FRENCH NEWS - in English of course. Politics, sports, reviews, travel, a slice of life in France and stories you might not necessarily be able to find elsewhere on the Net.
Or if your answer is that you haven't picked up on for a few months or even years.
Because you're not alone.
Fleur Pellerin (screenshot - clip from Le Supplément, Canal +)
Astonishingly enough (perhaps - although nothing should come as a surprise with what some might - unkindly - describe as the motley crew currently governing France)the country's minister of culture, Fleur Pellerin revealed at the weekend that she hasn't read a book for the past couple of years.
The admission came during Sunday's edition of Le Supplément on Canal + as Pellerin was being interviewed by the programme's host, Maïtena Biraben.
While waxing lyrical about a lunch she had shared with this year's winner of the Nobel prize for literature - French author Patrick Modiano - Pellerin was asked which of his books was her favourite.
The minister probably wished the ground would open up before her, as she let out the longest, "Er", smiling (or was that grimacing) with embarrassment before coming clean.
"I have to admit - without any difficulty - that I've not really had the time to read for the past two years," she said.
"I read a lot of notes, a lot of legislative texts, news, AFP stories, but I read very little otherwise."
A visibily gobsmacked Biraben gently pointed out that perhaps it was time to read something by Modiano who was, after all, "The Nobel prize winner this year."
All right, all right, culture isn't just about reading books. There's painting, music, sculpture, dance, theatre...heck a whole panoply of arts.
But from a country which has such a proud and rich literary tradition, and from the minister of culture to boot, such a disclosure comes as something of a shock...and of course opened the door for a deluge of criticism on social media.
That said, there was also support from some quarters for the 41-year-old's honesty.
Writing in L'Obs (Le Nouvel Observateur's new name) Dom Bochel Guégan defended Pellerin, saying that she had been "principled enough to recognise her ignorance and to admit it quite simply" and that maybe (as junior minister for Small and Medium-sized enterprises, innovation and the digital economy and then, since August, switching to the culture minister portfolio) "she had perhaps been a little too busy over the past two years to find time to read."
True - after all politics is a full time job in itself.
Someone appears to "have the hump" with the number of English words creeping into everyday use in France and wants to try to put a stop to it.
This time around it's the junior minister for Cooperation and Francophony (snappy title that) or Coopération et de la Francophonie (as it's called in French), Alain Joyandet.
He has launched a competition aimed at finding French alternatives for five pesky English words that have obviously got on someone's nerves somewhere along the lines.
The culprits? "Talk", "chat", "newsletter", "buzz", and "tuning" all of which are apparently used too often in French as far as the minister is concerned in the field of "nouvelles technologies" - that'll be IT to English-speakers out there.
The competition - catchily called "Francomot" - was launched a couple of weeks ago but there are still a few days left until the February 7 deadline for entries.
Now you might think that this is a case of French officialdom getting more than little uppity about the language of Moliére or perhaps it's bit of fun - albeit pointless - to try to put a stop to the number of Anglicisms that have crept into everyday use here.
But as the minister reminds us on the official website, French, along with English, is the only language spoken on all five continents.
"It's therefore essential that the hundreds of thousands of French speakers can help contribute to keeping the French language alive and innovative" (an interpretation of what's written rather than a word-for-word translation).
Although Francomot is aimed primarily at school children and students, the minister will surely be grateful for any French improvements that others might feel able to suggest.
If you want to enter, you can check out the official website to find out more and then send your proposals for each of the five words by "voie électronique"... an even more cumbersome French way of saying "courriel" or "email".
A jury, headed by France's ambassador to Senegal, Jean-Christophe Rufin, will choose the best entries and the winners will be announced at a special ceremony on February 17.
Just don't question whether any of the words will eventually make their way into everyday usage.
If your idea of what flamenco dancing is all about is a woman in a frilly polka-dot dress stomping her way across the floor to the clatter of castanets, the accompaniment of twanging guitars and the loudest of gypsy songs - think again.
