Accent

A triple dip of Julie Delpy - that's the multiple main attraction of 2 Days in Paris. The appealingly unpredictable French actress with the disarming smile and bright, ambiguous eyes merely starred in and co-wrote the sweepingly romantic Before Sunset. She is the director and sole writer, as well as the female lead, of 2 Days in Paris. (She also edited it and composed the music.) And in all departments, she gives a spiked ice-cream-soda fizz to this tale of a blond photographer named Marion (Delpy)

Doctor-patient communications have been the subject of jokes for years. But if a physician's accent is so strong that patients or colleagues can't understand his instructions, it's hardly a laughing matter. Lynda Katz Wilner, an Owings Mills speech pathologist, first observed this 25 years ago, when a foreign-born neurologist in a Philadelphia hospital was delivering a grand rounds lecture, ostensibly to demonstrate a patient's inability to comprehend directions after a stroke. There was only one problem: the audience couldn't understand the doctor's instructions either.

Typically the smallest room in the house, the bathroom is also the space most likely to be daylight-deprived. That's not particularly surprising, given the need for privacy and the limited opportunities for windows. Despite those constraints, though, it is possible to brighten a bath's prospects. The best time to do it is at the planning stage, when you're designing a bath from scratch for a new home or an addition or when you're remodeling an older bath. One thing to keep in mind is that locating a bath on the south side of a house maximizes its exposure to daylight all day long.

The last whiff of Yuri Temirkanov's Christian Dior aftershave had barely faded in the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall when the Russian conductor's successor as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop, arrived this week to get the official last word of the 2005-2006 season. Technically, Alsop doesn't assume full duties until September 2007, but in practical terms, she's at the artistic helm now. And, in case you missed the point somehow, she's going to be very different from Temirkanov.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller was the governor's chief ally on slot machines for the past three years, ramming Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s gambling legislation through his chamber and struggling mightily to broker a compromise with the House of Delegates. But yesterday, Miller quietly pulled the plug on what has long been the governor's top legislative priority, canceling a slots hearing in the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee. Barring changes, this will be the fourth consecutive year the legislature has failed to pass a bill.

TURIN, Italy -- Johnny Weir, raised next to cornfields in rural Pennsylvania, decided to become a figure skater after seeing Oksana Baiul perform in 1993. It was some years later when he decided to become Russian. Not literally. He now lives in Newark, Del., and is a three-time U.S. men's figure skating champion. But he is fascinated by all things Russian. He has studied Russian history. He is teaching himself to speak Russian. He wears a warmup jacket from the former Soviet Union, with his name written, in Russia's Cyrillic alphabet, on the sleeve.

The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Well, not the Russians exactly, but their clothes will be in stores through the fall and winter. Look for the trend to continue into summer. Elements of Russian style - also called Russe - are everywhere this fall. Earlier, designer runways were filled with fur hats, trim military jackets, embroideries, voluminous skirts in flowery prints, boots, gold bangles and pendants. Diane Von Furstenberg even named her fall 2005 collection "Winter Palace," after the former imperial residence in St. Petersburg.

Tim Zagat, co-founder and CEO of the influential Zagat restaurant guide, says when he eats with a tie on he feels like a foie gras goose being force-fed. It's a little extreme, but you get his point. Like many of us, he loves good French food, but he'd just as soon do without the formality that traditionally surrounds haute cuisine palaces. He would be happy at Baltimore's new Brasserie Tatin, which opened last week near the Johns Hopkins University, or Petit Louis or Timothy Dean or Limoges, to name four of the city's informal French restaurants.

The quality of the matzo ball soup can tell a lot about a kosher deli, just as good crab dip can set a high standard for a sports bar and hot, fresh tortilla chips can make a strong first impression at a Mexican restaurant. The matzo ball soup at the recently opened Accents Grill in the Greenspring Shopping Center got our meal off to a terrific start. The steaming bowl of salty broth, studded with soft slivers of carrots and celery and large pieces of white-meat chicken, was dominated by a matzo ball so feather-light it hardly required chewing and swallowing -- it seemed to just dissolve in the mouth.

There seemed to be a common theme that came out of the Navy spring football game yesterday at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium: The Midshipmen have some work to do before the season begins Sept. 3 against Maryland. Navy lost 36 seniors from last year's team that went 10-2, won the Emerald Bowl and gave the school its best season in 99 years. That's why the Midshipmen will need many underclassmen to step up and fill holes. But there were plenty of struggles in yesterday's spring game, with the Blue team pulling out a 9-7 win over the White team.