05 mars 2017

Bulletin mensuel : mars 2017

The next meeting of the Cercle Français de Belfast will be on mercredi 8 mars 2017 à 19h.30 in Dark Horse Coffee House, 30-34, Hill Street Belfast BT1 2LB

  • Topic: The Paris Commune       Speaker: Seamus McKEOWN

Seamus will recount the story of three months of bloody confrontation on the streets of the French capital following the siege and fall of the city to the Prussians on January 28, 1871.


  • Bal Feirste presents their next French Bal with French Pianist - Valentin


This month's Bal Feirste's Workshop/Bal will be a special event with a change of venue and a very special guest performer …. Valentin Barray.

Valentin Barray creates a beautiful ambience through-out his Bal Folk performances.  He is a pianist and composer with a glittering array of achievements and accolades from his formal studies and performances in Europe.      


www.facebook/valentin.barray

Venue:     An Droichead, Cooke St, Belfast, BT7 2EP
Date:        Sunday 12 March 2017  
Time:       Doors open             17.30 ~ BYO
                 Dance workshop   18.00 ~ 18.45
                 Bal (Dancing)        19.00 ~ 22.00
Cost:         £5 to members ~ £8 to non-member



  • Eddie Izzard at the MAC
One of our members, Brian, has drawn my attention to the fact that Eddie Izzard is coming to the MAC for one night soon.  His show Force Majeure” is on Thursday 16th March, and some members may be interested. He presents his show in 3 languages consecutively, an hour each, German, then French and finally in English. Tickets are required for each separately and the English version is sold out but, at the time of writing, there are still tickets available to the performance in French.




  • Mois de la Francophonie en Irlande

To celebrate French language and cultural diversity, the Month of La Francophonie 2017 will showcase from March 1st to April 2nd a series of cultural events involving music, literature, film and history along with talks, debates and contests. 
You can find a full list of events at …
http://www.ambafrance-ie.org/The-Month-of-La-Francophonie-in-Ireland-2017-Programme but perhaps of most interest to us will be Franco-Irish Literary Festival (1st -2nd April) … more information to come later this month.



  • Cercle français de Belfast Annual Dinner
When going to press with our programme we still had not settled on the date for our annual dinner so you might like to note in your diary that this year Cercle Français de Belfast's Annual Celebration Dinner will take place on Wednesday 31st May.


Looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday evening.


À bientôt, Philip

14 janvier 2017

La nuit de la lecture 14 janvier 2017

Tonight, 14 January, the first Nuit de la lecture takes place all over France.
It's brilliant to see how many events have been planned and just how diverse they are. Check out the clickable map at the following link: La Nuit de la lecture to see what's happening in or near a French town that you know.

At our annual Bal musette, earlier this week, it was suggested that members might like to take the opportunity to share details of what they are presently reading.  In that way we could join in spirit with the French event.


Here's what some members are reading:

Chris:
I've started Le corps de ma mère by Tunisian writer, Fawzia Zouari. You can find details of the book on the publisher's page here.  I am not that far into the book but have already found that I can relate to some of the issues raised. Making me think.


Philip:
I'm reading A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker. This is in English but the story is based on Samuel Beckett life in Paris during WW2. You can find details on Good Reads at this link.


Gerry:
Has just finished reading the part-autobiography, Below Stairs by Margaret Powell.  Here's a Good Reads link.  The book has an intriguing handwritten French inscription inside the front cover.  It reads "En vue de la troisieme saison... Joyeux anniversaire."  Any detectives out there?  Gerry is now reading Graham Greene's A life in letters.  Greene was a great French-speaking traveller, visiting Vietnam, French Indo-China four times researching The Quiet American. While he was in Saigon the French Commander-in-Chief, Général de Lattre, concluded Greene was a spy.
Gerry also has a Tintin app on his iPad but he says that's another story...


Like to share what you are reading?
Then please send details to Philip at cfbelfast@gmail.com  or add them via comments below.