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Showing posts with the label Yussupoffs

Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

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A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...

Paris was Yesterday - 1928

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We continue with Janet Flanner's articles on Paris life in 1928. Jacques Hennessy (1829-1928) "Jacques Hennessy, chief of the family noted for its fine champagne with its constellation of three stars, has disappeared from his vast circle of friends. For eighty-nine years he inhabited Paris as a bachelor and bon viveur . He died as he lived, in the best of health. His heart, which he boasted had never failed to accelerate when in the presence of a pretty woman, finally refused to continue its gallant function. Possessed of rents from Cognac (Charente) which afforded him seven hundred thousand francs a month for pocket money alone, he spent his time and fortune generously rewarding those who had been the favourites of his prime, and men and women who had once been younger than he grew antique on the largesse of this sprightly octogenarian who died looking younger than they. Hennessy never took any exercise, despised sports, never walked if the effort took him away from ca...