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Radio Review: From Our Own Correspondent

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann is an Irish News columnist and writes a weekly radio review.

Spring on the Cote d'Azur surely beats a wet day in Portrush
Spring on the Cote d'Azur surely beats a wet day in Portrush Spring on the Cote d'Azur surely beats a wet day in Portrush

In journalism, there are the jobs you'd love and there are the jobs you'd really rather not... it's all up to the whims of the news editor.

But covering the Cannes festival - surely that's a dream.

Imagine Spring on the Cote d'Azur, bumping into all the big stars and dandering along La Promenade de La Croisette - surely it beats a wet day in Portrush?

But FOOC's Matthew Anderson found it was not all sweetness and light. In fact, he has concluded that the popular view that feudalism ended with the French revolution does not ring true in Cannes in festival week. Ssssss!

The spirit of the old order is alive and well and it's colour coded.

This was a fun, tongue-in-cheek look at the world of Cannes - where, if you rank among the lowly film reviewers, your elbows need to be sharp as knitting needles and you really need to get up early to get in.

About 4,500 journalists attended this year's festival and the colour of your entrance badge mattered big time.

Yellows are the bottom of the pile - long queues and no time for sleeping comes with the territory.

Anderson himself was a blue which is next up in the ranks and meant a long wait for a fight to find a seat in the rafters at a venue.

Pink badges have a better deal, but you really want a white badge - the legendary carte blanche which means you can arrive at the last minute and still sweep into the viewing past the others standing outside.

Anderson said people at Cannes glance casually at your lanyard and wrinkle their noses as they size you up. But I think some French people do that anyway. It's just a bad nasal habit.

He told the amusing story of a journalist he met who had fallen from the dizzy heights of a pink badge to a blue one - to be met with pitying faces of the kind usually reserved for the terminally ill.

Our hearts bleed. Send `em all up the Port in the motor for a change - I'd gladly queue for Cannes.