guillotines and nouvelle cuisine

there is a good place in Lyon where one can have terrific food without having to pay astronomical prices: http://www.institutpaulbocuse.com/ which is the cookery school of the celebrated French chef Paul Bocuse

Almudena asked the maitre d' why chefs had to wear tall hats, to what he replied that it was simply a question of hierarchy and protocol,

which brings me nicely to her next question (yes, she's six) 'why didn't you want to have another queen after Marie Antoinette?' although such a question only provoked giggles among French people.............. I suppose the adult answer to that should be 'because the French tired of paying for the overspending of the privileged and the country was buried into debt'...............hang on a minute, does it ring a bell or two?.............maybe we should be shipping guillotines to Mr. Bush and Mr. Brown all the way from France!

the state of things in russia

On the day when everybody was busy watching the opening ceremony of the Olympic games, Russia invaded Georgia.

I have visited St. Petersburg recently, and was astonished by the Kafkian bureaucracy that still reigns in Russia and the absolute power that authorities have over the population. But what it really surprised me was that people seem to agree with how Putin is conducting the country, even though nobody really looked happy.

Vladimir, our taxi driver, said not without a hint of melancholy: 'Russian people need a firm hand, they are not ready for freedom'

egosurfers

According to The Independent, 'Nerdic' is the fastest-growing language in Europe,
avoiding arguments on the fine line that divides language and dialects, Jerome Taylor claims that more than 100 new words were added to the Nerdic vocabulary in the past 12 months, more than three times the number the Oxford English Dictionary added to the English language.

Here is a sample of words created by the technology industry:
Android= phones featuring Google's Android software
Mash-up= when two elements from different websites are combined
Wimax= powerful wireless internet which can cover whole cities
Egosurfers= those people who spend all day looking themselves up on internet

Too fast to follow? Can't catch up with the speed of things?
Worry not! Most words (specially those used to describe older technology) have already disappeared!

the division between the haves and have nots

I have recently visited Doris Salcedo's 'Shibboleth' (known among visitors as 'the crack') at the Tate Modern. 'A ‘shibboleth’ is a custom, phrase or use of language that acts as a test of belonging to a particular social group or class. By definition, it is used to exclude those deemed unsuitable to join this group. ‘The history of racism’, Salcedo writes, ‘runs parallel to the history of modernity, and is its untold dark side’. For hundreds of years, Western ideas of progress and prosperity have been underpinned by colonial exploitation and the withdrawal of basic rights from others. In breaking open the floor of the museum, Salcedo is exposing a fracture in modernity itself.' says the text on the wall of the Turbine Hall.

The Crack represents the division between the haves and have nots, between oppressed and oppressor and, if you like me choose to look at it from above, between those who 'get' it and those who 'don't'.

The Prime minister said recently inflation must be kept down - and called for wage restraint among public sector workers. In today's England nurses, teachers and social workers will soon join those whose houses have been repossessed in their fall onto the wrong side of the crack.