Sure it's some of that, especially for tourists perhaps making their way to one of the Spanish costas and eager for an "authentic taste" of the local culture.
But as Sara Baras and her company have been proving to audiences in Paris, the dance form offers much more, and if you're passing through the French capital any time until January 11, then it is probably the show for which you should try to get tickets.
A quick read through the programme before the performance tells you that Baras - still only 37 - has in just the matter of a few years become one of the "emblematic figures of new flamenco".
"She is," we are told "a model for others, a veritable star of flamenco who is always looking to reinvent new forms of choreography."
Yes well it would say that wouldn't it? And when the curtain goes up, the highly stylised first scene, for the uninitiated at least doesn't necessarily bode well.
Admittedly there are no castanets, but there's certainly a lots of scarf waving.
"Oh, oh. Was this really such a good idea as an end-of-year treat?" some in the audience might well have been asking themselves unaware perhaps that this is just a quick look back at past numbers and there is more - much more - to come.
Because very quickly the whole thing rachets up a notch - or two - or three.
The music really kicks in. The guitars and the voices "up" the rhythm and the show is ready for lift off into a new dimension.
Actually the fact that virtually every seat at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées has been taken - and that for a Sunday matinée performance - and there are a fair number of native Spanish speakers present, should be something of a giveaway that the audience is in for something special.
"A propos de Sara" is perhaps most easily described as a "best of" the performances Baras has made and choreographed over the past 12 years, and while it might start off deceptively slowly it soon explodes into something intensely hypnotic to watch.
Solo performances from Baras herself are often frenetic, shin shuddering ones as she keeps up with the pace and rapidly increasing rhythm of the music.
Hers is a powerful, energetic and at the same time graceful display of the real nuances of flamenco, building to a roaring crescendo and then suddenly punctuating it with the softness and lightest of touches as the pace drops in a second to one in which there's almost complete silence in the auditorium.
It's just like one of those great opera voices that are able to turn on a note from full volume power to delicacy - and all seemingly without effort.
The pas de deux with guest star Jose Serrano are just as thrilling, as is the finely tuned ensemble choreography from company.
And then there's the stage setting and lighting - elements that don't usually leap out during a performance. Or if they do, it's usually because they get it so obviously wrong.
In the case of "A propos de Sara" quite the opposite is true. It's so obviously right, giving each scene a texture and finish that is a pure visual delight.
Maybe that's because it's the seventh time over the years that Baras has performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and so it's perhaps not surprising that she knows what she wants and how to get it.
A Mitterrand enters government as Sarkozy makes a bigger-than-expected reshuffle. But what happened to the women in government and human rights?
All right so a French government reshuffle has been very much on the cards for some time now.
There had to be one, especially as the (now former) justice minister, Rachida Dati, and (ditto) agriculture minister, Michel Barnier, successfully stood for election to the European parliament earlier this month and were thus forced to quite their days jobs.
But the announcement of the new line-up came a day earlier than planned. It had to in a sense because the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, found his hand somewhat forced by the obvious joy of one new member of his team, who clearly couldn't contain his delight and actually told the media of his new job on Tuesday afternoon.
Frédéric Mitterrand enters the government as the culture minister, replacing Christine Albanel.
If the name sounds familiar, it should. He's none other than the nephew of the former Socialist president (1981-95) François. But have no fears, the appointment of the 61-year-old isn't exactly an example of a further opening up of the government as he is far from having the reputation of being a man of the Left.
Instead he comes with a long cultural pedigree, if you will, having been a television presenter, writer and producer, and since June last year he has held the prestigious position of director of Académie de France (French Academy) in the Villa Medici in Rome.
There are eight new appointments to the new government, nine ministers have changed jobs and 17 have stayed put. Of the eight who are leaving, Dati, Barnier, Albanel and Christine Boutin (the former housing minister) held frontline posts.
