par Uri Sluckin | Déc 9, 2015
Last Sunday French people voted, leaving the already well twisted political knickers, as predicted by Tradwell, in such a knotted state that even the most aroused politicians in a dreamy state of electoral priapism and gleeful journalists omnipresent on all earthly media will need extra greasy pair of hands to cover the very much exposed and rather carelessly wiped political derrière. Read more One needs to be a native, or like Tradwell a long-standing, persistent immigrant to fathom what’s really going on and what’s at stake. Not very much, if one disregards the existing elite’s hubris. French regional power is all about school canteen serving pork, or not and deciding if a bus taking kids to school is to be equipped with emergency Nutella jars. The political dinosaurs are so preoccupied with cementing their sagging bottoms to the three-legged chairs they’ve been occupying for such a long time that it brings memories of Tradwell trying to understand his mother signing up to the communist party whilst changing the prodigal son’s name in order to avoid any suspicion of non native affiliation. The new leader is a nice person, she said; he understands his people and will make it better. Which incidentally was the truth as Tradwell was able to fulfill his dream of tasting Coke, in a liquid form, from a tin amorously shared with a gorgeous blonde sitting on his knees. The now-respected psychologist blonde only noticed her miniskirt riding past her hips when her furious father pounced. Tradwell escaped through the widow of the communist council flat, followed by insults bringing to bear the oft talked about... lire plus
par Uri Sluckin | Nov 5, 2015
Significant new words of the year 2015 have been published by Collins Dictionary, with ‘dadbod’, ‘manspreading’ and ‘transgender’ featuring prominently. But with new ways of registering, downloading and streaming of your favourite series it’s not surprising that ‘binge-watch’ has been chosen as the Word of the Year for 2015. Read more Significant new words of the year 2015 have been published by Collins Dictionary, with ‘dadbod’, ‘manspreading’ and ‘transgender’ featuring prominently. With new ways of registering, downloading and streaming of your favourite series it’s not surprising that ‘binge-watch’ has been chosen as the Word of the Year for 2015. Dictionary compilers have seen a huge increase in its usage as a survey found that almost all of us conceded to « binge-watching » – watching more than the two nightly episodes of a series in one sitting. The CollinsDictionary.com definition of the in-word: « To watch a large number of television programmes (especially all the shows from one series) in succession. » Netflix or Watch Series, or Canal + digital video recorders make it easy for fans to watch what they want, when they want, for as long as they want. New kinds of internet-inspired series, such as House of Cards or Breaking Bad are being viewed entirely without the thrill of waiting for the weekly installments and then discussed and digested ad nauseam on the social media. The new, controversial UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn inspired a term based on his far-left economic policies: Corbynomics. A regime of « clean eating » refers to avoiding processed foods and eating a lot of raw, untreated and unrefined produce. Male binge-watchers who do not adhere to this diet... lire plus
par Uri Sluckin | Oct 23, 2015
Tradwell doesn’t do politics; well not unless politics infringe upon its hereditary right to dispense transcending translation tips, known as triple t within the corporation. This is just the case with the farce being played out at this very moment, a play so comically brilliant that it deserves a chapter. A communication coup so violent that we need to calm the reader by comparing what’s going on in France to what Shakespeare taught us about power and corruption, as in act 5, scene 2 of Hamlet. In the very last scene, the violence, so long suspended, erupts with dizzying momentum. Characters drop one after the other, poisoned, stabbed, and, in the case of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, executed, as the theme of revenge and justice reaches its conclusion in the moment when Hamlet finally kills Claudius. Read more At the end, the arrival of Fortinbras effectively raises the question of political legitimacy once more. In marked contrast to the corrupted and weakened royal family lying dead on the floor, Fortinbras clearly symbolises a strong-willed, capable leader, though the play does not address the issue of whether his eventual rule will restore the moral authority of the state. I let readers place the actors in the roles we see as interchangeable with 3 main royal political families testing the various means of mutual destruction: Les Républicains, erstwhile known as UDF and led by the has been but destined to become once again French president Nicolas Sarkozy, the PS led, we use the term sparingly, by the actual French president François Hollande, and the far right party driven by an older, yet... lire plus
