Monthly Archives: October 2007

Lesson #1 for journalists: don’t interview Sarkozy on a bad day. If Nicolas Sarkozy considers himself a big fan of the United States, he had no qualms about showing his prickly side in an interview with the top US television … Continue reading →

I had never heard of WikiHow, but it’s a great source of useless information: Practicing a second language every day is vital to developing mastery of the language. But you cannot be expected to practice if you don’t have enough … Continue reading →

The best of the web and the international press, collected for you by Frogsmoke. Enjoy! French muck: Is this the new penicillin? MRSA is the scourge of the country’s hospitals, but now the discovery in France of a volcanic clay … Continue reading →

Paris authorities believe they may have come up with a way to wean French men off their penchant for urinating in public places: le mur anti-pipi. This brilliant, yet simple invention is an undulating wall that fires urine back in … Continue reading →

Released today: Les Dieux Du Stade 2008. From Wikipedia: Dieux du Stade (English: Gods of the Stadium) is the title of several highly popular calendars published in the 2000s, featuring nude and semi-nude photographs of members of the Stade Français, … Continue reading →

(Updated) Welcome back in Old Europe, Rummy: French, US and German rights groups have filed suit for “torture” against ex-US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, currently in Paris, for his role in the Iraq war and the US “war on terror”. … Continue reading →

Enlarge map Found on Google Sightseeing: There’s a neat question mark, about 11m tall, drawn on the ground of a construction site in the city of Rennes, France. Of course, the question about this question is: why is it there? … Continue reading →

As promised, here are the two winners of the French Show me your Sloggi contest. These fesses belong to Anne-Sophie Placier (23, student) and Bastien Delaval (25, teacher). They will be sent to the grand finale in Munich at the … Continue reading →

Friday is video day on Frogsmoke. In this edition: the girls from 64, an opera diva, luminous calligraphers, a girl who takes life as it comes and goes, a parkour talent doing the monkey roll, some happy America-bashing, a not-made-in-France … Continue reading →

No more incandescent light bulbs in chandelier-filled chateaux or French cafes. No more energy-wasting cars and televisions, and no more drafty windows. These proposals are part of an “ecological New Deal” that President Nicolas Sarkozy laid out to push France … Continue reading →

A few weeks ago I posted about a site that published faux covers of the famous Martine children’s books. The (Belgian) publisher Casterman was so pissed off with the initiative that they forced the site to close. That was probably … Continue reading →

Officially, the Apple iPhone won’t be available in France until November 29, and it will be locked so it can exclusively be used with Orange (France Telecom) mobile subscriptions. In reality, the [tag]iPhone[/tag] is available today in an unlocked version, … Continue reading →

The days that all French kids were called Jean or Marie are over: Tell me your first name and I’ll tell you your social class. You can play this game in most countries, but it has become especially easy in … Continue reading →

Museum’s attempts to return Maori remains faces hitch in France: The Normandy museum only wanted to do what was right: it offered to return a preserved, tattooed Maori head to New Zealand, an attempt to restore dignity to human remains … Continue reading →

ColourLovers is a well-designed blog for, er, color lovers. Some colors are apparently typically French: When we talk of colors, we’re often speaking French. Many of our most exotic color names are of French origin. Let’s take a pictorial tour … Continue reading →