Laurel Zuckerman's Paris Weblog

French train commuters strike against poor service: refuse to show tickets

Now this is a first!

French national rail (SNCF) commuters on the Angers-Le Mans-Paris are so sick of worsening service that THEY'VE decided to strike.

What next!!

To protest lousy service, 160 - 200 commuters who regularly take the line are refusing to show their tickets or travel cards. They gather together wearing badges that say: "Abonnés en grève". 

Thousands of passengers have already signed a petition against the terrible service. According to the movement's spokesperson, Pascal Mignot, the controllers are "très compréhensifs". 

Users are demanding that the SNCF indemnify them, and trying to spread the movement to more lines: Lille-Paris, Tours-Paris, Reims-Paris et Lyon-Paris".

For more, see the Le Point article entitled  Des usagers de la SNCF en grève de présentation de leur titre de transport

 

 

How bad is the trouble with the euro? World headline review.

______________________________________________________

from Charles Bremner in The Times  French PM: Britain must help us save the euro

from the Financial Times: Germany backs wider rescue fund role

from Paul Krugman in the New York Times : Can Europe Be Saved?

from The Spiegel:  Brussels Plans Bigger Euro Rescue Package

from Le Point: Fillon à Londres : "Une catastrophe et un désastre si l'euro échouait"

from les Echos (opinion by Jean Marc Vittori): L'Asie au secours de l'euro

from Charles Camoris in Foreign Policy: The Euro Is Dead

from DAVID GAUTHIER-VILLARS And ALEX MACDONALD in the Wall Street Journal: 

Portugal Auction Fails to Quell Talk of Bailout

Guns in France?

As an Arizonan living in France, (in part to escape my beloved state's gun insanity--Concealed weapons? Fine. Permits? Not necessary! Safety training: Not any more! Guns in bars? As many as you like! Automatic weapons? Yes, please! Guns on university campuses? Law already under consideration by moronic State Legislature) I got to wondering: what are the gun laws here ?

After all, you read about shootings so firearms must exist in France. Who has them? How many? And what do they do with them?

Le Monde tried to count in 2008, but said the task was "sensible" despite a national data collection file called the AGRIPPA. It's estimate: 3,000,000. (By contrast 200 MILLION guns are thought to circulate in the USA).  

Before you rejoice, however, you should know that the Small Arms Survey put the number at 18-20 million.  The explanation: "les armes non soumises à déclaration ne sont pas comptabilisées" (guns not subject to declaration aren't counted)

32% of French people were said to own guns. That's less than Arizona (where firearms outnumber people), but still not negligible.

That makes France the second most armed country in Europe. (Hurrah?)

Legal gun sales are down. But illegal weapons from Eastern Europe are on the rise, especially, and quite uncontrollably, from the Balkans. 

As for gun deaths in France:

2105 in 2005
2607 in 1999
2713 in 1979

By comparison, firearm deaths in the USA near 40,000 per year, including suicides and children.

(According to the Center for Disease Control, from 1968 to 1991 "firearm-related deaths increased by 60% (from 23,875 to 38,317") 

 Firearms are present and said to be spreading in France. (See Le Figaro: Les armes à feu prolifèrent en France) Faits divers involving shooting deaths are certainly not unknown.

(In May, a young municipal policewoman was gunned down in cold blood in Villiers sur Marne, two miles from my house. Kalashnikofs were found.)

But there is no equivalent to the all-powerful NRA here. And discomfort with the use of guns, even in cases of self-defense, is common among the French.

 

 

 

Paris Writers News January bis 2011 Update

This month, news from Barry Kirwan, David Barnes, Pam Leavy, Adam Thirwell, Annie Cohen Solal, The Improfessionals,  William Pfaff, Susan Tibergian, Alice Notley, The Geneva Writers Group, National Short Story Day,  John Lichfield, WICE's Bilingual Bookgroup, Fatima Bhutto, Christine Buckley, Meredith Mullins, AMY HOLLOWELL, NINA KARACOSTA , JONATHAN REGIER, JOE ROSS and more!   

 

WRITER NEWS!

Barry Kirwan has published the scathing (and very funny) Writerholics Anynomous in Piker Press. Check it out online.

Pam Leavy is writing a feature for France Magazine on American humorist David Sedaris.

David Barnes' Spoken Word is launching its new magazine issue.ZERO this Monday night. Copies 5 euros. More info here.

