Yep, got my phone call this week, asking if I was going to go to the quiz "Incase they ask a question about lavender or flower arranging." I kid you not, that was the reason given as to my presence being requested.
I turned up late as I had a previous engagement at a picnic/live concert of Irish music (will talk more about this on another post). All the lads were looking terribly serious and I was immediately inundated with unanswered questions - 'Who did Jude Law marry' 'What colour do Indian brides wear?' But did have a drink brought for me.
One of the funniest exchanges was around the question 'What word now used to describe a type of French restaurant comes from the Russian word for quick?' Our sports journalist team member said 'Bistro' which was generally accepted as correct, except by the Kiwi/English teacher team member who queried the entomology of the word. The reply was "No idea but he" (a nod towards the journalist) "is Russian."
We won the box of shite again.
Friday, 25 June 2010
Parents really shouldn't cut hair
Yesterday at work one of the children was sporting a classic 'My father wouldn't pay money for a hairdresser, decided it couldn't be that difficult and so cut it himself' haircut.
The fringe was incredibly short and lopsided.
I guess everyone has had one of these haircuts in their lifetime. If not one of these, then the closely related 'My sister/brother got hold of a pair of scissors and decided it would be fun to cut my hair' haircut.
Whilst hiding laughter I did my best "Wow, you've had a haircut!! Looking good!" attempts and as the child concerned is just three and has no idea of hair fashion, he smiled and agreed and then pointed out his new t-shirt.
I guess as the other parent there is not much you can do in case like this (except go for a No1 all over) but to have a rant and then buy a hat for the child and hope his hair grows quickly!
Let's hope that for this child/parent concerned the lesson has been learnt and won't be repeated again....
The fringe was incredibly short and lopsided.
I guess everyone has had one of these haircuts in their lifetime. If not one of these, then the closely related 'My sister/brother got hold of a pair of scissors and decided it would be fun to cut my hair' haircut.
Whilst hiding laughter I did my best "Wow, you've had a haircut!! Looking good!" attempts and as the child concerned is just three and has no idea of hair fashion, he smiled and agreed and then pointed out his new t-shirt.
I guess as the other parent there is not much you can do in case like this (except go for a No1 all over) but to have a rant and then buy a hat for the child and hope his hair grows quickly!
Let's hope that for this child/parent concerned the lesson has been learnt and won't be repeated again....
Saturday, 12 June 2010
Men and Quizzes
What is it with men and quizzes? They take it soooo seriously and often ignore a mere female in the process. Quizzes are very serious business here in Lyon and every anglophone pub has one - so from Monday through to Thursday you can go to a quiz. Some offer money prizes, others meals and drinks, others offer boxes of crap. Typically questions are asked in both French and English and I got into them as it was helping me learn French and a good way of meeting people.
The team I tend to play with is a flexible one, with different people playing each week, due to the odd nature of some of their working shifts, and generally speaking we do quite well at winning the box of crap and sometimes we win money and drinks. However it is a very male dominated team and each week there are only one or two females.
What gets me though is the way that the men talk over, ignore or completely put down suggestions from me, DESPITE sending me messages asking if I am playing the quiz that night?? Yep, I'm confused and not so vain to think that it is my stunning looks and company they want for the evening, these boys take the quiz very seriously and don't like carrying lame ducks.
Here are a couple of examples from last Thursday.
"Which hollywood actor has a pilot's license and flew his own Boeing 707 to South Africa for the World Cup this week?" I said "John Travolta" before the question had finished. My team mate who was writing the answers refused to put anything down until he heard the question in French (fair enough) but as no one had anything better and I was so quick with the answer, it was accepted.
Later there was a question on tall buildings - which they wanted to put down Empire State Building and this was where I went wrong - I suggested a possibility rather than going in with a statement. I said "Wasn't the Chyrsler building built before the Empire State?" Big mistake. it was completely ignored. (I was right). I then repeated this mistake with a question on which UN members vetoed sanctions by saying - "Oh, it could be Turkey as that would explain a headline I saw on the BBC website." The two journalists (who had not been working that day, nor it appears, been anywhere near a newspaper or the internet) went for Burma and North Korea (I was right).
