Cyberspace tourists need right terminal

BILL GRUAR* travels the information superhighway in Europe - and makes some unscheduled stops.

Going away? You'll have to set up a hotmail address, I was told. Then you'll be able to access your e-mail wherever you go. So went the theory. I could keep in touch with my loved ones, dependants and everyone else by finding a computer and logging-in.

After changing cables, my ingenious little torch-battery powered laptop could dump its files into any computer and then send my home thoughts from abroad through cyberspace ("feed the cat and the bank card, the Air Singapore hostesses look like barbie dolls, everything's so, well, old in Europe, the place needs a good sorting out like we did in Auckland and Wellington, water goes down the plughole the right way ... " You know the stuff).

It was simple enough in London. The Herald site gave news of insider trading, Tainui fund mismanagement and a threatened Government boycott of Waitangi celebrations - just like being there - but my leads would not connect to the new laptops so I couldn't reply with all my wonderful observations. No matter, I would keep making my diary and send it on when I got to another computer in an internet cafe in France.

France was a different matter. No matter how much classroom French you speak, understanding the reply is only for the bilingual. The wise traveller begins all interaction with "Bonjour. Parlez-vous Anglais?" to which the answer is often a resounding "Non!" and less frequently, a more accurate "Non, just a petit, pardon."

So, high above the Dordogne River in a 15th-century yet fashionable cafe, having been told that "le patron parle Anglais," the reaction to my question about the whereabouts of the nearest internet cafe is derision.

"This is France, Monsieur. You are here." Le patron made a hole by placing his forefinger on the end of his thumb and then he poked his other forefinger through it. "France is a hole, Monsieur. You will not find the internet in a hole."

In another town we were directed to the roadside Cyber Space Cafe Barbe Bleue, some 25km away on Rue N143 in the middle of unharvested hectares of wearied sunflowers. A peer through the windows of the forlorn 18th-century inn told us the place was terminally shut.

The two times I did find internet access, once in the walled 14th-century Brittany town of Dinan and the other in Paris some hours before departure, were accidental, and I did not have my laptop with me, so my blow-by-blow details were never sent.

Typing in my password and bon mots was even more difficult, as the French have their own, non-qwerty keyboard. Still, as my friend said to me as I bemoaned the difficulty of keeping my family informed of my impressions, there was no guarantee anyone would read them anyway.

The French take the internet, their language, their food, wine and water, (bottled water is Eau de France) and their blood very seriously. Contamination is not permitted.

The ad hoc group, Defence of the French Language, maintains that the laws aimed at preserving the language should apply to the internet as well, despite the fact, obvious to any browser, that the net is predominantly in English and defiantly independent of control or intervention.

The group brought a lawsuit against the Georgia Institute of Technology's campus in Metz for creating a website in English. Facing possible fines of up to $8300 each time the site was accessed, the university translated the site into French and German.

One reason the internet is not as popular is because the French, fierce innovators of things once considered peculiarly Gallic, such as front-wheel drive on cars, created a still useful precursor to the internet decades ago - le Minitel - but it didn't catch on elsewhere.

There is an ever-growing list now of almost 120,000 English words that are not allowed in official documents. Despite all these naughty English words on file they are rapidly following the Japanese in the strange practice of badging their cars with English words which have little to do with getting from A to B in style, at speed, or bearing cargo, functions one normally associates with vehicles.

The French motor through the jungle of their highways and byways in le Renault Manager, Master, Elf, First, Five, Spring, and Spider; le Citroen Flash and l'Evasion; and le Peugeot Junior or Jumper. What the Defence of the French Language group think about the Renault Kangoo and Twingo, or the Citroen Xsara, Xantia or Jumpy, je ne sais pas.

As we drove along, with our radio on automatic channel search seeking something for our 28-year-old driver's ears, we were subjected to a surprisingly middle of the road (where tourists often drive) selection of the same music you would hear anywhere: Ray Charles, Olivia Newton-John, the Bee Gees, with lots of naughty words and a disturbing amount of re-recorded and orchestrated versions sung by French artists in English to lacklustre (and rhythm) French studio bands.

And when, driving from degustation in the friendly vineyards, we tuned in to see if we could somehow find the kick-off time for All Blacks v France, "men in black" and "the big man" penetrated the unintelligible wall of rapid-fire French deejay-speak. Later, at another small cafe, where they thought they could possibly find le rugby on one of their two TVs, but could not, le patron rushed off home and brought back his Sky decoder, so we were able to watch the All Blacks live.

The French clientele weren't interested, and it was strange to realise suddenly that we tight three Kiwis were the only ones yelling and shouting while the business of drinking continued as much as it continues in any bar in the civilised world.

The French we met were not, as their reputation suggests, reluctant to converse in a language they considered beneath them. They genuinely knew little English.

In the Aeroport Charles de Gaulle, trying to cram lasting impressions of a country I would be unlikely to revisit, my eyes lit on a headline on Le Figaro: "Chirac, les medias et Internet." Aha, le Grand Patron knows the internet.

After leaving our Latin Quarter hotel about 6 am it took about four hours to drive to the airport, get slightly lost on the airport motorway (at times five fast lanes) because of the paucity of signs confirming that we were on the motorway to the airport, check in and ditch the car.

We were all relieved. At one hotel we watched le patron scoff a bottle of white while we had breakfast. There is time (departure delay as a result of le terrorism) and there are three easy access bottles stuffed beneath the wheelchair in some dirty laundry ...

Non, coffee, c'est okay!

I look at my feet. Below me, on the other side, people are asleep. It is time for these Kiwis to fly home.

*Bill Gruar is an Auckland inventor and writer. His book Spinal Dogs tells of his rehabilitation after breaking his back in a building site accident.