job, but it wasn’t always like that. Very balanced pieces on Arsenal every day, that’s dedication. Beyond that, the community that was created through arseblog has been incredible. I have made friends and met people from all over the world in US/Australia/Europe, sometimes driving extra miles during work trips (NJ to Boston? Madrid to Fuengirola?) to meet people, done some great away trips in the UK and Europe, etc. etc., sometimes people come and say hello in Paris. Hell, one of my best friends I met through arseblog, in London just before he moved to France.
Goonerholics Forever is the legacy of David Faber (the original Goonerholic), continued through the works of a dedicated team who keep on blogging with the same historical spirit, with a lot of perspective, constructive and measured (generally) takes, a pleasure. I got to meet people old and new in January 2023, and it’s like the spirit was rekindled. My story with Dave could be worth telling in some ways, but what I will always keep is that he was such a genuinely good man, and that the last time I saw him, when I knew he wasn’t well but was far from imagining it would be the last time, was a moment I will always treasure after some of the shit we’d sadly been through.
Family
I wasn’t sure about this section, but only very early this year (2023), I realised there are a few genuine artists in this family (I’m not, though I sometimes think I have neglected my own brand of subtle creativity. If I’d listened to my heart, writing, one way or another but probably more as a journalist, could have been a calling, but then I think in other ways, I’ve been kept safer by staying in the engineering career, even if I’ll never feel like technical stuff is my thing).
First, my Grandad, Pierre. I think my four grandparents were exceptional in their own way, but he’s the only one with a trace on the internet. And on a few street names in the South West of France. He’s also, obviously, the one I never got a chance to meet. By all accounts an incredible human being, not just gifted for science but for a lot of things including arts and writing.
My niece Judith (facebook link, it kind of works as her website) plays and sings her own music. Some beautiful songs.
Her brother Pierre (FB again, sorry), does some great art out of various material for knives, but not just.
Another nephew, Joseph, has gone into another branch of arts: dance, both as a dancer and choreographer. The link is just a profile, and here’s also a nice interview with him from a few years back (note that the cancelled performance mentioned there did go ahead in 2021 after all, part of me waking up too….)