Among the most notable changes are Michèle Alliot-Marie's (MAM) move from the interior ministry to justice, where she takes over from Dati.
Meanwhile after just five months at the employment ministry, Brice Hortefeux, Sarkozy's long-time buddy and political ally, finally gets his hands on the ministry he has wanted all along as he replaces MAM.
There are more musical chairs, of sorts, as the minister of education, Xavier Darcos, moves to employment, and Luc Chatel, while remaining the spokesman for the government will now take on Darcos's old job.
So although the reshuffle is perhaps bigger than many had expected it still includes many of the same faces.
While much of the media focus here has understandably been on Mitterrand's appointment, little attention has been paid so far to two pledges Sarkozy made when he first came to power; to include more women in the government and to make human rights a linchpin of French foreign policy.
The reshuffle illustrates that neither seems to be among his priorities at the moment.
Take gender parity for example, and just look at the figures, which surely speak volumes. There are now a total of 39 ministers in government - frontline cabinet and junior combined.
Before the reshuffle there were seven women in charge of ministries, now there are just four; at finance, health, justice and higher education.
But that's all right isn't it, because the number of women now holding junior ministerial posts has been bumped up from seven to nine.
Gender parity indeed according to Sarkozy's interpretation presumably!
But just as important is another pledge Sarkozy made back in 2007 to include the respect for human rights as a vital part of France’s foreign policy.
True to his word he created a position in government - appointing Rama Yade as a junior minister reporting immediately to the foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner.
So what has happened in the reshuffle? Yade has been moved to the post of junior minister for sport and her old job.....wait for it.....has been done away with. That's right, it no longer exists.
Perhaps Yade should count herself lucky though that she has a job of any sort as she has had more than a few run-ins with her big boss over the past couple of years and has frequently been hauled in for private ticking-offs.
She also received a none-too-well-disguised public dressing down from Sarkozy at the beginning of this year after she refused to be pushed to stand for election to the European parliament, which would have seen her forced to leave the government had she been successful.
Still at least her former immediate boss, foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, must be a happy man this morning.
In an interview with one of the country's newspapers last December, Kouchner said that it had been a mistake to appoint a junior minister responsible for human rights as "foreign policy cannot be conducted only in terms of how human rights functions".
Hot on the heels - so to speak - of last September's sensual tango spectacle "Tanguera", audiences here in Paris have been treated to another show of pure dance delight in the form of "Tango Pasion".
It has just wrapped up a string of dates at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, playing to packed houses every evening, and now moves on to pastures new.
But as the curtain falls here at least, on some fast, furious and fabulous footwork, it's time to share some of the magic that the company has brought to the French capital over the past couple of weeks.
The performance currently on tour is billed as the company's new Ultimo Tango which "traces aspects of the history of Argentina over the decades".
So you know from the start that you're not only in for some of the raunchiest and mind-boggling dancing imaginable - but also a history lesson.
That in itself could leave some wondering why history in schools never seemed to be brought alive to quite the same extent. But that's quite another subject altogether.
The whole performance is highly stylised - almost to the point of possibly being termed "contrived", and the dancers - six couples plus one extra man - are togged up to the nines in the sharpest of costumes and caked with enough make-up that it might be hard at first sight not to mistake them for mannequins.
But this IS theatre, and the lighting can sometimes be a cruel friend.
The setting is Argentina - a club - where else? And as the orchestra strikes up the first chords, the place comes alive.
Oh and a word on that music. Well it's played by an eight-piece orchestra, led by Luis Stazo, who at the age of 78 seems to be having just as much fun as everyone else as he counts the musicians in with a vigourous and audible "Uno, dos tres, quatro" and we're off for a two-hour spin across the dance floor.
Any notion that these are anything other than living, breathing human beings is cast to one side as feet, legs, arms, hands - heck complete bodies take over and the audience is transported.
Some of the fancy legwork leaves you wondering how many bruises must be incurred during practice, and (without wishing to appear sexist) the women really do seem to have the longest legs imaginable - going up to their ears and then some.
