1336 … as in the year when the Italian poet Petrarch climbed le mont Ventoux for the view, while the British burned down Aberdeen and four thousand Lithuanians committed suicide rather than submit to the Teutonic Knights? (Dixit Wikipedia, the Portal of All Knowledge).

Nope. As in three years at one hundred and twenty four days of a workers’ struggle against a giant food conglomerate’s decision to shut down their plant outside Marseille. They didn’t make the front pages in the international press. Instead, they stuck it out and re-opened the plant in 2015. They box teas and herbal mixes. 1336 is the brand name of the products from their workers’ coop. Should you come across Nina Dupeux and Emmanuel Briand’s  documentary film El Aguante, you’ll learn about them and other workers’ coops in Argentina.

In Argentinian Spanish, El Aguante means  something like patience, perseverance and endurance combined. You won’t find El Aguante the film at your local Cineplex. As writer Alain Mabanckou wrote to his son: “…le monde est ainsi fait : il y a plus de héros dans l’ombre que dans la lumière.” (That’s how the world is: there are more heroes in the shadows than in the light).

The writing? Going poorly. What else is new.