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Straits Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Extra, extra: Read all about the last newspaper hawker in Paris
PARIS – Among the literary cafes and chic boutiques of the Saint-Germain-des-Pres quarter of Paris, an impish man with a wad of newspapers makes the rounds, his trademark cry of 'Ca y est!' or 'That's it!' echoing down narrow cobblestone streets. Mr Ali Akbar of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, is a man with a ready smile who has been hawking newspapers for a half-century. Sometimes, he spices his offerings with made-up stories. 'Ca y est! The war is over; Putin asks forgiveness,' was one recent pitch that caused grim hilarity. From Cafe de Flore to Brasserie Lipp – two famed establishments where food and culture are intertwined – Mr Akbar plies a dying trade in a dwindling commodity. He is considered to be the last newspaper hawker in France. The profession may have reached its zenith in Paris in 1960, when American actress Jean Seberg was immortalised on film with several newspapers under her arm crying 'New York Herald Tribune!', as she strolled on the Champs-Elysees, pursued by French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo. Nobody in French-Swiss director Jean-Luc Godard's classic movie Breathless (1960) is buying The Trib except Belmondo's character, who is unhappy that the paper has no horoscope, but unhappier still to discover that his charm makes little impression on the beauty and faux American innocence of Seberg's character, yet another foreigner smitten by Paris and angling to make a buck. Mr Akbar is one of them, too. 'Sah-yay!' is roughly how his cry to buy sounds. Through persistence and good humour, he has become 'part of the cultural fabric of Paris', said Mr David-Herve Boutin, an entrepreneur active in the arts. Such is Mr Akbar's renown that French President Emmanuel Macron recently awarded him a Legion d'Honneur, the Republic's highest order of merit. It will be conferred at a ceremony at the Elysee Palace in autumn. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Almost half of planned 30,000 flats in Tengah to be completed by end-2025: Chee Hong Tat Asia Death toll climbs as Thai-Cambodia clashes continue despite calls for ceasefire Multimedia Lights dimmed at South-east Asia's scam hub but 'pig butchering' continues Singapore Black belt in taekwondo, Grade 8 in piano: S'pore teen excels despite condition that limits movements Asia Where's Jho Low? Looking for 1MDB fugitive in Shanghai's luxury estate Asia Thousands rally in downtown Kuala Lumpur calling for the resignation of PM Anwar Life SG60 F&B icons: Honouring 14 heritage brands that have never lost their charm Business Can STI continue its defiant climb in second half of 2025? 'Perhaps it will help me get my French passport,' said Mr Akbar, who sometimes has a withering take on life, having seen much of its underside. He has a residence permit, but his application for French nationality is mired in Gallic bureaucracy. A stack of newspapers under the arm of Mr Akbar. PHOTO: DMITRY KOSTYUKOV/NYTIMES Mr Akbar moves at startling speed. A sinewy bundle of energy at 72, he clocks several kilometres a day, selling Le Monde, Les Echos and other daily newspapers from around noon until midnight. Dismissive of the digital, he has become a human networker of a district once dear to writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Ernest Hemingway, now overrun by brand-hungry tourists. 'How are you, dear Ali?' asks Ms Veronique Voss, a psychotherapist, as he enters Cafe Fleurus near the Jardin du Luxembourg. 'I worried about you yesterday because it was so hot.' Heat does not deter Mr Akbar, who has known worse. He thanks Ms Voss with a big smile and takes off his dark blue Le Monde cap. 'When you have nothing, you take whatever you can get,' he says. 'I had nothing.' At his next stop, an Italian cafe, Mr Jean-Philippe Bouyer, a stylist who has worked for French luxury brand Dior, greets Mr Akbar warmly. 'Ali is indispensable,' Mr Bouyer says. 'Something very positive and rare in our times emanates from him. He kept the soul of a child.' Born in 1953 into a family of 10 children, two of whom died young, Mr Akbar grew up in Rawalpindi amid rampant poverty and open sewers, eating leftovers, sleeping five to a room, leaving school when he was 12, working odd jobs and eventually teaching himself to read. Born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Mr Akbar left home in his late teens in search of a better life. PHOTO: DMITRY KOSTYUKOV/NYTIMES 'I did not want to wear clothes that reeked of misery,' he said. 