Frogsmoke

Do they exist? Sure they do!

(Do you know any more to add here?)

Ten years ago, Corinne Cosseron (pictured left) started her International School of Laughter, aka L’Ecole Internationale du Rire et du Bonheur. She’s an expert in Rigology® and hence qualifies as Rigologist® (note the registered trademark signs).

The school of laughter teaches the tools of therapeutic laughter to professionnals. The aim is to “apply laughter therapy for health care and social workers, people working in education and businesses, but also for the public at large”.

This week, the school invites all laughers of France to the southern beach town of Frontignan for laughing courses, laughing yoga and laughing games. If you can’t make it, she is coming to Ohio later this year for a “Spectacular week-long intensive workshop opportunity to enhance expertise & savoire faire including European therapeutic laughter techniques not previously taught in the United States.”

Either way, it’s all ridiculously funny! Here’s last year’s laughing event.

Websites: English | French

Is this the saving grace for rural and remote areas across the world?

Wind turbines have long produced renewable energy but a French engineering firm has discovered another eco-purpose for the towering structures. “This technology could enable rural areas to become self-sufficient in terms of water supply,” claims the company named Eole Water.

CNN has the story | Official website

Click for source

He was half of the duo Stone et Charden who scored massive hits in the seventies.

Born in Vietnam on 15 October 1942, Éric Charden started a singing career in France in the sixties. He formed a duo with his wife Annie Gautrat in 1971. As Stone et Charden the two scored hit after hit until 1975. After the birth of their son, Charden went solo and started to write musicals and songs for other artists. In the nineties the couple re-appeared together for a while but never matched their earlier success. Éric Charden died on 29 April 2012 aged 69 of lymphatic cancer.

Here, the couple perform one of their greatest hits: l’avventura.

Black women in France feel underrepresented in traditional Miss France pageants, so they elected their own (controversial) Miss Black France last night. The winner is Senegalese-born Mbathio Beye, a 21-year old student from France.

Click here to view all black beauties in African-inspired bikinis.
Also read: ‘Miss Black France’ pageant raises eyebrows

Click for source.

I remember my first Citroën 2CV without heating or cooling so I sympathize with the owner of this one. Original source unknown.

The kids who fill the pages of 20 Minutes are fluent in English these days.

This is a headline that points to a slideshow dedicated to French celebrities who are in trouble with the fiscal authorities. The guy on the photo is 68-year old rocker Johnny Hallyday who owes the fisc 9 million euros in unpaid taxes. Phöque that!

Winner in the Who is Francois Hollande? photoshop contest on FreakingNews. How many distinctly French things can you spot in this picture?

(Alas, frequent Frogsmoke commenter General Pepper didn’t win a prize with his creation.)

It happened in Cannes, 1956. The 21-year-old ‘sex kitten’ holds her own against the old predator, Picasso, during a visit to his studio at Vallauris, near Cannes, during the film festival in 1956. The Guardian has the story, Retronaut has the pictures. Click for more.

Bardot’s ponytail is a coquettish concession to Picasso: he adored that fashionable hair-do, because it pulled the skin taut and made the face a mask. Otherwise, to do her credit, she seems to be resisting his mesmerism. A vaguely Minoan sculpted head intrudes between the two figures, to warn her about the deforming sorcery he practised. She places her legs wide apart, perhaps to bring her down to his level but more likely because she is standing her ground, refusing to be intimidated. And although the hand that fingers her dress is girlish in its fiddly discomfort, the dress itself, with its leafy floral pattern, is the repudiation of his cruel, undecorative art.

On FreakingNews: a still ongoing photoshop contest, challenging digital artists to “tell the world a bit more about François Hollande”. Above is one entry, view the rest here.

Today: a park, a river and a castle. Click for source.

On THE WORLD GEOGRAPHY: 6 Geographical Terms With Shortest Names in the World. Most of them are in Northern Europe but one of them is nearby:

Y (pronounced: “i”) is a village in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France. This village bears the shortest place name in France, and one of the shortest in the world. The inhabitants call themselves Ypsilonien(ne)s. Y is situated 32 miles (50 km) east of Amiens, at the junction of the D15 and D615 roads, in the far eastern side of the department. [link, map]

A Spanish language school wants to teach you the French language and uses just about all the clichés they could find:

Click for source