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Last year, president Sarkozy announced that he wanted France to become bilingual.
Unfortunately, results of the 2008 TOEFL test show France to be as far away as ever from reaching this goal.
Continue reading "French still lousy at English, new study says" »
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Authors’ directory
Author interviews
Workshops, Festivals
Resources and More!
News from Tatiana de Rosnay, Nicola Keegan, John Baxter, Sophie Loussouarn, N. A. Diaman, David Downie, Janet Skeslien Charles and more !
Paris Writers News has added a sidebar called PARIS WRITERS NEWS AUTHOR DIRECTORY & INTERVIEWS which has links to :
Authors listed in the PARIS WRITERS DIRECTORY include:
Stephen Clarke , Nikos Diaman , David Downie , Jennifer K Dick , Mary Duncan , Karen Fawcett , Charles Glass ,Mark Greenside , Hilary Kaiser , Nicola Keegan , Julie Mautner , Richard Nahem , Paul Schmidtberger , Janet Skeslien Charles , Keith Spicer., Heather Stimmler-Hall , Louise Thunin , Harriet Welty Rochefort , Patricia Westheimer ,Tatiana de Rosnay , Lucy Wadham , Laurel Zuckerman
If you would like to be listed, please contact me at : [email protected] or leave a comment with your name and the address of your site .
NEW BOOKS !
David Downie's thriller, Paris City of Night, has just been published, in time for summer reading.
Tatiana de Rosnay'snew book, Boomerang, is out in French.
PARIS DREAMS, a travel memoir by N. A. Diaman, is now available from Persona Press, 2009 ($14.95 USD, £9.99 GBP, €10,95
The Washington Post and Time magazine gave rave reviews to Nicola Keegan’s debut novel,Swimming, now available.
Publishers Weekly heaped praise on Janet Skeslien Charles' novel Moonlight in Odessa, which comes out in September
Les Echos explored Sophie Loussouarn’s ODYSSÉE POLITIQUE DE TONY BLAIR
John Baxter is offering a Memoir Master Class : €475 per person. Next session 19-21 August, 2009; other dates in October and February 2010. For further information and registration, email: [email protected]
Summer reading fun!
What are you reading --and why?
You can post your recommendations directly in the comments.
(Here’s Louise Thunin’s pick: “I have a wonderful little bilingual collection of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry here published by Points. "Poèmes et proses" ; the translater is Pierre Leyris. In the same bilingual collection, they have "Lieu-dit l'éternité" which is some of Emily Dickinson's poetry translated by Patrick Reumaux.” Thanks Louise!)
Laurel Zuckerman interviews Janet Skeslien Charles on her novel to be released this September, MOONLIGHT IN ODESSA.
If you would like your site or blog to be listed in the writer directory, please send me the full address at [email protected] !
If you have additional news to share, please consult the guidelines .
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In the popular "extra" bill scam, the waiter "accidentally" includes the bill for another table with yours.
You are in deep in conversation with a tablemate. The waiter informs you of the total orally, holding out the "tickets de caisse" which you pay without examining.
If you react to the amount and check the bill, you will see that you are being charged for things you did not order.
"I'm so sorry," the waiter apologizes, "It's a mix-up. I'll fix it immediately."
You smile graciously as if to acknowledge that we all make mistakes. You are above getting excited about a mistake.
Careful!!! This is when you must really watch out.
The waiter redoes the calculation. You are again distracted, joking about Picasso's late period with a companion you'd like to know better, or, more likely, yelling at the kids.
HE ADDS INSTEAD OF SUBTRACTS the amount from the bill.
"Ahem," you say, "I believe that is the wrong operation. Shouldn't you subtract 17.58 euros from my bill, not add it?"
"Oh, my, where did I put my head this morning," the waiter says. "Whatever could be wrong with me. I am so sorry."
"That's ok," you say, holding out your hand for the cash, which you count twice. There is no way to be absolutely sure that it wasn't an accident--except to compare notes with other travelers.
Interestingly, this scam usually occurs in the "better" places.
My jaw dropped when I saw a waiter in my favorite Anglophone tearoom pull this on my brother-in-law, who is German and ridiculously polite. He was treating us, of course, and delighted by the hot chocolate. But even he thought adding instead of subtracting was a little much.
Even so, it was all I could do to persuade him not to leave the waiter a tip.
But my brother-in-law insisted.
"For the performance", he said kindly. "Really outstanding."
Last week, foreigner-only prices on Ile St Louis (see Tourists in France beware! Tips to avoid the three most common rip-offs...)
Next week: "mistakes" making change.
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Nitrates from intensive agriculture have fueled growth of a toxic algae which now poisons beaches in Brittany.
