MR.BEAN :))

Early life and education
Atkinson, the youngest of three sons, was born in Consett, County Durham, England.[4] His parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and his wife Ella May (née Bainbridge), who married on 29 June 1945.[4] He has two older brothers, Rodney, an Eurosceptic economist who narrowly lost the United Kingdom Independence Party leadership election in 2000, and Rupert.[5][6] Atkinson was brought up Anglican.[7] He was educated at Durham Choristers School, followed by St. Bees School, and studied electrical engineering at Newcastle University.[8] He continued for the degree of MSc at The Queen's College, Oxford, first achieving notice at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976.[8] While at Oxford, he also acted and performed early sketches for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), the Oxford Revue and the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC), meeting writer Richard Curtis[8] and composer Howard Goodall, with whom he would continue to collaborate during his career.
[edit] Radio
Atkinson starred in a series of comedy shows for BBC Radio 3 in 1978 called "Atkinson People". It consisted of a series of satirical interviews with fictional great men, who were played by Atkinson himself. The series was written by Atkinson and Richard Curtis, and produced by Griff Rhys Jones.[9]
[edit] Television
After university, Atkinson toured with Angus Deayton as his funny man in an act that was eventually filmed for a television show. After the success of the show, he did a one-off pilot for ITV in 1979 called Canned Laughter. Atkinson then went on to do Not the Nine O'Clock News, produced by his friend John Lloyd. He starred on the show along with Pamela Stephenson, Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith, and was one of the main sketch writers.
The success of Not the Nine O'Clock News led to his starring in the medieval sitcom The Black Adder, which he also co-wrote with Richard Curtis, in 1983. After a three-year gap, in part due to budgetary concerns, a second series was written, this time by Curtis and Ben Elton, and first screened in 1986. Blackadder II followed the fortunes of one of the descendants of Atkinson's original character, this time in the Elizabethan era. The same pattern was repeated in the two sequels Blackadder the Third (1987) (set in the Regency era), and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989) (set in World War I). The Blackadder series went on to become one of the most successful BBC situation comedies of all time, spawning television specials including Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988) and Blackadder: The Cavalier Years (1988).
Atkinson's other famous creation, the hapless Mr. Bean, first appeared on New Years Day in 1990 in a half-hour special for Thames Television. The character of Mr. Bean has been likened somewhat to a modern-day Buster Keaton.[10] During this time, Atkinson appeared at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal in 1987 and 1989. Several sequels to Mr. Bean appeared on television in the 1990s, and it eventually made into a major motion picture in 1997. Entitled Bean, it was directed by Mel Smith, his former co-star from Not the Nine O'Clock News. A second movie was released in 2007 entitled Mr. Bean's Holiday.
In 1995 and 1996, Atkinson portrayed Inspector Raymond Fowler in the popular The Thin Blue Line television series, written by Ben Elton, which takes place in a police station located in fictitious Gasforth.
Atkinson has fronted campaigns for Kronenbourg,Hitachi electrical goods,[citation needed] Fujifilm, and Give Blood. Most famously, he appeared as a hapless and error-prone espionage agent in a long-running series for Barclaycard, on which character his title role in Johnny English was based.
He also starred in a comedy spoof of Doctor Who as the Doctor, for a red nose day benefit. He had also been considered as a candidate for playing the Doctor in the actual show.
[edit] Film

