Oli, the international Belgian singer of Guadeloupe

Note: in case you missed the previous episode, I rebuilt my whole website, prettier, younger, faster. Newsletter subscribers got it in a… let's say minimalist layout. Promise, it will be prettier and richer from now on, starting with this one.

The website is now available almost entirely in French and English: the about page, the records, the shop, the contact page, and even a few of my songs which have long had, though few people know it, an English version ready to invade the "hit-parades" on the other side of "la Manche". Nobody knows because I haven't chosen yet who will sing them (Ed or Billie, my heart is torn).

But no need to wait for the cover: you can already discover the déjanté world of Eurydice or the insensées thoughts of Malade, and a few others (you'll recognise them, they have little flags on the Songs page).

But why, you may ask, do only a few songs have an English version (and only one a Creole version)? Because they are not translations, let alone automatic ones: it is real writing work, with rereadings, corrections and rewrites. Exciting, but it sometimes took longer than the original. A word-for-word translation would betray more than it explains, and some puns or figures of speech just don't travel (try explaining a "croque-guitare" to an Englishman). For the other songs, English speakers still get a short summary before the original lyrics.

Another category left out of globalisation: the old news posts, a good hundred of them from another time, which didn't seem worth translating. New ones will get their English version. Usually. Like this one. As for the old ones: pardon my French.

Also new: a "Full screen" button on every song. The lyrics fill the screen, sized to fit, on a black background. Handy for singing with me. Or instead of me.