Wednesday Window

500 Words IL - Story Time

Sheesh! The forty-ninth 500 Words assignment. Next up is the big Five-Oh, so anyone who's been dithering and not writing recently better get their asses in gear for that one.

Only two tall tales this month. Brew up a coffee, sit for a little and enjoy.
The assignment was to write 500 Words based on this photograph:

First up is our Robyn.

Robyn's 'Jean And The Café'

Robyn writes about food better than anyone else I know. If you're not heading for the kitchen at the end of this you have no soul.

Dive's 'Breakfast On The Day That It Happened'

A true story from Clothilde's café (well, true except that 'she' wasn't late and I have no idea what JD's name is - he may indeed be named after Jacques Derrida but he's probably not).
And yes, yet another story featuring a waitress.

I'll post assignment no.50 in a little while. Sharpen your pencils, peeps.

WTF Lundi - The Joy Of Colonialism

 

Some casual racism still extant on the façade of a building on Rue Montorgueil.

Anti-colonial captions welcome.

Stained Glass Sunday - Cromer Lifeboat Station

Saturday Statuary

A super-camp statue in the Luxembourg Gardens with the Pantheon (no, not that one, that's in Rome) in the background.

Parisian Peacocks

Leaving the Musée des Arts et Métiers after yesterday's fun comments fest, we shall head south towards the river and lose ourselves in the fabulous mediæval wonderland of le Marais. If we're lucky we shall wander through a mysterious gateway into the beautiful gardens and courtyards of that most Parisian of Paris museums, the Carnavalet.

Never mind the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, every visitor to Paris should spend at least one day wandering in wonder through the Musée Carnavalet.

It is the museum of Paris itself.
Inside you'll be guided from the first muddy village on an island in the Seine through the entire history of the city. The art, the Revolution, literature, philosophy and culture of that jewel of cities. Through war and peace, kings and revolutionaries, through Napoleon and Hitler, Hugo and Sartre, the Carnavalet immerses you in the atmosphere and the people of Paris in all its glorious ages. Every hour spent in its marvellous halls will enrich your visit to Paris immeasurably.

I (being who I am) love to wander the Revolutionary rooms, but from there the tantalising time machine that is the Carnavalet leads you via Napoleon through Haussmann's reconstruction of almost the entire city to the Impressionists and fin de siècle Paris where, way out at the end of one particular wing (just past some very welcome toilets) you can find this beautiful Art Nouveau shop reconstructed in its entirety.

Go there. It will open your eyes and your mind and allow you to walk out into the streets of Paris with a new understanding of what you're seeing.

Pianissimo

For those of you piqued by the Musée des Arts et Metiers post (last Monday), I have a lucky bag of oddities from the museum which I shall sneak into the blog from time to time.
Here's the first.
So perfectly Parisian: exquisite yet totally bonkers.

Wednesday Window - Tate Modern

Looking across the Thames toward St.Paul's during a thunderstorm; snug, warm and dry and enjoying a black Americano in the Tate Modern's café.

Random Norfolk - Matins

Gloria tibi domine qui natus es de virgine cum patre (et) sancto spiritu in se(m)piterna sæcula. Amen

From the underside of a lectern in the choir stalls at St.Helen's Church, Ranworth.

WTF Lundi - Don't Fly That In Here

Stained Glass Sunday - Royal Arcade

The yummy Art Nouveau Royal Arcade in Norwich.

And the same window from the outside. Spiffy, huh?

Saturday Statuary - Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

Aung San Suu Kyi and Marianne.

Dead Bus

We escaped the recent riots here, mostly thanks to the fact that this part of Norfolk is so intensely annoying to reach from anywhere resembling civilisation. Even teenagers have sufficient brains to figure out that spending a whole frustrating and expensive day travelling out here just to set fire to a shop and loot some training shoes and then have to go all the way home again is just not worth the effort.

Not wanting to be left out, however, we do have buses that spontaneously combust. It gives us a nice bit of post-riot scenery without the bother of having a riot. That's the sign to my village to the left of the bus.

