French Radio

On the same vein as the french driving logic, I figured we'd stick to car themes and cover RADIO in france. But only if when you say 'Radio' you mean the pathetic attempt to provide abismal radio on the weakest stations of all time.

My dad and I discussed, at length, what we would do to fix the travel guide. Recommending good maps, actual hotels still existing in the cities you travel to, and even par restaurants were at the top of our list. The idiots who wrote the damn thing didn't even survey, they just went where they wanted to go, got bored, and stopped researching. So not thorough, and decidely unhelpful to a real traveller -- namely my father, but in part myself. Bring CDs to listen to in the car. OMG, so bring CDs, otherwise you are in for a radio-surfer's nightmare.

The Stations played C-rap. Or, in modern tongue compliation and Rap. Compilation is a lame mixture of really bad English and French pop, the stuff that was popular about 6 - 8 years ago, played repititiously throughout the day. Of course, what station is complete without a little Rap. I swear, if I wanted to listen to rap, I'd put on a rap station. The worst part was that each channel had playlists that were the same ... each ... and every ... day! We happened to be in the car at the same times each day.

Station Commercials. I do not claim even remote understanding of the french language. However, I can understand enough to get the gist of commercials. You'd hear the normal radio jingle with some stuff playing the background. O - M - G the stuff int he background was like the Police and Led Zepplin, U2 and Aerosmith etc. Then you got the decisive record-scratch. And some talking. Then crap music. We could only assume this meant, "This is the stuff we WON't play, that's why we're RFL!" I was thinking, I'll cut you, I'l fuckin' cut you! It was maddening to hear viable aternatives qaushed by the commercials.

Alternative and Rock stations. All rock stations are pure Rap stations. Skyrock, harcore Rap. Alternative is a liberal term, instead of a genre of potentially audible music, meaning an alternative to the other crap stations play. So a commercial, I speculate, probably sounded something like this, "YOu hear this music, *skritch* we don't play this! That's why we're RFL, your alternative to the other crap stations who also don't play what you want to hear. R - F - L, radio station."

Station strength left wanting. So long as you could deal with just having some background 'noise', it usually faded to snow in a few kilometers. Okay folks, Paris is on a plain, with rolling hills to the North and North West (where we were) why the HELL can't you put some juice in it and solidify a station! Usually you lose stations because of natural barriers like, oh I don't know, MOUNTAINS and DISTANCE. Neither of which should have been a problem, but there I was, channel surfing ever few Km. Usually in the middle of a song as it faded to snow. I didn't bother setting stations since doing so reaked of futility since the other stations were fading in and out so much. So disappointing. If you ever go to France, TAKE CD's!!!

~B