France

Fun In France

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In the upper left you can see one of the original “mini” cars parked in a way that only a mini can.  That McDonald’s in the upper right was a “large” coffee… not large enough for me.  We watched “Jersey Shore” with French language overdubs – can you believe that someone in France wakes up in the morning with the official job of translating “Snooki”?  In the lower right there was a model right in the middle of the busiest street, doing a photo shoot.

Upper left – the place advertises itself as Lenny Kravitz’s favorite falafel stand.  I saw a line of the old Citroen convertibles out for a weekend drive.  Starbucks had people sitting outside like a French cafe.

This one is for our friend Gerry from Valparaiso Indiana.  There is a cafe chain in Paris called “Indiana Cafe” and they serve Tex-Mex food, check out their site, and no I can’t figure out the connection, either.  In the middle the translation for environmentalists was “tree hugger”, an excellent translation.  They had a bird cage outside the window, which seems like a big tease.

In the lower left is one of those cooler old French cars with the rear wheel covered and I hope you don’t have to change the tire.  We had a very friendly cat follow us and apparently a goat with goiter.

Cross posted at LITGM

Krystyna Skarbek

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krystyna1

I’ve been meaning for a while now to write about this very courageous woman (who is better known by the anglicized version of her name, Christine Granville)…the tragic events in Poland make this seem like an appropriate time to remember a Polish heroine.

Previously, I’ve posted about two women–Violette Szabo and Noor Inayat Khan–who worked for the secret British WWII organization known as Special Operations Executive…whose mission it was to organize resistance and sabotage activities in occupied Europe. Krystyna Skarbek also worked for SOE during the latter part of her WWII career, during which time she was partnered with another SOE agent named Francis Cammaerts, who led resistance operations over an extensive area in southern France. I spent some time with Mr Cammaerts during a trip to France in 2001, and will be writing about him in a future post.

Skarbek was born near Warsaw in 1908: her father was a bank official and a member of the nobility, and her mother was Jewish. She became an avid horsewoman and skier, and also a beauty queen (#6 in the Miss Poland contest for 1930.) When WWII broke out, Krystyna was living in Ethiopia with her second husband, who was the Polish consul there. She immediately went to London and volunteered to work as a secret agent…I believe her first assignment was with the Secret Intelligence Service (spying) rather than with SOE (sabotage.) She first traveled to Hungary, from which she planned to ski into Poland…while in Budapest she met Andrew Kowarski, who was to become her great love. In early 1940, she went over the Tatra mountains to begin her first underground assignment, in which she organized a network of couriers to bring intelligence reports from Warsaw to Budapest. She also located her mother, who was doubly in danger because of her aristocratic connection as well as her Jewish background, and warned her to leave the country…but her mother refused and was later arrested and never heard from again.

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Sleeping with the Enemy–Update

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My post of a couple of weeks ago, Sleeping with the Enemy, (which expanded on an old novel by Arthur Koestler) has drawn some extensive and thoughtful remarks from Shrinkwrapped…definitely worth reading.

Also, it is possible to discern a slight relationship between the woman called “Jihad Jane,” an American accused of terrorist activities, and Koestler’s protagonist Hydie Anderson. But as I noted in the post

today’s Hydies are unlikely to share the educational and religious depth of the woman Koestler imagined

To put it mildly, judging from appearances in this case. Looks like I called that one right!

Book Review: Between Silk and Cyanide, by Leo Marks

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We have a little time left
The wise doctor said
Unless there’s a miracle
Which is another man’s trade

Selfish as always
I’ve started missing you now
Want to say so
Don’t know how
Want to hug you
Don’t know if I should
Hope you understand
I’d take your place if I could

In 1942, at the age of 22, Leo Marks joined the secret British agency known as Special Operations Executive, and soon became the organization’s Codemaster, responsible for the security of communications with SOE’s resistance and sabotage agents in occupied Europe. He usually briefed these agents…soon-to-be-legendary individuals like Violette Szabo and Forest Yeo-Thomas…before their departures and they all left indelible impressions on him. His memoir is a very emotional book: frequently heartbreaking, sometimes very funny. There is a lot about the technical aspects of cryptography, but these sections can be skipped or skimmed by those who are primarily interested in the powerful human story. Poetry, much of it written by Marks himself, played an important part in SOE’s cryptographic operations and hence plays an important role in this book.

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Talk About Jaded

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I came across this rather odd news article a little while ago. “Ultimate Thrill: Get Abducted For $1,226“.

Well heeled executives in France are paying big money to a company that arranges faux kidnappings. It seems that the thrills of bungee jumping and alpine skiing have faded, and adrenaline junkies with more money than sense are looking to add a little spice to their life.

After the contracts and liability waivers are all signed, and I suppose the check has cleared, the kidnapping kompany will lie in wait, lurking until the best time to strike! That way the surprise and emotions are at their most fevered.

A spokesperson for the firm which arranges these hijinks goes all psychobable in an attempt to justify the service. The clients are facing their worst fears in a controlled setting, hence it is good for their mental health!

I loved this part….

“While paying “victims” might find the experience cathartic, however, there’s little guarantee of how innocent bystanders might react to witnessing a kidnapping in broad daylight.”

For some reason, I don’t see an American version of the company having too much success if they set up shop in Texas.

(Cross posted over at Hell in a Handbasket.)