The performance is bewitching. Mostly in couples, the dancers twist, twirl, turn and at times offer a display of virtual aerial acrobatics.
It's frenetic, intricate, perfectly timed and above all...sexy.
In separate numbers both the women and the men prove that it doesn't always take two to tango.
One routine sees the women, in formation, strut across the stage from left to right clad in suits, and then right to left in dresses.
While in another the men dispense with their female partners in favour of a cue - go figure - as they dance their way through a game of billiards. It has to be seen.
The show is a masterpiece - and has been described by many critics as such.
In fact drag out all those superlatives you would normally associate with tango, add some more and shake 'em together in a frenzied fashion and you've just about got the mix that is Tango Pasion.
The performance might well leave you feeling as though you've just done 12 rounds with a champion boxer - punch drunk with admiration, hands sore from ecstatic clapping and face-muscles aching from a perma-grin of enjoyment.
Don't believe me? Then go see for yourself.
2009 will see the company continuing its tour through Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United States.
And if you're lucky enough to be in one of the towns or countries where the company is performing - there's really just one two-letter word that's appropriate.
If you're visiting Paris this week and looking for something special to see one evening, then the show you might want to check out is ironically a quintessentially American one.
Leonard Bernstein's 1944 classic On the Town is currently "packing 'em in" at the Théâtre du Châtelet, in a production brought to the French capital by the English National Opera (ENO).
After Candide and last year's hugely successful West Side Story, this production of On the Town is the third in a series of musicals paying tribute to the genius of Bernstein.
As a quick flick through the programme reveals before the curtain goes up, although the musical is apparently "often named as one of Bernstein's greatest successes....it's rarely staged on Broadway or in London".
Indeed it is the first time it has been performed here in France.
On the whole the French don't appear to be that hot on musicals - or as they call them "comédies musicals". Well certainly not as enthusiastic as the British or the Americans.
It's a genre that undoubtedly works when a home grown-production is staged such as Starmania in the 1970s, Notre-Dame de Paris in the 90s, or more recently Le Roi Soleil.
But they tend to have had a limited life-span in comparison with British and American musicals, and often don't export particularly well. So much so, that when Notre-Dame de Paris transferred to London at one point, it was rather unkindly described by one British newspaper critic as a "load of old bells".
Of course the exception that proves the rule is none other than Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg's Les Misérables.
There again, the greatest success of that musical, which opened in Paris in 1980 but was forced to close after six months - has undoubtedly been international. And the two men are hardly household names here in France in the same way that Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice are in Britain for example.
Anyway back to On the Town - evidence perhaps that when a classic of its kind hits Paris, and especially one penned by Bernstein, it can still pull in the public.
The plot itself could be seen by some as thinner than the proverbial rake. But hey, it's a musical, where the real points of interest are the singing and the dancing. And in that respect, "On the Town" doesn't disappoint.
But for those of you who don't know the story line or haven't seen the 1949 film version with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, here it is in a nutshell.
It centres on three sailors, Gabey, Chip and Ozzie, on 24-hour shore leave in New York and ready to do (within the boundaries of decent taste) what any hot-blooded seafarers would do given such a short space of time in a major city
See the sites and wow the gals - not necessarily in that order for all three of them.
Gabey almost instantly falls in love with a poster of "Miss Turnstiles" or Ivy Smith, and the trio make it their quest to try to find her for him, individually racing around New York in pursuit.
In the process, Ozzie hooks up and falls in love with anthropologist, Claire DeLoone, who has in the past been rather "Carried away" in her appreciation of the opposite sex, is now supposedly "reformed" and indeed due to be engaged, but quickly succumbs to his charms.
Meanwhile Chip is scooped up by a rather over-amourous taxi-driving Hildy Esterhazy, intent on getting him to "Come up to my place"
And although Gabey finds and woos Ivy himself, and even arranges for a date that evening, the two - for one reason or another - fail to meet at the agreed time.
