McDonald’s in France, part 2
Denis Hennequin, a forty-nine-year-old Parisian, joined McDonald's in 1984, straight out of law school. At the time, McDonald's was relaunching itself in France; an effort in the 1970s to establish a presence there had failed because of the company's dissatisfaction with its French franchisee. After stints as an assistant store manager, a training and recruiting consultant, and the Paris regional director, Hennequin was named president and managing director of McDonald's France in 1996. http://www.slate.com/id/2221246/pagenum/2
The coffee shop on rue Linois on the Left Bank is one of 200 "McCafés" McDonald's is opening in Europe this year. By yearend, McDonald's (MCD) hopes to have some 1,100 of the cafés across Europe. The cafés are located inside existing restaurants but with a separate counter. Next year, the company plans 200 more, with an eye toward becoming "the No. 1 coffee seller in Europe," says Jerome Tafani, the company's chief financial officer for the region. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_40/b4149070703260.htm?campaign_id=rss_null

Franchise Chat Read current franchise news arranged by country.
http://www.franchise-chat.com/

A Toledo attorney has a dish named after him in a restaurant. Pete Silverman's Salad Combo—a mix of pasta and Greek salads and fattoush that he suggested years ago is on the menu at Manos Greek Restaurant at 17th and Adams. http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091011/ART16/910109979

Speed bumps that automatically disappear if a driver is travelling at a safe speed were tested in the UK in 2001. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1178-smart-speed-bumps-reward-safe-drivers.html In 2009, one Mexican state government embraces a "smart" speed bump that could make driving smoother, without sacrificing safety.
The device, being developed by Mexico-based Decano Industries, automatically lowers into the ground when drivers go the speed limit or slower. Drive too fast, and the bump stays up. The technology is relatively basic: The speed bump is formed by two steel plates that form a triangle sticking out of the pavement. When a car tire touches the plate, a patented device under the triangle measures the force of the impact. If the tire's impact is gentle enough.—that is, if the vehicle is traveling slowly—both plates immediately collapse into the ground under the weight of the car. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-10-05-speedbumps_N.htm

NBC has been sued by the Font Bureau Inc., a typographic design firm, which alleges that the network infringed the firm's fonts in marketing material used to promote such NBC shows as Saturday Night Live, The Jay Leno Show, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The Boston-based Font Bureau is asking for "no less than $2 million" in damages, according to Cityfile, which broke news of the suit here. And here's a link to the suit, which was filed in Brooklyn earlier this week.
WSJ Law Blog October 9, 2009

West Virginia drivers lead the U.S. in collisions with deer for the third straight year as a larger population of the animals meets increasing traffic in once-rural areas, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. said. One in every 39 drivers in West Virginia is likely to hit a deer in the next 12 months, State Farm said. The probability was 1 in 45 in last year’s study . Michigan ranked second, with odds of 1 in 78, according to State Farm claims data and motor vehicle registration counts from the Federal Highway Administration. http://www.bloomberg.com.au/apps/news?pid=20601203&sid=aU8_kkFhvznk

At 9½ ft. wide, 75½ Bedford St is the narrowest house in the New York City. On the inside, it measures 8 ft. 7 in. wide; at its narrowest, it’s 2 ft. wide. From the facade to the rear garden the house is a cozy 30 ft. deep. This picturesque three-story red-brick structure owns a history a lot wider than its walls, though. It was built in 1873 during a small pox epidemic, for Horatio Homez, trustee of the Hettie Hendricks-Gomez Estate, on what was a former carriage entranceway, with stables to the rear, between 75 and 77 Bedford Street. However, the assessed value of the plot of land did not change, suggesting that it’s possible the house had built prior to that, but never recorded.
According to the plaque on the front of the building, Millay lived there from 1923-1924 and wrote “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver,” for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. Elizabeth Barnett, literary executor of the Millay Society contests this, saying she wrote the poem while still living in Europe. Writer Ann McGovern (who lived herein the late 1980s) asserted in a newspaper interview that Millay wrote part of “The King’s Henchmen” there. In the 1930s, the cartoonist William Steig, his wife and her sister, anthropologist Margaret Mead, lived in the house. Actors John Barrymore and Cary Grant also had a brief run in the building. http://wikimapia.org/8279070/75-1-2-Bedford-St-Greenwich-Village-9-1-2-ft-wide-house-Former-Home-of-John-Barrymore-and-Cary-Grant Note: This house is now for sale.

Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is located in the centre of the country, historically part of the Inner Carniola[2], and is a mid-sized city of some 280,000 inhabitants. Ljubljana is regarded as the cultural, scientific, economic, political and administrative centre of Slovenia, independent since 1991. Throughout its history, it has been influenced by its geographic position at the crossroads of Germanic, Latin and Slavic culture. Ljubljana has numerous art galleries and museums. In 2004, there were 15 museums, 41 art galleries, 11 theatres and four professional orchestras.[20] There is for example an architecture museum, a railway museum, a sports museum, a museum of modern art, a brewery museum, the Slovenian Museum of Natural History and the Slovene Ethnographic Museum.[48] The Ljubljana Zoo covers 19.6 hectares (48 acres) and has 152 animal species. An antique flea market takes place every Sunday in the old city.[48] In 2006, the museums received 264,470 visitors, the galleries 403,890 and the theatres 396,440.[20] Each year over 10,000 cultural events take place in the city; among these are ten international festivals of theatre, music and art generally.[13] Numerous music festivals are held there, chiefly in European classical music and jazz, for instance the Ljubljana Summer Festival (Ljubljanski poletni festival). In the centre of the various Slovenian wine regions, Ljubljana is known for being a "city of wine and vine". Grapevines were already being planted on the slopes leading up to the Castle Hill by the Roman inhabitants of Emona. [13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ljubljana

On October 10, 1881 Charles Darwin (books by this author) published what he considered to be his most important book: The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms. At the time, most people thought of earthworms as pests, but Darwin demonstrated that they were beneficial, important for soil fertility and consequently for agriculture. He wrote, "Although the conclusion may appear at first startling, it will be difficult to deny the probability, that every particle of earth forming the bed from which the turf in old pasture land springs, has passed through the intestines of worms."
It was on October 12 that the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus reached the New World. On this day in 1492, one of the sailors on the Pinta sighted land, an island in the Bahamas, after 10 weeks of sailing from Palos, Spain, with the Santa María, the Pinta, and the Niña. Columbus thought he had reached East Asia. When he sighted Cuba, he thought it was China, and when the expedition landed on Hispaniola, he thought it might be Japan. He called his plan the "Enterprise of the Indies." He pitched it first to King John II of Portugal, who rejected it, and then to the Spanish King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. They also turned him down, twice, before they conquered the Moorish kingdom of Granada in January 1492 and had some treasure to spare. Columbus led a total of four expeditions to the New World during his lifetime, and over the next century his discovery made Spain the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth.
October 12 is the birthday of Paul Engle, (books by this author) born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1908) into a farming family. A poet, novelist, and editor, his books include Worn Earth (1932), American Child: Sonnets for My Daughter (1956), Poems in Praise (1959), and Embrace: Selected Love Poems (1969). But he's best known for his work with the Iowa Writers' Workshop. For a quarter of a century he directed the M.F.A. program—the first of its kind—transforming it from an obscure experiment into a prestigious graduate level creative writing degree program. The Poetry Foundation notes: "Engle had the distinction of having trained more poets than perhaps any other man in history. In one anthology published in 1957, one-third of the American poets were former Engle students." Graduates of the Iowa Writers' Workshop have won over a dozen Pulitzer Prizes. The Writer’s Almanac