Last week, in the first part of the C’est Ironique Field Guide to the Lesser Retail Species of France, I described many, but not all, of the rare varieties of shopkeepers whose goal in life seems to be to prevent … Read More
One day last week, I needed to buy something. So I went to a store, was greeted by a salesperson, asked for help finding the product I wanted, found it, paid for it, exchanged cheerful goodbyes with the staff and … Read More
Notice to readers who don’t follow French politics because there’s no iPhone app for it yet: we’ve been having a little scandal around here recently. It all started late last year when accusations began emerging that the now-former budget minister, … Read More
As I recounted in Part Three of this series last week, one of the high points of my life to date was obtaining, at exorbitant human and financial cost, a French driver’s license. I had been to driving school, studied … Read More
I could see the writing on the wall. And yet, though I was in darkness, with anguish and affliction all around me, I feared not. Because the writing was a question about speed limits projected on a screen in an … Read More
Some years ago a Kafkaesque set of circumstances arose, the end result of which was that I had to go to school to learn how to do something that I had already been doing for 30 years: operate a motor … Read More
Like politicians, non-stick frying pans and condoms, I don’t always live up to my promises. Last week, I promised to write this week about my on-the-road lessons in French driving school. But then I realized that there is an aspect … Read More
The pig population of Paris peaked last week. One reason for this was the Salon de l’Agriculture, the annual farm and food fair that turns half of the pavilions at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center into a gigantic barn, … Read More
On the evening of December 25, 1870, the then-legendary restaurant Voisin’s on Rue Saint Honoré gave a lavish and now-legendary Christmas banquet. Of course, there were many lavish banquets in Paris back then, as there are now, but what made … Read More
It’s that time of year. The time of year when we all get that old familiar feeling. The feeling that comes from enduring week after week of cold days, long nights and relentless rain and snow. The feeling that makes … Read More
