Conference, Today, Europe celebrates the 10th Annual European Day of Languages, a European Union initiative to appreciate linguistic diversity in Europe and promote language learning. You might think it a bit of an anorak subject, and perhaps it is, but as a trainee interpreter of French and Spanish, it’s my anorak subject. Britain cannot afford [...]
This week marks La Rentrée, the official end of the summer and start of the political year. This political year in particular will be important. With the Presidential elections in mid 2012, Nicolas Sarkozy is coming to the end of his first mandate, and at present his second one is by no means a fait [...]
While the new Lib Tory (others prefer to call it Con Dem) government settles in and blames the outgoing government with ambiguous comparisons to Greece, I think I should draw attention to Spain. Over the last few months living in Madrid, I’ve been in the thick of Spanish economic news and though I’m not an economist, I [...]
It’s no secret that I’ve been quite vocal in my opposition to the Tory candidate in North-East Somerset, Jacob Rees-Mogg, so it will come as no surprise that through my suggestion box I’ve received an interesting piece of gossip from someone in and around parliament. (Signed “Placement Student”) I’m evidently quite occupied with French Elections [...]
As time runs out for the by-election, with polling day tomorrow (they do it on Sundays in France rather than Thursdays), I’ll share this little experience with you: In English, the word “after-noon” is comprised of two words, “after” and “noon”. In French it is exactly the same, “apres-midi”. Though linguistically it means the same, culturally they are very [...]
On the first attempt, I spent half an hour in the Transport Bureau with the naive ambition that I might leave with what I went in for. The aim was fairly simple; I wanted to buy a month-pass for the Tram, so that I could easily get around the city wherever and whenever my job [...]
It is assumed that being a British Member of Parliament is a full time job. One of the reforms being discussed is to regulate and discourage MPs from moonlighting and doing work on the side. Constituency work, parliamentary business and party roles should add up to enough that an MP is delighted to find a [...]