I did get slight victory for the question "Which tournament started in August 2007, with a match between Tahiti and New Caledonia, which New Caledonia won 1-0." After much pursing of lips and deep frowning, especially from the sports journalist, I chipped in with "Is it the World Cup? Don't the qualifying rounds start years before?" This was initially greeted with negative comments and more frowning as they tried desperately to think of any other tournament - possibly some french DOM-TOM tournament, and probably because each week I cheerfully admit to my lack of sporting knowledge, before they admitted defeat and wrote down 'World cup 2010', as "We've got no other answer."
I guess the solution is to be the one who writes the answers on the quiz sheets, as then you have ultimate control and can put down whatever you want, which I did one week when they were debating whether it was the Jules Rimet or not. I just wrote down 'Oscar', as that was the right answer and left them bickering amongst themselves.
The team I tend to play with is a flexible one, with different people playing each week, due to the odd nature of some of their working shifts, and generally speaking we do quite well at winning the box of crap and sometimes we win money and drinks. However it is a very male dominated team and each week there are only one or two females.
What gets me though is the way that the men talk over, ignore or completely put down suggestions from me, DESPITE sending me messages asking if I am playing the quiz that night?? Yep, I'm confused and not so vain to think that it is my stunning looks and company they want for the evening, these boys take the quiz very seriously and don't like carrying lame ducks.
Here are a couple of examples from last Thursday.
"Which hollywood actor has a pilot's license and flew his own Boeing 707 to South Africa for the World Cup this week?" I said "John Travolta" before the question had finished. My team mate who was writing the answers refused to put anything down until he heard the question in French (fair enough) but as no one had anything better and I was so quick with the answer, it was accepted.
Later there was a question on tall buildings - which they wanted to put down Empire State Building and this was where I went wrong - I suggested a possibility rather than going in with a statement. I said "Wasn't the Chyrsler building built before the Empire State?" Big mistake. it was completely ignored. (I was right). I then repeated this mistake with a question on which UN members vetoed sanctions by saying - "Oh, it could be Turkey as that would explain a headline I saw on the BBC website." The two journalists (who had not been working that day, nor it appears, been anywhere near a newspaper or the internet) went for Burma and North Korea (I was right).
I did get slight victory for the question "Which tournament started in August 2007, with a match between Tahiti and New Caledonia, which New Caledonia won 1-0." After much pursing of lips and deep frowning, especially from the sports journalist, I chipped in with "Is it the World Cup? Don't the qualifying rounds start years before?" This was initially greeted with negative comments and more frowning as they tried desperately to think of any other tournament - possibly some french DOM-TOM tournament, and probably because each week I cheerfully admit to my lack of sporting knowledge, before they admitted defeat and wrote down 'World cup 2010', as "We've got no other answer."
I guess the solution is to be the one who writes the answers on the quiz sheets, as then you have ultimate control and can put down whatever you want, which I did one week when they were debating whether it was the Jules Rimet or not. I just wrote down 'Oscar', as that was the right answer and left them bickering amongst themselves.
Sunday, 30 May 2010
I was going to write about the performances in the Eurovision song contest, but, well, we all saw it....
What has been interesting is different people's (and nationalities) views on it.
The British seem to be bored by the whole thing and who can blame us when we have terrible 'poppy' entries that are quite frankly emabarassing and completely out performed by the Turkish nu-metal entry. I think the apparent lack of interest is a self defense mechanism.
An Irish friend was so happy that a trip back home would coincide with the final as he would be able to party with his friends. They all seem to enjoy the kitschness of the show.
A Swedish friend said how last year she had gone round the bars in Lyon, convinced that they would be broadcasting the competition and was disapointed in her quest.
The French girls at work have made no comment on it at all.
The commentry on the French TV was fantastic and wonderfully biased. I tuned in slightly late and so wasn't exactly sure who they were, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves. From the begining they were actively telling the viewers to call their French friends in other countries and get them to vote for the French entry (which incidently had to win the prize for the most Classic Eurovision Lyrics) informing everyone it was song number 18 and the singer was 'Adorable!' Then there was a big debate on the gender of the Serbian singer and who can blame them? They were disapointed with the number of entries singing in English so gave high praise to those who sang in their own languages - especially the Portugese entry (they seemed to like her a lot), and were beside themselves when the Icelandic song contained French phrases.