'I always dreamed of giving my mother a house with a garden.' To advance, he had to leave. He procured a passport at 18. All he knew of Europe was the Eiffel Tower and Dutch tulips. A winding road took him by bus to Kabul, Afghanistan, where Western hippies, most of them high, abounded in 1970 – but that was not Mr Akbar's thing. He went on by road to Iran where, he said, 'the shah was an omnipresent God'. Eventually, he reached Athens, Greece, and wandered the streets looking for work. A businessperson took pity and, noting his eagerness, offered him a job on a ship. Mr Akbar cleaned the kitchen floor. He washed dishes. He was faced by aggressive mockery from bawdy shipmates for his refusal, as a Muslim, to drink. In Shanghai, he abandoned ship rather than face further taunting. The world is round, and around he went, back to Rawalpindi, and then on the westward road again to Europe. His mother deserved better – that conviction drove him through every humiliation. Visa issues in Greece and eventual expulsion landed him back in Pakistan a second time. His family thought he was mad, but, undaunted, he tried again. This time, he washed up in Rouen, France. It had taken only two years. After working there in a restaurant, he moved on to Paris in 1973. 'By the time I got to Paris, I had an overwhelming desire to anchor myself,' Mr Akbar said. 'Since I began circling the planet, I hadn't met many people who didn't disappoint me. 'But if you have no hope, you're dead.' He slept under bridges and in cellars. He encountered racism. He spent a couple of months in Burgundy harvesting cucumbers. Mr Akbar began hawking newspapers in Parisian streets in the early 1970s. PHOTO: DMITRY KOSTYUKOV/NYTIMES At last, in 1974, Mr Akbar found his calling when he ran into an Argentine student hawking newspapers. He inquired how he could do likewise and was soon in the streets of Paris with copies of satirical magazines Charlie Hebdo and Hara-Kiri, now defunct. He liked to walk, enjoyed contact with people and, even if margins were small, could eke out a living. Fast forward 51 years, and Mr Akbar is still at it. Because Saint-Germain is the home of intellectuals, actors and politicians, he has rubbed shoulders with the influential. From former presidents Francois Mitterrand and Bill Clinton to actress-singer Jane Birkin and author Bernard-Henri Levy, he has met them all. None of this has gone to his head. He remains a modest guy with a winning manner. His main newspaper is now Le Monde, which he acquires at a kiosk for about US$2 (S$2.50) a copy and sells for almost double that. He makes around US$70 on an average day and rarely takes a day off. Newspaper reading remains ingrained in France. Friends may buy two or three copies and slip him €10 (S$15) or invite him to lunch. He has no pension, but he gets by – and his mother got a Rawalpindi garden. Mr Akbar will receive a Legion d'Honneur, France's highest order of merit, at a ceremony at the Elysee Palace in autumn. PHOTO: DMITRY KOSTYUKOV/NYTIMES From an arranged marriage with a Pakistani woman in 1980, Akbar has five sons, one of them with autism and another with various physical ailments. A sixth child died at birth. Life has not been easy, one reason 'I have made it my business to make people laugh', he says. He is deeply grateful to France, which he calls a land of asylum, not least for the education it gave his children. But he believes that as a brown-skinned foreigner, he 'will never be completely accepted'. Some 50 years lat er, Mr Akbar remains on the move. Lose sight of him for a second and he is gone. But then comes the cry, 'Ca y est! Marine is marrying Jordan!', a reference to far-right leader Marine Le Pen and her young protege Jordan Bardella. His jokes are a sales pitch, but they also reflect a yearning for a happier, simpler world . NYTIMES
The Irish Sun
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
Andrea Corr, 51, has barely aged a day as shows off toned body in tiny bikini