UPSTAIRS AT DUROC is pleased to announce the LAUNCH of its ISSUE 12. 8 rue Casimir Delavigne, 75006 Paris, Métro Odéon. 27 January at 7 pm

 Photographer and writer Meredith Mullins' exhibit opens this Friday January 7 and goes until February 17. At the Pacific Grove Art Center in Pacific Grove, CA. For more info. 

(for earlier January news see the special New Year edition)

 

EVENTS January 10, 2011 ...

Every Sunday at 7:30 pm , play readings from Moving Parts at Carr's Pub near rue de Rivoli

Monday Jan 10, : 21h til late SPOKEN WORD launches issue.ZERO and FIRST OPEN MIKE READING of 2011! Come read YOUR work in ENGLISH, FRENCH, ITALIAN or any other language you would so like to share poetry in! You are also invited to play a short musical piece or read a poem by an author you admire if you so wish! To keep up on all things Spoken Word, check out our blog & sign up for our announcements listing. Reading AT: Cabaret Populaire/Culture Rapide, 103 rueJulien Lacroix, 75020 Paris Metro Belleville.http://spokenwordparis.blogspot.com/

10 January 7:00 P.M. Adam Thirlwell,  will read from The Escape AT: Shakespeare & Co., 37rue de la Bûcherie, Paris 5ème. M° St Michel

Tuesday, January 11th at 7 pm : DAN CHAON author of Await Your Reply at the Village Voice . Dan Chaon’s first novel, You Remind Me of Me was published in 2004. His earlier collections of short stories,Fitting Ends and Among the Missing were both well received, the latter being shortlisted for the National Book Award and named as a notable book of the year by The New York Times. Await Your Reply was acclaimed as one of the top ten books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly.

 

Wed 12 January 2011 19h30 : Evenings with an Author: Annie Cohen-Solal discusses Leo & His Circle: The Life of Leo Castelli at The American Library  Leo Castelli was one of the most influential art dealer in American history. He launched the careers of several major American artists (including Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg) and made art dealers and commercial galleries better integrated into the modern art world than ever before. Annie Cohen-Solal's new biography, we now have a more comprehensive picture of this seminal figure, a complex and interesting individual who helped define contemporary American art.

Thursday, January 13th at 7 pm : THOMAS GLADYSZ editor of The Diary of a Lost Girl at the Village Voice  "Thomas Gladysz is the leading authority on all matters pertaining to the legendary Louise Brooks. We owe him a debt of gratitude for bringing the groundbreaking novel, The Diary of a Lost Girl, back from obscurity." - Lon Davis, author of Silent Lives. Gladysz will be on hand to discuss his new editon of The Diary of a Lost Girl at Village Voice, following by a screening of the film at the nearby Action Christine cinema.

Wed 19 January 2011 19h30 : Susan Tiberghien presents her book One Year to a Writing Life. Start the New Year right - write! at The American Library An American-born writer living in Switzerland, Tiberghien founded the Geneva Writers' Group in 1993 which she continues to direct and where she teaches workshops. Tiberghien started writing at the age of fifty. Her essays have appeared in the International Herald Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor, and Now Write! Nonfiction

DECEMBER 21 IS NATIONAL SHORT STORY DAY!For news and events, see:  http://www.nationalshortstoryday.co.uk/

Friday 21st January  8 pm  The Improfessionals  Side-Splitting theater laughs with the Improfessionals at the ever-changing show in English. 12 euros,  92, bd de Clichy,75018  More Information 

Saturday, January 22, 2011 1:30 – 4:30pm  A workshop on "Memoir and  Metaphor: Illuminating your Life through Writing", with Susan Tiberghien, author of Looking for Gold; Circling to the Center; and Footsteps, A European Album—and most recently a book on writing, One Year to A Writing Life. At Shakespeare & Company  www.shakespeareco.org 37 Rue de la Bûcherie, Paris. Fee 20 Euros Space limited For more information and to register: Email - susan@susantiberghien

Monday 24th January 18h30 « A French Aristocrat in the American West » Carl J. Ekberg, Professor Emeritus of History at Illinois State University at : France Ameriques - 9 avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt - 75008 PARIS More information 

Tue 25 January 2011 19h30 : A Coast to Coast ride through small town America, at The American Library Philippe Melot, 62, married and father of three children, is a semi retired corporate lawyer living in Paris. Since his childhood vacations in Normandy in the 50s, playing in the abandoned jeeps and tanks of the American army behind Omaha Beach, he has been in love with America. As a student at Science Po, he discovered Tocqueville and since then his passion for the American society and its history has not dwindled. He travels to America as often as possible and is writing a book about the history of Franco-American relationships.