One of them obviously spoke English and was translating, he did well on the prounciation of the Belgium singer's surname - Dice, though his colleague insisted on 'dix', but they both struggled with Niamh Kavanagh.
In true Terry Wogan style they moaned throughout the voting and talked about a 'Jeux Political' and everytime an obvious 10 or 12 points went to a neighbouring country it was accompanied with a 'eh voila!' Then they were in fits of giggles over one results presenter's dress, which they didn't recover from for 3 more sets of results.
For me personanlly the moment of the night wasn't Most Weird Costume - the Belarus butterflies or the Most Outrageous Use of Hair Extensions - Amenia, but seeing Graham Norton surrounded by Union Jacks. So European!
What has been interesting is different people's (and nationalities) views on it.
The British seem to be bored by the whole thing and who can blame us when we have terrible 'poppy' entries that are quite frankly emabarassing and completely out performed by the Turkish nu-metal entry. I think the apparent lack of interest is a self defense mechanism.
An Irish friend was so happy that a trip back home would coincide with the final as he would be able to party with his friends. They all seem to enjoy the kitschness of the show.
A Swedish friend said how last year she had gone round the bars in Lyon, convinced that they would be broadcasting the competition and was disapointed in her quest.
The French girls at work have made no comment on it at all.
The commentry on the French TV was fantastic and wonderfully biased. I tuned in slightly late and so wasn't exactly sure who they were, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves. From the begining they were actively telling the viewers to call their French friends in other countries and get them to vote for the French entry (which incidently had to win the prize for the most Classic Eurovision Lyrics) informing everyone it was song number 18 and the singer was 'Adorable!' Then there was a big debate on the gender of the Serbian singer and who can blame them? They were disapointed with the number of entries singing in English so gave high praise to those who sang in their own languages - especially the Portugese entry (they seemed to like her a lot), and were beside themselves when the Icelandic song contained French phrases.
One of them obviously spoke English and was translating, he did well on the prounciation of the Belgium singer's surname - Dice, though his colleague insisted on 'dix', but they both struggled with Niamh Kavanagh.
In true Terry Wogan style they moaned throughout the voting and talked about a 'Jeux Political' and everytime an obvious 10 or 12 points went to a neighbouring country it was accompanied with a 'eh voila!' Then they were in fits of giggles over one results presenter's dress, which they didn't recover from for 3 more sets of results.
For me personanlly the moment of the night wasn't Most Weird Costume - the Belarus butterflies or the Most Outrageous Use of Hair Extensions - Amenia, but seeing Graham Norton surrounded by Union Jacks. So European!
Monday, 24 May 2010
It is a lovely day here today and it seemed that all of Lyon were out and about. I was picnicing in the local park and watched with fascination a couple of different events that were going on.
Directly in front of us a family had strung up a tight rope and they were all practising hard, Mamon, Papa and their two daughters. It was quite amazing. There appears to be a technique just to get up and stand on the rope. After a couple of hours it appeared that the father and the older daughter had this sussed. Then to walk along the rope seemed to involve some manovre with the big toe but I wasn't close enough to see exactly what.
To my left there was a group of families with children in the 3-5 year age range and one bike. Yep, it was that time of teaching the children to ride without stabilisers. I really don't remember this episode of my childhood at all but I must have done it at some point as I now ride my bike around the streets all the time and don't worry about falling over. There seemed to be about 3 children taking in turns to 'ride' with various parents running alongside and shouting encouraging words 'Allez, ma puce!' 'C'est superb' etc. The parents also looked incredibly hot and sweaty (well it was about 26c). It amused me to think that the two sets of parents who did not own the bike, were probably cursing one set who had brought the bike along.
The thing that I did get from it all though was how easy it is for us to try something new, fail at it and walk away and yet all these people were showing me how important and how much pleasure you get from persisting and then succeeding - a little lesson I need in my life right now!
Directly in front of us a family had strung up a tight rope and they were all practising hard, Mamon, Papa and their two daughters. It was quite amazing. There appears to be a technique just to get up and stand on the rope. After a couple of hours it appeared that the father and the older daughter had this sussed. Then to walk along the rope seemed to involve some manovre with the big toe but I wasn't close enough to see exactly what.
