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While looking up Sophie BondGirl's page on IMDb in preparation for writing about Female Agents, I came across a film that she is currently filming, which is called lol. Yes, it's French and no, there isn't much more information on IMDb at the moment (I even hovered over the spoiler-keywords section, but only came up with "mother-daughter relationship" and "teenage girl," which is pretty damn obvious from the title).

I don't mind revealing these spoilers, firstly because they don't really spoil anything and secondly because this film will never be released. Why? Because the Académie française will never, ever allow it. They don't care so much about English but American and the language of the internet and technology - culture - the future - seriously rubs the AF up the wrong way because they still haven't got over the fact that French hasn't been the international language of diplomacy since about the 18th century.

Then again, it might take them some time to notice, given that they currently appear to be occupied with the massively important process of inserting cs into the word "cloakroom" throughout the country so that they don't have to admit they have borrowed yet another anglicisme. I mean, guys, seriously - cloackroom just looks stupid (or, stucpid, as the AF would probably have it). And don't even get me started on the reasons why French guys called Steve spell it Steeve (never mind that Etienne is the French equivalent of Stephen, anyway; that name is so '80s, I guess).

The AF shouldn't forget these offending postcards either, which I spotted outside Gibert Jeune in Paris. Then again, maybe TPTB decided that as only Americans will buy postcards, it is better to tailor the postcards to the desires of the tourists in order to prevent the latter trying to export any genuine French culture to their mid-west living room - would a mini reproduction of La Joconde really work on their mantelpiece? Oh, wait...

The French for LOL should, of course, be RTH (pronounced air-tay-ash) for rire tout haut, but of course none of the cool kids in France are going to be using that as they send "un texto" to their buddies. Not if they have any sense anyway.