rantlust

Posted by anupcs on January 25th 2008 in Celebrity, Entertainment, Fashion, French-Surrender, India, Music, Politics
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Earlier this week, the Indian government was having a tough time figuring out the correct protocol of dealing with a visiting head of state’s girlfriend. French president Nicolas Sarkozy was coming to town and the rumor had it that he was bringing his new found love, former supermodel, Carla Bruni. One moment she was coming, the next, not. And now apparently she is going but separately. This is less troublesome but still a spot of bother for the protocol keepers as the couple are planning to visit that old monument of love, the Taj Mahal.

The global media has been all over the Sarkozy-Bruni romance as it’s not often that we get to see heads of state in the same predicament as a Hilton or Spears (please, I beg you, let’s leave Bill Clinton out of this). Even the bastions of serious journalism, The New York Times, The BBC, and horror of horrors, The Wall Street Journal (Rupert Murdoch is already showing his true colors at the newspaper) had lengthy articles on the relationship.

Bruni is quite familiar with this sort of attention having dated a who’s who of bad boys (Eric Clapton, Sir Mick Jagger, Vincent Perez, and even Kevin Costner). She retired from a lucrative modeling career (apparently she appeared in around 250 magazine covers) at the age of 30 and is now trying her hand at singing when she’s not visiting ancient monuments with Sarkozy. Lovers of French cinema will probably know that Bruni is the sister of noted French actress, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi. Today, the Journal even compared her to Norah Jones. Curious, I dug up a video of the woman singing on youtube and I have to admit, I am impressed (see below). Too bad the Sarkozy tie might actually hurt her singing career. Though, let’s hope not.

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Posted by renéejo on June 18th 2007 in Europe, French-Surrender
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Vive le Gaul. The latest incumbent of the Elysée palace has been caught drunk at the G8 summit. French surrender or not, I say we should give the man a break. He might have had a few too many of his country’s fine wine. Who can blame him for that? Or did he really have some Vodka with RasPutin?

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Posted by tafkap on July 09th 2006 in French-Surrender, Internet, Rants
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No prizes for guesses - 1 hour after Italy wins the World Cup, the top search ain’t Italy, France or World Cup. It’s Zidane.

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Posted by tafkap on May 04th 2006 in French-Surrender, Sports, USA
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With thirty six days left to go for the World (yes this really means the world) Cup, hype and media coverage are slowly heating up. This four year ritual reminds me that life is really worth living, even though I don’t really follow sports all that much. This morning, on my drive to work, I heard on NPR that the US was ranked fourth in the world rankings. There has always been controversy around how these rankings are calculated, let alone the fact that it is called the ‘FIFA/Coca-Cola Ranking’.

Given the preposterous ranking of the US, I would contend that the high weighting for CONCACAF is at least partially to blame. Czech Republic ranked number two also surprises me. Mexico number six? What gives? How about India? 117. Now that’s more like it. And for our fellow Samoan blogger. He will be happy to note that Samoa is ranked 183, with American Samoa at 205. Dead last.

And worst of all is France at number seven. Aw now this is too much. Other than the perturbation in the time space continuum that was 1998 and Euro 2000, how can France be ranked at number seven in anything

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Posted by riyer on March 30th 2006 in French-Surrender, History, Humor, Society
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I am not making this up, they make it too easy to pick on them.
A column titled Who Moved My Fromage? by John Tierney (note: Paid Subscription required) notes

Today’s French can’t even stand up to unarmed foreigners. When French young adults were asked what globalization meant to them, half replied, “Fear.”

Here is my visual: Ramakrishnan Venkataratnam Iyengar from India lands at De Gaul for an IT project and wonders why all the French have their hands up, waving white towels, in a gesture of surrender. Him not being familiar with the rich and glorious traditions of the French.

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