Blaise

Each time before both her children — Pallas and Blaise, now 9 and 6 years old — were born, she remembers seeing moms who attended her prenatal yoga class one week and then were walking the loop with their newborns the next.

"These shows are timed down to the second," says singer Blaise Noon.

Born in Senegal in 1945 to Lebanese Shiite parents, he rose to become a confidant of a generation of African leaders – from Omar Bongo in Gabon to Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo and Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso.

The 2002 race provided Bourgi with another colourful story, when a representative of Burkinabe leader Blaise Compaoré arrived in Paris with a large sum of money concealed in djembe drums.

“Typical Blaise,” Bourgi quotes Chirac as saying.