The Chateau Diaries #4 Jarvis in Jeopardy

[C’est la vie]

Crikey you’ve all written War and Peace pt2 since I last looked!

Yes the morning wakeups are staged- there is no doubt that someone brings SJ a mug of tea and a biscuit (probably at 12pm) but they are definitely turned around and asked to enter again stage left when all is organised with the camera, microphone, shutters open etc etc.

In the beginning it was much less ‘organised’ but over the last year definitely more thought has gone into what is filmed and how we all see it.

 

[Hemerocallis]

You can already buy Stephanie as a doll:

 

[Seeingitasitis]

I noticed someone in comments is asking for a breakdown of where the ad revenue is going in the renovations...not been deleted yet and it would be interesting to know where the pennies made from that is used. (I used to watch them but stopped as soon as gift-gate started and patreon skyrocketed). Funnily they also seemed to sarcastically comment on the new porcelain straight after enquiring about fund usage....

My understanding, and I am quite prepared to be corrected on this, is as follows: SJ has handed over the running of the B&B and workshops to Nati, who is a paid employee, paid from the profit for these, or in the event of loss, costs are covered by SJ. B&B expenses will continue to at least cover the expenses of the volunteers and SJ herself with accommodation costs, food, car expenses etc. For personal income, SJ is and will use the ad revenue from all channels with the exception of the gift one. As well as her personal expenses, depending on income, she may be able to fund elements of the chateau works which do not meet the regulations of the not for profit Patreon account, e;g; the swimming pool. (although some of that might be able to be written off on B&B losses as guests will be able to use it), Expenses from you tube ad revenue that are for accommodation whilst filming, meals whilst filming, entrance fees, even clothes and items brought for demonstration, equipment for filming and editing should all be tax deductible from the monies before SJ receives a net amount. To me, all this is perfectly acceptable. SJ is providing content to subscribers in return for being paid. She therefore will not need, nor want to use Patreon funds for personal expenses. Obviously. if she has other income streams from inheritance, private investments, or subsidy from family, that is none of our business.

 

[Zebraaah]

every old video (a year ago) together with the singer page she had, were just her signing concert arias (not opera as such)

I cannot sing myself but I defo can hear and often times she is off-tune but singers can confirm, maybe she actually didn't get the role anywhere

I disagree with this - she absolutely can sing! The course she completed at one of the best music schools really don't let in people who don't sing in tune! It's not especially surprising that she didn't do it for a job - professional classical music is a hard old, poorly paid slog.

 

[Vaffle]

I am American and my family celebrates Christmas with a buche de noel every year. Sticky pudding yes please- Christmas pudding no thank you.

Its easy enough to Sherlock Holmes the shit out of agendas, realistically present or internet interpreted. But i am here for my own entertainment and believe the same is true for many here. Its s good diversion from real life agendas and drama.

I found this because I was curious about what planet Selmar came from and disbelief over the shear tonnage of gifts. Now my ads are constantly directed to Faber Castell pencil sets and Thermomix. LOTL has upgraded me

 

[C’est la vie]

Whoa! I hardly think the people on this forum are verging on ‘sycophantic superfans’! The reason we all gravitated here was to find a platform to openly discuss our views good or bad (and sometimes with humour).

 

[Heathcliffe]

Michael just posted on patreon that he got a new puppy and asked for name suggestions. He has to write 600 Xmas cards and will send every patreon 2 prints of him. He asks for ideas for videos since he has no own ideas right now.

Oh ohh why am I not surprised? Asking for ideas!?! The little sod is just not fond of hard work! Our lady Stephanie works hard to find interesting things to show her subjects, takes them to hotels, shows them cooking, dancing, bits of history, parties, renovation, interviews, etc, she uses her imagination because she knows she struck gold with this Youtube crowd. Michael Pethrick just want people to give him things and do things FOR him, he can't even be arsed to think of something to film for his patreons. He has bought all the toys, cameras and drones (paid for by American fans), now he is bored and just wants MORE for doing NOTHING. He has batted his eyelashes, done his tricks, but seriously people will want more than that long run. He is not cut out for the role he has cast himself in, not for lack of humour or talent, he is just...a bit lazy. He will waste every opportunity, it is so frustrating to watch...I feel like his dad. I keep being reminded of Shakespeare and the Tragic flaw. For those who have not heard about it, Tragic Flaw is a literary device that can be defined as a trait in a character leading to his downfall, and the character is often the hero of the literary piece. I don't actually think he will realise he's wasting the opportunities before they are no longer there, and he is a chubby old queen with nothing to show for his name. Unlike Queen Jarvis & her Barons...