Long time readers may remember that on my old commute to London I had more trains catch fire than arrive on time. And when they started replacing London's iconic double decker buses with "bendy buses" the things were bursting into flames on an almost daily basis. Travelling on England's public transport system is marginally safer than wearing Lady Ga-Ga's meat dress and going swimming with sharks. It's a must for thrill-seekers everywhere.

Here's A Duster - Off You Go

I don't know what it is about me but the first thing I always think of whenever I enter a cathedral, castle, stately home, museum or any other large building is "Sheesh! Think of all the housework!"
Robyn will recall my horror at all the dust in Westminster Abbey. Whoever looks after those statues needs a good hard slap upside the head.
This frieze is in Notre Dame. Here's a duster and a step-ladder. Don't miss a spot or I'll notice.

Oh, and would somebody please be so kind as to explain the baby-slaughtering scene?

Wednesday Window - Seaside Cottage at Southwold

Live From Daryl's House - Grace Potter

Episode 45: Grace Potter :: Live From Daryl's House with Daryl Hall :: Current Episode

Hot Damn!
I can never thank our own Dear Prudence enough for introducing me to the best music show on the interweb.
Brew up a coffee and sit and enjoy this month's episode (or if you're anything like me, dance around the room and make a fool of yourself. You know you want to).
And if anyone knows where I can find me a woman with legs that good, you'd better let me know right now or I'll have to kill you.

Spies Among Us …

Caught this one lurking suspiciously in the Luxembourg Gardens. Perhaps this Clouseau-esque character can be the basis for a future 500 Words story.

By the way, we already have two stories handed in and one more promised on the latest 500 Words homework. If anyone hasn't had a crack at this month's writing assignment you can find it by scrolling down to August 12th's posts.

WTF Lundi

Stained Glass Sunday

Non-ecclesiastic stained glass this week. In fact not even stained glass, merely coloured glass. But pretty nonetheless. This is in the entrance to le Grand Palais.

Saturday Statuary

One of my all time favourite statues: Sir John Betjeman gazing up at the clock in St.Pancras Station.
Of course the main reason I like the statue so much is that it sits at the end of the Eurostar platform to Paris.

Oh, and in case you missed it, 500 Words is back. Pick up your assignments in yesterday's post.

Look Out … 500 Words Is Back Again …

Yup.
Y'all know the rules. They're here in the 500 Words sidebar if you don't.
I've left it too long since the last one so it's a bit hurried but your assignment for this month is to write no more and no less than 500 words based on the breakfast photo below.
Post 'em up and I'll stick 'em on here as per usual.

Have fun!

Breakfast

It's Friday already. How the heck did that happen? I swear it was Friday only a couple of days ago. Do they save these things up when I'm not looking and then leave 'em lying about to trip me up?
Anyhoo … who cares? It's Friday and almost time for weekend breakfast club.

And talking of breakfast, here's my favourite place for it on this or any other planet. That's the scrummy Clothilde (mmmmm … yes, I named a goddess after her in that 500 Words story) serving the butcher from across the street just before he opens for the day. This place is on Rue Montorgueil, the best food street in Paris. Clothilde doesn't make those croissants in house; she sends a girl running two doors down the street to Stohrer's, the oldest and finest bakery in Paris, and get's them fresh and warm.
Next time I head across the ditch to Paris you know where to find me at breakfast time. Come in and join me. Get there early.

Advertising Feature

Go there.
Buy these.
Eat them.
Thank me.

Wednesday Window

Bonus today: two little windows free with your regular Wednesday Window. These delightful holes in the wall are in Dragon Hall, Norwich (see posts passim), and the big one has been there since around 1220.

Never Ending Story

Still in Notre Dame today, looking at the housework. Sheesh! How much dusting can you stand before you go crazier than Quasimodo?
Some poor sap (click on the top picture to see him or her toiling away with the brass polish) has to crank these hefty candelabra down from the ceiling, clean off the wax, polish the brass, replace and light the candles and crank 'em back up again. Looks like a never-ending job.
Pretty, though …

WTF Monday - Five Long Years

What the fuck?
Er … Welcome to my sixth year in Blogville.
On Monday, August 7th, 2006 I started this thing and at almost the same moment Robyn started her own blog over in Ohio. To be frank neither of us have any idea why we're still here but here we are, so happy birthday to us, the oldest neighbours in our little Blogville street.