ANDREA Corr has barely aged a day if these stunning bikini snaps are anything to go by. The Advertisement 4 Andrea Corr has barely aged a day since rising to fame in the 1990s Credit: BackGrid 4 The singer showed off her tone physique while on holiday in Barbados Credit: BackGrid 4 The Corrs were a hit band from Ireland who continue to tour the world to this day Credit: AP:Associated Press Andrea rose to fame in the band alongside her siblings, , and in the 1990s thanks to their violins and tin whistles . The Irish siblings were best known for songs like Breathless, So Young, and Runaway, and they won Best International Group at The Brits in 1999. The band singer looked like she'd barely aged a day in 30 years as she took a dip in the sea outside the Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados. Andrea wore her black locks in a pony tail but days earlier wore them long, down her shoulders while Advertisement the corrs Earlier this year, The Corrs singer said she "loved" the costume, gushing: "I had such a good time, everyone's been lovely, it's been really joyous. I wanted to do it for the children." , made up of Andrea on lead vocals, Sharon on violin, Caroline on drums and brother Jim on the guitar and piano, have continued to perform together over the years. Andrea was once married to barrister Gavin Bonnar, who she wed in 2001, and they split in 2019. Advertisement Most read in Showbiz Exclusive Since the split, Bonnar went to live with Telma Ortiz in Madrid, the sister of Spain's monarch, Queen Letizia. The 51-year-old opened up about their break up at the time, saying she had a breakdown on a flight. 90s pop legend unrecognisable 23 years after winning a BRIT Award She said: "I was going through a tumultuous experience. I was on a plane from Madrid to Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Something very personal and distressing had occurred the day before, which shocked me "I was reeling, absolutely reeling, from it." Advertisement Continuing, the Corrs singer shared: "I was crying on the plane and I didn't care that I was crying. If people were looking at me, that didn't matter." She said after the flight she was on became delayed by a few hours due to weather it allowed her time to think, and she channelled her emotions into writing. She added: "I felt the gigantic storm outside was in sync with what was going on in my life. 'It was almost therapy, because there was definitely a huge storm going on inside of me. These words of a song just started to fall out of me. While the plane took ages to take off, I wrote and wrote and wrote." Advertisement 4 Andrea now lives in Madrid, Spain Credit: Reuters
Scottish Sun
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Andrea Corr, 51, has barely aged a day as shows off toned body in tiny bikini
See the designer bikini the singer wore to go for a swim corr-tastic Andrea Corr, 51, has barely aged a day as shows off toned body in tiny bikini ANDREA Corr has barely aged a day if these stunning bikini snaps are anything to go by. The Irish singer, 51, is currently holidaying in the Caribbean, and showed off her toned physique in a designer Missoni bikini and blue baseball cap. 4 Andrea Corr has barely aged a day since rising to fame in the 1990s Credit: BackGrid 4 The singer showed off her tone physique while on holiday in Barbados Credit: BackGrid 4 The Corrs were a hit band from Ireland who continue to tour the world to this day Credit: AP:Associated Press Andrea rose to fame in the band alongside her siblings, Caroline, Sharon and Jim Corr in the 1990s thanks to their the catchy pop tunes complete with violins and tin whistles. The Irish siblings were best known for songs like Breathless, So Young, and Runaway, and they won Best International Group at The Brits in 1999. The band singer looked like she'd barely aged a day in 30 years as she took a dip in the sea outside the Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados. Andrea wore her black locks in a pony tail but days earlier wore them long, down her shoulders while going for another swim in a black bikini top, matched with pink, scalloped hemmed bottoms. Earlier this year, Andrea stunned Masked Singer judges after being unmasked as Snail on the show. The Corrs singer said she "loved" the costume, gushing: "I had such a good time, everyone's been lovely, it's been really joyous. I wanted to do it for the children." The 90s band, made up of Andrea on lead vocals, Sharon on violin, Caroline on drums and brother Jim on the guitar and piano, have continued to perform together over the years. Andrea was once married to barrister Gavin Bonnar, who she wed in 2001, and they split in 2019. Since the split, Bonnar went to live with Telma Ortiz in Madrid, the sister of Spain's monarch, Queen Letizia. The 51-year-old opened up about their break up at the time, saying she had a breakdown on a flight. 