Wed 26 January 2011 19h30 :  An evening with William Pfaff at The American Library in Paris. William Pfaff is the author of The Irony of Manifest Destiny, published in June 2010 by Walker and Company (New York) -- his tenth and culminating work on international politics and the American destiny. He describes the neglected sources and unforeseen consequences of the tragedy towards which the nation's current effort to remake the world to fit America's measure is leading. His previous books and his articles in The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and his syndicated newspaper column, featured for a quarter century in the globally read International Herald Tribune, have made him one of America's most respected and internationally influential interpreters of world affairs.

Thursday, January 27th at 7pm :Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter’s Memoir at The Village Voice  “Fatima Bhutto writes a compelling account that is both political and personal. Her life is proof that in Pakistan, torn apart by American diktat and local avarice, the political is the personal. Her passion and integrity ring out on every page. If you don’t understand what is happening to Pakistan and Afghanistan, you soon will.” – Charles Glass, author of Americans in Paris

Thursday 27 January - 7pm  John Lichfield will present and sign his book Our Man in Paris: A Foreign Correspondent,
France and the French.at WH SMITH 

27 January at 7 pm: UPSTAIRS AT DUROC, the Paris literary journal, is pleased to announce the LAUNCH of its ISSUE 12. Come hear new work by AMY HOLLOWELL, NINA KARACOSTA, ALICE NOTLEY, JONATHAN REGIER and JOE ROSS. AT: BERKELEYBOOKS OF PARIS, 8 rue Casimir Delavigne, 75006 Paris, Métro Odéon.

For a complete listing of events, including bilingual, French, poetry and plays, please see: http://parisreadingsmonthlylisting.blogspot.com/

Workshops and Reading Groups for 2011 !

Check out the ongoing workshops at Shakespeare and Company at http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/index.php?categories=110:1

and WICE on SHORT STORY WRITING with David Barnes, WRITING TO TRAVEL with Christine Buckley,  and WORDS & IMAGES with Meredith Mullins at http://www.wice-paris.org/wice/creative-writing-and-literature

Saturday, January 22, 2011 1:30 – 4:30pm  A workshop on "Memoir and  Metaphor: Illuminating your Life through Writing", with Susan Tiberghien, author of Looking for Gold; Circling to the Center; and Footsteps, A European Album—and most recently a book on writing, One Year to A Writing Life. At Shakespeare & Company  www.shakespeareco.org 37 Rue de la Bûcherie, Paris. Fee 20 Euros Space limited For more information and to register: Email - susan@susantiberghien

There are many excellent reading groups in Paris. The American Library, PAN, AAWE and many other Anglophone organizations offer occasions to meet up in a friendly environment to discuss book. In addition internet sites like Meet-Up and Goodreads run Paris-based bookgroups.

Other activities for writers...

 A Play reading each Sunday--Moving Parts at Carr's Pub and Restaurant!

The following readings have been organised by Moving Parts with the kind permission of Carr's Pub & Restaurant

Always on Sundays, always at 7.30 pm 

23^rd January             Reina Ceret                       "Une Ile" (en francais)

  6^th February            Gautier Cazenave              "Sherlock Holmes v Frankenstein" (in English)

20^th February            Isabel Eastman                  "Irresistible" (in English)

  6^th March                Gwyneth Hughes               "Angles of Attack" (in English)

20^th March                Gaelle Arenson                  "The Case of the Lophius" (in English)

  3^rd April                   Debra Wiess                      "A Floor Between Us" (in English)

17^th April                   Elisabeth Pierme Boi         "Le Collier des Augures" (in French)

  1^st May                   Tony Stowers                     "Le Petoman" (in English)

 

Contact Stephanie to book a reading of YOUR play. Bookings now being taken for May 2011 Programme subject to change

Latest version available on the website : www.movingparts.org.uk

============

Writers on writers: if you would like to submit an interview of an English language writer working in France. Please contact me!

