Soccer Scores from France: We Could NOT Find an Image of Serge Gakpe

Greetings to our blog readers in Estonia where our president Barack Obama is headlining a crucial international summit...........come to think of it, we may have said greetings to our readers in Estonia yesterday as well...........

But, our focus right now is on France and weekend play in the nation's top domestic league.

Since we could not find images of Serge Gakpe, a Togo national, who scored the lone and winning goal for Nantes in their 1-0 over Montpellier, we decided to just go ahead with other images of France, including our hero Asterix the Gaul (pictured top), the French flag and a box for Fermier cheese, which may actually be illegal here (as surprisingly many French cheeses are).

It was also another huge weekend for Swedish superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovich of Paris St. Germain who delivered a hat trick for PSG in their 5-0 thumping of St. Etienne.

French national player Dimitri Payet delivered two goals for Marseilles in their own resounding 4-0 victory over Nice.

Here are the complete scores from France:

PSG 5 St. Etienne 0

Marseilles 4 Nice 0

Metz 2 Lyon 1

Monaco 1 Lille 1, tie

Nantes 1 Montpellier 0

Toulouse 1 Evian TG 0

Lorient 4 Guingamp 0

Lens 4 Rems 2

Caen 0 Rennes 1

Bordeaux 1 Bastia 1, tie

http://www.ligue1.com/

Times Around the World : If It's Midnight in New York...........

We are using images of people associated with their given countries for this particular entry which compares times around the world when it is midnight in New York, which is plus-five Greenwich Mean Time.

From top, we have the late French mime Marcel Marceau, though I suppose we could have used Jerry Lewis (the American actor is very popular in France) or Asterix the Gaul as well, former Turkish Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel, who is still alive at age 88, and Mexican actress Selma Hayek, best known for playing artist Frida Kahlo.

Here we go:

Europe

London 5:00 a.m.
Paris 6:00 a.m.
Helsinki, Finland 7:00 a.m.

Middle East region

Istanbul 7:00 a.m.
Haifa, Israel 7:00 a.m.
Dubai 8:00 a.m.

Asia and Australia

Hong Kong 12 p.m. (noon)
Singapore 12:00 p.m.
Sydney 2:00 p.m.

Mexico and Central America

Mexico City 11:00 p.m.
Antiqua, Guatemala 12:00 a.m. (midnight)
San Jose, Costa Rica 10:00 p.m.

French Soccer Results (from weekend of March 15-17)

In French futbol, Paris St. Germain is the hot team right now as they get ready for the daunting task of facing Spanish soccer power Barcelona FC in the next round of the UEFA Champions League. But, domestically, the team hit a bit of a snag during the weekend of March 15-17 when they tied Saint-Etienne 2-2. PSG had an early goal Argentinian national Javier Pastore (9th min.)

In other league games, Djamel Bakar (pictured here) helped his team Nancy-Lorraine to a 1-0 win over OGC Nice with a goal in the 23rd minute.

A lone goal from Mohamed Fofana (32nd min.) also gave Stad de Reins a 1-0 victory over Stade Bertois 29.

In the process of putting this entry together, we found that PSG has a Brazilian named Alex, but he is not the same Brazilian soccer player Alex who up until this season was with Fenerbahce in the Turkish Premiere League.

In case, you are wondering, the below image is of French comic book icon Asterix.

Here are the results in the French League, which include two lop-sided scores:


Olympique de Marseille 0 AC Ajaccio 0, tie

FC Lorent 4 Stade Berstois 0

SC Bastia 4 Olympique Lyonnais 1

Evian 2 LOSC Lille 1

Montpellier Herault 1 ESTAC Troyes 1, tie

Sochaux-Montbeliard 1 Valenciennes 1, tie

Stad de Reims 1 Stade Rennais 0

Nancy-Lorraine 1 OGC Nice 0

Toulouse 0 Girandis de Bordeaux 0, tie

PSG 2 Saint-Etienne 2, tie
http://www.ligue1.com

Happy New Year from Karagoz and Hacivat

For complicated reasons that we went into greater deal with on our other blog "The Daily Vampire," Turkey and France are not getting along well these days. For the entry on our sister blog, we sent New Year's greetings from the beloved French comic book character Asterix the Gaul. Here, we shall go with a much older entity in the Turkish shadow puppet figures of Karagoz and Hacivat, whom we believe may actually be in the public domain as Turkey has traditionally had more lax copyright laws than Europe and America.

