What do you miss from France ?

What i miss from France:

1. Food... in all his form, the market on Sunday morning full of vegetables, spices, mushroom, and fruits.... real cooked food, cheese ( real not chedar) , charcuterie, andouillettes, fish ( which is not deep fried cooked ), real mustard ( not the fluorescent English one ), real bread freshly bake ( a baker please).
2. Real market ( though there is an ersatz in limerick every Saturday morning ). The smell of it. Antiquities market too.
3. Cinema: movie theater who provide a large and varied choice of films ( not necessary French), i just want variety and not only the American blockbusters of the moment. "Art & Essais" movie theaters.
4. Comic Book: Library where i can find and discover vast choice of comic book ( French-Belgian school or not ).
5. Arte... funny one TV channel, i enjoy rediscovering every time i go back to France.
6. Vigne, the collect of grapes in autumn to make wine...
7. Cheek kiss when meet friends
8. Apero time...not quite the same as an evening in the pub.
9. "les terrasses", have a drink, on a table outside the bar... just after work... ireland not really the country for that.

10. my favourite cavist back in Grenoble: L'Echanson ( rue Lakanal, Grenoble, France )... and this lovely white vine: "Tariquet - Premieres Grives"
11. The nice bars of grenoble (..... ) and the outdoor concerts (Cabaret Frappe) in summer in the parc in the middle of the city...

France - Scuba Diving

Activities: Airplane, Scuba-diving, Restaurant (4), Pub (1), Apero (evryday), sea, sun and friends......


Back to France ( Nice - Marseille ) for easter week-end, to enjoy some sea, some scuba-diving, some food and some friends.

Taking Off from Dublin

Dublin Airport

Landing in Nice, and straight heading direction Marseille (Massillia):

Marseille

Diving in La Vesse (Again), where I first dive and pass my first 2 level of diving:

La vesse

again

Younger me

Apero....

And sunday, again diving, small "pelerinage" in "Le vieux Port" in Marseille.

Listening a lovely percussion band in the sun:

Apero....

Monday, back to Nice, diving, and walk in Nice Harbour....

Tuesday Back to Ireland, nice reading...

merde

Are people truly good at heart?

Interesting answer from Philip G. Zimbardo:
"That’s not true. Some people can be made into monsters. And the people who abused, and killed her , were."

Zimbardo conducted in 1971, an interesting experience: The Stanford Prison Experiment, were for 2 weeks he puts together 23 volunteers some as prisoners some as guards. After 2-3 days, the guard started to have sadistic behavior towards the prisonners.

Like the Milgram experiment (Yale, 1961, where people where asked to torture other on the pretext of science ), it seems good people can make bad things.

See the article in the New York Times:
A Conversation With Philip G. Zimbardo
Finding Hope in Knowing the Universal Capacity for Evil
By CLAUDIA DREIFUS
Published: April 3, 2007
Philip G. Zimbardo has made his reputation studying how people disguise the good and bad in themselves and under what conditions either is expressed.

Remind me, the Heist show from Derren Brown, where he suggested people to rob.

--
Finally the question of the day:
Couple what for : is it to light up or to make children ? Why do we break up ? Why do we stay together ?
Maybe an answer on the tv channel Arte.

L'homme.... [FR]

Derniere citation du candidat Sarkozy:
"l'homme n'est pas une marchandise comme les autres..."

Et bin, je crois que tout est dis, l'ideal liberal en action, l'homme considere comme une marchandise, pas tout a fais comme les autres ....

Vous pouvez ecouter l'extrait ici: Un mode de Sons, A droite toute

Saturday Costello Fever

Pub: 4 (Friday: Wicked Chicken; Saturday: Collins, Flannerys, Costello)
Alcohol units: 4


Incredible news, they changed the floor in the costello upstairs, a new hardwood floor for the dance floor and new carpets (dark green, same colour as the hold one, i wonder if it was the same

Part of the legend of the place is changing, but don't worry it should not take too long before you can smell guinness on that new floor.





I definitely need to take more pictures of the place (and with a camera, not my phone).

Note: a small precision, as unbelievable it can be for people knowing the Costello, this is not an april fool joke

Irish statistics

Today, the result of the Irish census are published (by the Central Statistics Office ), interesting figures:
- 8.2% increase of the population over the last 4 years ( 2002-2006 ), There has 33 000 babies during that period and 46 000 immigrants.
- Population average age : 35.6 years
- 100.1 males for 100 females (all ages)
- 103.4 males for 100 females (all ages)
- Over 43% of singles 46% married. There is also an increase of marital breakdown.
- 10.4% of the population is born outside of the ROI ( 7.5% from the EU )
- The census reveal 63000 people from Poland and 24808 from Lithuania. And 9307 from France (4700 registered in the Ambassade ).
- 4 out of ten of new build houses (Irish Independant), are empty.... it smells like speculation.. and the building bubble might soon explode... 25% of the houses build since 2002 are empty ... and they keep building.
Worst the houses are badly insulated, and build very (too) fast.

You can summarize it by: the population is 10% of non-irish national, getting older. Divorce are on the increase, women have less child and family are smaller. Islam is now the third religion...

Full results can be found there.

The Blogger "petite anglaise" (http://www.petiteanglaise.com/) won the first round of her trial against her ex-employer, who fired her because of her blog.

An interesting website propose to listen the soundtrack of movies: http://power.listentoamovie.com/
You can hear: Casablanca, American Psycho, Blade Runner....

Eurovision 2007

A fun band is going to represent France this year at the Eurovision Song Contest....



And here there "hommage" to Sardou ...