 

[La Brocanteuse]

100 % agree with your post. No professional would sit there and edit in bed.

Many famous writers and creatives and even Winston Churchill worked from bed...

 

[Viva La Loca]

But considering she did everything in bed she is rather successful. I guess this comes with the drama of being a châtelaine and opera star.

Successful at what exactly. If she was that successful she wouldn't need strangers to fund the Chateau. Drama is as drama does and she isn't an opera star

I'm going to predict the Chateau will be sold within 18 months.

Yep, with you on that one

BTW folks, going on about Phillips nostrils is just mean. None of us have any choice about the body we are born into.

 

[wintering]

I've always felt weird about supporting SJ given how well off she is already. All the Patreon revenue and gifting are just subsidizing her lifestyle and she has expensive tastes. A part of me wishes she is more self-aware of her own privilege. She has been extremely lucky and even through her "hardships" she can always count on her parents or her friends to bail her out. But the charm of Lalande is how much it exists outside of the normal turbulences of life.

She works extremely hard on her vlogs so props to her for her YouTube success. I think she deserves every cent she earns through ads. The Patreon and gifting I feel more ambivalent towards.

 

[ChrissyNH]

You know when people marry someone for particular traits eg.being sociable, carefree etc and then spend all their time either trying to change them or get fed up with them specifically because of those traits? Is something like this what’s happening with some people and our Stephanie? I’m as cynical as the best of us but I don’t see her as particularly different to how she’s always been. She’s always been slightly flighty, enthusiastic and at times disorganised but she has also managed to oversee the chateau’s transformation from a building site to what it is now. I still believe she’s genuine and honest (not that anyone on here particularly thinks otherwise) and she still brings me a lot of pleasure. Still love you al!

 

[Seeingitasitis]

Actually I don't think she likes anybody. Selmar, Ian 1+2 and Dan are ok as long they do some work she benefits from. But I feel she won't miss Marie, Philip, Tomaz or even Nati. Marie does work but then it is only cooking to feed the volunteers. Putting some flowers in a vase she can do herself once a week. Nati is polite and all, but only because SJ considers her very organized and hard working because she does the boring desk job it does not mean she is superwoman. Opening the parcels and answering some emails is not overwhelming work and she can do it all dressed up. If French emails or business correspondence come in she still can't answer them. Or answer the phone. It would be more reasonable to hire a French person from the village. But then that's not their thing

I think the majority of bookings and enquiries come from English speaking prospective guests and volunteers. The business correspondence will be passed to SJ as she is the one that can make decisions on that front. I think many people could do Nati's job but in Nati she has a person who, I believe, she does like and even admire. Nati is bi-lingual, travelled and has recently purchased her own property. She is always delightful, mild mannered, modest, and co-operative and prepared to appear in all vlogs whilst not wishing to hog the limelight or start her own. I also think she is a keeper of confidences. These qualities are far more important. If I had to choose my team, what she has, is actually pretty near it.

 

[Calvignac]

Watching her latest video...
You would swear that it's the first time for them to leave the chateau in months (other than by car) !
They seem to discover everything about countryside life at once : cows, fields, skies, wild flowers, nettles, mushrooms, cows again, fences etc etc. A bit too much to be true.
As for Ian and his electrical wires/internet modem... I can't believe they asked their farm neighbours to put all this in their barn. Do they really know rural deep France people ? I do. Problems ahead I'm afraid. Not to mention all the cables all around wooden beams and... haystacks !
More and more, when watching her latest videos, I get the strange feeling that Stephanie (45) stopped growing up at 19 or 20 maximum.
Either her reactions are staged now (and I'm sure it's the case : just compare with her videos one year ago) or there's a probleme. I'm happy to have seen a few comments in her videos saying the same (I'm not alone !).
Oh and why being ecstatic now for a desk in her room and an internet modem... She's been living in this chateau for 15 years and nothing was done about this ?