To my left there was a group of families with children in the 3-5 year age range and one bike. Yep, it was that time of teaching the children to ride without stabilisers. I really don't remember this episode of my childhood at all but I must have done it at some point as I now ride my bike around the streets all the time and don't worry about falling over. There seemed to be about 3 children taking in turns to 'ride' with various parents running alongside and shouting encouraging words 'Allez, ma puce!' 'C'est superb' etc. The parents also looked incredibly hot and sweaty (well it was about 26c). It amused me to think that the two sets of parents who did not own the bike, were probably cursing one set who had brought the bike along.
The thing that I did get from it all though was how easy it is for us to try something new, fail at it and walk away and yet all these people were showing me how important and how much pleasure you get from persisting and then succeeding - a little lesson I need in my life right now!
Monday, 14 December 2009
I am returning to the subject of illness in France, rather sooner than I had hoped.
Last week I was laid very low with a flu/cold combo. Some of the children in the creche have been very ill and had still been dragged in to spread the germs amongst the other children. However the parents also seem to assume that once us workers sign our contracts we are covered in an immunity bubble and they can send their little darlings in with temperatures, streaming noses, nasty coughs and sneezes and somehow (despite wiping noses, getting covered in snot, and cuddling distressed ill children) we will not become ill ourselves.
This is wrong and we do get ill too.
So last week I was confined to the sofa and rapidly becoming bored of TV. The highlight of the Tuesday was watching everyone squirm in the Dr's waiting room every time I coughed. My Dr looked at me as if to say I was making this all up and gave me a prescription and 2 days Arret de Travail. "Two days," I thought, "pah, I'll be back..." I had been prescribed 4 drugs to tackle my chest infection with. Unfortunately none of them seemed to have any affect and my lungs were still solid with gunk when I returned, wheezing like a 60 a day smoker, two days later.
"Is it worse?" he asked
"It's not any better." I replied, so after telling me firmly that some people had colds that lasted up to two weeks, giving me another prescription and another Arret de Travail, I was sent on my way.
I am now feeling better (80% human 20% phlegm) but am not sure which of the 6 medicines I was prescribed has been responsible. Your guess is as good as mine. Here's the list...
Antibiotics (non penicillin based)
Anti-inflammatory (though these have cleared up some mild eczema on my foot)
Antihistamines (am I allergic to phlegm?)
An expectorant (to make me cough)
A cough suppressant (confused, yep, me too.)
Paracetamol (my money is on this one being the most helpful.)
Anyway back to work tomorrow, ready to assailed by the next wave of ill children.
Last week I was laid very low with a flu/cold combo. Some of the children in the creche have been very ill and had still been dragged in to spread the germs amongst the other children. However the parents also seem to assume that once us workers sign our contracts we are covered in an immunity bubble and they can send their little darlings in with temperatures, streaming noses, nasty coughs and sneezes and somehow (despite wiping noses, getting covered in snot, and cuddling distressed ill children) we will not become ill ourselves.
This is wrong and we do get ill too.
So last week I was confined to the sofa and rapidly becoming bored of TV. The highlight of the Tuesday was watching everyone squirm in the Dr's waiting room every time I coughed. My Dr looked at me as if to say I was making this all up and gave me a prescription and 2 days Arret de Travail. "Two days," I thought, "pah, I'll be back..." I had been prescribed 4 drugs to tackle my chest infection with. Unfortunately none of them seemed to have any affect and my lungs were still solid with gunk when I returned, wheezing like a 60 a day smoker, two days later.
"Is it worse?" he asked
"It's not any better." I replied, so after telling me firmly that some people had colds that lasted up to two weeks, giving me another prescription and another Arret de Travail, I was sent on my way.
I am now feeling better (80% human 20% phlegm) but am not sure which of the 6 medicines I was prescribed has been responsible. Your guess is as good as mine. Here's the list...
Antibiotics (non penicillin based)
Anti-inflammatory (though these have cleared up some mild eczema on my foot)
Antihistamines (am I allergic to phlegm?)
An expectorant (to make me cough)
A cough suppressant (confused, yep, me too.)
Paracetamol (my money is on this one being the most helpful.)
Anyway back to work tomorrow, ready to assailed by the next wave of ill children.
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