Atkinson as Mr. Bean, in Brussels, next to the Manneken Pis.
Atkinson's film career began in 1983 with a supporting part in the 'unofficial' James Bond movie Never Say Never Again and a leading role in Dead on Time with Nigel Hawthorne. He appeared in former Not the Nine O'Clock News co-star Mel Smith's directorial debut The Tall Guy in 1989. He also appeared alongside Anjelica Huston and Mai Zetterling in Roald Dahl's The Witches in 1990. In 1993 he played the part of Dexter Hayman in Hot Shots! Part Deux, a parody of Rambo III, starring Charlie Sheen.
Atkinson gained further recognition with his turn as a verbally bumbling vicar in the 1994 hit Four Weddings and a Funeral. That same year he was featured in Walt Disney's The Lion King as Zazu the Red-billed Hornbill. Atkinson continued to appear in supporting roles in successful comedies, including Rat Race (2001), Scooby-Doo (2002), and Love Actually (2003).
In 2005, he acted in the crime/comedy Keeping Mum, which also starred Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith and Patrick Swayze.
In addition to his supporting roles, Atkinson has also had success as a leading man. His television character Mr. Bean debuted on the big screen in 1997 with Bean to international success. A sequel, Mr. Bean's Holiday, was released in March 2007 and may be the last time he plays the character.[11] He has also starred in the James Bond parody Johnny English in 2003. Its sequel, Johnny English Reborn will be released in 2011.
[edit] Theatre
Rowan Atkinson appeared in the 2009 revival of the West End musical Oliver! as Fagin.[12] The production was directed by Rupert Goold. A year prior he starred in a pre-West End run of the show in Oxford, directed by Jez Bond .
[edit] Comedic style
Best known for his use of physical comedy in his trademark character of Mr. Bean, others of Atkinson's characters rely more heavily on language. Atkinson often plays authority figures (especially priests or vicars) speaking absurd lines with a completely deadpan delivery.
One of his better-known trademark comic devices is over-articulation of the "B" sound, such as his pronunciation of "Bob" in a Blackadder episode. Atkinson suffers from stuttering, and the over-articulation is a technique to overcome problematic consonants.[citation needed]
Atkinson's style is often visually-based. This visual style, which has been compared to Buster Keaton,[10] sets Atkinson apart as most modern television and film comedies rely heavily on dialogue, and stand-up comedy is mostly based on monologues. This talent for visual comedy has led to Atkinson being called "the man with the rubber face": comedic reference was made to this in an episode of Blackadder the Third, in which Baldrick (Tony Robinson) refers to his master, Mr. E. Blackadder, as a "lazy, big nosed, rubber-faced bastard".
[edit] Personal life
[edit] Marriage and children
Atkinson first met Sunetra Sastry in the 1980s, who was working as a make-up artist with the BBC.[13] Sunetra was of mixed descent, being the daughter of an Indian father and a British mother.[14] The couple married at the Russian Tea Room in New York City in 1990. They have two children and live in Northamptonshire as well as Oxfordshire and London. In October 2010, his Blackadder co-star Stephen Fry confessed on The Rob Brydon Show that he had contemplated asking Sastry out (she was a make-up artist on the series), but discovered she was going on a date with Atkinson and kept quiet. Fry was best man at Atkinson's wedding in 1990.
[edit] Politics
In June 2005, Atkinson led a coalition of the UK's most prominent actors and writers, including Nicholas Hytner, Stephen Fry and Ian McEwan, to the British Parliament in an attempt to force a review of the controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Bill — on the grounds that the bill would give religious groups a "weapon of disproportionate power" whose threat would engender a culture of self-censorship among artists.[15]
In 2009, he criticised homophobic speech legislation, saying that the House of Lords must vote against a government attempt to remove a free speech clause in an anti-gay hate law.[16]
[edit] Cars
With an estimated wealth of £100 million, Atkinson is able to indulge his passion for cars that began with driving his mother's Morris Minor around the family farm. He has written for the British magazines Car, Octane, Evo, and "SuperClassics", a short-lived UK magazine, in which he reviewed the McLaren F1 in 1995.
Atkinson holds a category C+E (formerly 'Class 1') lorry driving licence, gained in 1981, because lorries held a fascination for him, and to ensure employment as a young actor. He has also used this skill when filming comedy material.[17]
A lover of and participant in car racing, he appeared as racing driver Henry Birkin in the television play Full Throttle in 1995. In 1991, he starred in the self-penned The Driven Man, a series of sketches featuring Atkinson driving around London trying to solve his car-fetish, and discussing it with taxi drivers, policemen, used-car salesmen and psychotherapists.[18]
Atkinson has raced in other cars, including a Renault 5 GT Turbo for two seasons for its one make series. He owns a McLaren F1, which was involved in an accident in Forton with an Austin Metro. He also owns a Honda NSX.[19] Other cars he owns include an Audi A8,[20] and a Honda Civic Hybrid.[21]
The Conservative Party politician Alan Clark, himself a devotee of classic motor cars, recorded in his published Diaries this chance meeting with a man he later realised was Atkinson while driving through Oxfordshire in May 1984: "Just after leaving the motorway at Thame I noticed a dark red DBS V8 Aston Martin on the slip road with the bonnet up, a man unhappily bending over it. I told Jane to pull in and walked back. A DV8 in trouble is always good for a gloat." Clark writes that he gave Atkinson a lift in his Rolls Royce to the nearest telephone box, but was disappointed in his bland reaction to being recognised, noting that: "he didn't sparkle, was rather disappointing and chétif."[22]
One car Atkinson will not own is a Porsche: "I have a problem with Porsches. They're wonderful cars, but I know I could never live with one. Somehow, the typical Porsche people—and I wish them no ill—are not, I feel, my kind of people. I don't go around saying that Porsches are a pile of dung, but I do know that psychologically I couldn't handle owning one

