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...

Paris in a Day (1): Getting there...

Je pense que l'Eurostar est assez vieux, battu et sale maintenant, mais il a traversé la Manche avec succès. Nous sommes arrivés à Paris à 11.47 (heure locale) et avons pris la métro jusqu'à la Tour Eiffel.



(Don't worry. I shall be writing in English from now on...)

Telling the truth about the world...

I'm pleased the Snakes on a Plane school of naming has extended its reach.

They have started putting the stupid little biscuits you get with a cup of coffee in this.

Which I applaud.

78 Days and counting...

Now, either Boots is displaying the chemical structure of its shower gel as some manner of educational device...



...or it's quickest off the mark with Christmas! (Again!)

Just "one" thing...

The BBC has spent my licence fee (and 9,125 other people's) on these, so I think I have purchased the right of reply. And that of judgement. Here goes...

Surfers	The best one...	9/10
Bikes	The noisiest one...	8/10
Hippos	The funny CGI one...	8/10
Kites	The far too new age one...	6/10
Windows	The flashy, but still dull one...	5/10
Footballers	The too techno one...	4/10
Petals	The not actually a circle one...	3/10
Moon	The News and Queen dying one...	2/10

...actually, just one more thing...



...wasn't Robin Hood good?!

(although not as good as Robin of Sherwood...)

Always there... *

Now we might not be in the Premiership any more and we haven't got the Spinnaker Tower. Vosper Thorneycroft has gone, leaving Portsmouth doing ships better than us too. The Titanic and Craig David both sunk. But Southampton still Shows good Boat.

Although you have to approach it all very subversively and with a good dollop of cynicism it's still a good day out.

Small bits of town - old car parks, bits of dockside, Mayflower Park - seem to be able to host a huge show, including 240 tons of borrowed Weymouth Sand, and you only realise exactly where you are when you get high enough up to see...



You can buy virtually anything nautical including...

...boats:



(Look carefully... the price you pay is in the small font. The big price is the Boat Show discount...)

...really big boats with plasma tv screens, several floors and staff:



(This one is soooo expensive and posh that they make you put bags over your shoes just to be allowed on the carpet...)



...astroturf flipflops:



...and a Teletubbies hat:



(This is Tracy incorrectly modelling some manner of onboard storage receptacle. Available from Solent Plastics...)

There were many pirates. These were better than some and did the voices and everything.



(Although they didn't know they had missed International Talk Like A Pirate Day on 19 September. Shiver me timbers, etc...)

And one more shot of the quite spectacular £2.9 million Sunseeker Predator 82. We're there somewhere if you zoom in. And we're flickred too.



*Avril: “If I go ahead with the Barracuda, Charles, you’ll refuse to support me..?”
Charles: “If you go ahead, Avril, I’ll fire you...."
Ken: "You'll get Relton Marine over my dead body..."
Jack: "I'm building Barracuda and bringing the Mermaid Yard into to 20th century..."
Jan: "I have new stock of the orange jump suit with the shoulder pads...."
Leo:"Clip clop clip clop clip clop..."
Clod: "Qu'est-ce que c'est dans la distance??? Oh Merde!!!!!"
Simon May Orchestra: "Daaaaa-da dahh, daa-daa-daaa, daaaaa-da-dahh..."

Fearsome creatures...

I'm sure I read something about this in the Guardian, but apparently it's something to do with a very warm summer and then some rain and then some more hot weather. Whatever the reason, I thought it was time to get my own back on the pseudo-Australians and their tales of (possibly deadly) fauna.

So I'm letting you know that my house has been invaded thus.

(Don't click that link if you are of a nervous disposition. Oh, too late...)

I've successfully tamed and cleared three in about the past week, but comfort myself with those old wives' tales about them only coming into clean houses. Although not especially phobic, indeed quite at ease, I still prefer not to comfort myself with the urban myths about them crawling into your open mouth as you sleep...

Where's Steve Irwin when you need him, eh?

So much hot air...

Spurred on by others' green credentials and guilt about how much CO₂ my flying to New Zealand (and back) dumped into the atmosphere, I had a go on the Carbon Calculator website. If you put in details of where you've been and how you got there, it will tell you how much pollution you caused. I think even by walking to the kitchen you can destroy a sizeable section of the ozone layer. I'm staying on the sofa.

The upshot is that flying half way round the world and then coming back covers 38 572km and produces 4.2 tonnes (metric with an "...nes" on the end) of carbon dioxide...



...but it's not the end of the world (either literally or metaphorically) because I can buy trees to the value of £31.08, almost a forest, and everything will be OK and I will sleep at night. (If I'd only been to New York I would've got away with a measly £8.88 worth of trees. Which is a small tree in Durham somewhere.)

And I was actually going to do it!

But it seems trees are out of stock at the moment...



You see, this is what you get when you try to be holier-than-thou. If there are no trees left to buy, then there's probably something more wrong with the world than my £31.08 will put right...

Off their trolley's...

Flagrant abuse of the apostrophe!
Flickrd by sebFlyte.

I have now blogged twice about signs with bad grammar and no-excuse spelling but, worryingly, (or perhaps fortunately?) it seems I'm not the only one.

There's a whole "badgrammar" photostream on flickr where other like-minded people can gather and celebrate their pedantry.

So I'll put any future photo's their and shut up going on about it here.