Out with the old...

Just a couple of things to get out of the way before the year is over.

Firstly, I'm not looking forward to getting back to Southampton if this weather forecast is anything to go by...



I'm hoping the snow will have gone and the temperature risen by about 20 degrees by the time I get back tomorrow. Or perhaps Google just got it wrong...

Secondly, a bit of a rant. I spent most of yesterday complaining loudly about one particular aspect of the New Year's Honours list. That particular aspect being that June Sarpong, here depicted in all her uselessness...



...has been awarded an MBE. For services to broadcasting. Even though it's the lowest of the BEs, I will remain astounded by this well into January and probably beyond. She will just get on my nerves more and send me diving for the remote control much more quickly than she did before.

Services to broadcasting. I ask you... Obviously being able to speak clearly and coherently and not like you have been on the vodka is no longer a prerequisite for high achievement in broadcasting. Either that, or it was all a terrible mail merge mistake at the Palace - this is my preferred version of events.

I worry that this time next year we might be saluting Dame Heather Small or, as has already been suggested, Sir Jamie Cullum.

Help.

Fog off...

"We got one of the last slots on the Dover to Calais ferry..." whinged Family A.

"The only thing to do was to drive..." complained Family B.

"This is the first time we have tried to have Christmas with our Italian family..." moaned Famiglia C.

"We'll try tomorrow but otherwise I don't know what we'll do..." grumbled Overindulged Delayed Passenger D, as she clutched a blanket tighter around her shoulders.

Well, its sunny now...

..so stop your snivelling, remember there's a lot worse in some people's lives than being delayed at an airport for a few hours, get on your planes and bugger off and leave us all in peace for Christmas.

Enough, already...

Thursday: Title of final Harry Potter book announced...

Friday: You can already buy it on Amazon...



...despite the webpage being full of disclaimers that they actually don't know when it will be published or actually how much it will cost. And they don't know what the cover will look like.

Interestingly enough, 6 customers have already reviewed it, giving it an average of 4½ stars. I'm sure JK Rowling is beavering away in an Edinburgh café somewhere, this time only pretending her heating has been cut off at home, trying to earn the extra half a star. No doubt her editors, who have let her creep up from the 190 pages of the first book to the rambling, unnecessary 768 of the most recent, will let her do anything she wants this time as she is rich enough and Bloomsbury desperate enough to let her call all the shots. Which is a shame, because properly and objectively edited, they might have flourished on the quality of the writing rather than the hype.

There's a lot of discussion about whether she should kill Harry off in this book. Personally I'm hoping Harry has the good sense to broomstick through the back cover and kill her off.

How Christmassy am I???


* Have actually just noticed that Amazon now recommend you also buy the "Adult Version" at the same time...

...presumably this is full of swearing and sex and violence and 200 pages longer.

Arbetsmiljoverket

Just as you might be getting your IKEA tea lights out to make Christmas glimma, a foray (for your own good, you understand) into Swedish Health and Safety.

I think this is what the first few mean. Please add comments for the others...


Do not allow your candle to talk to R2-D2 on a sunny day...


Be careful if using your teapot for archery practice...

Don't vomit on your candle before extinguishing it...

Don't use candles as big as your chair, or you may disappear...

Do not allow your child to kiss pets by candlelight...

Oooooh!! Ahhhhh!! (Just A Little Bit...)

Can't quite believe it's a been a year since it was a year ago at the fireworks... (?)

Anyway, my experiments with High Definition TV have gone as far as two extremely pixellated mobile phone videos of the display at Lakeside in Eastleigh - have made them small so they look better...

And now, it's Sunday. Hallowe'en is over, we've put the clocks back, done Bonfire Night - time to get into the loft for the Christmas decs! :-)

A Creative Solution...

Or alternatively, just tell them to stop the hell drawing on the walls!!!

In saner times, if you scribbled on the walls your parents wouldn't write to the Observer in middle-class torment, they would make you scrub it off and give you a clip round the ear.

And quite right too. It never did us any harm, etc. etc.

Paris in a Day (7): And we're done...

Still fairly bright and sunny at nearly 6pm and I risked life and limb by standing in the middle of the Champs-Elysées to get this photo. (Only took about 3 seconds, which is why it's wonky, but I worried for the Japanese tourists trying to get the same photo using a tripod. Perhaps they are still there...)



Of course, The Arc de Triomphe is actually a war memorial. (Why don't we call it the Triumphal Arch in English? We don't refer to the Eiffel Tower in French. There must be a reason...) The purpose of war memorials, according to Irwin in The History Boys, is to allow countries to forget their own atrocities by masking them with remembrance. At the Arc de Triomphe they do that at 6.30pm every day at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider...



...but we had to leave just before that and only passed the veterans on our way back to the bus. However, the security for the ceremony was gathering...