 

[Seeingitasitis]

LOTL is not selling the house. Why bother to establish a non-profit for the house? If she would plan to sell, she would concentrate to solve the expensive structural problems, double-glaze all windows, repair the heating... and leave the decorating to the new owners. I can see Nic and Michael leaving in near future, B&B will be always fully booked by fans and they'll loose their privacy, the house will no longer be a private family retreat.

I am pretty sure SJ would not sell the chateau in the near future. Nic and Michael are unlikely to cashing in their chips, but if they do, SJ has first refusal anyway. More likely, they will unofficially close the B&B. The guests rarely feature unless they are chefs or have professional businesses. Therefore, it is more likely that privacy will be preserved by inviting only guests where there is real benefit - for example, the owner of The Woodsman would provide great content during a stay at the chateau and SJ would be able to visit his restaurant and home in return. Same with the guy with the restaurant in Amsterdam. The author of the children's book set at LaLande with beautiful rhyme and illustration would be a welcome guest as the proceeds from the book are going to a charity of DJ's choice and thus she is delighted to collaborate. These will be the sort of people whose company they will all enjoy and be useful contacts and extend their friend base. I suspect the workshops will be extended to provide variety and content. Volunteers will be needed to look after those people and provide vlog content themselves. The season for this will be short, as SJ will be travelling more with Oliver and privately and need the freedom to explore new business opportunities, and I am guessing they will be many. Brenda will not be in charge of merchandise. SJ will, I would have thought, should set up a "shop" at the chateau, full of exquisite gifts beautifully displayed in a newly renovated space. This will give the illusion that people are picking from the shelves and it is all being lovingly packed. In reality, the website can be classy and the merchandise does not need to go through the chateau. It can all be stored at Amazon warehouses and dispatched on order. SJ can continue at the chateau for the key festive dates for vlogging and enjoy other parties that do not need to have the camera present so that Nic does not have to wear the thin joke of a paper bag on this head and Antoine can enjoy Crot Crot without a prying lens. Patreons will be happy with tea and cake once or twice a year garden party. SJ has a great future and I am looking forward to seeing it all unfold.

 

[C’est la vie]

@Calvignac Yes it’s all changed in the last year and I blame the superfans! As soon as gifts started to appear and the adoration flowed SJ character changed and not for the better. The videos now are geared towards keeping the superfans and high paying patreons onside.
I wonder how long it will be before she gets sent the full range of last nights porcelain, discontinued or not? Fans around the world will be trawling websites, charity shops, cellars, kitchen cupboards, family airlooms......

Has this superfan not watched any of the other vlogs?

 

[Calvignac]

Thank you for telling me Levan is married with children. I was unaware. Anyway, he was flirting. He may be married, but he is not dead. No harm done I am sure,

Must be a cultural difference.
Because I always read comments here or on YouTube about flirting at Lalande, especially when there are new men around (goat farmer, Georgian cook, and others I don't remember the names just now).
And each time for me, it's just not flirting but normal relationships between men and women.
Must be Latins / Slavic versus Anglo-Saxons

He's the kind of guy who is looking for a sugar queen. A kept man who can then spend all day playing with his toys

Michael just answered a common his video from last week that he will post a new video but not today (Friday) because he's got no interesting footage at the moment and he wouldn't want to post a boring video as he did too many times before.

 

[Heathcliffe]

I hope they film it! Seriously though, and I am sincere on this, I am a bit concerned re stalkers or misunderstood nice generalisms SJ says like "looking forward to seeing you here". Yesterday in Melbourne Australia a girl was killed by her stalker. What triggered his obsession with her was her kindness to him one time, just once. Sorry to be morose it really worries me. PP is not going to be any help.

