So here we are looking strangely similar

Laurel & Hardy reincarnated as Xavier Bertrand and Nicolas Sarkozy!

So here we are tickling a slow loris

So here we are laughing in French

Funniest joke of the year so far! Translation below.

Lorsque Dieu créa le monde, il décida de concéder deux vertus aux hommes de chaque peuple afin qu'ils prospèrent.

Par exemple il rendit :
-Les Suisses précis et pacifistes
-Les Anglais flegmatiques et ironiques
-Les Japonais travailleurs et réalistes
-Les Italiens joyeux et humanistes

Quant aux français, il dit :
"Les français seront intelligents, honnêtes et sarkozistes."

Lorsque le monde fut achevé, l'ange qui avait été chargé de la distribution des vertus demanda à Dieu :
"Seigneur, tu as dit que tu octroyais deux vertus à chaque peuple, mais les Français en ont trois. Est-ce pour cela qu'ils se placent au dessus des autres ?"
Et Dieu répondit :
"En vérité, Je te le dis, chaque peuple a deux vertus y compris les Français, car chacun d'entre eux ne pourra en posséder que deux à la fois.
Ce qui veut dire que :
-si un français est sarkoziste et honnête, il ne sera pas intelligent
-si un français est sarkoziste et intelligent, il ne sera pas honnête
-si un français est intelligent et honnête, il ne pourra pas être sarkoziste."


When God created the World, He decided to provide the men of every nation with two virtues so that they would prosper.

For example, He endowed

-the Swiss with pacifism and precision
-the English with composure and irony
- the Japanese with realism and the value of work
- the Italians with joy and humanism.

As for the French, He said:

-May they be honest, intelligent, and Sarkozy supporters.

Once the World was created, the Angel in charge of the virtues' delivery asked God.
"My Lord, why did you provide the French with three virtues when you said you were giving two to each people? Is that why they feel so superior?

And God answered:
In truth, believe me, the French, like all the others, will only possess two virtues, for they cannot possess more than two at a time. This means that
- if the man is honest and supports Sarkozy, he is not intelligent
- if the man is intelligent and supports Sarkozy, then he cannot be honest
- nd if he is intelligent and honest, then he cannot support Sarkozy!

So here we are in an awkward lesson

Not really. A really awkward lesson would be one where you ask a woman to repeat what you say, get curt when she doesn't and then learn she has throat cancer. Thank god that didn't happen to me. This is more gentle, but funny, and a little awkward.

Student : What does it mean, to finger?
Teacher: I beg your pardon, Jean François?
Student : To finger, F-E-N-J-A-R.
Teacher: Yes, yes, well, what do you think it means?
Jean François waves enthusiastically.
Teacher: Right Jean François, no, that 's to wave, WAVE...

and a couple more :

the student who said that at the bank, he "made out" (as in make out a check), and the one who said that at her company she liked to have the "fre massage on backside", she meant, of course, "back"...

So here we are singing the Scorpions (and bird)

Ok, how cute is this? when it's not being totally sinister that is.
Chook : spéciale dédicace :)

So here we are laughing at the students

As I quite like working as an English language teacher at EL, a language school in Paris, I shall not give the usual scathing review of my current job's stupidity. For that I will have to wait until December, when my contract runs out. Still, it does not say anywhere that I cannot mock my students. In a nutshell, my employer is a language school that specialises in one week intensive courses aimed at corporate employees. The greatness of the method is debatable, but the students seem to like it and actually learn something.

That said, I hear a lot of bloopers : mispronunciations, misunderstandings, false friends (when a word exists in two languages but means something quite different) and so on.

Here are three I have heard so far.

Me - So, Jean Pierre, present perfect, do you have any pets?
JP- Yes, I had a rabbit.
Me- Tense! Jean Pierre, is your rabbit dead?
JP - Yes, I ate it.

Me- Ok! Véronique. Exercise : present simple. Tell me how you make crudités.
V: You take salad.
Me- Article! Véronique. In front of salad.
V- Ah. You take the salad. You boil the eggs. You cut the tomato. You rape the carrot.
Me- Véronique! No, that's false friend. We say grate the carrot.
V- Grate? You scratch the carrot?
Me- No! Véronique. That's french. Rape is grate.
V- Ah. OK. So you rape the carrot.

