WHAT'S FRENCH FOR "SIX PACK"?

GETTING INTO SHAPE FOR THE OLYMPICS

Exercise a la Francaise.

It’s that time of year when, as Verlaine warned, “the long sobs of the violins of autumn wound our hearts with a monotonous languor.” Summer tans have faded, peaches and strawberries have left the market, and short skirts and thin dresses are back in the wardrobe. It’s apples and pears and jeans and les puls until July.

The city of Paris has chosen this time to encourage us to exercise more. To the motto “Paris, bouge ton esprit” (Paris, move your mind) we’ll be encouraged to make physical activity a part of our daily lives, in an effort to improve well-being and mental health and combat the challenges apparently presented by winter.

           But is winter so mentally challenging? It’s not as though we’ll be snowed in until the spring. If starving retirees are eating their chihuahuas, it hasn’t made the papers I read. The worst challenge most of us face is over-indulgence, and such  holiday assaults on the liver as vin chaud and buches de Noel.

No, I think this has something to do with the imminence of the Olympics. With many of the events taking place in the streets of Paris rather than in decent isolation somewhere in the suburbs, all that muscled flesh will put the city’s flabbier citizens in an unflattering light.

I remember seeing a cartoon explaining why Parisiennes are so slim. It shows gendarmes, under cover of night,  hustling indignant fat women into vans and whisking them off to who-knows-where. Maybe a similar fate awaits the overweight and under-exercised. Remember – you read it here first.

Not that getting into shape is easy. The gym isn’t exactly a French institution. Adam Gopnik wrote amusingly about his attempts to join a health club. The first one he approached didn’t have a plan that encompassed more than one visit a week; the concept of a daily work-out made them tired just to think about it. Nor had they got around to supplying towels, though this was, they explained, “envisaged.” They were, however, delighted to have him as a member, and presented him with a welcoming gift – a bag of chocolate truffles. Vive l’exercise à la Française!