Archive: March, 2012

  It promised to be the weirdest auction ever held in Paris. I am now speaking of the Peines et Châtiments d’Autrefois – Penalties and Punishments of Yesteryear – auction which would have been held this Tuesday (April 3) at the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild at Number 11 Rue Berryer in the chic 8th arrondissement […]

Last December when Paris was draped in Christmas lights Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Minister for Ecology, Sustainable Development, Transport and Housing, announced that the city of Paris is using too much energy. Paris will therefore have to switch off its lights each night at 1 and keep them off until 6 in the morning. We thought it […]

Undoubtedly, Paris is the City of Art and Culture (forget the City of Light thing for the moment) and this has especially been so these past couple of years. Speaking of right now though, you will be able to feast your eyes on Matisse at Paris’s Pompidou Center – Centre Pompidou – which old-hand Parisians […]

The drinkability of Paris’s water is a concern to visitors. I wrote about this last year (2011) and as I am still (again) being asked whether one can drink Paris’s tap water, I will write about it again now. Do however read what I already wrote about it because this adds to that. The answer […]

You may agree with me that the building (above) looks like a warehouse. But no! It is the Orangerie Museum – Musée de l’Orangerie – on the Place de la Concorde end of the Tuileries Gardens and bordering the right bank of the Seine. The museum’s exact address is : Jardin des Tuileries, Place de […]

The French will soon go to the polls to elect a new president. Should you know French, you may find the following interesting.       Tweet #MarilynZTomlins

The Musée d’Orsay has, at the moment, two wonderful exhibitions. Therefore, if you live in Paris or France, or if not and you are planning a visit, do put the museum on your list of places to visit. The exhibitions are: Degas and the Nude – Degas et le Nu and A Passion for Finland […]

  I blogged about how the honorific mademoiselle will no longer be used in France on official documents. How from now on a female will be a madame, the way she is an MS in the Anglo-Saxon world. Feminists are now also saying that the French language is sexist as nouns are divided into two […]

In less than two months the French are going to the polls to elect a new president. The winner will either be the incumbent – Nicholas Sarkozy – or the Socialist Party candidate, François Hollande. Both are therefore now talking money money money: In July and August they will be vacationing with the wealthy and […]

Do you like eerie? If so, then the archaeological crypt under the square (Parvis) in front of Notre Dame Cathedral is for you. The cathedral is a must, I know, for visitors to Paris, and the hardiest of those who visit it climb up the 300+ narrow, winding stone steps to the two towers. Not […]

Here is the intro of my latest true crime article about Ruth Ellis, the last woman to hang in England. She shot her lover dead …in cold blood. It was a time of “no sex please, we’re British.” Women, if they had to mention the three-letter word, preferred to spell it out in a whisper. […]