See past Paris Writers News Interviews with  DON MORRISON, NICOLA KEEGAN, PETER GUMBEL, JANET SKESLIEN CHARLES, TERRANCE GELENTER, LAUREN GRODSTEIN, PARSELELO KANTAI, MARY DUNCAN, PAUL SCHMIDTBERGER, DIANNE JOHNSON, ANN MAH, CHRISTOPHER VANIER, FRANCIS GENDLIN, BERNA HUEBNER  and MARGO BERDESHEVKY !!

 

 

Arizona Congresswoman targeted by Sarah Palin shot in Tuscon, 6 dead, 18 wounded

Sarah Palin's target list from the 2010 elections included Arizonan Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head today while greeting constituants at a Safeway grocery store in Tucson.

Here is Palin's map of the US in which Democrats are represented by gun sights.

Gifford's office in Tuscon was vandalized in March after she voted for Obama's Health Care plan.

According to The Guardian, Giffords has two children and is married to Mark Kelly, an astronaut who was the commander of the Endeavour, the final planned mission of the American space shuttle programme, and a veteran of the first Gulf War.

Giffords served as chairwoman of the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee and also holds seats on the House Science and Technology and Armed Services committees.

"Giffords was the first Jewish woman elected to Congress from Arizona, the third female ever to be elected for that state, and had been building up an prominent public profile with frequent appearances in the national media." 

NYT says that six people had been killed and 18 wounded in the shooting, including a nine year old child and a federal judge, John Roll, who had been involved in immigration cases and had previously received death threats.  

Here is a recent  photo of the 40 year old Congresswoman. 

 

Happy New Year from Bry sur Marne, France !

Snow covers the flowers we left outside. ..

 

 

 

 

 

The Beauty of Autumn in Bry sur Marne France

A quiet walk along the Marne ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...golden leaves 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

water birds...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and a red tree...

 

Paris Writers News Special New Year Edition ! Dec 2010-January 2011

This month, news from Mademoiselle London, Thirza Vallois, Barry Kirwan, William Pfaff, Fatima Bhutto, Anne Korkeakivi, Susan Tibergian, David Sedaris, Alice Notley, The Paris Short Story Contest, The Paris Literary Prize, Upstairs at Duroc, Offshoots, The Geneva Writers Group, National Short Story Day, Amanda Walsh, John Lichfield, WICE's Bilingual Bookgroup, Gwyneth Hughes, Thad Carhart, Michael Scott Moore, Alec Lobrano, Alan Riding, Christine Buckley, Richard Nahem, Meredith Mullins, and more!   

 

Industry news for the New Year:

E-books :  Joining Amazon, Apple, Sony, and Barnes and Noble, GOOGLE has just launched its own e-book store, while Amazon announced a new app for reading Kindle books on a computer. So far the impact on writers has been positive due to improved revenue splits. 

Brick and Mortar: The dying off continues. Borders reported a $74 million loss in the third quarter and will probably be bought out.

Meanwhile, publishers who limit themselves to blockbuster authors with their own platforms are coming into competition with their own creations, as major authors go direct to readers through e-books and POD.

Expect turmoil to continue as massive disintermediation accelerates, cutting out middlemen (in this case, publishers, distributors and bookstores)

These forces are immense and one writer/reader is very small indeed, but if you don't want to see your favorite bookstore become a souvenir shop, now's the time to support it!

 

SUBMISSIONS NEWS FOR PARIS WRITERS! 

Only three more days to submit to Shakespeare and Co's Novella Contest!!

Upstairs at Duroc, the literary journal published in Paris, seeks submissions for its Issue # 13. Send email submissions to [email protected] with “Upstairs at Duroc Submission” in the subject line. (More details later)

Offshoots 11: Writing from Geneva (the biennial showcase for the Geneva Writers Group) has launch a call for submissions. Guidelines are now posted on the website of the Geneva Writers Group; please submit by March 1. 

This January, the Editorial Committee begins reading submissions to the Paris Short Story Contest to select a short list from the 135 submissions!  Thank you to all the writers around the world who have shared their stories with us !!!! 

 

WRITER NEWS!

Thirza Vallois returns to Paris after mega tour down-under!

David Sedaris claims he makes $4000 in tips in book tour.

Marie Houzelle’s short story Egalité was published in Narrative.

