Laurel Zuckerman's Paris Weblog

Brexit: the trouble with bookies

Financial markets tumbled in shock after UK Brexit vote.

But why such surprise?

Weeks of polls placed Remain and Leave neck and neck.  But bookies, the oddsmakers, announced that betting heavily favored Remain, and newspapers around the world trumpeted this happy news. 

Hardly anyone noticed the discrepancy

Then a couple days before the vote, Zero Hedge, that wacky assembly of eagle-eyed traders, conspiracy aficionados and contrarian news junkies, published a post that that got little attention.

 

French Education News: Protesting English

If Brian is in the kitchen, where is Manhattan?

Once again, French high school students have launched a petition to protest the content of the English test on the French BAC high school leaving exam. This time (2016) the problem is the use of the word Manhattan. The testers assumed that all students would know that it belongs in New York, but many did not, and felt that it was unfair to base their English language results on trivia known to some but not to others. The petition immediately gathered more than 12,000 signatures. 

All this reminds me of last year's debate, when the petition (which gathered even more signatures) concerned questions that were also criticized as unclear, even to native English speakers (not that that matters, mind you).

I wrote about it at the time, but then didn't publish thinking "well, this will never happen again!"

Wrong.

So, only a year late, here's an essay on last year's petition against the English exam.

News Flash: June 4 Paris Fundraising Party For l'Auberge des Migrants/Help Refugees

Politics aside, the situation of the migrants in Calais is catastrophic.

Writer Christine Buckley is helping to organize a fundraising party and auction today at Chez Grace, 46 rue des Abbesses, Paris 75018, from 2pm until late, with music and entertainment. The goal is to collect funds to help two of the associations that provide humanitarian aid to the people caught in the no man's land of Calais.

More information here.