Miss Kolka

The sad flag.. like the union, it probably needs some wind beneath its wings.

A day after the European parliamentary election (which I have to admit noone in this household voted in) it's clear that Europeans could not care less. Well perhaps 40% less, but lets be honest, many people who did vote, often did not vote with European interest at heart. When anti-European parties that campaign to withdraw from the union are allowed to participate (such as BNP and UKIP in the UK) one wonders why this election is taking place.

What is the future of Europe?
We already saw how powerless the union is in the face of international crisis (be it war or of financial origin), Europeans in general do not seem to agree on much (some want the same currency, others want a common language - wait what was it again? That's right, Esperanto (!)) and with the enormous burocracy that follows the stiff institution, the future is bleak.

In France, people (from the right) saluted the "huge" victory of the power in place, the UMP. With less than 30%, I cannot see where the "huge" comes from. The other winners are apparently the green party Europe Ecologie  (EE) with a few personalities on board such as Eva Joly and Jose Bové. They did fine (around 17%) and all attention brought to environmental problems is good. The conclusion that french voters voted for EE because the film HOME was on public television on friday is somewhat insulting though.

(The big frenzy around that environmental film goes over my head, saw some of it on youtube, ok the images are nice - many from Iceland and even from Nysted!-  but I found the text cheesy and it could have been reduced to the last 10 minutes to have a better impact. Its good marketing though, as can be seen in how the sponsors (some high fashion companies) were linked directly to the name of the film at the very start. It gives the false impression that these luxury brands are somehow environmental conscious, very clever.)

Back to Europe. Is it possible that if consumer concerns had been better adressed and the leadership would have been tougher on financial institutions and had actually had a plan to help European citizens out of the crisis that people would have been more interested? I think so. The European parliament is not useless. But these elections are. We dont want a national debate about cross-border issues - we NEED international solutions. And they are certainly not going to come from parties that think inside their protective bubble, and only about themselves.

Big D-day here in France, I've always found these co-memorations about wars and lost soldiers a bit strange but that's perhaps because I grew up in an armyless country. I have a problem with people who chose to work in any kind of armed forces..because my belief is that if there is no demand, it might make it alot more difficult for governments to send people off to kill each other all over. But hey, that has nothing to do with style. And style is certainly on my mind when I want to talk about the Obama visit here in France. 

So here is the most powerful first couple in the world and everybody wants a piece of them. Leading up to the big day there had been some stories about the Sarkozy-Obama relationship not being so rosy. Apparently the French president lectured his newly elected american counterpart recently on Climate change. Obama, not taking any crap from Sarkozy is rumoured to have said that he would try to read up to know everything in two months. It only boosts Obama's credentials that he kept his cool in front of Sarkozy's arrogance but then understandably he was not so keen on spending too much "unofficial time" with the Sarkozys on the Obama family trip to France. A blow to Sarkozys planned revigorated public image Im sure.

But when you want to talk style, it's more about Michelle then Barack.. There's nothing wrong with him, since he is all tall and handsome, all things fit him well I guess but she is faultless. Always careful to wear elegant clothes, with a little touch of fantasy without overdoing it. Michelle Obama is really fun to watch and clearly very fond of belts. Even though she might wear the same Azzedine Alai belt quite often you forgive her because she still surprises you with a mustard yellow dress or a japanese print on her cardigan.

So she (or her stylist) was probably very happy with what they had chosen for the ceremonies today. Except that someone might have wanted to check with the former supermodel-turned-first-lady beforehand no? Seeing the first ladies side by side I have to say that it was a bit akward that they wore so similar outfits. The white dress with a dark belt. Simple, maybe too simple. However it is safe to say that Michelle Obama was wearing it so much better, she truly looked powerful, while Carla Bruni was perhaps a bit childish - trying yet again for that "innocent little girl look" that frankly I find outdated. Take a chance Carla, you were a supermodel for crying outloud! have fun. Because if dressing is not about fun then we should just all wear black plastic bags. Or perhaps that grey mess Carla was wearing is Strasbourg. Truly sad.