90s pop legend unrecognisable 23 years after winning a BRIT Award She said: "I was going through a tumultuous experience. I was on a plane from Madrid to Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Something very personal and distressing had occurred the day before, which shocked me "I was reeling, absolutely reeling, from it." Continuing, the Corrs singer shared: "I was crying on the plane and I didn't care that I was crying. If people were looking at me, that didn't matter." She said after the flight she was on became delayed by a few hours due to weather it allowed her time to think, and she channelled her emotions into writing. She added: "I felt the gigantic storm outside was in sync with what was going on in my life. 'It was almost therapy, because there was definitely a huge storm going on inside of me. These words of a song just started to fall out of me. While the plane took ages to take off, I wrote and wrote and wrote."
Sydney Morning Herald
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Why School of Rock director Richard Linklater is obsessed with new wave cinema
The year was 1960. Jean-Luc Godard was nearly 30; for at least 10 years, along with his fellow film critics and buffs clustered around the film magazine Cahiers du Cinema, he had been champing at the bit to make his own film. His comrade Francois Truffaut had managed to make The 400 Blows, which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. Godard was poised to make a film – black and white, barely any script, shot from the shoulder – that would be a slap in the face to stolid French film culture. And then, finally, it happened. He made Breathless. Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague recounts how Godard persuaded a producer to back him, then proceeded to spend a lot of time in cafes with actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg and his crew while improvising a film about a petty criminal's love affair with an American student. It manages to be energetic, nostalgic and inspiring all at the same time. Without a doubt, it was also the most fun anyone had at the last Cannes Film Festival, but not just because it was preaching to a receptive choir. It's a story about cinephiles, of course, but these swaggering flaneurs could be doing anything that involves wearing sunglasses indoors and smoking Gitanes. 'I am kind of obsessed with collective art,' says Linklater. 'It's about creativity and expressing yourself and doing something as a group. It's great when people come together and do something. Whatever it is. Get together and rob a bank!' Which, as he points out with a laugh, is absolutely the makings of a movie. 'And it's such an intriguing moment in history: the birth of the personal film, which is still kind of a radical notion.' He told his own cast – including Guillaume Marbeck as Godard, Zoey Deutch as Seberg and Aubry Dullin as Belmondo – to forget the film's iconic status: that came later. At the time of filming, Godard and his team were busy throwing out the rule book. 'It turns out to be the most influential film of its time, but the vibe of it isn't that,' says Linklater. 'It's an origin story. There was always room for the new, the revolution. I can relate. My own first film [ Slacker, 1990] felt that way – and it's important for the artist to feel that way.' The aspiring revolutionaries expected their film to be bad but, somehow, everything came together: the score, the look and feel of it, the spark and freshness of Belmondo and Seberg. Cinema was born in 1895. Breathless, Linklater points out, now marks its halfway point. The filmmakers identified with the New Wave were operating with tiny budgets. Cranes were out of the question; for aerial views, they made do with shooting from third-floor balconies. Dollies (for mounting cameras on wheels) were too expensive; Godard had to make a virtue of a hand-held camera's immediacy, while his famous jump cuts glamorised any awkward joins. Nouvelle Vague is shot in the same way. 'I'm using the syntax of the time,' says Linklater. 'No steadycam, no cranes, no dollies.' He also has a cast of actors who, like Belmondo and Seberg, seem to have walked from nowhere straight into their roles. Marbeck is still wearing Godard's sunglasses, suit and tie in Cannes; he says he had studied Godard's work in film school, but had to work on his Swiss accent, spending days lying on his couch 'like with a psychiatrist' recording and repeating the lines until he mastered each tricky consonant. Dullin says he auditioned when he saw a casting call on Facebook for Belmondo look-alikes. 