francofiled

Last month's réunion of the Cercle français was a colourful and festive occasion. The tables of the Dark Horse Coffee House had been moved to the perimeter to leave plenty of space for dancing and the walls were draped in bleu, blanc, rouge bunting. Musicians from BalFeirste played Breton music on a variety of instruments including the bombarde. The atmosphere at this early stage of the evening was full of buzz and chat. Philip McGrory lived up to the MC in his name and soon had us organised for the evening. First up, he explained was a demonstration of a gavotte. Vanessa and Fergus took to the floor, others of the troupe joined in and our evening got into its rhythm. Following a spell of more music and chat, we were called back to order for a couple of magic tricks. Magic, Magi and the fête des rois. In a nice touch, one of the magician's tricks involved participants who were all French. He supplied them all with menus from the restaurants of famous French chefs and som...

There was a good crowd at the latest event in this year's programme from the  Cercle français de Belfast   when "yours truly" gave the talk on Grand Marnier.  As usual the Dark Horse Coffee House in the Cathedral Quarter matched the proceedings perfectly. I decided that it might be a fun idea to do a kind of Who Do You Think You Are? approach to the subject.  The concept of the popular BBC ancestry programme has made it into French, in Canada at least, where it is known as Qui Êtes-vous? The first part of the enquiry then looked into the origins of the drink and focussed on Jean-Baptiste LAPOSTOLLE who, in 1827, set up a distillery to make fruit liqueurs in Neauphle-le-Chateau near Paris.  The story moved to his son Eugene who returned from travels with bottles of "burnt wine" - brandewijn - from the Cognac region.  He is said to have offered a taste to his friend Louis-Alexandre MARNIER who hit upon the idea of adding his recipe for bitter o...

Listening in to Francophonie Express.  Loud and clear. Got a minute or two? Check out this link: Francophonie Express, Ecoutez maintenant 24 heures en continu sur le web, la radio au meilleur choix musical, chanson, bossa-nova, lounge, jazz, electro, world, Live radio best music

 

Spending a bit of time browsing recently I came across a post on the Lost in Cheeseland  blog.  It related to a creative arts project that needs funding to ensure its success. No different, you might think, from any other project but what I liked in addition to the theme itself was its funding model.  More in a moment. The project is called The Parisianer and the idea is that 100 artists/illustrators will share 100 pictures capturing the essence of Paris.  At the end of this year there will be an exhibition, a book and posters of the artwork. To succeed the project needs financial backing and rather than chasing grants or money from other sources it uses the concept of CrowdFunding fuelled by social media.  People share details of the project on their social networks and if they are so minded contribute to specified subscription ranges. When the project is realised they are sent the items listed for the respective price bands. If insufficient funds are rai...

A supplement to last post on the repositioning of the Wallace Fountain in Lisburn, to acknowledge the handiwork of Charles-Auguste Lebourg, a sculptor from Nantes, commissioned by Richard Wallace to design the famous water fountains. Read more at Wikipedia here .