Karagoz, the one with the beard, and Hacivat, the one with the mustache, are the lead characters in Turkish shadow puppet theatre. There is considerable dispute as to when the plays were first performed. According to Wikipedia, it was long believed that Karagoz and Hacivat first appeared during the reign of Sultan Selim (1512-1520), but there is historical evidence to suggest they go back even further in time than the 16th century.

Karagoz represents the semi-literate village dwellers while Hacivat symbolizes educated intellectuals. The plays remain very timely to this day because children can be entertained by them while adults can observe how these two characters represent the deep divides in Turkey, which exist to this very day. Conversely, Karagoz and Hacivat are the best of friends, yet they also can't stand each other.

Secondary characters in the plays, which usually run about ten minutes each, include the Drunkard, Zeybek and the old woman. The plays always conclude with Karagoz and Hacivat having a major argument. There is a similar Greek shadow puppet character named Karagiozis. In both Turkey and Greece, there has always been a concern that each passing generation will be less interested in traditional shadow puppet theatre than the previous one. And, tourists have been known to take a greater interest in shadow puppet theatre than the natives.

In Turkey, Karagoz and Hacivat have long been associated with Bursa, Turkey's fourth largest city and former Ottoman capital, before Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror came to the Bosporus shores of Constantinople/Istanbul in 1453.

Happy New Year to everyone, and we hope you keep reading this blog in 2012.


SIDEBAR: The answer to our Road Trip Quiz from last week was "C" and the answer to the Rabbit Ears Quiz question about "The Brady Bunch" was "A."

Happy New Year from Lucky Luke/Red Kit

Today, we are taking a brief hiatus from blogging about our family trip to Washington, DC, which had elements of both "National Lampoon's Vacation" and "Taxi Driver" to send holiday greetings via our favorite French cowboy Lucky Luke, whom I still refer to as Red Kit since that was his name in the Turkish translations of his adventures.

Surprisingly enough, even though Lucky Luke's stories all took place in the American west, and featured such real-life figures as Billy the Kid, who Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico did not pardon yesterday, the comic book was never popular in America. Though, Lucky Luke did develop a loyal following in Canada, Turkey, Italy, Germany, the former Yugoslavia and even Vietnam.

The first Lucky Luke comic books arrived in 1946, and his rivals were the Dalton Brothers, a Keystone Kopsesque bunch of numb-skulls who were based loosely on the real-life Dalton Gang.

The books were drawn by the Morris (1923-2001) and the stories were written by the late French icon Rene Goscinny, who also worked on the adventures of Asterix the Gaul.

Red Kit rode a white horse named Jolly Jumper and he was accompanied by a stupid dog Rantanplan, who was a satire of Rin Tin Tin. In fact, the dog was called Rin Tin Tin in the Turkish versions.

Lucky Luke was criticized for using cigarettes, and Morris defended the character using the tobacco product in the children books up until 1988 when he decided it was time for the French cowboy to go cold turkey.

New English-language versions made by Cinebooks can be found at considerably more retailers here in les etats unis than in years past. One of them is my personal favorite comic book shop Chapel Hill Comics in Chapel Hill, NC, where one can also see a Tom Waits octopus!

SIDEBAR: Kudos to the following New Years Day babies who were among the first born in their areas: Colton Jackson Rodenhauer of Richmond, Va., Sean-John Arruda of Fall River, Mass. and Jasmine Bessou of Winston-Salem, NC.