That sets the scene for his two friends, plus Claire and Hildy - to take the lovelorn sailor on a trip through some of the city's night clubs, until they eventually find Ivy - cut to the end, and of course the trio are at the dock in a final clinch with their "belles" before boarding the ship and returning to duty.
Curtain falls, applause.
There are of course a few more twists and turns, but really the plot plays second fiddle to the dancing and the singing, for which it is to a great extent simply a vehicle.
In fact what's maybe most striking about this musical is that it had its roots in dance - in the form of the ballet "Fancy Free" - and that can be seen in some of the numbers which are pure....well....ballet.
As well as that of course there are some humdingers of tunes, belted out - only to be expected really from ENO - with true relish.
And although the staging of this particular production might not be the most ostentatious or dazzling, in the end it doesn't really appear to matter to the audience.
The production clips along at a fair pace, there's the odd comic moment, that downright silly plot, but all in all it's a great night out, not in the slightest bit intellectually challenging and proving that actually it's all right simply to be entertained.
And of course, it's hard not to leave humming (at least in the head) probably the show's best-known tune "New York, New York".
On the Town opened at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on December 10 and runs until January 4.
Right up front it has to be said that this is far from being a hard-hitting news piece. And what's more it'll probably only have a limited appeal bearing in mind that among the roll call of names are those that will only be familiar to the French, or French ex-patriots, Francophiles, Francophones and France-watchers.
There again there are some that will strike a chord around the globe, so forgive the indulgence. And if you’re in the slightest bit curious keep reading to discover an account of a rollicking good evening spent watching a performance that had the audience proverbially “rolling in the aisles”, whooping with laughter and grinning from ear-to-ear for more than two solid hours.
All right it was probably a public easily won over and which had come to see the launch of a very special sort of one-man show. Or perhaps better said, a one-woman show, performed by Liane Foly.
She's no stranger to the French and it's as a singer that the 45-year-old has made her name over the years, releasing her first album in 1988 and following it up with a string of hits and the occasional appearance in films made for television.
But in her one-woman show "La Folle Parenthèse" Foly makes her first real venture into another area of entertainment entirely as an impersonator and she pulls it off with professional aplomb.
In it she single-handedly assembles some of the greats - past and present - of the French music scene, with some international artists thrown in for good measure along with politicians, television stars, and actresses.
The 19th century Théâtre Marigny just off the Champs Elysées in Paris, with seating for over 1,000 was packed to the rafters every night of Foly’s recent opening run as she sang, strutted, croaked and danced her way through 30 plus characters, interspersing her performance with rapier wit and wicked social and political comment.
Whether it was as a swooning parody of France’s first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, or as a majestically strutting Socialist politician, Ségolène Royal, Foly slipped effortlessly from one imitation to the next with a minimum of costume changes, no gimmicks, and a simple mimic of gesture and mannerism to convince the audience that she really had brought along a whole cast of characters.
Accompanied by just two musicians – the pianist Jean Yves d'Angelo and his brother, Pierre, on the saxophone and percussion – Foly presented a simple plot to hold everything together.
She bantered as the gravel-voiced actresses Muriel Robin and Line Renaud, and later as Celine Dion in her rapid-fire French, with the imaginary Pedro somewhere at the back of the theatre.
Pedro wanted her to provide a possible line-up of improbable stars for a cabaret to be performed the following evening in St Etienne, a less than fashionable city in central eastern France better known perhaps as the former capital of this country’s bicycle industry and for its soccer team which in the 1960s and 70s dominated the French league.
A most unlikely venue for some of the past and present greats of the French music and film world and certainly not a place international stars would put high on their list of performance dates.
The scene set, Foly used the “audition” as a vehicle for some spot-on satire, political and social comment and some belting good songs - never letting the audience forget that not only can Foly hold a tune as herself, she can do it as a host of other people too.