(photo : l'Express)
Le Figaro, L’Express and The Times report that fumes overpowered a horse and rider on the beach of Saint-Michel-en-Grève.
The horse died immediately, the unconscious rider was pulled to safety and saved.
This recent incident follows several others, including a beach worker who fell into a coma ten years ago, and the suspicious deaths of a jogger and two dogs.
French pig and poultry farmers remain in denial, despite nitrate pollution so intense that the EU imposed fines for nitrate pollution.
Jean-François Piquot, a spokesman for the environmental group Eau et Rivières, said in The Times that toxic seaweed had been present on beaches in Brittany for decades and was spreading.
“There is no doubt that farming is to blame,” said Mr Piquot. “Britanny has 5 per cent of French agricultural land but 60 per cent of the pigs, 45 per cent of the poultry and 30 per cent of the dairy farms. As our rivers are not long, the pollution does not have time to clear before the water reaches the sea. If it enters a closed bay and there is sunlight, that produces the seaweed.”
The mayor of a neighboring town, Trédrez-Locquémeau, closed 200m of his beach. (Le Figaro) Alain Menesguen, director of research at the French Institute for Sea Research and Exploitation, said: “This is a very toxic gas, which smells like rotten eggs. It attacks the respiratory system and can kill a man or an animal in minutes." (The Times, article by Adam Sage)
For more, see The Times, Le Figaro, L’Express, the Grenelle discussion group, EndsEurope and, most intriguingly, an article by supermarket giant Michel Edouard Leclerc, who demands that the government apply the principle of “polluters- payers”.
That is, that farmers pay for the environmental damage they cause.
For information about the government's ambiguous position on nitrate pollution in Brittany, here is a selection of articles (in French):
http://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/Dossier-des-nitrates-en-Bretagne.html
http://www.altermonde-sans-frontiere.com/spip.php?article3101
ANOTHER DEATH JUST DISCOVERED SEPTEMBER 5. CLICK HERE
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Authors’ directory
Author interviews
Workshops, Festivals
Resources and More!
News from Tatiana de Rosnay, Nicola Keegan, John Baxter, Sophie Loussouarn, N. A. Diaman, David Downie, Janet Skeslien Charles and more !
Paris Writers News has added a sidebar called PARIS WRITERS NEWS AUTHOR DIRECTORY & INTERVIEWS which has links to :
as well as a link to author interviews on the Paris Expat site.
Authors listed in the PARIS WRITERS DIRECTORY include:
Stephen Clarke , Nikos Diaman , David Downie , Jennifer K Dick , Mary Duncan , Karen Fawcett , Charles Glass ,Mark Greenside , Hilary Kaiser , Nicola Keegan , Julie Mautner , Richard Nahem , Paul Schmidtberger , Janet Skeslien Charles , Keith Spicer., Heather Stimmler-Hall , Louise Thunin , Harriet Welty Rochefort , Patricia Westheimer ,Tatiana de Rosnay , Lucy Wadham , Laurel Zuckerman
If you would like to be listed, please contact me at : [email protected] or leave a comment with your name and the address of your site .
NEW BOOKS !
David Downie's thriller, Paris City of Night, has just been published, in time for summer reading.
Tatiana de Rosnay'snew book, Boomerang, is out in French.
PARIS DREAMS, a travel memoir by N. A. Diaman, is now available from Persona Press, 2009 ($14.95 USD, £9.99 GBP, €10,95
The Washington Post and Time magazine gave rave reviews to Nicola Keegan’s debut novel,Swimming, now available.
Publishers Weekly heaped praise on Janet Skeslien Charles' novel Moonlight in Odessa, which comes out in September
Les Echos explored Sophie Loussouarn’s ODYSSÉE POLITIQUE DE TONY BLAIR
John Baxter is offering a Memoir Master Class : €475 per person. Next session 19-21 August, 2009; other dates in October and February 2010. For further information and registration, email: [email protected]
Summer reading fun!
What are you reading --and why?
You can post your recommendations directly in the comments.
(Here’s Louise Thunin’s pick: “I have a wonderful little bilingual collection of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry here published by Points. "Poèmes et proses" ; the translater is Pierre Leyris. In the same bilingual collection, they have "Lieu-dit l'éternité" which is some of Emily Dickinson's poetry translated by Patrick Reumaux.” Thanks Louise!)
Laurel Zuckerman interviews Janet Skeslien Charles on her novel to be released this September, MOONLIGHT IN ODESSA.
If you would like your site or blog to be listed in the writer directory, please send me the full address at [email protected] !
If you have additional news to share, please consult the guidelines .
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"dramatiquement drôle" - L'Express
"Une fraîche et amusante satire du monde de la recherche." - Le Monde des Livres