'When I was young, two or three people told me oh, you look like Belmondo. So I said 'why not?'' Deutch, who swapped her long dark hair for a blonde pixie cut, looks uncannily like Seberg in the film. Loading The film was made in French with a French crew. Linklater is a fan of rehearsal; the script had every line in French and English and they would rehearse in both. 'It made it too easy for him!' snickers Marbeck. 'He didn't have to learn French!' Actually, nobody is sure how much French Linklater speaks; he says himself that he wouldn't want anyone to have to listen to him try. He was an early convert to the New Wave, around the time he realised he would rather make films than write novels. 'I started a film society just to see the movies. And the spring of '88 I showed 17 Godard films! We lost a lot of money but I was doing it for my own education. I thought I had something to learn.' In a way, this film provides further education for a new generation. 'It's not talking down to people who don't know about it,' says Deutch. 'It's saying 'hey, come on, join the party!' Because that's what Rick does. He brings people in. There's nothing pretentious about him, as a person or a filmmaker.' The French are famously chauvinist about their language and culture, but nobody involved seemed to mind a monolingual American telling their story – not this monolingual American, anyway. 'He is very French in a way, because he is very artistic,' says Marbeck. Dullin agrees: 'He is the least 'Texan' Texan guy! I think he loves France so much he understood it. It's not like a foreigner's view of France.' Marbeck had seen some of Linklater's films – Boyhood, School of Rock, Before Midnight – without realising they were by the same director; now he sees the sensibility they shared, both with each other and with the early New Wave. 'He has an approach where the action is more important than his style. It's more about a feeling – and it's the same feeling. So I understand why he would want to make a film about hanging out with French people.' Loading Despite being shot in shades of grey, Nouvelle Vague is a sunny film. Even Marbeck's version of Godard seems much more affable than the man we saw in later life. 'Part of that was me,' he says. 'And part of it is what Jean-Luc was at this time. Because he was hoping for cinema to save him, you know? Can you imagine, he's wanting to make his movie for 10 years. You want, you want, you want and now it's the time! Who wouldn't be happy? Even Godard, I think, would be happy.' Would he be happy with Nouvelle Vague? Probably not, but everyone else is.
The Age
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Why School of Rock director Richard Linklater is obsessed with new wave cinema
The year was 1960. Jean-Luc Godard was nearly 30; for at least 10 years, along with his fellow film critics and buffs clustered around the film magazine Cahiers du Cinema, he had been champing at the bit to make his own film. His comrade Francois Truffaut had managed to make The 400 Blows, which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. Godard was poised to make a film – black and white, barely any script, shot from the shoulder – that would be a slap in the face to stolid French film culture. And then, finally, it happened. He made Breathless. Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague recounts how Godard persuaded a producer to back him, then proceeded to spend a lot of time in cafes with actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg and his crew while improvising a film about a petty criminal's love affair with an American student. It manages to be energetic, nostalgic and inspiring all at the same time. Without a doubt, it was also the most fun anyone had at the last Cannes Film Festival, but not just because it was preaching to a receptive choir. It's a story about cinephiles, of course, but these swaggering flaneurs could be doing anything that involves wearing sunglasses indoors and smoking Gitanes. 'I am kind of obsessed with collective art,' says Linklater. 'It's about creativity and expressing yourself and doing something as a group. It's great when people come together and do something. Whatever it is. Get together and rob a bank!' Which, as he points out with a laugh, is absolutely the makings of a movie. 