Licensing Blog

Welcome to our Licensing Blog, which takes a light hearted look at our mysterious world.

French motorways, sun, sea and sand(Posted: 20-08-2008)

Why we love driving in France, and the hunt for product.

So here I am; fresh back from 2 weeks of summer sun in south-west France. Oh what a joy it is to drive on French motorways. The difference is amazing when you haven’t got all those other idiot drivers up your rear end desperate to get past; a nice relaxing 500 miles that would have you tearing your hair out on the highways and byways of the UK; plenty of places to stop without pulling into a massive service area; but, oh – those toilets! Why, in a civilized western country, do we have to put up with holes in the ground?

Comfortably settled into my neighbour’s parents’ holiday home just outside Royan (we all love a free holiday, don’t we?) it was off to the beach at St Palais. Hot sun, hot sand, almost hot sea, but a lack of hot women on the beach. Never mind, you can’t have everything. Gun emplacements and pill-boxes further up the beach evoked images of the second world war, some 60 years after the battleships had disappeared and the dry dock further up the coast at Saint Nazaire had been destroyed in one of the most daring Commando raids of the war that resulted in 5 Victoria Crosses being awarded. The frequent enormous jelly fish washed up in the beach made you realise that this stretch of water still held some smaller hazards.

WWII gun emplacements at St Palais                 Disappointed junior shoppers cooling off

The local supermarkets were full of delights, with ridiculously cheap paté and cheese, fabulous bread and the wonderful locally-caught oysters. If it wasn’t for being away from home I could get used to living here!

Anyway, what of licensed products? Well, I have to admit to being disappointed with the lack of stuff I came across. Two properties jumped out at me everywhere – Dora the Explorer (or should I say Dora l’Exploratrice?) and Roadsign Australia. If you’re not familiar with this brand then have a look on page 81 of the current Guide to the Licensing World. Pictures of Kangaroos sprang from everywhere – t-shirts, shorts, body- and surf-boards and all sorts of beach accessories. Further inland, a shop full of expensive collectible figures from the Tintin stories was interesting, but not really enough to get the kids excited about being there, and we also found lots of Marsupilami keyrings and accessories. In the end the kids came home with most of their holiday euros still intact as they couldn’t find anything that they wanted to spend them on and we had to pay them out in sterling!

With an eye trained to home in on anything licensed I was surprised at what I didn’t find. Maybe we were just in the wrong shops. Still, I didn’t go to France to go shopping – at least not until I got back to Boulogne-sur-mer to stock up on more Chardonnay and Rosé than is good for both me and the suspension of my car.

After nearly 1700 miles of sedate driving it was back to the M20 and the aggressive English motorway system again as Dover disappeared in my rear-view mirror at 90mph.

Next time, fajitas, tequila and 18 pesos to the pound, as I report from Expo Licensing Latinoamerica in Mexico City. Until then, adiós!