Stomatology

Having come across stomatology a couple of years ago on the small screen and noticed it at reference 1, it popped up again in yesterday's bedtime story - Maigret se défende. And because in the interval I have moved from Littré to Larousse for such purposes, as well as being reminded that a stomatologist was a mouth doctor and of the other medical uses of the word, I was reminded that stoma was also the name of the breathing holes in leaves.

As usual, it turned out that the small screen had taken various liberties with the written word, but both worked quite well. With Simenon managing to work in some interesting (if sometimes implicit) reflections about how the experienced old timers in hierarchic organisations gradually get pushed aside by youngsters - or blanc-becs in Maigret's dismissive phrase. How the old - and sometimes rough & ready - police methods of the 1930's get pushed aside in favour of new methods and new rules of engagement. How managers sometimes find it hard to leave the front line work to their subordinates; how they like the front line work and don't like to delegate all of it. How we have become fond of paper qualifications. How interior ministers sometimes need a parallel investigative organisation to complement the regulars - a bit like our own split between the regular police, special branch, the secret service and the security service. About new brooms and the balance between political appointments and in-service appointments. About how it doesn't do to put all the eggs in one basket. All of which goes to Simenon being a more sophisticated writer than his contemporary Agatha Christie.

I also associate to a remark to the effect that general officers in the army sometimes look back on their days as colonels and major with nostalgia and regret. The happiest days of their life. When they had a regiment or a battalion to run rather than an office.

And by way of a nice new phrase we had 'la cuisse légère', which I take to apply to a lady, more or less respectable, but who is a bit prone to affairs, to a bit on the side.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/12/maigrets-teeth.html.

Reference 2: Maigret se défende - Simenon - 1964. Volume XXIII of the collected works.