'And it's such an intriguing moment in history: the birth of the personal film, which is still kind of a radical notion.' He told his own cast – including Guillaume Marbeck as Godard, Zoey Deutch as Seberg and Aubry Dullin as Belmondo – to forget the film's iconic status: that came later. At the time of filming, Godard and his team were busy throwing out the rule book. 'It turns out to be the most influential film of its time, but the vibe of it isn't that,' says Linklater. 'It's an origin story. There was always room for the new, the revolution. I can relate. My own first film [ Slacker, 1990] felt that way – and it's important for the artist to feel that way.' The aspiring revolutionaries expected their film to be bad but, somehow, everything came together: the score, the look and feel of it, the spark and freshness of Belmondo and Seberg. Cinema was born in 1895. Breathless, Linklater points out, now marks its halfway point. The filmmakers identified with the New Wave were operating with tiny budgets. Cranes were out of the question; for aerial views, they made do with shooting from third-floor balconies. Dollies (for mounting cameras on wheels) were too expensive; Godard had to make a virtue of a hand-held camera's immediacy, while his famous jump cuts glamorised any awkward joins. Nouvelle Vague is shot in the same way. 'I'm using the syntax of the time,' says Linklater. 'No steadycam, no cranes, no dollies.' He also has a cast of actors who, like Belmondo and Seberg, seem to have walked from nowhere straight into their roles. Marbeck is still wearing Godard's sunglasses, suit and tie in Cannes; he says he had studied Godard's work in film school, but had to work on his Swiss accent, spending days lying on his couch 'like with a psychiatrist' recording and repeating the lines until he mastered each tricky consonant. Dullin says he auditioned when he saw a casting call on Facebook for Belmondo look-alikes. 'When I was young, two or three people told me oh, you look like Belmondo. So I said 'why not?'' Deutch, who swapped her long dark hair for a blonde pixie cut, looks uncannily like Seberg in the film. Loading The film was made in French with a French crew. Linklater is a fan of rehearsal; the script had every line in French and English and they would rehearse in both. 'It made it too easy for him!' snickers Marbeck. 'He didn't have to learn French!' Actually, nobody is sure how much French Linklater speaks; he says himself that he wouldn't want anyone to have to listen to him try. He was an early convert to the New Wave, around the time he realised he would rather make films than write novels. 'I started a film society just to see the movies. And the spring of '88 I showed 17 Godard films! We lost a lot of money but I was doing it for my own education. I thought I had something to learn.' In a way, this film provides further education for a new generation. 'It's not talking down to people who don't know about it,' says Deutch. 'It's saying 'hey, come on, join the party!' Because that's what Rick does. He brings people in. There's nothing pretentious about him, as a person or a filmmaker.' The French are famously chauvinist about their language and culture, but nobody involved seemed to mind a monolingual American telling their story – not this monolingual American, anyway. 'He is very French in a way, because he is very artistic,' says Marbeck. Dullin agrees: 'He is the least 'Texan' Texan guy! I think he loves France so much he understood it. It's not like a foreigner's view of France.' Marbeck had seen some of Linklater's films – Boyhood, School of Rock, Before Midnight – without realising they were by the same director; now he sees the sensibility they shared, both with each other and with the early New Wave. 'He has an approach where the action is more important than his style. It's more about a feeling – and it's the same feeling. So I understand why he would want to make a film about hanging out with French people.' Loading Despite being shot in shades of grey, Nouvelle Vague is a sunny film. Even Marbeck's version of Godard seems much more affable than the man we saw in later life. 'Part of that was me,' he says. 'And part of it is what Jean-Luc was at this time. Because he was hoping for cinema to save him, you know? Can you imagine, he's wanting to make his movie for 10 years. You want, you want, you want and now it's the time! Who wouldn't be happy? Even Godard, I think, would be happy.' Would he be happy with Nouvelle Vague? Probably not, but everyone else is.
