GermanKüstenstrich by Benjamin Cors, is ein "Normandie-Krimi". Mr Cors is half-German, half-French which he's combined here by writing in German, but setting the action in France.
This is from a
series of books, the lead character Nicolas Guerlain is a part of a government/police department specialising in protecting VIPs. There were some good twists in the story towards the end. I picked this one up at my local library, the
Goethe eLibrary have the first one in the series Strandgut.
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I've learnt the words to a German pop song! I've intended to learn poems in French & German in the past, and not done it, but I can now sing-a-long to
Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann 
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I've watched a number of Christmas carol concerts over the past week, as I'm sure many of you have too.
Carols from Kings is the big one the BBC broadcast, but you get others on the telly too, and of course all the local churches have their own carol services as well.
YouTube offered me a German
Baroque Christmas Concert from Freiburg, and as a half-way house I also watched a
british choir's Christmas concert in the Germanic Wild West of Amsterdam.
FrenchRadio France broadcast a seasonal whodunnit
Le Christmas Pudding d’Hercule Poirot. I used to have another Christmas Poirot on my MP3 player,
Le Noël d’Hercule Poirot, so perhaps this is a Radio France tradition?
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One of the carol concerts I watched recently mentioned that
O Holy Night was originally a French carol, so I had to investigate
,
Minuit Chrétiens is the French version. Memory told me that
Gaudete was also a French carol, but when I looked into it, the lyrics are Latin, and wikipedia tells me that:
1. the oldest known text is in a Finnish/Swedish song book.
2. Steeleye Span had a UK hit record with it in the 1970s.
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I was misled by a false-friend recently. I thought an Audition d'Orge would be an
audition in the English sense, the practical part of an organist's job application, a demonstration of skill but in
French it can also mean a performance.
Définition de audition
nom féminin
1. Perception des sons par l'ouïe. Troubles de l'audition. ➙ presbyacousie, surdité ; malentendant.
2. Action d'entendre ou d'être entendu. Procéder à l'audition des témoins. ➙ auditionner (II, 2).
3. Séance d'essai donnée par un artiste. ➙ essai. Passer une audition. ➙ auditionner (I). recommandation officielle pour casting.
4. Séance musicale où l'on entend une œuvre. La première audition mondiale d'une œuvre.
Saint Eustache church in Paris have regular "auditions d'orge", also
streamed on YouTube, to raise money for maintenance of their instruments.
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Some sporting news in the past few days was the announcement of a
#1 contender bout between la française Manon Fiorot, and l'americaine Erin Blanchfield. The suggested venue is Atlantic City, but as Ms Fiorot is from Nice, and
Nice has a roman amphitheatre, I'm hoping they'll consider that as a better choice. The loser's corner team could then wind up the evening by fighting 12 hungry lions for the finale!
).