Teacher - What plant does wine come from?
JP- La vigne.
T- In English. Vine.
JP- Vine (vin is french for wine)
T- And the fruit?
V- The raisin (raisin is french for grape)
T- No. It's grape (grape is french for bunch)
T- And what do we call a collection of grapes?
V- Muesli.

So here we are being Barack rolled

NOTE : if you do not know what rick rolling is, read following. Others, proceed to video.

Rick Roll : a definition.

Rickrolling is a nerdy joke on the internet whereby someone clicking on a link does not land on the expected site but on one showing a video of Rick Astley's 80s hit, Never going to give you up. Don't ask. So, for example if I say click on this link to check out the latest movie review and you do (well go on then), then

HA! You got Rickrolled. Get the picture?

Now, you are ready to understand why this video is funny!

So here we are having a bad day at the office

This kept us all amused at work today.

So here we are lost in translation

The poor blog is suffering from neglect, what with work, computer phobia (too much at work) and general too-much-to-do.

However, I had to put this online... welcome to the do-it-yourself-translating machine

So here we are laughing at the drunken dog

I found this story on craigslist. Thanks to the author whoever she is for this hilarious tale.

******

We have a dog by the name of Kismet. He came to us in the Summer of 2001 from the rescue program I was heavily involved with. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this type of adoption, imagine taking in a 10-year-old child whom you know nothing about and committing to doing your best to be a good parent.

Like a child, the dog came with his own idiosyncrasies. He will only sleep on the bed, on top of the covers, nuzzled as close to my face as he can get without actually performing a French kiss on me. Lest you think this is a bad case of no discipline, I should tell you that hubby and I tried every means to break him of this habit including locking him in a separate bedroom for several nights. The new door cost over $200. But I digress.

Five weeks ago we began remodeling our house. Although the cost of the project is downright obnoxious, it was 20 years overdue AND it got me out of cooking Thanksgiving dinner for family, extended family and a lot of friends that I like more than family most of the time. I was, however, assigned the task of preparing 124 of my famous yeast dinner rolls for a delayed celebration among friends this past weekend. I am still cursing the electrician for getting the new oven hooked up so quickly. It was the only appliance In the whole house that worked, thus the assignment.

I made the decision to cook the rolls on Friday evening to reheat on Saturday morning. Since the kitchen was freshly painted you can imagine the odor. Not wanting the rolls to smell like Sherwin Williams latex paint #586, I put the rolls on baking sheets and set them in the living room to rise for 5 hours. After 3 hours, hubby and I decided to go out to eat, returning in about an hour.

An hour later the rolls were ready to go in the oven. It was 8:30pm. When I went to the living room to retrieve the pans, much to my shock one whole pan of 12 rolls was empty. I called out to Kismet and my worst nightmare became a reality. He literally wobbled over to me. He looked like a combination of the Pillsbury dough boy and the Michelin Tire man wrapped up in fur. He groaned when he walked. I swear even his cheeks were bloated.

I ran to the phone and called our vet. After a few seconds of uproarious laughter, he told me the dog would probably be OK, however, I needed to give him Pepto Bismol every 2 hours for the rest of the night. God only knows why I thought a dog would like Pepto Bismol any more than kids do when they are sick.
Suffice to say that by the time we went to bed the dog was black, white and pink. He was so bloated we had to lift him onto the bed for the night.

Naively thinking the dog would be all better by morning was very stupid on my part. We arose at 7:30 and as we always do first thing; took the dogs out to relieve themselves. Well, Kismet was as drunk as a sailor on his first leave. He was running into walls, falling flat on his butt and most of the time when he was walking his front half was going one direction and the other half was either dragging the floor or headed 90 degrees in another direction. He couldn't lift his leg to pee, so he would just walk and pee at the same time.

When he ran down the small incline in our backyard he couldn't stop himself and nearly ended up running into the fence. His pupils were dilated and he was as dizzy as a loon. I endured another few seconds of laughter from the vet (second call within 12 hours) before he explained that the yeast had fermented in his belly and that he was indeed drunk. He assured me that, not unlike most binges we humans go through, it would wear off after about 4 or 5 hours and to keep giving him Pepto Bismol.

Afraid to leave him by himself in the house, hubby and I loaded him up and
took him with us to our friend's house. A 10 to 15 minute drive. Rolls firmly secured in the car (124 less 12) and drunk dog leaning from the back seat onto the console of the car between hubby and I, we took off.

