So, in Paris to catch up with people from home, and I had a bright idea for a social event on Sunday. A picnic at the Champ de Mars, official Parisian viewing site for the 2016 European Championship, which would be played at the Stade de France in the north of the city. A day […]

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The guy I made a point of looking for each time I looked out the window at France fans, appeared to be about 25. He was slouched in a “comfy chair” in the living room of an apartment across the street from me, here in Paris. He had a French flag wrapped around his body, […]

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The mind reels. Two semi-trailers loaded with beer were stolen from the Atlanta craft-beer-maker SweetWater Brewing Company last month. That works out to about 3,300 cases of beer, or 78,528 bottles, according to SweetWater. It also represents about one week of sales by the brewery. The thieves were brazen. They pulled up with two tractors […]

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This seems almost too good to be true. The front-runner to get the job as coach of the English national team is none other than … Jurgen Klinsmann! This is great news … for the U.S., where he currently is employed. England, you’re on your own. But we should be talking up Jurgen at this […]

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Years at a time, France seems not to care particularly about its national soccer team. (For that matter, it hardly cares about its national league, either, but I digress.) As of tonight, however, France is one big bandwagon groaning under the strain of 66 million Frenchmen who have climbed aboard, over the past few days. […]

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Serena and Venus Williams have reached the singles semifinals at Wimbledon, which is a remarkable event, for siblings. It gets more remarkable. This is the 11th time the two of them have reached the semifinals at a grand-slam tournament. On the previous 10 occasions, one of them went on to win the championship, contributing to […]

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According to the old story, if you toss a ball at a non-American, he will try to stop it with his feet. If you throw a ball at an American, he likely will catch it in his hands. I have not played catch in a very long time. Certainly, not since before leaving for Abu […]

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This disappoints me, and I assume it disappoints NBA fans, as well. Kevin Durant signs a two-year contract with the Golden State Warriors. Happy Fourth of July, hoops fans! Durant was a free agent, and could join any team he chose. He hosted presentations in the Hamptons, an upscale region near New York City, and […]

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Ranked No. 1 in the world and carrying streaks of four grand slam championship and with 30 consecutive major-tournament match victories, the notion of Novak Djokovic losing at Wimbledon to an American — any American, unless maybe John McEnroe came out of the announcer’s booth — seemed ridiculous. But there was Sam Querrey yesterday, celebrating […]

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It seems odd that a town would name itself after an onion, but that appears to be what Lezignan la Cebe has done. “Cebe” comes from the Occitan word for “onion”, and about 500 years ago the local people began referring to their town by that name. Here is the google-translate version of the Lezignan […]

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