Incroyable. The grandchildren politely asked their parents if they could open their stockings at 7am and did not ask for any other present opening from under the tree until 11am. Who can mock modern youth like these! Hope for the world yet.

Happy Christmas to all bloggees.

Labels: Christmas in Paris

  ¶ 9:57 AM (1) comments

  Forgetting my camera bloggees will have to do with this landmark of Paris, (thankyou JöSi ) right in the middle of the main Parisian business district. The Christmas Fair is in the shadow of the Arche packed with a polyglot crowd and selling everything from Turkish carpets, via candy covered condoms to oriental incense burners. Christmas carols in English sounded a bit off message in this temple of secular non-spiritual festivites. One incentive to getting there was free travel on the SCNF this weekend-we only learned this after we had arrived at La Defense. No infofrmation at the station of St Nom la British and the free travel did not extend to the Metro or RER. Trains surprisingly uncrowded-were SCOTRAIL to offer free travel can you imagine the scenes with tout Scotland packing the stations anxious to go anywhere, just anywhere at all just for a free ride. And the queues at the ticket office:

ten free tickets to Dunbar, please, Jimmy

This is Dunbar.......

Labels: Christmas in Paris

  ¶ 2:53 PM (0) comments

 


An Englishman in Gay* Paree

Unlike Hutton L'Etang La Ville has shops. It was most refreshing to be greeted by the guy who owns the small newsagents with ' Bienvenu Monsieur Nous avons votre Guardian' or words to that effect(Last saw him in July) and after some small talk (in my case,very small)he reminded me: n'oubliez pas L'Observer arrive a dix heures le Dimanche. They go like hot cakes (Approx translation) They do indeed as the area is lousy with Brit expats-more of the Fascist Sunday Times variety but enough Grudian readers to provide healthy competition for les oiseaux de passage like Huttonian. Indeed the local railway station St Nom de la Breteche is known as St Nom de la British.

A Dimanche said my friend. Not so: I'll see him to day for a second helping og the Gerdian-if I am spared.

It is -10 C

And falling

* In the old sense. For Nouveau Gay scene see Lonely Planet Blog-ed

PS Note the clever French nomenclature for a newsagents. The third image is of the village christmas trees. Duns (Pop 3000) has one, L'Etang la Ville (Pop 300) has two point five

Labels: Christmas in Paris, English in Paris, L'Etang La Ville

  ¶ 8:20 AM (0) comments