North Korea shells South in fiercest attack in decades

Reuters) - North Korea fired scores of artillery shells at a South Korean island on Tuesday, killing two soldiers, in one of the heaviest attacks on its neighbor since the Korean War ended in 1953.

The barrage -- the South fired back and sent a fighter jet to the area -- was close to a disputed maritime border on the west of the divided peninsula and the scene of deadly clashes in the past. South Korea was conducting military drills in the area at the time but said it had not been firing at the North.

The attack came as the reclusive North, and its ally China, presses regional powers to return to negotiations on its nuclear weapons program and revelations at the weekend Pyongyang is fast developing another source of material to make atomic bombs.

It also follows moves by leader Kim Jong-il to make his youngest, but unproven, son his heir apparent, leading some analysts to question whether the bombardment might in part have been an attempt to burnish the ruling family's image with the military.

"Houses and mountains are on fire and people are evacuating. You can't see very well because of plumes of smoke," a witness on the island told YTN Television before the shelling, which lasted about an hour, ended.

YTN said at least 200 North Korean shells hit Yeonpyeong, which lies off the west coast of the divided peninsula near a disputed maritime border. Most landed on a military base there.

Photographs from Yeongyeong island, just 120 km (75 miles) west of Seoul, showed columns of smoke rising from buildings. Two soldiers were killed in the attack, 17 wounded. Three civilians were also hurt.

News of the attack rattled global markets, already unsettled by Ireland's debt woes and a shift to less risky assets.

Experts say North Korea's Kim has for decades played a carefully calibrated game of provocation to squeeze concessions from the international community and impress his own military. The risk is that the leadership transition has upset this balance and that events spin out of control.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who has pursued a hard line with the North since taking office nearly three years ago, said a response had to be firm following the attack.

But he made no suggestion the South would retaliate further, suggesting Seoul was taking a measured response to prevent things getting out of hand.

The North has a huge array of artillery pointed at Seoul that could decimate an urban area home to around 25 million people and cause major damage to its trillion dollar economy.

The two Koreas are still technically at war -- the Korean War ended only with a truce -- and tension rose sharply early this year after Seoul accused the North of torpedoing one of its navy vessels, killing 46 sailors.

North Korea said its wealthy neighbor started the fight.

"Despite our repeated warnings, South Korea fired dozens of shells from 1 p.m. ... and we've taken strong military action immediately," its KCNA news agency said in a brief statement.

if u want to see a video that was taken at the moment click this linkhttp://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AM0YS20101123

TV5MONDE

TV5MONDE (French pronunciation: [te ve sɛ̃k mɔ̃d]; formerly known as TV5) is a global television network, broadcasting several channels ofFrench language programming. It is an approved participant member of the European Broadcasting Union

TV5 started in 1 January 1984 and was under the management of Serge Adda until November 2004; the new director, named on 6 April2005 is Jean-Jacques Aillagon, former French Minister for Culture and Communication. The present Director-General is Marie-Christine Saragosse.