Now I know you probably don't believe that dogs burp, but believe me when I say that after eating a tray of risen unbaked yeast rolls, DOGS WILL BURP. These burps were pure Old Charter. They would have matched or beat any smell in a drunk tank at the police station. But that's not the worst of it. Now he was beginning to fart and they smelled like baked rolls. God strike me dead if I am not telling the truth! We endured this for the entire trip, thankful she didn't live any further away than she did.

Once Kismet was firmly placed in my friend's garage with the door locked, we finally sat down to enjoy our celebration with friends. The dog was the topic of conversation all morning long and everyone made trips to the garage to witness my drunk dog, each returning with a tale of Kismet's latest endeavor to walk without running into something.

Of course, as the old adage goes, "what goes in must come out," and Kismet was no exception. Granted if it had been me that had eaten 12 risen, unbaked yeast rolls, you might as well have put a concrete block up my behind, but alas a dog's digestive system is quite different from yours or mine. I discovered this was a mixed blessing when we prepared to leave my friend's house. Having discovered his "packages" on the garage floor, we loaded him up in the car so we could hose down the floor.

This was another naive decision on our part. The blast of water from the hose hit the poop on the floor, and the poop on the floor withstood the blast from the hose. It was like Portland cement beginning to set up and cure. We finally tried to remove it with a shovel. I (obviously no one else was going to offer their services) had to get on my hands and knees with a coarse brush to get the remnants off of the floor.

And as if this wasn't degrading enough, the dog in his drunken state had walked through the poop and left paw prints all over the garage floor that had to be brushed too.

Well, by this time the dog was sobering up nicely so we took him home and dropped him off before we left for our second celebration at another friend's house.

I am happy to report that as of today (Monday) the dog is back to normal both in size and temperament. He has had a bath and is no longer tricolor. None the worse for wear I presume.

I am also happy to report that just this evening I found 2 risen unbaked yeast rolls hidden inside my closet door. It appears he must have come to his senses after eating 10 of them but decided hiding 2 of them for later would not be a bad idea.

Now, I'm doing research on the computer as to how to clean unbaked dough from the carpet, and how was your day?

So here we are looking at honest ads

No, of course there is no such thing, that's why these are funny!

So here we are nearly at the end

of the bloody mémoire which has now been plaguing my life for 6 weeks. I've written 120 pages of original material (sometimes a bit too original as it borders on fiction) that is more or less in French and is vaguely related to European politics, and that's pretty much all I care about!

Too tired to write anything but in need of a couple of laughs, so here is a random collection of funnies and beauties and weirdies.

So here we are sending ecards

I love postcards, all kinds and have collected them for years and have always loved the funny ones. A few years ago when I was living in Brighton I came across some in a little shop that went in for all kinds of kitsch shit. Anyway, they had these postcards. On them were pictures that you assimilate with 1950s ads: impeccable women with strings of pearls and shoulder length wavy hair beaming next to washing machines or men with pipes clenched between their teeth and working hard; and next to them were more contemporary slogans. I still have two on my fridge, one, with a beaming woman, says "I'm having my period and can therefore legally kill you'', the other, with a square-jawed bloke raising a glass of whisky says "Rehab is for quitters!". My magnet on coffee is the one on the right.

Anyway I have found a splendid site right here with loads of these cards which are slightly more pop-arty and that you can send! Wonderfully cynical.

So here we are feeling grumpy about cats

I'm feeling grumpy today, out of energy, out of food, out of time...
And I don't like cats, so take this. This obviously doesn't apply to dogs. Which are great and lovable.

Bah humbug.

So here we are cooing at the baby alpaca

Cheer up everyone! The baby llama is here to remind us that life has a sense of humour

So here we are, humour noir

The fears over Sarkozy turning into France into a police state high on security and reminiscent of the Vichy era have started turning into jokes. This is the funniest one I have seen so far.

So we are at the birth of a parrot

It's raining, it's cold, I have to work, Chook is several thousand miles away and I'm out of coffee. Life sucks. So what can we do about it?

Look at baby parrot piccies, of course. Awwww.

Alternatively, pick up some ideas on how to help your drunk friends. Heehee!

So here we are mixing politics and football

The well known dual passions of the French. So what do you get when France loses at football and at politics? find out here!