D'oh!

Humor

D'oh!, I told after reading French philatelic monthly L'Écho de la timbrologie editorial for the June 2008 issue.

Not because of the neutrality towards La Poste, its services (here, the museum) or its products, it is the trademark of this monthly editorial, like the love of intaglio printed stamps in its competitor's ones (but, please, do not stay too long in front of the 2007 Pflimlin stamp :( ).

This mark helped me find that the author criticized La Poste when she visibly had enough intels about events to come. In January 2007, Aude Ben-Moha seemed to turn her pen eight lines in her inker before she suggested carefully as a possible description "light illustration for tin can" the one designed by Yann Gafsou for the "Righteous of France"; but, the third first words asked if this stamp earned "a lemon price". Personal blank on my side: would she judge Phil@poste philatelic production after all this time? Whereas her credo is - and it is a good opinion among others: Phil@poste proposes, L'Écho informoses, collector choses. Some days after, I was reassured that my ideologic battleground was still in place: I discovered the non-issuing decisionof the stamp and its replacement by a so-neutral-it-is-blank-of-message illustration. You'ld never imagine what the Righteous did to earn the French Nation's recognition to be - symbolicly - buried in the Panthéon in Paris.

So, what did she do to me, this month, in her editorial, would you inquire? No, not again a full column about "the revival" of the French philately, understand the color change of Yvert et Tellier Frence catalogue. On how to make last or create the will to collect stamps among the young, she wrote: "Some clubs brillantly succeed - I've got names! - but due to the ambiant morosity, it would seem to be isolated cases."

I, then, imagined to read some examples of these successes, to give inspiring ideas, the trailer to a full report about these associations in the June issue, or a next one (September when parents are looking for clubs for their youngs, when members resubscribe would be a good moment, Madam). In a few pages, things far more useful than the states-general for the ones not invited to this philatelic fiesta, readers non members and members of associations and to effectively change things by herself.

What a naive, I am...*

To watch one of these activist associations, you have to go to the competition: on TV Timbres (if the report is still on-line), during the Philatelic French Kingdom's States-General (a kingdom whose subjects are - it seems, not me - waiting with impatience that the philapostal sovereign gives decisions and other gadget-stamps that do not support oxygen...), a club's director told how he personally get involve to promote philately: benevolent write of weekly articles to the regional newspaper, lobby France 3 local station to have a reporter before an exhibition, etc.

To equilibrate my humor between the two French magazines, to numistatic collectors who want to complete their euro coins: have critic spirit, read and confront the two magazines, their advertisers and authors! In the end, you will judge yourself if the folded ad in L'Écho seems more / less interesting for your purse than the promotion catalog, that has been send with Timbres magazine since the first part of 2008.

* : yes, I am forcing you to subscribe to this magazine to read the end of this editorial. A teaser: I do not know who is aimed by Aude Ben-Moha's last sentence. If it is to Phil@poste, I fear for the French philatelic issue program in the future and Phil@poste's director who will be speaking on 14 June to tell her ideas after the states-general (announced in Timbres magazine, page 11).