Maîtres mots

  • Il y a longtemps que notre pays est beau mais rude.

       --Newspaper editor Olivier Séguret, 25 January 2012

    The USA are entirely the creation of the accursed race, the French.

       --Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966), writing to Nancy Mitford, 22 May 1957

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French Freedom of Speech

Today the cheminots are:


  • "À nous de vous faire préférer le train!"
    "Voyager autrement"
    "Avec le SNCF, tout est possible"
      --Former ad slogans of the SNCF (French national trains), each in turn quickly dropped

Fun French words

  • ouistiti

    (literally: marmoset)
    Etymology: onomatopoeia from the sound a marmoset makes. Actual meaning: this is what you say in France when you want people to smile for the camera.

    Selon une étude réalisée par le fabricant d’appareils photo Nikon, le « ouistiti » utilisé en France au moment de se faire prendre en photo est le petit mot le plus efficace pour s’assurer un joli sourire.

Who's en colère today?

  • Private sector

    First strike in 43 years at an aeronautics company in Toulouse, Latécoère


    Public sector

    The SNCF (toujours eux), regional train employees in the Lyons area guaranteeing unpleasant travel from the 17th-21st December
    Also yet another strike by Sud-Rail, a particularly truculent SNCF union in the south of France, this time five days in January: 6,7, 21, 22 and 23. "We have no choice." Right.

    Marseilles trams on strike until February

Go back to school in Paris!

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« Anomalies of French life: obligatory champagne | Main | Perils of Paris life: street-fashion photographers »

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

"The pope is confused," said one of the women. "Journalists trick him, he says things he doesn't mean."

"The media twist his words," said another. "They try to make him sound as if he thinks gay marriage is not a big problem."

"Quel scandale that we have reached this point in our society!" said a third. Everyone nodded.

"I hope you're right that he is only confused," said another. "After all, he is a Jésuite...."

Did any of these women consider the fact that the Pope is supposedly the carrier of the infallible word of God ? Isn't that what Catholics believe anyhow. . . ?

Catholics don't believe the Pope is infallible. "Infallibility" only applies to statements that the Pope makes on Christian doctrine when he specifically says a doctrine is infallible-- the last time was in 1950 concerning the "Assumption of Mary," and the time before that more than 100 years earlier.

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Today's quotation

  • In Paris, the purest virtue is the object of the filthiest slander.

      –Honoré Balzac (1799-1850), in Scènes de la vie privée

    À Paris, la vertu la plus pure est l'objet des plus sales calomnies.

Le petit aperçu d'Ailleurs

  • Annual Geminids meteor shower (shooting stars!) coming this weekend, if it's not too cloudy out at night.

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