In 2006 TV5 underwent a major overhaul including re-branding as "TV5MONDE" to stress its focus as a global network ("Monde" is French for "World"). Also part of the changes are a new schedule and new program line-up. Since 1993, "TV5 Monde" is part of the channel's corporate name. Its Canadian operations are branded "TV5 Québec Canada", however, though the shorter version TV5 is also used.

TV5MONDE is the second most available global television network available around the world ahead of CNN and after MTVMost of its content is taken from mainstream networks in the French-speaking world, notably France Télévisions from France, RTBF fromBelgium, TSR from Switzerland, and the Radio-Canada and TVA networks in Canada. In addition to international news, TV5MONDE broadcasts Ligue 1, films and music magazines.The number "5" in the name is the number of founding networks: TF1, Antenne 2, FR3, RTBF and TSR. Today, the partnership making up the TV5MONDE consortium are Arte (itself a consortium of Franco-German broadcasters), France Télévisions, Institut national de l'audiovisuel, Radio-Canada, Télé-Québec, RTBF and TSR. This consortium owns 51% of the service, while the other 49% is owned bySociété de l'audiovisuel extérieur de la France, a holding company that manages France's international broadcasting services.

German village in South Korea

GERMAN VILLAGE, South Korea - Here in one of the southernmost points of the Korean Peninsula, hours away from the nearest city, a few dozen houses with sloping, red-tiled roofs and large white walls dot the side of a hill. More are under construction, separated from one another by wide, sometimes cobblestone streets.

On closer inspection, as the setting sun enveloped the hill in a warm glow one recent evening, large and, well, German-looking men could be seen standing on a terrace or in a yard next to garden dwarfs and white picket fences. German could be heard, not only from the men, but also from the Koreans here.

German Village, South Korea, only three years old, is an improbable creation, the product of this nation's shifting needs. In the 1960's and 70's, South Korea, poor and overpopulated, sent thousands of its citizens to work as nurses or miners in West Germany. Today, they and their German spouses are being welcomed back, especially in rural areas whose populations have been decimated by urban migration and declining birthrates.

The authorities here, in Namhae County, took the invitation a step further by carving this village from a mountain facing the sea. They offered cheap land and construction subsidies to any Korean nurse or miner who had lived in Germany for at least 20 years, requiring that they build houses in one of five German architectural models. The village will eventually accommodate up to 75 houses.

So far, the village has drawn a small community of Koreans and some Germans, who may not have ever imagined whiling away their retirement days in a corner of South Korea that is visited by few Koreans, though it is famous for its garlic.

"When the opportunity arose, I said, 'Let's go!' right away," said Friedrich-Wilhelm Engel, 76, who built the village's third house with his wife, Woo Chun Ja.

Mr. Engel, a retired air traffic controller, was watching German satellite television on a recent afternoon, waiting for his wife to return from running errands.

"I'm not lonesome here," he said by way of introduction. "In the afternoon, it's very cool here. I do not need to make money anymore. I'm finished. I'm a pensioner. I just work in the garden."

"I came here two and a half years ago from Frankfurt," he added. "My wife was a nurse in Germany for 33 years."

The presence of German speakers, as well as the uncanny re-creation of German village life, drew some 42 Korean German-language students here for a summer program.

"It's about 90 percent German," said one of the German teachers, Kai Schroeder, 41, an assistant professor at Kyeongsang National University. "It's better, or more like a German village, than a German village, because the houses are new and big. It's an idealized expression of German living."

Through the late 1970's, some 8,600 South Korean men went to work as miners in West Germany, joined by 10,400 nurses. Many Koreans married other Koreans; some nurses found German husbands.