As France Gall she warbled some French evergreens and as Sylvie Vartan she flounced about the stage, dangling a wandering microphone and flicking her non-existent lavish blonde locks
Actress Jeanne Moreau growled, the late Serge Gainsbourg's English-born wife, Jane Birkin, sang a tribute to her husband in her much-beloved and heavily accented French, Canada’s very own Mylène Farmer intentionally left everyone wondering exactly what she was singing about as she pirouetted mindlessly around the stage and had her ethereal music mocked for its incomprehensibility. Madonna went in for a touch of S&M just for a change.
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy flirted with the pianist as though he were the incarnation of her "Nicolas" and to the strains of la Marseillaise and huge applause on strode last year's defeated Socialist presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal, promising not to talk politics and then proceeding to do just that.
Into the mix Foly threw Christophe Willem - a former winner of France's answer to American Idol and the voice of music producer Orlando.
After performing non-stop for just over two hours, Foly was dragged back for the inevitable but hugely welcome encore to perform as two icons of French music no longer around – Barbara and Dalida.
And then, just when you thought there could be no more, France television’s own very dippy and often inappropriately-dressed 50-something meteorologist, Catherine Laborde, came on to give us an update on what weather would lie ahead for tomorrow, the night of the “real” performance.
Foly's run at the sumptuous Théâtre Marigny in Paris ended at the weekend and she’ll now be taking her show on the road around the country for the rest of the year – ending up back in the French capital in December for an encore at Olympia.
If any of the names here have meant anything to you, and you’re planning a trip to France at some time this year, this is one act – or a multitude of them – that you would be well advised not to miss.
You can tell summer has arrived here in France because the signs are all around us.
First up there are the obvious ones - such as the weather and the dress code. Of course the latter, especially in the nation's capital, can still turn into something of a catwalk as this year's chic hits the streets big time in what for many is the Mecca of the fashion world.
Then there are the music festivals, concerts, outdoor productions, and jumble sales held up and down the country and let’s not forget the smell of a BBQ wafting in from the neighbour’s garden.
Prime time television news reports begin focussing on the queues at airports and the number of passengers passing through the French capital's major railway stations, rather than hard news. And national newspapers go in for the inevitable silly season.
The inside lanes of the motorways are bumper-to-bumper full of Dutch cars, trailers and caravans, busting at the seams with provisions for a month.
In August of course, when (hopefully) summer will be in full swing a huge chunk of the country will all but close down for a month and Paris will put up shop almost completely as the French head south literally and metaphorically with “Aoutien” holidaymakers replacing “Juilletistes”.
But the real clue that the whole shebang is underway has to be the reappearance on the small screen of Secret Story.
It reared its less than attractive head on Friday evening on the country’s number one national channel, TF1, and is set to be in everyone's sitting rooms for the next 10 weeks.
In essence it's France's answer to Big Brother - only more downmarket. Impossible you might think, but sadly true.
Basically the idea is very simple. It starts with 15 people, strangers to each other - with the odd exception, as will become clearer later on - moving into a built-for-TV house, where they'll be under the watchful eye of the production team and the viewing public 24/7 (via the Internet of course) for two and a half months.
Each carries with them into the house a "secret" - and the idea is to keep it hidden from the others for as long as possible while trying to cajole out of fellow house mates exactly what they're trying to keep under wraps.
Off camera there is also the deep bass booming tones of The Voice (La Voix), dropping hints whenever he feels like it, setting playful if somewhat idiotic tasks with cash rewards should they be completed successfully without anyone else in the house realising.
Every week two candidates are nominated and television viewers get to vote in a ‘phone poll (at premium rates of course) on who should stay in. Original stuff huh?
Yes the country which so often likes to think that it has taken the cultural highroad, brought the world classics in the fields of literature, art and music, prides itself on its language and traditions, cuisine, fine wines and haute couture - now proves once again that it can mix it with the best and worst of what the world of reality TV has to offer.
