Miffed parents ahoy

Parents are an awkward prospect, even if you live in a different country. These are the people that moaned that I didn't have a proper job in summer 2002 (because of course freelance translating for a French publishing house isn't proper work) then, on finding I had taken work in a TV company for summer 2003 and was looking at, at most, a couple of weeks off in September, enquired "are you sure that will be enough holiday?".

They booked a break in Paris from 13-18 June this summer. It turns out that I'll be working every day they are here, and they have the cheek to be miffed by this: "we could have gone to Skegness after all."

Meanwhile the French have voted "non". Seems like internal affairs messed up what otherwise could have been a "oui". The referendum came at a bad time for the oui campaign, which was, d'ailleurs, run by incompetent gimps. Anyway, nice to see that the European Union has, er, split Europe. And here's a picture of Sarko to be getting on with.