Some returned to South Korea after a few years, while others settled in Germany. For the few here, the German Village represents a midpoint between the worlds.

"It's like coming back home," said Kim Woo Ja, 65, who went to West Germany to work as a nurse at 30. "I had always felt the need to come back."

Mrs. Kim spoke in her living room, surrounded by furniture she had brought from Germany. Her husband, Ludwig Straus, 78, was soaking his right foot in a bucket in preparation for a pedicure, while leafing through a history of his hometown, Mainz.

Over the years, she had regularly sent money to her relatives in South Korea. "Everybody did," she said. "Korean nurses, in the 1960's and 1970's, contributed to the development of the Korean economy. That's why we have the Korea we have now."

Others shared more ambivalent feelings.

Bai Jung Il, 65, who went to Germany as a miner four decades ago, sat on the second floor of his half-completed house, cutting a lonely figure as he ate lunch by himself. He intended to keep living in Germany where his wife, a former nurse, and children remain.

"I left when I was 26; I'm now 65," Mr. Bai said. "I'm more accustomed to the customs in Germany and the people there. When I come here, I feel I've come to a foreign country."

Still, he felt the need to visit South Korea sometimes - he could not explain why exactly - and had decided to build this house. Like some immigrants, Mr. Bai was convinced that the standards of his adopted land were superior, in every way, to the country he had left.

So Mr. Bai, who had eventually worked as a home builder in Germany, was overseeing every detail of his house's construction. He did not trust Korean builders, he said, and was also refusing to follow one of the five prescribed designs.

"I'm bringing all the raw material from Germany," he said. "The other houses here are German on the outside but on the inside they're Korean. Only my house will be German on the inside and outside."

Not everybody thinks the village project, at $7.5 million, has been a success so far. Ha Young Je, the head of Namhae County whose predecessor conceived of German Village, said some of the house builders still lived in Germany and rented out their homes. Others, he said, have not become permanent residents here.

"We give them privileges," Mr. Ha said. "But they go to Germany every nine months to renew their residency there. This becomes a holiday home for them."

Still, Namhae County - where the population is fast decreasing and aging - is planning to build an American village for Korean-American retirees. This time, Mr. Ha said, the county will require the new residents to give up their American citizenship, so that they will live here full time.

Others question the wisdom of building a future on a niche group of retirees.

"The people here are already old," Mr. Straus said. "Their children won't come here from Germany. So Koreans will eventually start moving in here. In 10 or 20 years, this German Village will become a Korean Village."

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaull

>>i watched the news on a French channel today and saw this!!

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaull(French pronunciation: [ʃaʁl də ɡol](listen), English: /ˈtʃɑrlz/ or /ˈʃɑrl dəˈɡɔːl/; 22 November 1890 - 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forcesduring World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969. ^[1]

A veteran of World War I, in the 1920s and 1930s de Gaulle came to the fore as a proponent of armoured warfare and advocate of military aviation, which he considered a means to break the stalemate of trench warfare. DuringWorld War II, he reached the temporary rank of Brigadier General, leading one of the few successful armoured counter-attacks during the 1940 Fall of France, and then briefly served in the French government as France was falling.

He escaped to Britain and gave a famous radio address, broadcast by theBBC on 18 June 1940, exhorting the French people to resist Nazi Germany^[2] and organised the Free French Forces with exiled French officers inBritain. ^[3]

He gradually obtained control of all French colonies—most of which had at first been controlled by the pro-German Vichy regime—and by the time of the liberation of France in 1944 he was heading a government in exile, insisting that France be treated as an independent great power by the other Allies. De Gaulle became prime minister in the French Provisional Government, resigning in 1946 due to political conflicts. ^[4] After the war he founded his own political party, the RPF. Although he retired from politics in the early 1950s after the RPF's failure to win power, he was voted back to power as prime minister by the French Assembly during the May 1958 crisis. De Gaulle led the writing of a new constitution founding the Fifth Republic, ^[5] and was elected President of France, an office which now held much greater power than in the Third and Fourth Republics. ^[6]

As President, Charles de Gaulle ended the political chaos that preceded his return to power. A new French currency was issued in January 1960 to control inflation and industrial growth was promoted. Although he initially supported French rule over Algeria, he controversially decided to grant independence to that country, ending an expensive and unpopular war but leaving France divided and having to face down opposition from the white settlers and French military who had originally supported his return to power.