par Uri Sluckin | Oct 22, 2015
Ma femme, mon fils de 19 ans et moi avons regardé le film Gone Girl ; les parents ont lu le livre en anglais et David s’est pris au jeu. Il n’y avait pas de bon match de foot ce soir. Bien que le film de David Fincher reprenne les intrigues et que les complots et personnages soient repris assez fidèlement tout en ayant la marque de fabrique du directeur, il y a beaucoup de changements et oublis, principalement faits pour contenir la longueur de l’œuvre. Par exemple, le fait que Nick va sur la plage le lendemain de la disparition de sa femme, Amazing Amy, dans le livre il s’esquive pour passer du temps avec Andie et pour lire des magazines d’hommes dans un garage abandonné. Ça dégoûte le spectateur, on apprend à détester le personnage. Read more Puis, l’actrice Noelle Hawthorne arrive quand la police effectue la première fouille la maison. On a bien lu qu’Amy a passé du temps à préparer Noelle pour qu’elle accuse Nick de meurtre. Les rôles des 2 policiers, Boney et Gilpin sont gonflés dans le film, c’est sans doute pour ajouter une pointe d’humeur à cette histoire sombre et rocambolesque. La scène qui se déroule dans le centre commercial abandonné a aussi été modifiée ; certes assez fidèle au livre en ce qui concerne l’ambiance générale, c’est n’est pas Nick qui y va avec son père, armés de bats de baseball mais la police. Ils racontent plus tard qu’Amy cherchait à acheter un flingue. Les arguments entre Nick et Amy sont différents dans le film : par exemple on ne voit pas... lire plus
par Uri Sluckin | Oct 13, 2015
Hello Neil, You’re a major trend-setter, if there ever was one. In the day and age when correspondence means text or twitter, just a hundred or so characters strung out into a few meaningless phrases with no punctuation and mandatory misspelling to prove that one is digitally aware and in tune with one’s children, you actually went to a post office (it’s refreshing to know that they still have them in LA), inquired how many stamps would be needed to make certain that an envelope weighing 20 grams would be safely hand-delivered six thousand miles away by a Gallic postman doing his morning rounds in a yellow, electrically-powered mail van and slotted into a stone-chiselled letterbox of a sub-Parisian village property in a village where two museums (Maison Louis Carré, the only private house built in France by Alvar Aalto and Maison Jean Monnet where the now-crumbling Europe was devised in the early fifties) and Fondation Brigitte Bardot (the house where she swung in the seventies now legged to her own menagerie of cats with no tail and goats with no purpose) mark the time chimed out by the two sixteenth century bells (Marie and Martinne forged in 1555) of the Gothic church, erected on the ruins of a Byzantine worship. Read more Licking the two stamps, you actually provided a DNA sample that would survive sub-zero temperatures and jetstreams to glide down on a sunny autumn morning and surprise its grateful addressee. I assure you, your transcontinental DNA will live on as an exhibit in a stamp collection that hasn’t enjoyed an arrival for over ten years. Certain... lire plus
par Uri Sluckin | Oct 6, 2015
How to start and end business letters and the very last word Les premières impressions comptent et les dernières lignes scellent ces impressions. Les ouvertures rappellent pourquoi : In reply to your letter of 6 October 2015 on the subject of my ability to write remarkable business correspondence I am writing to enquire about the possibility of becoming your next husband (as Richard Burton might have regarding Elisabeth Taylor) Having found your email address on LinkedIn, I would like to inform you that your recent restaurant venture has whet my appetite for hard boiled oysters… Au milieu, vous racontez votre histoire : Read more C’est un art maîtrisé à perfection par Tradwell. On peut ajouter des verbes “chauds” : I am determined to showcase my motivation in the very near future ou « interject » des adjectifs à la mode : Your revolutionary squid peeling device user manual is vibrant and impressively zeitgeist, it will be a prominent feature diligently dispatched to my Facebook page…well, anyway you want it! Les meilleures phrases pour fermer un courrier de manière qu’il reste dans la mémoire du lecteur : I would greatly appreciate your immediate attention to this matter and I apologise for any inconvenience. (l’état catastrophique des mes comptes durera encore quelque temps). I look forward to hearing from you soon (merci de confirmer l’extension de mon “overdraft”) If you require any further information, feel free to contact me (j’ai tout dit dans mon courrier, donc ne me téléphone pas) We hope to be able to reprise a successful working relationship in the near future (c’est pour remercier ton banquier d’avoir rejeté... lire plus