Mademoiselle London's first book of poetry and artwork is now available! Bad love affairs, bad grammar and bad hangovers – a typical week for Mademoiselle London whose drunken escapades in Paris are served up in this new graphic book.  Bursting with comedy and colour, the book offers a sneaky peek at the well-hidden underbelly of Parisian life. http://www.mademoisellelondon.fr/

Anne Korkeakivi, whose fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, The Yale Review, and The Bellevue LIterary Review, received a Hawthornden Grant for a residency in Scotland in April. Anne is a finalist judge for the Paris Short Story Contest!

Susan Tibergian, founder of the excellent Geneva Writers Group, in Paris for a Conversation at the American Library January 19 and a workshop at Shakespeare and Co January 22th!

Dimitri Keramitas’ story "The Grave Within" was declared Overall Winner of Strange Circle's short story competition, and will appear in the "Winter Solstice Issue" of the magazine.

Amanda Walsh has completed the video on Festival America for Paris Writers News (watch for it here)! and is heading home to Australia to work on other projects. We hope to see her back in Paris soon! 

Photographer and writer Meredith Mullins is off to Monterey, California where 60 of her works will be displayed:   The exhibit opens this Friday January 7 and goes until February 17. At the Pacific Grove Art Center in Pacific Grove, CA. For more info see: 

http://www.montereyherald.com/living/ci_16981132?nclick_check=1

 

EVENTS 15 December 2010 to January 31, 2011 

Thursday 16th December 7:00pm:   Krystle Warren performs at Shakespeare and Company. Standing room only for this must-hear event! 

Saturday December 18 at 5 pm : Alec Lobrano author of Hungry for Paris Holiday Book-Signing and Champagne-Tasting at SPRING boutique

 

19 December 7:30 P.M. Moving Parts reading with Gwyneth Hughes : "Bones of Contention" (in English) For more, see:http://www.movingparts.org.uk/ or e-mail Stephanie Campion [email protected] for listings! AT: Carr's Pub & Restaurant, 1 rue du Mont Thabor, 75001 Metro : Tuileries

 

January 6th, 2011 : Ladan Niayesh, The Red Wheelbarrow Bookstore, and Manchester University Press announce a prebook launch party of A Knight’s Legacy At The RED WHEELBARROW

Tuesday, January 11th at 7 pm : DAN CHAON author of Await Your Reply at the Village Voice . Dan Chaon’s first novel, You Remind Me of Me was published in 2004. His earlier collections of short stories,Fitting Ends and Among the Missing were both well received, the latter being shortlisted for the National Book Award and named as a notable book of the year by The New York Times. Await Your Reply was acclaimed as one of the top ten books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly.

Wed 12 January 2011 19h30 : Evenings with an Author: Annie Cohen-Solal discusses Leo & His Circle: The Life of Leo Castelli at The American Library  Leo Castelli was one of the most influential art dealer in American history. He launched the careers of several major American artists (including Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg) and made art dealers and commercial galleries better integrated into the modern art world than ever before. Annie Cohen-Solal's new biography, we now have a more comprehensive picture of this seminal figure, a complex and interesting individual who helped define contemporary American art.

Thursday, January 13th at 7 pm : THOMAS GLADYSZ editor of The Diary of a Lost Girl at the Village Voice  "Thomas Gladysz is the leading authority on all matters pertaining to the legendary Louise Brooks. We owe him a debt of gratitude for bringing the groundbreaking novel, The Diary of a Lost Girl, back from obscurity." - Lon Davis, author of Silent Lives. Gladysz will be on hand to discuss his new editon of The Diary of a Lost Girl at Village Voice, following by a screening of the film at the nearby Action Christine cinema.

Wed 19 January 2011 19h30 : Susan Tiberghien presents her book One Year to a Writing Life. Start the New Year right - write! at The American Library An American-born writer living in Switzerland, Tiberghien founded the Geneva Writers' Group in 1993 which she continues to direct and where she teaches workshops. Tiberghien started writing at the age of fifty. Her essays have appeared in the International Herald Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor, and Now Write! Nonfiction

DECEMBER 21 IS NATIONAL SHORT STORY DAY!For news and events, see:  http://www.nationalshortstoryday.co.uk/

January 22 : workshop at Shakespeare and Co with Susan Tiberghien

Tue 25 January 2011 19h30 : A Coast to Coast ride through small town America, at The American Library Philippe Melot, 62, married and father of three children, is a semi retired corporate lawyer living in Paris. Since his childhood vacations in Normandy in the 50s, playing in the abandoned jeeps and tanks of the American army behind Omaha Beach, he has been in love with America. As a student at Science Po, he discovered Tocqueville and since then his passion for the American society and its history has not dwindled. He travels to America as often as possible and is writing a book about the history of Franco-American relationships.

