Paris Journal 2008
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Thank you, Bill. Bill is my younger brother, the one who pretends to be a redneck at work, but who really isn’t one (by his own admission). You can read this in the guestbook. He is a smart guy who knows his way around computers. He took up my request from yesterday for someone to see if they can get those French TV shows from inside the U.S. In the guestbook, he pasted the error message he received when he attempted to watch those shows. It was exactly what I was afraid would happen. Here’s the translation of the message he pasted into the guestbook: “Welcome to M6
Replay, the television site of the latest generation of the M6 channel. “We unhappily
cannot fill your request, because this site is reserved for residents of
Metropolitan France. “We sincerely
regret that we cannot show our programs outside of France’s borders, and
notably for all the French-speaking community who live in foreign
countries. We buy the rights to show
these programs for a pre-determined territory, and we cannot assume the cost
of showing them internationally. We
are therefore restrained to giving access only in the French territory. “If you have
connected from someplace in Metropolitan France and you see this page, your
internet provider has without doubt assigned to you a foreign IP address that
is automatically blocked by our geographic locater system, even if you are in
French territory. We suggest that you
contact your internet service provider directly to reach a solution. Thank you for your understanding.” C’est la vie. One thing I might suggest to M6 is that since this page with this message is one that they display to people who are outside of France, they might provide the message in English as well as French. English would be useful not just to folks in America, but also in Asia, Australia, and many other places on the planet. It has been hot here for the past few days, but today we are getting some relief. As you probably know, air conditioning is almost non-existent here. People wonder how we can survive the heat and humidity of southwest Florida. The answer is we have very serious air conditioning, and we use it. On the other hand, we almost never have to heat our homes in the winter. We’d been so hot all day, that when it started to rain at the beginning of our walk in the evening yesterday, I just wanted to keep going. Tom was reluctant. Then I figured out that it was because he had his leather loafers on his feet. We went home, he changed shoes, and we went out again, umbrellas in hand, ready to do some singing in the rain. It didn’t rain much; not by Floridian standards, anyway. We stopped by the pond in the park next to the Eiffel Tower and there stood a great blue heron. I think this is the third time in eleven years that we have seen a great blue heron in the middle of Paris. This time, because of the rain, I have no photo to show you. We stopped in the Monoprix just before the 10PM closing again. This time, it was very uncrowded. This is probably because many Parisians have left for vacation, and because the rain put a damper on young people’s party picnics on the Champ de Mars. What young people were on the Champ had mostly gathered under the bandstand/gazebo to get out of the rain. Half of the stage was white kids who sat in an oval, cross legged, where they chatted & drank. They were well behaved, but they totally ignored the people on the other half of the stage. The other half of the stage was filled with young black and North African people, gathered in an oval around a few guys who were dancing. This entire group was singing something African and clapping out the rhythm with their hands – a sort of clavé beat. Sometimes the dancing looked like traditional African dance, and sometimes it looked like the martial arts. Art and Joyce have left Paris to return to Fort Myers. And this evening, Jim and Maddy arrive in Paris, after having spent 10 days or so on their boat in northeastern France and Belgium. We’ll meet them at the apartment in the 6th and go out for a bit of dinner over there. It will be fun to hear about their adventures on the boat. More about that later . . . . |
Friday, August 1, 2008
This cat featured in TV Hebdo magazine is obviously proud of her claws. (See yesterday’s bit
about declawing.)
A chocolate shop in the 7th arrondissement
has many fine things reproduced entirely in chocolate. How are these intricate carvings made? If you look closely, you will see.
The object in the middle of the window is an
all-chocolate accurate reproduction of a Dremel. I know that people who use Dremels to carve
objects fall in love with this tool, but to make such an accurate
representation of it in chocolate?
That’s true love.
In better weather, young people gather on the Champ de
Mars for picnics that can last until midnight or later.
Part of a monument honoring soldiers, near the town
hall for the 15th arrondissement. |