De Gaulle oversaw the development of French atomic weapons and promoted a foreign policy of national sovereignty from U.S. and British influence. He withdrew France from NATO military command—although remaining a member of the western alliance—and twice vetoed Britain's entry into the European Community. He travelled widely in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world and recognised Communist China. On a visit to Canada he gave encouragement to Quebec Separatism.

During his term, de Gaulle also faced controversy and political opposition from Communists and Socialists. Despite having been re-elected as President, this time by direct popular ballot, in 1965, in May 1968 he appeared likely to lose power amidst widespread protests by students and workers, but survived the crisis with an increased majority in the Assembly. However, de Gaulle resigned after losing a referendum in 1969. He is considered by many to be the most influential leader in modern French history.

The Grammy Awards

The Grammy Awards (originally called the Gramophone Awards)—orGrammys—are presented annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States for outstanding achievements in the music industry. The awards ceremony features performances by prominent artists, and some of the awards of more popular interest are presented in a widely viewed televised ceremony. It is the music equivalent to the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for stage, and the Academy Awards for film.

The awards were established in 1958. Prior to the first live Grammys telecast in 1971 on American Broadcasting Company (ABC), a series of taped annual specials in the 1960s called The Best on Record were broadcast on National Broadcasting Company (NBC). The first Grammy Award telecast took place on the night of November 29, 1959, as an episode of the NBC anthology series Sunday Showcase, which was normally devoted to plays, original TV dramas, and variety shows. Until 1971, awards ceremonies were held in both New York and Los Angeles, with winners accepting at one of the two. Pierre Cossette bought the rights to broadcast the ceremony from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and organized the first live telecast.^[1] CBS Broadcasting bought the rights in 1973 after moving the ceremony to Nashville, Tennessee; the American Music Awards were created for ABC as a result.

The 53rd Grammy Awards will take place on 13 February 2011 at the Staples Centerin Los Angeles. It will be broadcast on CBS.

A FRENCH WEDDING TRADITION

Before the WeddingBrides would take long, fragrant baths on the morning of their weddings. These baths were supposed to purify them for the wedding, and wash away all thoughts of previous lives or loves. The groom in France is very involved in the wedding. After all, French men idolize their women. The man wants to make sure everything is perfect when he joins with her in front of all of his friends and family. On the morning of the wedding, there is none of this "hiding of the bride". The groom shows up at the home of the bride to spend the final house with his new family. He escorts his fiance to the church, while local children bar the way with white ribbons. The bride cuts her way through them, showing her willing intention to go with him. At the church, the groom escorts his own mother down the isle before the bride, again showing his love for both women in his life. The CeremonyFrench are very religious, and are of many religions. Each religion follows its own traditions for the actual ceremony, although all involve many flowers. All also ended with a kiss! Ending the CeremonyLaurels were a symbol of success and victory. The newly married couple would often walk down an aisle of laurels when they had completed their final kiss. The church bells would ring loudly to herald to the world the new couple's entrance. Often seed or bread was thrown over the couple to symbolize wealth and fertility.

