Never on Sunday

You’d think at least France’s president could have a quiet swim in the lake surrounded by family and friends - without the paperazzi - but here’s what I don’t understand: As early as August 3rd, AFP photographer Don Emmert’s of the president boating at Lake Winnipesaukee had already hit the press (IHT’s story), so by the time the Sunday photogs showed up to take yet again MORE pictures of Sarkozy on the lake - maybe he was simply FED UP.

This is a good English expression which I always quickly teach French friends trying to learn English:
“I’m fed up.” That translates into French as:
“J’en ai assez.”
or in the less polite version,
“J’en ai ras bol.” which literally translates as to “up to the top of the bowl, and in this case, we’re often talking about up to the top of the toilet bowl”
(See More French slang)

Today’s Le Parisien, Thomas Cantaloube’s story, “I’ve got nothing to hide,” has Nicolas Sarkozy photographed in a shirt, not swimming trunks, trying to answer journalists questions about the cost of his vacation - basically the gist is “Hey, I invite friends to visit me in France. If they invite me to visit them in the US at a lake house that they’ve decided to rent for twentysome thousand Euros for the week, what’s the big deal? Probably, his friends got a pretty good price. Renting lake houses in the US may not have been the cheapest choice, but spending some time in the US might have been a good choice just to have a little more insight into the American ’summer vacation frame of mind’. He goes on to say, I’m just one of 900,000 French visitors to the US.
Sarkozy likes being in New Hampshire. He found almost everything he was looking for - forests, lakes, getting close to nature - the only thing he didn’t find? Tranquility. (Try upstate New York, next time!)

Looks like all those deliciously long five week vacations might be the case for employees who have a 35-hour work week. Guess that doesn’t include presidents.