Tour de France 2010

The 2010 Tour will be launched from the south side of Rotterdam, for a prologue time-trial. The launching pad will actually be set up in Zuidplein, from where the riders will move north.

The choice of Rotterdam, a vast urban centre with one million two hundred thousand inhabitants, is directly in keeping with the special start of the Tour in London in 2007. The proposed project – “Rotterdam and the Tour, a new energy” – seduced us. It fits into an overall policy that aims to an even bigger place for the bicycle in the city’s heart, while leaning on the popularity of the biggest cycling race in the world, the Tour de France. From the banks of the Thames to the biggest port in Europe: the same desire, the same will.

International Comic Festival – Angoulême

Every year, since 1974, there has been an International Comic Strip Festival in Angoulême, Charente (16).

A festival held in 1972 and called Millions d’Images was such a success that the city decided to create a festival just for comic strips.

Amie Antoniak’s paintings are all based on her long-held fascination with sky and landscapes, some of which have been painted, quite literally, from new perspectives. An earlier collection involved a plane flight for inspiration and resulted in stunning landscapes painted from above the clouds for which Amie won a highly prestigious Royal Acadamy Landscape Painting Award. Since then she has taken the idea further and painted a series of paintings inspired by a hot air balloon ride over Yorkshire.

Business leader welcome the new regulations that allows discotheques across France to stay open until 7:00 am, saying that this will liven up Paris and other French cities.

The regulations attempt to harmonise closing hours for bars throughout France and reduce the number of party goers who drive from one premise to the next looking for another place so as to dance the night away.

A holiday cottage (or gîte) in France is an valuable starting point for an unforgettable holiday in one of the largest and most beautiful countries in Europe. French fashion, perfume, gastronomy and wine are famous throughout the world, but there is nothing more delightful than going there to see for yourself. No matter how often you visit this country, it always has the capacity to surprise and delight, from the magic of Paris to the appeal of its country-wide hamlets, booking a couple of weeks in a holiday cottage in France is the perfect getaway.

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1930′s, 40′s, 50′s, 60′s and 70′s!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, salmon from a tin-can and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cots covered with bright coloured, lead-based, paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had caps not helmets on our heads.