A FRENCH BRIDE

The Dress of a French BrideThe French have used long white dresses for hundreds of years. They are very fond of lace but also of emphasizing the beauty and charm of the individual woman wearing the dress. To the French, any woman - young or old, dark or light, freckled or fair, can be truly beautiful on her wedding day. The very complex white dresses can trace to the wife of Napoleon III, the Empress Eugenie. Louix XII married Anne of Brittany in 1499, where she wore a full white dress. The white represents her purity and clean state as she comes to the wedding. The Flowers of FranceThe traditional flowers in a French wedding would be orange blossoms. This comes from a traditional story of a gardener's flower who managed to get some orange blossoms for the French Ambassador to Spain. He was so pleased that he gave her a big dowry, and she was able to marry her true love. She wore orange blossoms to her wedding to show her thanks for a dream come true. Flowers were often used to freshen a sometimes damp and dusty church. The fragrance would also help to drive away evil spirits. Diamonds and FranceKing Charles VII of France gave diamonds to his fiance as a sign of his love. Diamonds have always been a symbol of wealth and eternity, but here they took on a romantic aspect as well - that he was willing to give something everlasting and important to his true love, to show he meant to be with her forever.

FRENCH CUISINE

French cuisine is a style of cooking originating from France, that has developed from centuries of social and political change. In the Middle Ages Guillaume Tirel (the Taillevent), a court chef, authored Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of Medieval France. In the 17th century, La Varenne and the notable chef of Napoleon and other dignitaries, Marie-Antoine Carême, moved toward fewer spices and more liberal usage of herbs and creamy ingredients, signaling the beginning of modern cuisine. Cheese and wine are a major part of the cuisine, playing different roles regionally and nationally with many variations and appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) (regulated appellation) laws.
French cuisine was codified in the 20th century by Georges Auguste Escoffier to become the modern version of haute cuisine, however Escoffier left out much of the regional culinary character to be found in the regions of France. Gastro-tourism and the Guide Michelin helped to acquaint people with the rich bourgeois and peasant cuisine of the French countryside starting in the 20th century. Gascon cuisine has also had great influence over the cuisine in the southwest of France. Many dishes that were once regional have proliferated in variations across the country. is a style of cooking originating from France, that has developed from centuries of social and political change. In the Middle Ages Guillaume Tirel (the Taillevent), a court chef, authored Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of Medieval France. In the 17th century, La Varenne and the notable chef of Napoleon and other dignitaries, Marie-Antoine Carême, moved toward fewer spices and more liberal usage of herbs and creamy ingredients, signaling the beginning of modern cuisine. Cheese and wine are a major part of the cuisine, playing different roles regionally and nationally with many variations and appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) (regulated appellation) laws.
French cuisine was codified in the 20th century by Georges Auguste Escoffier to become the modern version of haute cuisine, however Escoffier left out much of the regional culinary character to be found in the regions of France. Gastro-tourism and the Guide Michelin helped to acquaint people with the rich bourgeois and peasant cuisine of the French countryside starting in the 20th century. Gascon cuisine has also had great influence over the cuisine in the southwest of France. Many dishes that were once regional have proliferated in variations across the country.

