Kyle Jarrard
From the BBC:
A social welfare office in Dublin has banned interviewees from wearing pyjamas. A notice has appeared at Damastown social welfare office which warns claimants that “pyjamas are not regarded as appropriate attire when attending Community Welfare Service at these offices”.
It is believed the decision was made after a number of people complained.
It is not the first time sleep wear has made headlines.
Two years ago, Joe McGuinness, the principal of St Matthew’s Primary School, Belfast, sent a stern letter to parents saying wearing pyjamas on the school run was “slovenly and rude”.
Last year a head teacher from a school in Middlesborough, England, also asked parents to get properly dressed before the school run.
The issue gained even more prominence when a Tesco store in Cardiff, Wales, put notices up asking customers not to shop in their pyjamas or barefoot.
Speaking to the BBC’s Talkback programme, image consultant Billy Dickson said he “couldn’t quite understand” Tesco’s decision to ban pyjamas as he claimed the supermarket continued to receive business, although he said he supported the ban at the Dublin social welfare office.
“There is a psychological aspect and pyjamas are associated with sleeping at night and comfort in the home,” he said.
“You have to get into the mindset of what you are doing that day. So if you are wanting to get a job, go dressed prepared to get a job.”
However, he said there was “always a contrary argument”.
“The fashion houses of Paris and Milan have gone into servicing in this area,” he added.
“I have witnessed people walking around Mayfair in London in their pyjamas.”
Columnist Joan Birnie said night wear “should only be worn in the house”.
“It’s slovenly, it’s wrong – pyjamas are for wearing to bed. They are definitely not for outside wear,” she said.
A man evidently shot a nail into his head and didn’t notice. He is recovering. I do this every day and don’t feel a thing. I’m not sure if I’m recovering or not. This is life.
From the BBC:
Greece’s financial crisis has made some families so desperate they are giving up the most precious thing of all – their children. One morning a few weeks before Christmas a kindergarten teacher in Athens found a note about one of her four-year-old pupils. “I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her,” it read. “Please take good care of her. Sorry. Her mother.”
Greece’s financial crisis has made some families so desperate they are giving up the most precious thing of all – their children. One morning a few weeks before Christmas a kindergarten teacher in Athens found a note about one of her four-year-old pupils. “I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her,” it read. “Please take good care of her. Sorry. Her mother.”
From the IHT/NYT:
By Kyle Jarrard
Enough is enough. No more computers, cameras or consoles. No more watches, neckties or perfumes. Heck, no dead tree, no annoying lights, no overstuffed duck, either. I’m casting an ink-and-paper pall over the holiday, whether Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa: This year we’re going to give each other a book.
A real, hold-in-your-hands paper book. Nothing more, nothing less. Already, the book edict has gone out on paperless email to the two key recipients of holiday love: my children. Noses have been turned up, derisive shrugs have been given: What a downer the old man is. A book? Come on.
Let’s get something neat! One of those deals you use to jump around doing things in front of your TV. Or a thoroughly awesome laptop, complete with designer bag! A new car would be nice, too; the one we have is so embarrassing.
Nope, 2011 will be the Year We Gave Books. It may even turn out to be memorable. Let’s take the chance. Who knows, someone might learn something. Some fantastic story, say, that doesn’t instantly decompose into its subatomic particle constituents the moment you turn away from it, or fade from memory even before it has even been thought, a bona fide tale of war, greed, money, love, hate, heartbreak, tragedy, redemption or fulfillment.
It’s going to take some convincing, however, to get the team behind this. I’ve tried hard as the leader of our pack to stay hip. I also show by example, as I’ve been known to drive the car while reading. Reading is the answer to everything, I’m fond of saying. More long stares have been given in my direction for years regarding my inability to not read, yawningly pitying contemplations of poor old dad that grew exponentially this year when I decided to make a leap.
Not off a cliff, mind you. But off the dusty, sagging bookshelf and into modern times. I now have a Kindle reader and a flock of electronic books perched upon it that flew over the rainbow on something called wi-fi and landed firmly within to be virtually leafed.
Ah ha! So why don’t you give those poor children Kindles! Bad father! These devices aren’t even that expensive any more. The books themselves — I mean, the clumps of electrons masquerading as books — are competitively priced, well, sort of. And we have wi-fi all through the house and all through the known world to snag these puppies out of the sky. So what’s the excuse?
Pepa used to take us kids fishing on the Brazos River in Texas. He really knew how to fish. And he was determined that, come hell or high water, we were going to fish right. You had to do your own stuff, tie vicious treble hooks to the line, thread the line through the eyes on the pole to the reel and not get it all tangled. If when you actually had your rig in the water you got snagged on a stump or branch, it was your problem. Either redo your line and get back fishing, or sit there and pout. This was all tough-school outdoor entertainment.
And so shall it be, well, sort of, with books: Fish or cut bait. Now is the time to accept that less is more — in fact that in the less there might be a heck of a lot more. A book allows you to time-travel, or just plain travel to real and imagined places, a not un-neat trick considering the price of airline tickets or space tourism. It allows you to meet evil, wonderful, mysterious, odd, crazy, fun, and not-fun people who often end up being more “real” in your life than real people. A simple tome of paper links you back, for instance, to the age of François I, Renaissance poet and book collector supremo, when the printing press and its wild spread across Europe was as exciting to us all as are e-books today.
Really? Heads hang far south in anticipation of all this fun, of the soberly wrapped so-called presents of 2011, of the printed lumps of coal. Bah, humbug, cheer up: I actually mean all of this stuff.
And so, not to plug authors or their works, here are my wise picks for the kids. For my daughter, graduate student in French and American law: “Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned,” a fine biography by John Farrell of one of the most creative lawyers to ever practice in the United States. And for my son, graduate student in biochemistry: “I Shall Not Hate,” by Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian doctor who lost three of his daughters and a niece to an Israeli shell but who nevertheless steadfastly campaigns for an end to Middle East killing.
As for e-books and Kindles, there’s always next year. Besides, given the rumbling negatives quaking the markets, it’s likely there won’t be any real bricks-and-mortar bookstores standing on Earth come next December anyway. If so, then, we’ll lift a full-throated toast to virtual books: May they shine bright to edify our progeny, one screen at a time.
Kyle Jarrard is a senior editor at the International Herald Tribune.
A real, hold-in-your-hands paper book. Nothing more, nothing less. Already, the book edict has gone out on paperless email to the two key recipients of holiday love: my children. Noses have been turned up, derisive shrugs have been given: What a downer the old man is. A book? Come on.
Let’s get something neat! One of those deals you use to jump around doing things in front of your TV. Or a thoroughly awesome laptop, complete with designer bag! A new car would be nice, too; the one we have is so embarrassing.
Nope, 2011 will be the Year We Gave Books. It may even turn out to be memorable. Let’s take the chance. Who knows, someone might learn something. Some fantastic story, say, that doesn’t instantly decompose into its subatomic particle constituents the moment you turn away from it, or fade from memory even before it has even been thought, a bona fide tale of war, greed, money, love, hate, heartbreak, tragedy, redemption or fulfillment.
It’s going to take some convincing, however, to get the team behind this. I’ve tried hard as the leader of our pack to stay hip. I also show by example, as I’ve been known to drive the car while reading. Reading is the answer to everything, I’m fond of saying. More long stares have been given in my direction for years regarding my inability to not read, yawningly pitying contemplations of poor old dad that grew exponentially this year when I decided to make a leap.
Not off a cliff, mind you. But off the dusty, sagging bookshelf and into modern times. I now have a Kindle reader and a flock of electronic books perched upon it that flew over the rainbow on something called wi-fi and landed firmly within to be virtually leafed.
Ah ha! So why don’t you give those poor children Kindles! Bad father! These devices aren’t even that expensive any more. The books themselves — I mean, the clumps of electrons masquerading as books — are competitively priced, well, sort of. And we have wi-fi all through the house and all through the known world to snag these puppies out of the sky. So what’s the excuse?
Pepa used to take us kids fishing on the Brazos River in Texas. He really knew how to fish. And he was determined that, come hell or high water, we were going to fish right. You had to do your own stuff, tie vicious treble hooks to the line, thread the line through the eyes on the pole to the reel and not get it all tangled. If when you actually had your rig in the water you got snagged on a stump or branch, it was your problem. Either redo your line and get back fishing, or sit there and pout. This was all tough-school outdoor entertainment.
And so shall it be, well, sort of, with books: Fish or cut bait. Now is the time to accept that less is more — in fact that in the less there might be a heck of a lot more. A book allows you to time-travel, or just plain travel to real and imagined places, a not un-neat trick considering the price of airline tickets or space tourism. It allows you to meet evil, wonderful, mysterious, odd, crazy, fun, and not-fun people who often end up being more “real” in your life than real people. A simple tome of paper links you back, for instance, to the age of François I, Renaissance poet and book collector supremo, when the printing press and its wild spread across Europe was as exciting to us all as are e-books today.
Really? Heads hang far south in anticipation of all this fun, of the soberly wrapped so-called presents of 2011, of the printed lumps of coal. Bah, humbug, cheer up: I actually mean all of this stuff.
And so, not to plug authors or their works, here are my wise picks for the kids. For my daughter, graduate student in French and American law: “Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned,” a fine biography by John Farrell of one of the most creative lawyers to ever practice in the United States. And for my son, graduate student in biochemistry: “I Shall Not Hate,” by Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian doctor who lost three of his daughters and a niece to an Israeli shell but who nevertheless steadfastly campaigns for an end to Middle East killing.
As for e-books and Kindles, there’s always next year. Besides, given the rumbling negatives quaking the markets, it’s likely there won’t be any real bricks-and-mortar bookstores standing on Earth come next December anyway. If so, then, we’ll lift a full-throated toast to virtual books: May they shine bright to edify our progeny, one screen at a time.
Kyle Jarrard is a senior editor at the International Herald Tribune.
I don’t know how widely this has been reported, but it is a wonderful case of justice done.
I hope this Chihuahua rapist gets cornerned by a pack of the little fellers in prison.
Payback!
I hope this Chihuahua rapist gets cornerned by a pack of the little fellers in prison.
Payback!
From the BBC:
Ratings agency Fitch has affirmed France’s top-notch AAA credit rating but has revised its outlook on the country to “negative” from “stable”.
A negative outlook usually means a downgrade is possible in 12-18 months.
Fitch said the change in outlook was prompted by the heightened risk of government liabilities arising from the eurozone’s debt crisis.
The agency also said it was considering downgrading ratings for Belgium, Spain, Slovenia, Italy, Ireland and Cyprus.
“Following the EU Summit on 9-10 December, Fitch has concluded that a ‘comprehensive solution’ to the eurozone crisis is technically and politically beyond reach,” the agency said.
"Cognac, la saga d'un esprit" est la captivante histoire du cognac qui retrace le développement de la viticulture dans la région depuis le temps des Romains, puis l'avènement de l’eau-de-vie au XVIe siècle, l’expansion de la distillation au cours des années 1600, ainsi que l’âge d’or du cognac au milieu du XIXe siècle. Tout au long du chemin, Kyle Jarrard révèle comment les distillateurs charentais ont surmonté l’agonie du vignoble après la crise du phylloxéra, il dévoile les facettes parfois curieuses de l’occupation allemande et parcourt tous les défis qui ont secoué la région de production, en particulier celui de l’excellente forme de l’après-guerre quand le marché s’est étendu aux quatre coins du monde. 
I wrote "Cognac: The Seductive Saga of the World's Most Coveted Spirit" because no one had ever put together a readable, independent history of this marvelous spirit. My connections to Cognac country inspired me to dig deep into an incredible story that ranges from an exploration of the ancient bedrock, to the long and tortured development of wine growing in this region of southwest France, to the phylloxera epidemic that nearly wiped out the industry, to the machinery of modern, foreign-owned Cognac giants spreading their eau-de-vie all around the world. Frank Prial, former wine critic for The New York Times, called "Cognac" an "enthralling volume ... a compelling story, not just about the world's best known eau-de-vie, but about the people who make it and the often violent history of the remarkable but little-known region of France from which it comes."World’s best Cognac
The tasting room at Delamain in Jarnac, where the best Grande Champagne Cognac in the world is put together. I've tasted hundreds of Cognacs, but I can assure you Delamain's is the best. Their Pale & Dry is inimitable, a real treasure.
Catflix
*The Fetching Cat, starring Buddha Jarrard as herself
*Nora the cat plays a stunning Catcerto
*The Cat Who Would Be Bully (nice try)