I was going to have a party but I hate parties.
I was going to spend a few days going back through the best and the worst of the last five years but there's getting on for fifteen hundred posts back there, some of which are thousands of words long, and that's too much like hard work.

I was going to write about how Blogville has changed over the years, much like any other small town.
I was going to write about the people who moved out and the other people who moved in, but going through old comments boxes from years ago and wondering where those people are now got me all maudlin so I won't.

Suffice to say that five years ago yesterday I started this stupid blog with no idea of what a blog was. And here I am today, older but still no wiser.

Stained Glass Sunday - Notre Dame

Saturday Statuary

Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.

Damned ungrateful bastards! Don't they realise we're bringing civilisation to them?

You can't expect a savage to understand the benefits of Empire, Sah.

They should thank us! After all, we built them a church … What more do they want? And all we're taking in return is their land, their cattle, their oil, their gold and diamonds and minerals, their forests, their children and their lives. It's for their own good.

Yes, Sah! Without the Empire to protect them they'd be independent and free. God help us what a terrible world that would be.

They're still coming, Ponsonby. I'm down to my last bullet.

Me too, Sah! I'll shoot you if you'll shoot me.

It's the civilised thing to do. One day they'll build a statue to honour our heroic last stand.

On the count of three, Sah …

One …

Two …

What's In A Name?

Rue le Regrattier (or Rue Regratier should you prefer stone to enamel) is these days about as desirable an address as you can get, plonked as it is on the Ile Saint Louis in the middle of the Seine, overlooking Notre Dame, but until this morning I had not thought to look up the meaning of the word.

Regrettably I could find neither 'regratier' nor 'regrattier' in my monstrous, table-sized Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary so I had to resort to the vagaries of the interweb.

Apparently the ever-entertaining Voltaire included it in his Dictionnaire Philosophique as "Écrivassier, compilateur ignorant" which pretty much describes me …

But the general consensus of opinion seems to be that of the Dictionnaire de Français 'Littré':

"Regrattier: nom masculin singulier
1: celui qui vendait de menues denrées au détail ou en seconde main;
2: personne d'une avarice sordide;
avare, grigou, pleure-misère, chichard, rat, harpagon, pisse-vinaigre, rapace, usurier, fesse-Matthieu, grippe-sou."

So … obscenely wealthy residents of Rue le Regrattier … welcome to Huckster Street, Sordid Avarice Avenue, or alternatively Piss-Vinegar Road, or even more gloriously, Matthew's Buttock Boulevard ("fesse-Matthieu" - from the Biblical Matthew, a publican and usurer before he met Jesus at the … er … tax office … I know, it's amazing who you bump into in those places).

Delightful.
I am almost glad I cannot afford to live there. Almost, but not quite, as just around the corner is the best ice cream shop in all of France (although their prices live up to the regrattiers' grippe-sou reputation).

Happy Friday, peeps.

Pie In The Sky

This lenticular cloud hovering over Snetterton Motor Racing Circuit like an alien ship from Independence Day would have been more menacing had it not been fringed with what looks for all the world like a proper English pie crust.
Yummy!

Wednesday Window

Yes, another excuse for alliteration. Plus I realised I have rather a lot of photographs of windows so it makes for a good no-brainer posting day.
This window is in the Vatican and comes courtesy of Phil.
No, he's not the Pope.

WTF Lundi

I know this appeared before as part of a long post a long time ago but I felt it deserved a WTF Monday post all its own as it still creeps me out.
I mean, WHAT?
This is wrong on so many levels.
For anybody weird enough to go find this triumvirate of terror for themselves, they can be found in an antiques shop window on Avenue Daumesnil, just south of the Bastille.
Where the old Vincennes railway used to run from the Opéra Bastille the line has been transformed into an elevated garden walkway, the Promenade Plantée, and the railway arches underneath are now a row of very posh shops, which is where the creepy babies live. There's also a wonderful coffee shop where you can sit and get over the shock of seeing them.