Sarkozy put in his thumb

... and pulled out a plum, or, at least, he soon will.

That bloke smiles too much, particularly now he's ditched the missus. Just watch! He'll be able to show a thing or two to the likes of John Major or Bill Clinton when it comes to the doe-eyed worship of his subordinates, although given his stature they're unlikely to be gazing UP at him in dewey wonder.

Our household is split between who his next avowed conquest is likely to be. 'Er indoors reckons it's going to be Rachida Dati, the Minister of Justice:

...whereas I reckon it has to be Rama Yadé, the "Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights", for her self-evident cigar-sucking appeal:

Go on, I'll give you 3:1 Rachida and 2:1 Rama!

Brains of Britain

So it appears that 60% of all degrees are nowadays Firsts or Upper-Seconds. Whatever happened to the standard distribution curve? Oh, I forgot, League Tables, of course. An A++ to the bright spark who pointed that one out. Now get back to your Game Boys.

Perfect day

... but not for France, Estonia or Notts County

Dared to say hello

What cynical times they are that we live in. As everyone hurries hither and thither around our tower block, ferrying kids to school or heading off to work, the most we manage might be a brief smile and grunt of acknowledgement to those whose faces are familiar, so when I turn a corner and am met by a spontaneous wide grin and big "Good Morning" from someone I've never seen before my first thought is: "Must be a simpleton". Someone offers a little ray of morning sunshine, simply because they're feeling good, at one with the world, and want to share that feeling with those they encounter along their way, and this is how you react!
Still, it turns out he was a simpleton after all.

Whoop-de-doo

I just bought a new English-German dictionary and it has the word "whoop-de-doo" in it. I don't know why I bother. I buy a new dictionary every fifteen years or so to keep up with linguistic developments and this is the kind of nonsense that leaps from the page (it's a page index header to boot). Who is it that determines what shit-de-bum is to be included in dictionaries anyway? I'm sure they must be moonlighting from the world of advertising.

Wrong pin

I had a good laugh at Liverpool Airport the other day when hiring a car. I used a French credit card to pay the deposit, so the "intelligent" software, recognizing the card's provenance, displayed the read-outs on the pin-pad in French.
When the time came to key in my "PIN-number" the message "Saisir broche" was displayed. A moment's reflection made me realize that was a direct translation of "pin" in the sense of the terminal pins you get on a jack-lead, for example. An attempt therefore to render "Enter PIN"*. Good stuff, but not exactly obvious. What if poor Jean-Pierre turns up for his car and enters the digits on the pin-pad that correspond to B-R-O-C-H-E, thinking that the next step will be to enter his PIN?! I zink J-P will be catching ze bus.

*Just in case you're wondering, it should have been "Saisir PIN". Duhhh!

Let your fingers do the walking

Why are the Yellow Pages yellow, and why are they universally so (Pages Jaunes, Gelbe Seiten, show me the way to Amarillo, etc.)?
I shan't bother asking why the White Pages are black and white and read all over.