Wed 26 January 2011 19h30 :  An evening with William Pfaff at The American Library in Paris. William Pfaff is the author of The Irony of Manifest Destiny, published in June 2010 by Walker and Company (New York) -- his tenth and culminating work on international politics and the American destiny. He describes the neglected sources and unforeseen consequences of the tragedy towards which the nation's current effort to remake the world to fit America's measure is leading. His previous books and his articles in The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and his syndicated newspaper column, featured for a quarter century in the globally read International Herald Tribune, have made him one of America's most respected and internationally influential interpreters of world affairs.

Thursday, January 27th at 7pm :Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter’s Memoir at The Village Voice  “Fatima Bhutto writes a compelling account that is both political and personal. Her life is proof that in Pakistan, torn apart by American diktat and local avarice, the political is the personal. Her passion and integrity ring out on every page. If you don’t understand what is happening to Pakistan and Afghanistan, you soon will.” – Charles Glass, author of Americans in Paris

For a complete listing of events, including bilingual, French, poetry and plays, please see: http://parisreadingsmonthlylisting.blogspot.com/

For December news published earlier this month see: December Update

 COMING UP : Special edition on book discussion groups in Paris. If you are involved in a book group that you would like to announce, please contact me at pariswritersnews AT gmail.com

If you are an author working in France, you might want to contribute to our series Authors Interview Authors. 

See past Paris Writers News Interviews with  DON MORRISON, NICOLA KEEGAN, PETER GUMBEL, JANET SKESLIEN CHARLES, TERRANCE GELENTER, LAUREN GRODSTEIN, PARSELELO KANTAI, MARY DUNCAN, PAUL SCHMIDTBERGER, DIANNE JOHNSON, ANN MAH, CHRISTOPHER VANIER, FRANCIS GENDLIN, BERNA HUEBNER  and MARGO BERDESHEVKY !!

 

I wish you all happy and healthy holidays and a wonderful start to the New Year!!

 

 

Can a French soccer star hurt the economy more than bankers, economists and financiers?

The competition's tough.

Trillion dollar bailouts, families on the street, record unemployment, sovereign default--the achievements of the financial establisment are pretty hard to beat.

But French soccer legend Eric Cantona has decided to give them a run for their money.

Literally!

He's called on citizens to withdraw their savings from banks today.

Why?

Because he's hoping to bring down the system.

Good luck, Mr. Cantona!

As Marx or Lenin could have told you, unless you have mucho guns, only the system (with its internal contradictions) can bring down the system! 

This said, there's every reason to believe world capitalism is set to implode already. And frankly, if the Great Depression is any guide, this may not be as fun as it first looks.  

So why such enthusiasm for Cantona's crackpot threat? Did anybody even read the guy's demands?

Or is it just that this is more fun than dealing with Lehman, AIG, Goldman, Bank of America, Greece, Ireland, and rest of the real life financial tsunami already underway...

 

 

Worst Christmas gifts for children : micro pigs (or, in French, micro cochons) !

They grow.

Spread disease.

Take up all the garden.

And won't look nearly as good on you as they do on Paris Hilton.

Why you should NOT give in to the fashionable urge to purchase a MICRO COCHON (or"choubidou") for X-mas.

Devastating personal testimony from The Independent, Matt Chorley reporting:

"We saw a micro-pig advertised: they were small, manageable and seemed ideal for the house and garden. We were told it grew no bigger than 14 inches, but at 18 months old he's now up to my waist. It's difficult to cope: we have an acre-long garden, but we've had to pen a third of it off for Pigwig. He yearned for company, so we had to buy another pig – a kunekune pig, which will stay small. We can't leave Pigwig alone or he'll wreck the place, so we have to babysit him constantly. We can't trust any animal that size with children."

(Mrs Smith bought what she thought was a micro-pig for her daughter Emma, 26. She has now started a Facebook page: "The Truth About Micro-pigs".)

Parents, beware. They're cute, they're smart, they're full of love. But they should not have a pig.

Here's Homer Simpson singing that great hit song: Spider Cochon: