Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

If you've got time to read this interesting one-page article, click here. You might find it useful.

Woody Allen joke about taking a speed-reading course. “I read ‘War and Peace’ in 20 minutes,” he says. “It’s about Russia.”

We're in France, we spik French

I've always been surprised and amused whenever I discover, for the Nth time, that French people are generally quite incompetent in English. Click here to find a few good examples.

Tara Pacific 2016-2018 expedition

This appears to be a splendid project.

Powerful playgrounds in Ghana

This kind of roundabout, installed in various school playgrounds in Ghana, generates electricity to light lamps that can then be used by the children. What a bright idea!

Making myself feel antediluvian

Every individual has a way of making oneself feel as old as a dinosaur. My failproof method consists of watching old cycling videos. Click here for a typical aging device.

Not much to say

I watched and listened until late in the evening. But François Hollande didn't seem to have any exciting news for us. There's no doubt in my mind that the president is an intelligent man, who speaks well. But you can't squeeze wine or water, or even moisture, out of a stone. He had little to tell us... and that's more or less what we heard.

For the moment, we don't know whether or not Hollande intends to be a candidate in the forthcoming presidential election, but he says we'll receive a firm answer to that question before the end of the year. His decision will only be affirmative, so it seems, if the French economic situation were to make a dramatic positive leap... which would be great news for everybody. But I fail to see how such an economic miracle could become a reality within the remaining months of 2016. That would be a bit like Agnès Saal informing us [click here] that she intends to get involved in a Parisian taxi-bike business.

But why not ?