HIP HOP EN FRANCE

The protest at the heart of French hip-hop can be traced directly to the economic boom following World War II. France required manpower to sustain its newly booming industries and the governmental solution was the mass immigration of peoples from regions of past French colonial occupation to fill the gaps caused by shortage in personnel. As early as 1945, l'Office national d'immigration (ONI) was formed to supervise the immigration of new workers. Newly arrived Africans were not given the same employment opportunities as their Caribbean counterparts because they were not citizens and often Africans ended up working as civil servants and menial employees living in dilapidated housing projects. Much of the resistance to social and economic imbalances in French hip-hop relate to this historically unequal situation. This is proved by lyrics of Aktivist's song, "Ils ont," The extract when translated states "Aktivist denounces intolerance to all immigrant fathers/Exploited in France since the 50s-60s/...their bodies are falling apart/And their children are still being judged according to their origins." [2]
[edit] Beginning of French hip hop
Hip hop first appeared in France in 1979, just as the genre was achieving some success in the United States. In the beginning it was the American rap artists who dominated the hip hop scene in France. Even today French hip hop is still heavily influenced by the rap scene in the United States, particularly the gangsta rap scene.[3] Its popularity was due to the presence of a large African community in France. Beyond a simple glance at songs and music, a full understanding of French rap requires a consideration of the political and social status of minorities in France. Indeed the development of rap in this country is directly linked to the postcolonial relationships established with former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean. By 1982, a number of hip hop radio stations had appeared, including Rapper Dapper Snapper and BA Crew, and the future star DJ Dee Nasty made his first appearance. That same year saw the first major hip hop concert, the New York City Rap Tour, sponsored by Europe 1 and featuring Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmixer DST, Fab 5 Freddy, Mr Freeze and the Rock Steady Crew.
The first major star of French hip hop was MC Solaar, born Claude M'Barali in Dakar, Senegal. He moved to France in 1970 and lived in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. His 1991 Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo, was a major hit. The European Music Office's report on Music in Europe claimed that the French language was well-suited for rapping, and that MC Solaar's popularity came about "probably because of his very open and positive attitude, his strong literary talents and humour".[citation needed] He set many records, including being the first French hip hop recording to go platinum. Most artists claim that the French language hip hop style was influenced by Renaud Séchan[citation needed] songs.
Following MC Solaar's breakthrough, two broad styles emerged within the French hip hop scene; artists such as Solaar, Dee Nasty, and Doc Gyneco championed a more mellow, sanguine style, while more hardcore performers such as Assassin and Suprême NTM assumed a more aggressive aesthetic. Many such artists found themselves at the heart of controversies over lyrics that were seen as glorifying the murder of police officers and other crimes, similar to outcries over violent thuggish lyrics in American gangsta rap. The cases include the notorious Ministère AMER's "Sacrifice de poulet", NTM's "Police" and later Lunatic's "Le crime paie".
[edit] Influence of American hip-hop
French hip-hop, like hip-hop in other countries, is highly influenced by American hip-hop. Columnist David Brooks writes that "ghetto life, at least as portrayed in rap videos, now defines for the young, poor and disaffected what it means to be oppressed. Gangsta resistance is the most compelling model for how to rebel against that oppression."[4] He argues that the gangster image of American hip hop appeals to poor Muslim youth in France, as a means to oppose the racism and oppression they experience. Jody Rosen counters Brooks' argument, criticizing Brooks makes use of only a few, old samples of potential French gangsta rap that contain violent or misogynistic lyrics. Brooks fails to accurately assess French hip hop's larger scope, and discounts its potential for "rappers of amazing skill, style, and wit.[5]"
France is the world's second-largest hip-hop market and the fifth largest global music market, with 7 percent of the world's music sales, but with an unusually high quantity of local product (Negus: 159-60), although the domestic share of the French music market dropped from 48 percent to 44 percent in 1998 (Boehm 1999). Francophone rap was given a boost in the early 2000s by a decision of the French ministry of culture, which insisted that French-language stations play a minimum of 40 percent French-language music during their emissions.[6]
This makes up one quarter of the radio's top 100, ten percent of local music production and has sold hundreds of thousands of CDs.[7] French hip hop, however, is often criticized for imitating American hip hop style. French Rapper MC Solaar agrees sarcastically, saying, "French rap is pretty much a U.S. branch office... we copy everything, don't we? We don't even take a step back." [8]
[edit] The 90s and 00s
Through the nineties, the music grew to become one of the most popular genres in France; in 1997, IAM's release "L'école du Micro d'Argent" sold more than 1 million discs, with NTM moving more than 700,000 copies of their final album "Supreme NTM". The group went their separate ways in 2000.
In the 2000s, similar to developments in the USA, a gap has begun to emerge in French hip hop between artists seen as having sold out, belonging to the mainstream, and more innovative independent artists. La Rumeur, and Sheryo, some hardcore rappers are known for their rejection of mainstream French rap, while Casey, Rocé, Médine and Youssoupha represent a mix of hardcore or purist rap and mainstream designs.
Music was one way that rappers were able to bring their African heritage into their country. French tracks are often enhanced by recordings of African musical instruments, such as the kora, the balafon, and the ngoni. French rappers incorporate many different drums from African cultures into their hip hop, again installing their African heritage.[9]