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Snippets of French history. Alexandre Dumas.

 Alexandre Dumas 1802 – 1870.  Author of “The Three Musketeers”, “The Count of Monte Cristo” and many others. Few people realize that Alexandre Dumas was a coloured gentleman. More precisely, he was of mixed race and, as is usually the case, the darker gene is dominant.  For the era in which he was born, his […]

Posted 9 years ago

My experience of Dallas, Texas.

  Texas The hotel taxi came to fetch me from the hospital, some 48 hours after being flung, somewhat unceremoniously, off the Dallas to Paris flight because I was running a fever. I was admitted with suspected dengue fever and slept for some 36 hours.  I discharged myself when, feeling a great deal better, I […]

Posted 9 years ago

Today’s sketch

  if you like him – please share him !

Posted 9 years ago

The Beauty and the Beast: written by a French woman.

Did you know that the fairy tale “The Beauty and the Beast” was written by a French woman ?  In fact she was living and working as a novelist in London at the time, and it was in England that she made her name, but she was French. Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s life story is […]

Posted 9 years ago

General Charles de Gaulle. Snippets of French history.

  Charles de Gaulle, president of France 1959-1969 Ah – well – I had this mad idea that I was going to write about de Gaulle, but reading about just the first five minutes of his extraordinary life took me around 7000 hours last evening … He did such a lot, crammed massive quantities of […]

Posted 10 years ago

So, you speak French ?

So, you speak French ? In any language the local expressions and idioms can be a nightmare.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it is only when you can understand them that you can claim to speak the language fluently. Translating these often don’t work.  Somehow the underlying meaning is different […]

Posted 10 years ago

Le Logis, Chateau de Rochebonne, France.

  The story of Le Logis.   Because of the big old fireplace, which is original, we assumed for several years that this used to be a house, but it was not – it was a barn, dating to around 1700.  We think the fireplace was installed because the ostler, or other worker, may well […]

Posted 10 years ago

So, who was Mata Hari ? Snippets of French history.

Mata Hari was a Dutch woman living as an exotic dancer in Paris before and during World War I, and executed by the French for being a German spy.  For some time it was mooted that she was innocent, and she indeed claimed innocence, but papers discovered in 1970 proved that she was guilty. Mata […]

Posted 10 years ago

So, who said “I think, therefore I am” ? Snippets of French history.

Do you remember that computer ad. there used to be on TV – “I think, therefore IBM” ?  I recall at the time commenting that very few people would make the connection.  Unless you understand the connection, the ad really doesn’t make sense.  Hmmm …. and even if you do understand the connection, the ad […]

Posted 10 years ago

Educating our children in France

Educating our children in France. A negative experience.   Our children were aged eight, six and one when we moved to France.  Where children go to school depends on where you live, of course, and in our case it was a back-water.  The result of this was that the village school was in a back-water village […]

Posted 10 years ago

Books now available on Amazon:

A Call From France
French Sand
Kefani: An African Childhood
The Man With Green Fingers
Saying Nothing