That's a new French word: pipole. In fact, it's a humorous French phonetic spelling of the English word people. And this word designates talked-about individuals in general: celebrities, aristocrats, politicians, criminals, etc. Consequently, the expression presse pipole designates magazines that earn their living by tracking, photographing and chronicling such individuals. In fact, my post yesterday entitled Photoshop surgery [display] was typically pipole. And reports reveal that people magazines are immensely popular in France. A recent survey indicates that French vacationers scoop them up at the same time, and with the same regularity, as summer ice-creams.
For the moment, I don't have any new photos to display, but they're surely coming up... Don't forget that Europe is still globally on vacation. Apparently, one of France's leading pipole publications has just published paparazzi photos of François Hollande—general secretary of the Socialist party, and former companion of former presidential candidate Ségolène Royal—in the intimate company of his new flame: a journalist from the very pipole weekly Paris-Match. Not so long ago, the editor of that prestigious weekly got kicked out, inexplicably, after the publication of romantic photos of Madame Sarkozy with a gentleman in the USA. Today, it's less likely, of course, that anybody will lose their job as a consequence of this latest scoop pipole. I'll do my best to keep you informed...
I'll do my best to keep you informed...
ReplyDeleteI hope so! ;-)
Blague à part, as I'm fed up with Sarkozy's law proposals and other newspaper articles, I enjoy reading your blog before I switch off my computer. It's a pleasant way to end a stressful day.
Thanks for those nice remarks. The notion of blog articles being read before switching off your computer takes me back in time to the epoch of bedtime stories for my children. In fact, if I tend to post my articles late in the evening, it's simply because I'm thinking constantly of my Australian friends for whom this Antipodes blog was initially intended. For them, my posts take the form of matinal communications.
ReplyDeleteAs for your being "fed up with Sarkozy's law proposals", I believe we're all going through a period of interrogation at the end of the first hundred days of the new presidency. I was impressed by the calm non-partisan manner in which Ségolène Royal analyzed the situation today. I was also impressed by an observer's description of the "fiction of action" that surrounds Sarkozy. He seems to be doing all kind of things... but, often, he's merely talking of a hypothetical future, and nothing is really happening. In other words, he's largely a virtual president.