Out with the old and in with the new.
My 10 year passport is a few weeks away from expiry. It only seems like a year or two since I got it, but time sure does fly when you are having fun. My passport has been a constant companion for most of its 10 year life span, and that can be readily seen by the poor state that it has ended up in.
I have now received a nice new shiny bio-metric passport which has taken its place in my wallet.
Now that I have no plans to travel outside of Europe for a good while, this new passport should stay in good condition, because it will not need to pass through the sweaty hands of immigration officers or be stamped to within an inch of its life ……. unless I win the lottery and then I’m off round the world!
Old Passport/New passport
The trial of Youssouf Fofana, leader of the “Barbarian gang” accused of kidnapping, torturing and killing a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, is to start on April 29. FRANCE 24 visited the housing estate near Paris where Halimi was held captive.
Affaire Fofana: le meurtre d’Ilan reste tabou
En 2006, le meurtre sauvage d’Ilan Halimi, de confession juive, avait suscité une vive émotion en France. Alors que le procès de ses tueurs présumés s’ouvre le 29 avril, peu de monde accepte d’en parler à Bagneux, où le drame a eu lieu.
Tags: Ilan Halimi, Youssouf Fofana
French police arrested six people late Tuesday, after a bus carrying at least 30 passengers came under fire in the suburbs of Paris. No one was injured in the incident.
Fusillade entre bandes rivales en banlieue parisienne
Un bus a essuyé des tirs de fusil à pompe, mardi soir, dans une banlieue du nord-est de Paris. Il s’agirait, selon la police, d’un règlement de compte entre deux bandes rivales.
Doctors, nurses and paramedics took to the streets of Paris on Tuesday to protest the HPST bill (hospitals, patients, health and regions) proposed by French Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot, which they say will commercialise Frances hospitals.
Paris: des milliers de blouses blanches protestent
Médecins, infirmières, aide-soignants, brancardiers… Les différents corps du monde hospitalier ont manifesté côte à côte contre le projet de loi “Hôpital, patients, santé, territoires” de la ministre de la Santé, Roselyne Bachelot.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife dinned with the Spanish Royal family, in the Palacio Real.
Tags: Carla Sarkozy, Nicolas Sarkozy
In France the people are urging leaders to do more to help the unemployed. CNN’s Jim Bittermann reports.
Last week we decided to swap one of our halogen spotlights over to a more energy efficient light, because it’s now going to be on for many hours every day.
The plan was to buy a new light fitting and an energy bulb.
What a shock to find that you can now buy energy bulbs and LED bulbs for GU10 spotlights.
It just shows how long it’s been since we needed to replace a light bulb (5 years), and we still have a stock of about 10 halogen bulbs so we won’t be replacing the 20 or so halogen spotlights we have just yet. When our stock of halogen bulbs have all been used, eco or LED bulbs will be the order of the day, and by then with luck the price will have come down a good bit.
Random Photo Moment
A spider that used to live in the kitch window.
Tags: LED
France has promised to shut down a makeshift squatter camp near the northern port of Calais, where hundreds of migrants have set up home, with many hoping to cross the Channel into Britain.
Posted in
Art/Culture by Administrator on April 23rd, 2009
CANNES: Les derniers films de Ken Loach, Pedro Almodovar, Quentin Tarantino ou Alain Resnais figurent dans la liste des vingt œuvres retenues pour décrocher la Palme d’or au prochain Festival de Cannes, qui se déroulera du 13 au 24 mai.
Tags: Cannes
I’ve just cleared out all of the dead wood. Dead links and those link exchanges that have not bothered to link back to me. I did the same to on wine blog over the weekend and it was around 10% that I cleared out. On this blog the number was nearer 25% which I found rather shocking. I hope to build up the blogroll over the next few months with links that I hope visitors to this blog will find useful. If you have a French related website or blog, please feel free to contact me E-MAIL HERE. and we can exchange links.
Tags: France, Link Exchange
The trial of two Britons accused of murdering two French students in June 2008 opens in London. Gabriel Ferez and Laurent Bonomo, both 23, were bound and stabbed hundreds of times in the flat they rented in New Cross, southeast London.
Hundreds of Tamils protest in Paris against the raids of the Sri Lankan government.
Tags: Paris, Tamil
French police detain 190 people in an operation against undocumented migrants near the port of Calais, officials say.
Posters have appeared in Paris showing iconic French comedian Jacques Tati “sans pipe” - because of a ban on tobacco advertising. The pipe has been replaced with a yellow toy windmill which many see as an overdose of political correctness.
La pipe de Tati part en fumée sur des affiches du métro parisien
En remplaçant - en vertu de la loi Évin contre le tabac - la pipe du cinéaste Jacques Tati par un moulin à vent sur les affiches publicitaires de l’exposition qui lui est consacrée, à Paris, la RATP crée la polémique.
Tags: Jacques Tati
