Nouvelles

News and Opinion from Anne Barone to Keep You Chic & Slim

|| 5 July 2015

Paris When It Sizzles

Can It Really Be Hotter in Paris Than Here in Provence-sur-la-Prairie?

Audrey Hepburn aficionados will recognize the headline of today’s Nouvelles as the title of the 1964 comedy that starred Audrey Hepburn and William Holden. A disappointing film for those who are hoping for another witty, Paris-set comedy on the order of How To Steal A Million or Charade. Nonetheless, Audrey Hepburn's wardrobe was fantastic.

But Paris is sizzling — and so is London and much of Western Europe in a record breaking heat wave. I can’t remember another week when daytime highs in Paris were higher than they were here in Provence-sur-la-Prairie. But Paris did hit a record breaking 103.5 degrees F. Unimaginable to us familiar with Paris summers in the 1960s and 1970s.

A good comprehensive report on how they are sweltering on the other side of the Atlantic is in this article on Slate: French Toast: Temperatures Surge as Historic Heat Wave Hits Western Europe.

Paris When It Sizzles is also the headline of a New York Times opinion piece today by Maureen Dowd who is in sizzling Paris. Always interesting to me how the French view the United States. Maureen Dowd reports:

I visited the Foreign Ministry at the Quai d’Orsay — bristling with emergency meetings on terrorism — to check on the status of French-American relations.

Amid the troubles besetting tourists coming to France, the ministry website had warnings for French tourists going to America: Do not act too “Latin,” with sexual behavior and jokes, and “keep calm in all circumstances,” given America’s scorn for gun control, which the French find incomprehensible. They were also advised not to make any aggressive gestures at the police.

In these times "keep calm in all circumstances," seems good advice no matter where you travel.

be chic, stay slim — Anne Barone