Archive: January, 2010

(This is about prostitution, so beware.) Not only is there a debate in France about the burka, but so too about prostitution. To be exact about brothels. About whether to legalize them or not. Brothels have been forbidden here in France since 1946. Before that, and especially during the German occupation of France (1940-1944), it […]

Have you ever seen a woman in a burka? I mean not a photo of a woman in a burka like the photo above, but a woman in a burka shopping in your local supermarket or standing at your bus stop waiting for a bus, whatever? I have not and maybe now I never will […]

France and Russia are fighting over ownership of a cathedral. It is the St. Nicholas Russian Cathedral in the French Mediterranean city of Nice. The church, a beautiful onion-domed structure as you can see above, was built in 1912. Its story is a good one. In 1912 Holy Russia’s ruler was Nicholas 11. He was […]

Photo: Tony Musulin –> Not happy with your life? This man wasn’t and did something about it — but he’s behind bars now, but still a hero to very many. You can read all about it here Tweet #MarilynZTomlins

The year’s hardly begun and another French mother has committed infanticide; she killed her newborn twins. As those who of you know me or read my blog regularly will know I’ve been writing about this strange phenomenon here in France of women hiding their pregnancies (even from their spouses or lovers) and then to kill […]

My, my, at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender … So goes the opening line of the ABBA song WATERLOO. Well, today, 200 years ago – January 9, 1810 – Napoleon did divorce Joséphine … The Napoléon Foundation reminded me of this yesterday in their weekly newsletter. The foundation is here : <a href=http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:KEtkeQ43vJMJ:www.napoleon.org/+fondation+napoleon&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk-mailed newsletter And yes, […]

Munch’s The Scream Just when I thought that this was going to be one boringyear, the French Ministry of Culture send me a communication about whatexhibitions will be on in Paris this year. And it’s going to be a great year… The first exhibition not to be missed is Edvard Munch oul’anti-cri. Now, I need […]

Here is some very bad news for all those tourists who come here and then say that they hate the French because the French are rude. The bad news is that a French person now lives longer than any other European … so the French are going to around still for a very very long […]

(Photo: The Eiffel Tower this Festive Season.) New day. New year. New decade. Looking at the news headlines this morning who would believe it? A Degas – The Chorus – has been stolen from a museum in southern France … A man shot his lover and one of her children to death as the old […]