In one category, anyway, the Los Angeles Dodgers are No. 1 in Major League baseball. That would be in spending money on players. Not that it has led to any noteworthy successes on the field. Their last championship, as well as their most recent National League pennant, was in 1988. That was so long ago […]

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In the name of bureaucratic streamlining, France has reduced its 22 departments — the largest administrative units in the country — to 13. And some people are not happy — primarily those in suddenly larger units produced by shotgun marriages with former neighbors. Languedoc-Rousillon, where we live, now finds itself joined to its western neighbor, […]

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Over the past decade, international soccer has had no shortage of weird haircuts and weirder tattoos. It’s all about “look at me”. It’s about branding yourself — sometimes rather literally. I get it, to the extent that someone in the upper rows of a big stadium might have trouble distinguishing between players down on the […]

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This is a result widely being described as “England’s second exit from Europe” in five days. Iceland 2, England 1, in the round of 16 at the Euro 2016 tournament in France. Yes, Iceland. Previously known for volcanoes, blond people and, yes, ice. Here in France we watched the match on BBC. And by the […]

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I have been to Death Valley and to Badwater Basin there. I wouldn’t mind seeing what’s left of Deadwood or the Alaskan city named Deadhorse. Those are pretty foreboding names — which do nothing but further intrigue tourists. Aigues Mortes is a French entry in the “morbid town” competition. It translates from the Occitan as […]

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It was three years ago that I saw Ricardo Quaresma at what must have been his low ebb. This would have been in Abu Dhabi, in the stands at Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium, where I watching the final of the President’s Cup — which pitted Al Ahli and Al Shabab on a stultifying May evening. […]

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Andorra is one of Europe’s several microstates. Others include Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Malta and the Vatican. And if you get within a few hundred miles of a microstate, don’t you pretty much have to go? Just for the novelty of stepping into the country, and then stepping right back out? So, we packed up […]

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Could have seen this coming. Not that the United Kingdom would vote to leave the European Union … but that I would last long into the night watching results come in. Like, 3:45 a.m. late. Watching the BBC‘s coverage of Britain’s national referendum on whether to stay in the EU or exit it — the […]

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It’s the time of year for frustrated ballplayers (21 and older, who have a few thousand dollars in cash lying around) … to sign up for the annual Dodgers Fantasy Camp! Here is the announcement of the 2017 camp, to be held January 15-21, and formally known as the Dodgers & White Sox Fantasy Camp, […]

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It is a fine notion: Make live music available, at no charge, on a given night every year. Taking it to the masses, that is. I first encountered the results of that notion in Paris a decade or so ago, and it was reprised tonight across France, including in our little Languedocienne town. In France, […]

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