Dans le contexte actuel, j'ai vraiment besoin d'une fin heureuse de cette histoire perecienne.

A very good read (and still, once again, very relevant)

Cheese knives at dawn in Montreuil, where a new 'fromagerie conviviale' has opened directly across the road from the existing 'fromagerie amicale'. May the battle of the good-vibe cheesemongers commence.

At the beach we found a seemingly injured penguin. Called Wildlife Victoria who told us to take it home and keep it somewhere dark and cool until they could get a volunteer out to collect it. So now there’s just a penguin sitting in the garage of this holiday house like this

He called her a "fucking bitch" immediately after shooting her in the head, and now his defenders are talking about the threat of "deluded wine moms". At what point to we begin thinking about Renee Good's murder as a femicide?

Single glazing! Lift etiquette! Kissing men on hoverboards! So fun to talk to Katy about the joy and madness of working inside Paris's only proper skyscraper.

This week on my newsletter: can anything be done to make the tour Montparnasse, which has blighted the Paris skyline since 1973, a little bit less hideous? With input from @meganclement.bsky.social, who is full of delightful stories about working inside it substack.com/home/post/p-...

‘To be a Garland fan is to have the illusion that you can save her from the wounds of the world, even as her voice and her eyes and her gloriously melodic laugh seem instead to be saving you.’ @kitchenbee.bsky.social on the joy and pathos of Judy Garland: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

All vaginas are cursed under patriarchy.

Narnia/Montreuil.

"We’re in the bizarre position where Bush’s two-year bid to win international approval and build a case for Saddam’s removal looks almost quaint." A very good piecr from my colleague Steve Bloomfield on just how dangerous Trump's actions in Venezuela are for us all. observer.co.uk/news/interna...

I have spent the past few days in Crans-Montana, covering the aftermath of one of the worst tragedies in Swiss history. My dispatch for The Observer: observer.co.uk/news/interna...

+1. I thought I was locked into Spotify forever, even as they gave money that should've gone to artists to AI military drones. But everything easily ports over to Qobuz, which pays bands over four times more per stream - and sounds so immensely better it has changed my relationship to music

The best thing I did this year was switching from Spotify (terrible artist payments, full of AI slop, awful audio quality) to Qobuz (significantly better remuneration, recommendations by humans, hi-res audio that sounds incredible et oui, c'est français). It costs the same and I highly recommend it.

Here they are, my top five lists of 2025. Albums: 1. Lux - Rosalia 2. Snocaps - Snocaps 3. More - Pulp 4. Batakari - Ata Kak 5. Double Life - Nightmoves Honourable mentions to Lily Allen and Feu ! Chatterton.

this story has been designed in a lab to confuse foreigners

A little bright spark in the winter gloom: A citizens' initiative designed to allow women in EU countries with draconian abortion laws to get care *elsewhere* in Europe has passed in the European Parliament. The European Commission will now have to respond www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/pres...

This is what happened with Keiko, AKA Free Willy. He was trained in Oregon and Iceland to return to his home waters. He never joined a pod in the wild and ended up seeking out human company in Norway. He died in the care of humans.

What do you do with a captive orca when the public turns against performing whales? It's a question vexing the French government as it searches for a solution for Wikie and Keijo, two orcas stuck in a shuttered marine park. My report for @theobserveruk.bsky.social. observer.co.uk/news/interna...

Solidarity to the Australian Jewish community. No one should die for practising their faith. And respect to all those who engaged in big and small acts of heroism when it counted. You are the best of us.

It's not every day a source hands you a dead duck and asks you for help obtaining public lice – but it's business as usual when you're dealing with the Ig Nobel Prize. Hilarious piece by @daniellawler.bsky.social uk.news.yahoo.com/laughing-sci...

I should add, this innate skill applies regardless of gender. French men are also incredible with scarves.

As someone who has lived in Paris for 10 years, allow me to say: abandon all hope, it is not within you, they know something the rest of the world does not and it cannot be learned.

The Ashes were only going to go one way after this.

A crisis of legitimacy, a questionable commitment to political neutrality, performances of varying quality, a random assortment of nations and an opaque voting process... it’s not the World Cup draw – it’s the Eurovision Song Contest. Me for this week's Observer: observer.co.uk/news/interna...

So much cruelty and willful exclusion directed at something so innocent, harmless, vulnerable, and common as a girl who’s different.

Of all the indignities and cruelties, today this is the one that got to me.

The thing is, feminists have long had fluent, evidence-backed arguments showing that breaking free of essentialised gender roles benefits everyone, including men and boys who may be feeling isolated. But we live in societies structured on ignoring women, so instead we hear from these guys...

What I mean when I say "mating opportunities"

Him looking at the manosphere

If this is the alternative to the manosphere, we are in trouble. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

The world agreed on a strategy to end AIDS known as 95-95-95: 95% of people with HIV should know their status, 95% of the diagnosed should be on medication, 95% should have the virus suppressed. By 2022, the world reached 87-89-94. Then Trump killed aid funding. foreignpolicy.com/2025/12/01/t...

Pulp doing Johnny Cash. Happy Friday! www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfXo...

En France on est subi au énième débat sur le porte du voile dans les lieux publics et en même temps on a des écoles financées par des fondations catholiques dédiées au développement de «l’idéal d’une femme chrétienne» qui interdisent aux filles de porter du pantalon www.liberation.fr/societe/educ...

Your French word of the day is « enfariné » – to get flour chucked on you – as was the fate of Jordan Bardella last night.

26 November 1867 ‘Mistakenly’ included on an electoral roll (being a ratepayer), Manchester shopkeeper Lily Maxwell cast a vote in a by-election, some 50 years before (some) women were enfranchised by the Representation of the People Act.

"Just as a mosquito requires stagnant pools of water in which to thrive, so their stagnant social circles provide the perfect breeding ground for increasingly toxic strands of bigotry."

Cricket appreciation post. Wake up @ellehardy.bsky.social!

I've launched a newsletter! It's for Parisians and people who love Paris. I’ll be covering the race to replace Anne Hidalgo, the policies shaping our city, and probably an audacious heist or two. C'est parti : millefeuilleparis.substack.com/p/a-newslett...

The Australianisation of UK asylum policy would appear to be complete. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Luis Rubiales was at his book launch for “Matar a Rubiales” when his own uncle — also named Luis Rubiales! — threw eggs at him. This sentence is all somehow completely true? www.nytimes.com/athletic/680...

As every journalist knows, it’s always the right move to offer your sources advice on how to blackmail their co-conspirators re charges of sexual predation and child trafficking

I'm an English writer who moved to Montreuil four years ago – can't believe no one has tried to dismember and devour my puny body yet.

"We produce more stuff than ever before but our culture is essentially one mediated through images rather than things. And the things exist mostly in order to be captured in images again." www.ft.com/content/e637...

Jaguar with gunshot wounds rescued from river in Brazil. A wounded jaguar, reportedly injured by gunfire, is rescued by Brazilian military police and members of SEPET — the Animal Protection Secretariat for the Amazonas, in the waters of Rio Negro, Brazil

Une femme, alors ?

All right then, let's see if Sébastien Lecornu can hold on longer than his predecessor... Sébastien Lecornu.

Farewell then, Sebastien Lecornu. We quite literally barely knew you.

There is almost always a violence against women connection for terror attacks.

In which we discover that Ann Patchett, like all right-thinking people, is a fan of Vegemite toast. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...