The Bruni-Sarkozys and The Obamas - painfully similar dresses although Michelle is allowed to wear high heals

The first  ladies meet in Strasbourg. Michelle striking a pose, Carla trying to look seventy -  I dont care if it's Christian Dior, Pepp it up girl!

For more on Michelle Obama's style click here

The internet is just wonderful. Planning ahead has become a state of the art with the help of technology. You can google everything (how happy must the creators of Google be: "googleling" has become a verb!), whether you have seen something and want to know where to buy it, get official information about people you don't know (yet), plan trips, get helpful ideas for birthday/christmas presents, find some cooking recipies or whatever, its there for you.

For example, I want to go out to dinner tonight, dont have time to go all around to find a nice restaurant so I google restaurants in my area.. no problem, in 3 clicks I have found what I am looking for.

Also I want to go to the cinema, so I Order my tickets online and pick them up at the machine to avoid the long queues.

I suddenly remember some great french tv program I haven't seen for years, Les inconnus, and thanks to Amazon.fr I buy all the seasons in one DVD box and it's delivered by ordinary mail 3 days later.

We want to move some of our stuff to Copenhagen in a month... we look up some transport companies on the internet and after a few mails and phonecalls, we get an interesting deal from one of them - and our things will be taken care of from door to door. Perfect.

On a walk in le Marais we saw an interesting babychair. After photographing the item with my mobile phone, I looked up the label on the internet - and like any good website they indicate where you can buy their products in any part of the world so when we've moved into our new appartment in CPH we can just go to one of the indicated stores and check it out.

The technology is good but in some cases not perfect enough. You would have thought a blog with uploaded mobile pictures of food would have been a good idea. That is until you see the result. Good food does not necessarily mean good pictures. Clotilde might have been on to something on her moblog. She goes to as many restaurants as she can in Paris and photographs the food, then uploads them instantly to the blog. Unfortunately the outcome is quite gross. So yes the internet is great but also full of crap.

Exhibit A: Probably tasty food

Exhibit B: Proper use of Food photos -> Coffee art

So you're thinking, yet another blog about this supposed plane crash in the Atlantic. Yes, and the numbers ring in my head: 228 passangers, last spoken to at 3:33 local time, 12 members of the crew on board, Flight AF 477, 32 nationalities represented on board. It sure sounds fantastic for a movie. Like 9.11 did.

Why is it that so many people are touched by this story and not when similar crashes (ok normally not cross-atlantic airbus carriers though) happen in Africa, India or South America?

I heard a plausible theory this morning, that it is the mystery that makes this story so big. The reason why every media is going with it and is even exploiting the tragedy is that nobody knows what really happened, authorities are lost and for the moment no debry has been found (although they might have found a tiny little piece just this last hour, that still remaines to be identified as part of the aircraft). People love to wonder what happened, was it an electric failure, a lightning or a bomb on board? Some might even consider some more mystic reasons of extra terrestrial activity but they probably have watched too many x-files. The whole point is that we just dont know. Authorities were very quick to say this was not terrorism though, which is fine, but why did it take so long to actually report this plane missing? Apparently when a plane does not show on radar there can be many hours before aviation authorities consider that something is wrong. In scenarios where people might survive the crash into the water, nobody comes looking for them until much much later anyway, which can only be worrying.  

If we would have known the reasons for the disappearence and where the plane (or the rest of it) actually is, would it still be the number one headline in the world's media? I am like the others though, I want to know. So I have turned on the news quite alot these last 24 hours and, like so many, I identify with the victims (which is also what a good disaster movie makes you do in the cinema). My dad's wife was on that exact flight two weeks ago. It could have happened in my family. There was even 1 Icelandic person on board. Out of less that 400.000 people in the world. This has such an international dimension to it. If it had been a terror attack, it would have been right on target. It gets people's attention and makes them scared. However, it doesn't mean we'll stop flying.  Not less than after 2001. Life goes on.

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• Aurevoir..mais pas Adieu! About Burqas, Sarkozy and all that | 22-06-2009
• ... | 18-06-2009
• What's happening? | 18-06-2009
• Reminder | 15-06-2009
• What can Europe do? | 08-06-2009