...and posing for the cameras of about a billion tourists. It was strange to see armed soldiers patrolling the railway stations and the popular tourist attractions. Of course here they had a ceremonial purpose too, but everywhere else it was just part of French security. I'm not sure whether it made me feel safer or not.

Up the 284 steps to the top (this is actually going down, but it was an identical staircase)...



...and the views were worth it. This is towards La Défense and you can see La Grande Arche in the distance.



That's another of ex-president Mitterand's "Grands Projets" to add to the Pyramid at the (closed) Louvre. Another is La Bibliothèque Nationale de France in the east of Paris, which is four "bookend-style" glass towers - only after it was built and they moved in did they realise that the sunlight was irreparably damaging the books.



Sunset, so time to get back. Eurostar turns into a pumpkin at midnight.

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Toutes les photos sur flickr...

Paris in a Day (6): Back on the bus...

Only a few hours before the train back now, so it's back on the bus to the Arc de Triomphe, passing on the way...


L'Opéra (sans phantome), La Place de la Concorde (and its associated scary traffic...)


The Avenue of the Elysian Fields, Louis Vuitton HQ (zoom in for "mod-elles" smoking on the balcony...)

Paris in a Day (5): La Cathédrale est ouverte...!

Finally, somewhere is open!



...and they have cleaned it. (Or at least they have cleaned the front for people to take photos - round the back it's still a bit grotty.)

With it being too windy at the Eiffel Tower and Tuesday at the Louvre, Notre Dame was swarming with people. Thousands outside and even more thousands inside.

Unlike British cathedrals there's no "voluntary" admission charge which you feel duty-bound to pay as you walk past the steely-eyed women on the desk. There are a couple of nuns shaking plates for you to drop a few coins, but they have found a far more effective method of raising the millions needed to keep the building in good repair (and to keep the front clean)...

Someone (possibly one of the nuns) has been to IKEA and bought billions of tea-lights. They are all stacked up along the aisles next to money boxes and little vending machines. Pay between €2-5 and you can light one and leave it there. Again, the donation is voluntary, but try lighting one without paying and see what looks you get. If there were a few thousand fewer people milling about and there was a bit of choral singing echoing round in the background, the candles would make the whole experience very spirtually uplifting. But there weren't and there wasn't and so they didn't.

Nothing left to do except demonstrate my continuing ineptitude when it comes to taking photos of stained-glass windows...



Didn't see the Hunchback, either.

Paris in a Day (4): L'Open Tour...

L'Académie Française seems to be fighting a losing battle with the the purity of the French language if such things as "le mp3 player" and "L'Open Tour" are in general use.

But who gives a stuff? €25 for all the landmarks, commentary in English, Edith Piaf singing and free headphones, you can't really complain about a little anglicisation of the language. Especially when you're only here for the day.

Here are the highlights...


Le Bus et le shop (Printemps is basically Debenhams, only French)


Les Invalides, L'Assemblée Nationale et Le Centre Pompidou...

Didn't have time to stop at any of these. They were probably all shut anyway.


Le flag, les policemen roller-skatés et Le Grand Health et Safety Issue...

Paris in a Day (3): Sacré Bleu, Monsieur Langdon...!

Even the celebrated (and made up) cryptologist Sophie Neveu wouldn't have any difficulty solving this Code...



...primarily because she is French anyway, so it wouldn't actually be in code as far as she was concerned. But also because it was translated underneath...



If only Dan Brown had set the book on a Tuesday, it (and the film) would have been mercifully short.

So never go to Paris on a Tuesday either.*

Still managed to get a shot of the famous pyramid though. Built on the mysterious Rose Line and under which are buried the bones of Mary Magdalene...**



*The Rough Guide did actually mention that the Louvre would be shut on Tuesdays, but as with all guide books, they are only useful if you read them.

**All bollocks, of course.

Paris in a Day (2): Le sommet est fermé...

Never go to Paris on a windy day.

You won't be able to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. You'll only be able to go to the second floor...



That's OK though, because the view of Paris is "arguably better from the second level" than from the top, (© Rough Guide), and it only costs €7 to go up (This is about 5 quid and to put it into context, the Blackpool Tower costs £14.95 to go up. Rip-off Britain, eh?)

The views are excellent, even on an overcast day...




...and it's compulsory to do, even when you've done it several times before.

One thing that struck me was how little the Parisian skyline has changed over the (nearly) 30 years since I first went there - La Grande Arche de la Défense and surrounding skyscrapers being the noticeable exception - and how much the London skyline has changed over the same time - the London Eye, the Gherkin, Canary Wharf, the NatWest tower, etc.

I didn't waste much time considering which I preferred. Paris is prettier, London more iconic. There. Sorted.

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An eyeful of the Eiffel on flickr...