Get your kit off

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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Any visit to the Strasbourg-Alsace region wouldn’t be complete without a quick nip across the border to the famous spa town of Baden-Baden for a dip in the waters.Eaux les bains There are two sets of baths that you can check into for a few hours of relaxation: the Friedrichsbad, which is advertised as a “Roman-Irish” spa, and the Caracalla, an all-encompassing spa for the masses. The Roman-Irish experience, although I have yet to experience it myself, combines classic hot baths (Roman) with sadistic cold ones (Irish) [...]


M and M-Pokora

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Tuesday, March 26, 2013

My current status as a student, and teacher of students, has recently required me to make a bit of an effort in the hipster department. I am no hipster, and I usually wear regular trousers, but having some grasp of what’s hip in France is becoming more important as I try…


You don’t fart a cable

2
Monday, March 4, 2013

The verb for “to fart” was something I learnt early on in my studies of the French language.  I don’t remember why now – but it probably had something to do with an awkward situation in a lift.  Anyway, the verb in question is “péter” (pronounced petay) and it is, for obvious reasons, seldom heard [...]


Dross 17

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Monday, February 18, 2013

If you’ve ever flicked through the channels on offer on France’s digital terrestrial service (TNT) in search of some quality late-night entertainment, it is very likely that you will have skipped past channel 17 on more than one occasion… and I don’t blame you. Currently labelled as “D17″ (D for dross or diabolically-bad I assume) [...]


I’m Cookie Dingler

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Monday, January 14, 2013

It was Australia Day 1998, when I happily found myself being driven along the Great Ocean Road by a local Aussie lass – to see the Twelve Apostles (12 great hunks of eroded cliff-face separated from the coastline by a few meters of open water) just west of Melbourne, Australia.  There, as we cruised along [...]


End of Semester

3
Thursday, December 27, 2012

So what’s it like to be an English Masters Student at the University of Strasbourg? Well after a whole semester there I feel I am now in a position to make an objective(ish) judgement. First off, I have to say that the quality of teaching is superlative.  I have had the honour to be in [...]


U2

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Saturday, October 27, 2012

Firstly I should apologise to ‘organic’ surfers who have hit this page in search of the latest gossip about Bono et al. – because this post has nothing to do with ageing Irish Rock Bands.  Well, almost nothing. Actually, I have to confess, my fondness for U2 (yes, the band) has been on the wane [...]


Am I the only man in the room?

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Friday, October 5, 2012

Yes, you are. All of the students around you, including a not insignificant number on foreign exchange programmes, and the teacher are indeed … female. Unfortunately you are also old enough to have fathered most of them … except the teacher.”
… said my ethereal self to my other inner self last Wednesday morning at approximately o’eight hundred hours (for we use the twenty-four hour clock in France); drawing my attention to the general genre of my surroundings.[...]


Mon Impasse Campus

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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

So my first week of studies seems to be going well. It has been a steep learning curve on all facets of University life. This is what I have learned so far:

  1. local dogs go for walkies on Campus at night – just so there’s plenty of caca for us to step in by day
  2. the machine coffee is rubbish [...]