The new series, which kicked off on Friday evening will have a hard act to follow.
Last summer, when TF1 first ran the programme, the eventual winner quickly had her secret revealed .She was a triplet – and after the other house members wheedled it out of her, in tramped her two sisters.
Thus the three of them provided viewers with hours of entertainment as they played cards, ate, played cards and slept, eventually being crowned the winners because…. well because they were pretty inoffensive and bland.
Up against them was the nudist, the escort boy, the son of a famous French tennis player (Henri Leconte) a transsexual and an obnoxious couple (their secret) who bickered and manipulated their way to the final, earning their Warhol moment of fame and then (thankfully) disappearing into oblivion.
This year's dollop of dubious “culture” kicked off with the contestants tastefully arriving at the house one by one in his and hers blue and pink limos. Each woman seemingly more buxom than the last, many of them sporting micro dresses of which even pop diva Mariah Carey would have been envious.
And with a few exceptions each man was more muscled, more coiffed and more drop-dead gorgeous than the last, preening and pouting as though they were models in Milan.
Separately they tottered, strutted, swaggered or tripped their way through the jeering and cheering masses into 10-weeks-worth (for the eventual winner) of fleeting public notoriety and a stab at the chance of picking up a €150,000 cheque at the end.
Some of the contestants have had their secrets revealed to the public already – such as the lesbian couple from Belgium, the black mother and white daughter or the 30-something hunk and teenage siren who have to pretend to be “a couple”. But none of the other housemates (apart from those “in” on their own coupled secrets) is any the wiser yet.
Nor do any of the contestants know exactly what secrets they have to find out, although once again viewers have been told that among the 15 there is an Anglican minister (male of female not revealed), an undertaker, a medium (who you would think might just have a head start on the others and know whether he or she would end up winning), a prince or princess and a Don Juan with apparently more than 750 “conquests” under his belt already.
So as the 15 pretenders to the title of French telly’s newest reality TV hero or heroine are busy settling in to their 24/7 life together transmitted live on the Net and daily on the small screen, we can probably expect some tasteless antics similar to last year’s offering – such as the rump steak shoved down the underpants of one male contestant.
There’ll also doubtless be the same sort of petty rivalries, squabbles and handbags-at-dawn stuff that characterised much of the first series.
But breathe a sigh of relief because at least it’s all being done in the name of entertainment. And as much as some might question why and find it “outrageous”, there’ll probably still be millions tuning in.
Let’s also not forget there’s always the “off” button on the TV set or alternative viewing on other channels.
As compulsive and trashy as Secret Story might be it'll still more than likely pull in the viewers and become its own story in itself as the nation tut-tuts and hisses in disapproval and indignation at the antics of the previous night's revelations.
And here's one of the secrets......
And one day later the first "secret" is revealed as the Belgian couple are outed.
Oh well. In the indomitable words of La Voix “C’est tout pour le moment.
Off to Dhaulagiri
-
The time of year has come and I am heading out on expedition again. Since
having summited Cho Oyu in autumn 2016, I have not attempted an 8,000m
peak, and ...
Slumming it in paradise
-
Every seasonnaire in the Alps, past or present, has a horror story or two
about grotty accommodation. Old chalets so run down that the most
cheapskate of g...
Summer update
-
Here is a summer update. The weather has been quite rainy but the clouds
have been amazing. I got a new camera this week so I have been playing with
it....
12 (“Une douzaine”) restaurant tips . . .
-
*on how to blend in and*
*not to appear too much like a touristin a Paris restaurant . . .(or at
least how to be a good one)*
The following is based on ...
L'hexagone dans le Triangle
-
It's been a while since I have posted to Polly-Vous Francais! I am happy
to report that I am now in the "Triangle" area of North Carolina, where
there is ...
All photos (unless otherwise stated) and text are copyright. No part of this website or any part of the content, copy and images may be reproduced or re-distributed in any format without prior approval. All you need to do is get in touch. Thank you.
Posts
