Words About Things

Hello and welcome to lesson 1 of How to Drive like a Parisian, during today’s session I will explain some of the basics of French driving from choosing your vehicle to use of the horn. Pay attention (or don’t) and you’ll be whizzing around the Arch de Triumph with gay abandon before you know it!

Step 1: Choosing your vehicle.

This isn’t as straight forward as you might think, not everybody drives a Citroen. Perhaps you might like a scooter (with or without motor) or a rental bike from the Vélib scheme. Other choices include a three wheeled scooter or a rental car if you aren’t bothered about getting your deposit back.

Step 2: Use of lanes.

Only kidding, there aren’t many lane marking in Paris and those which do exist are to be ignored – don’t let the government tell you where to drive!

Step 3: Pedestrian crossings.

Red lights at pedestrian crossings in Paris are entirely optional, if a person who is crossing looks particularly determined you might like to stop. If there are no pedestrians on the crossing keep going. In fact keep going is a good general rule, stopping is what the English do.

Step 4: Parking.

Any Parisian driver should be able to park his or her car in a space the exact same length as the vehicle. This skill cannot be taught it is just something the French are born with, the main thing to remember is not to hesitate or take any notice of the slack jawed tourists staring on in amazement.

Good Vibrations by Helene Emain

Vampire Weekend’s second album Contra was a critical and commercial success that reached #1 in the Billboard charts and sold 124,000 copies during its first week during its first week on sale.  It went to number one in 5 countries and sold well in a time when album sales are falling. The album was awarded a score of 8.6/10 from esteemed Indie music site Pitchfork.com and features three well received singles.

Not everybody was happy about Contra however, the girl pictured on the album cover is currently suing the band, their record label and the photographer who took the picture. Kirsten Kennis was a model in the 80s and the cover image actually dates from 1983 when it was taken by photographer Tod Brody (or possibly not). Kennis claims that her signature was forged on the model release form and that the image was used without her knowledge. Brody denies the claim and says that the image was his to use as he wished.

To further complicate the issue Kennis is now claiming that her mother actually took the photograph in question. Her lawyer Alan Neigher released a statement saying:

“Her mother was a chronic Polaroid snapshot taker, and used to sell whole archives of photographs to these shops, five bucks a hundred or whatever … She has no idea how that photograph got into the photographer’s hands … Her mother may have given away to a charity bazaar a whole ream of photographs. We just really don’t know.”

Tod Barry calls this claim “blatantly false” and says that he took the image and it has been in his possession for the last 26 years before he sold it to Vampire Weekend. The band’s singer Ezra Koenig is hoping to get things settled:

“This is the first time any of us has ever been sued, so we’re still learning how it works… There’s nothing we can say about it, We’re not trying to be mysterious. I imagine in the next few months, there will be plenty to talk about. Given it’s our first time, we just want to do it properly.”