A Void: a book without the letter "E"

‘E’ is the most commonly used letter in the alphabet. That’s why it’s so hard to believe that a whole novel exists without a single use of the letter ‘e’.

The book in question was originally written in French in 1969, by author Georges Perec. La Disparition (The Disappearance) is a 300-page lipogrammatic novel – a kind of book that consists of constrained writing or a word game.

There is absolutely no mention of ‘e’ throughout all 300 pages, except the author’s name of course. Even the most common word of the French language, ‘le’ (which means the), makes no appearance at all. La Disparition was later translated into English by Gilbert Adair, with the title A Void.

Georges says that he was careful not to let the word puzzle overpower the story. The book itself is an elaborate metafictional word puzzle, and a parody of noir and horror fiction. Georges employs several stylistic tricks, gags, plot twists, and finally, a grim conclusion.

The plot of ‘A Void’ follows a group of people looking for their missing companion, Anton Vowl. Vowl is a middle-aged scholar who shares the author’s liking for wordplay. Slowly, with the help of the clues left behind by Vowl, his friends figure out which symbol is missing, but aren’t comfortable discussing it. Anyone who risks talking about it could be fatally injured.

Georges keeps the book alive with antic humor. And there’s something for the reader as well – to find a solution to the logogriph, the world puzzle. The book is littered with hints such as the absence of chapter five. If you love solving puzzles and linguistic gymnastics, this is one book you cannot miss.

French Cafe Charges Extra for Rudeness

The French aren’t exactly world-famous for being polite, which is why I was quite surprised when I read about this. A French Café is actually charging customers extra for being rude to its staff, and offering discounts to those who are nice.

The Petite Syrah Café, located in the French Riviera city of Nice, has the new pricing scheme on display. If you walk in and simply ask for “A coffee,” you will be charged €7 ($9.5). For “A coffee please,” the price is much lower – €4.25 ($6). And if you decide to go the distance and say, “Hello, a coffee please,” that will make the folks at the Petite Syrah so happy they’ll only charge you €1.40 ($2).

The concept is so awesome – I think it’s a win-win. I’m sure the patrons love $2 coffees; they’d keep coming back for more and be polite each time. It’s great for business and makes a nice work environment, so the staff at the café must be happy too.

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Guy Spends a Year Tracking Down Woman He Met Last New year’s Eve after She Tells Him “Find Me”

25-year-old New Zealander, Reese McKee, started a social media campaign that fired the imagination of thousands of romantics on the internet. His plea for help in locating the whereabouts of his soul-mate went viral within hours. In fact, he had to delete the campaign because it all started to spiral out of control.

In his original campaign, Reese said that he met a girl on New Year’s Eve, 2012, in Hong Kong. He spotted her crying alone on the side of a road; she was lost and couldn’t find her friends. “I just cheered her up,” Reese said. “I sort of have this undeniably bad sense of humor that no one can resist laughing at.” The two spent the night partying, dancing and talking, before the girl caught up with her friends again. As they parted, she told Reese that her name was ‘Katie’ and she was from DC. She let him take a picture of her, and left with these final words: “Find Me.”

The next morning, as Reese looked at Katie’s photograph on his phone, a flood of great memories came back to him and he was determined to find her. Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember the e-mail address she’d given him, so he decided to turn to Facebook for help.

“The chances are billions to one, but I like those odds. This is me putting all my chips on the table because it’s go hard or go home and I am not going to give in.” These words, apparently, were enough to touch the hearts of thousands of netizens, who began to frantically search for ‘Katie from DC’. They tracked down the real Katie in no time at all, and bombarded her with tons of messages. It all got so out of hand that Katie had to delete her social profile.

To make matters worse, Reese’s worldwide manhunt received widespread media attention. Although he refused to make an appearance on T.V., his story has been covered extensively. He admits that he didn’t realize his campaign could attract so much attention, and says that things quickly spiraled out of control.

“We found the girl,” said Reese. “She is from DC, she’s not there at the moment, but she’s sorta taken down all her public profiles for a bit.” The general impression is that Katie isn’t too happy about being found. But MailOnline has a different story to tell. They tracked down 20-year-old Katie, to get a statement from her. According to their reports, she’s very much single and is actually “waiting for him to get in touch.”

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Lady Sif visits children's hospital

Jaimie Alexander plays Lady Sif in the Thor movies. She recently visited the Children's Hospital Los Angeles, but instead of going as Jaimie Alexander, she went as Lady Sif. Sword, armour, the works.

OK, so maybe it's not quite as cool as having Thor himself turn up, but it's still pretty damn cool. Especially since that sword looks kinda real.

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