Paris:- Sunday, 24. November 1996:- E-Mail letters come to me at Metropole either by way of the 'write to the editor form' within Metropole, or by some other mysterious way. No matter how they arrive, each and every one is valuable - and some sort of reply is sent to each.

But this is the Internet - this Rube Goldberg contraption, with its geek jargon and its wires, routers, and mail servers - probably run by retired Elves in an annex of the Great Toy Factory up north - so sometimes 'something goes wrong.'

It could be my own ISP's mail server, it could be one little character in a return address, it could be anything or nothing at all - but the result is, the e-mail doesn't go through.

Here are three actual examples, each a different case. If their writers are reading this, I would like them to try one more shot at it - perhaps with their e-mail program: write to erickso@worldnet.fr

From: "Jerry"
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 16:25:31 +0000
Subject: ballet tickets

My wife and I are coming to Paris for our honeymoon in the spring of 1997. Do you know of any on-line method to purchase tickets for the Paris Opera Ballet of "Sleeping Beauty" being offered at that time? Or, is the idea of even getting tickets totally absurd, or are they easy or what?

Hope that question is clear enough, and I appreciate any information you can provide. Thanks.

Jerry

Dear Jerry,

My ISP's mail server choked on your address early Saturday morning, preventing me from sending any e-mail to anybody. When I cut the reply to you out of the queue, everything else went out without problem.

Here is the original reply:

There is no online reservation system run by the City of Paris Tourist Office. What they have is a funky old fax machine attached to a department that does nothing except make reservations for shows, spectacles and exhibitions. The fax number is (33-1) 49 52 53 53.

A Web site having more practical information than mine is Norman Barth's 'The Paris Pages' and the URL is http://www.paris.org

The following message came in, but the reply to it was returned from some mail-computer down the line with the explanation of 'user unknown.'

From: yin
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 21:46:05 +0800
Subject: A new friend from China

hey, my name is Yin, I am studying at Peking University I just read one of your articles online, I am very interested in it.

Here is the reply:

Welcome to Metropole. I hope you enjoyed reading it.

You may not know that Metropole has a new address on the Web. It is - http://www.wfi.fr/metropole/ - and here you will find the latest issues, right up to last Monday's.

If I ask you to tell me a little more about yourself it is not because I am nosy, I would just like to know a little bit about Metropole's readers. You are the first to write from China. Can you tell me how you managed to come across Metropole? Have you spelled 'Peking' correctly? Here, in the west, we are supposed to write 'Beijing.'

I may be able to contact the last example here, but I do not have time to do it as I am putting Metropole together today.

From: "fult"
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 03:31:52 +0100 (MET)
X-Authentication-Warning: pilt.online.no: didn't use HELO protocol...
Subject: hotel

There is no body message to go with the e-mail header.

Again, who knows how these things happen? People who phone me all the time get through, especially if I am here to answer the phone. In order not to have overseas callers waste their money by talking to an answer-robot, I have none. Other people who call seldom, often complain about not making a telephone connection - on days or at times when I am really here. France Telecom says the line is okay and nobody else has trouble - so what's the problem?

Beats me. Keep those encouraging letters coming; most of them get through and I really like getting them.

regards, ric