Wednesday, August 23 2006
Summer in the Cities
It is time to face a fundamental vacation truth: no matter how post-touristic we like to think we are, no matter how much money we throw at travelling halfway around the world in order to escape our mundane routine lives, there are only two types of holiday-goer and both are of the Real Touristik variety.
Thursday, June 15 2006
From the Beautiful Game to le beau jeu
On French footballers playing in England, and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Tuesday, May 9 2006
The Cult of Mediocrity: Jane Birkin, Serge Gainsbourg and the Medio-cultural
The UK and US are often accused of promulgating the cult of celebrity because of their post-industrialist, neo-liberal take on the world that sees culture as a commodity. France, however, is guilty of pandering to the cult of mediocrity.
Tuesday, April 18 2006
The Learning Curve
Costambeys-Kempczynski imagines a French version of The Apprentice. The day after the first episode is aired, French employees would stand around the coffee machine, point at each other, and shout 'Vous êtes muté!'; that is, 'You're Transferred!'.
Tuesday, March 14 2006
Going Cuckoo
Homeland Security resides with the Ministry of Agriculture. From mad cows to birds with the lurgy: there's no getting away from biological warfare. Channel Crossings takes a political detour to see why British and French ministers never bite the hand that feeds them.
Thursday, February 9 2006
How to Earn Your Anti-social Badge of Honour
Awright all you bus-riding yobs! Fix up! Look sharp!
Thursday, December 1 2005
The Good Old Days Tomorrow Brings
'Tis difficult for a modern man of means and ability to be the intellectually, culturally, environmentally, absolutely inclusively-thinking global specimen of the species the world demands of him. New Puritans and Neo-Cromwellians battle for his soul.
Friday, October 7 2005
I Drink Therefore I Am
One can't be left alone to indulge one's poison, these days, without some bothersome governmental agency, or the busy-body press, sticking its nose in one's businesses.
Monday, September 12 2005
We Say ‘No’; You Say ‘Non’. Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.
England vs. France. A bit of good humour on both sides, heard just above the snarls.
Wednesday, May 11 2005
When the Bulbs Flicker in the City of Lights
There was a time when a simple trip cross the English Channel would place your social status in the ascendancy, much like serving in the colonies in the 19th century. But nowadays in Paris, try finding an affordable broom cupboard of one's own.