You are very right , sadly. My wife (before we met, it wasn't me!) had a stalker, and that got very serious and still to this day is something she will never forget. People who are in the public eye can attract nutters easily. They create scenarious in their heads, and when it does not unfold the way they thought it would, they can flip. I would guess women more often than men attract stalkers, though of course (as we all know here) there are some female hatters as well, and one unhinged behaviour often leads to another (some people think flashing is harmless, but it is often the start of things that can lead up to rape, it is all about taking control). As Stephanie's fame grows, she will learn the hard way that you have to be careful in trusting strangers, I am sure this will be something Nic and Michael P will discuss with her. Sorry, getting quite serious here So anyway, over to something NOT so serious, - Marie's weird "oooh a flower! a mushroom!" behaviour. It might also just be a bit attention seeking? She does tend to get stuck in the kitchen, her milkbottle business is not really taking off, and Stephanie is really giving more attention to her toy poodle Phillip and the sexy secretary Nattie...and anyone else showing up. She is not the "it" girl anymore, so she is trying to grab some attention and limelight by stopping them, making them look at her. Just a thought. Or she is just a mad hippie.

 

[Calvignac]

That's ridiculous! She has a nice life and regular holidays, but I don't see her as a lazy person at all. It's a lot of work to produce five videos a week, plus all the stuff behind the scenes. Running a B and B and hosting workshops is also work, as is dealing with an ever changing bunch of volunteers in recent years. Don't denigrate the admin work she did for her family business either. Millions of people wouldn't be deemed to do a 'proper days work' by your definition, but they keep the economy and society going in the roles they do perform.

I think the point being made here is that Stephanie has never known what is a hierarchy (and I'm not speaking of Mummy and Daddy), colleagues (and not a Gerry or a bunch of often very young volunteers), strict working hours (not speaking of lying in bed until noon for your work either) and real goals (not making money to restore your dream rural chateau).
Nobody said that Stephanie was lazy. Just living in... La La Land and thinking that life can be hard (for the others).
We like Chateau Diaries videos. But we have to be lucid too

 

[burnrave]

As a big fan of cheese and egg (I love to eat the local [cheap cheese] version in the form of 'roti prata'), the latest vlog made me salivate intensely!! The previous dumplings episode was okay, even though I adore the Chinese xiaolongbao, because the dumplings were enormous.

Agree that Isabelle must be a very scarily formidable character in real life. I wouldn't be surprised if she were on here to be honest, regardless of her age. She was afterall the head nurse (?) with the NHS where she had to oversee everything that goes on in her department. I'm just glad it's online where we don't have to actually face her real-life wrath.

I can hardly imagine 80 yrs old lady reading a thread about something else on tattle ...
I think I was onto something by my posts about possible infiltration bc many profiles for this thread appeared in october and then I read on the fist thread that this thread appeared in the comments of YT video and someone with SJ nick commented on 1 Oct, so by assumption they already infiltrated around that time

Huh, does it actually matter if a "superfan" "infiltrates" from YouTube? Both parties can snip and snark at each other here, which can get quite entertaining. There are people who may have only minor comments to make, and this forum doesn't belong to extreme snarkers does it?

p/s: Damn I realised I joined on Oct 3rd! I think I'm one of the infiltrators [I did come from a YT comment!!!]? I remember a number of new posts commenting that some parts of the Unwrapped episodes were making them uncomfortable though. Doesn't mean infiltration as much as increased side-eye-ness from general fans.

 

[Yorkshire Terrier]

Feel free to voice too

Ok. I enjoy the vlogs (secretly dreamed of moving to France one day but probably won’t). I think that SJ has charm and ability but likely hasn’t done a proper days work in her life and lives in cloud cuckoo land. It’s not for me - a realist - but good luck to her. Some of her volunteers are lovely - I like Kat - others seem to be visiting as a stepping stone to fame and fortune (in their dreams). In this world where social media is becoming king one has to take it all with a huge pinch of sel de Guerande!