The Long Weekend

Get your shoes fixed while waiting for a tasty chicken.

They Always Catch Me By Surprise

Issue 2.20:- Metropole Paris - Monday, 19. May 1997:- Last week I had it on the tip of my finger - writing about the 'bridges' - the long weekends of May - and then I forgot to write that this issue would probably be a bit late hitting the Net on account of them. If you are in the habit of reading the latest edition of Metropole on Mondays: my excuses.

The basic reason for the 'mea culpa' is that I am a computer illiterate. I have two applications for organizing my time and the schedule for Metropole, so I use paper 'notes' instead. So far, all I've managed to do with my super calendars is find out what day of the week it was on 26. May 1989 - it was a Friday.

I use a small keyboard without 'function' keys, and although I have programs that allow the user to make custom key-shortcuts, I never use them. Configuring them is a brain-numbing exercise. I learned about the shift-key on a Hermés portable, and that seems to be as far as I'm going to get.

For example, in a computer magazine I found a 'Java' script. It is a neat bit of code that I could put here and when you read this page, it would display the current date and time. This way you would know if you were reading the current issue or not - because if you accessed Metropole from your browser's 'cache' or your ISP's 'proxy server,' an old date and time would be shown.

Using the code from the magazine, I managed to get the current date and time to display; but there was an alert that there was a 'syntax' problem and it even showed the location in the code where it went wonky. An hour later, the 'wonky' indicator had moved to the beginning of the code-line - meaning, I think, that I was further from getting it right than when I started.

I'm afraid it's back to the old 'shift-key' approach: sometime shortly after noon, Paris time - next Monday, 26. May - if you want to read the latest Metropole, look at the dateline on the contents page or on this page. If it is Monday, 26. May, then you've got the latest issue. If you do not see this date, then hit your browser's 'reload' or 'refresh' button.

I suppose I could find a 'Java' script to do this for you, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't make it work. On a computer keyboard, I've found the 'return-key' to be a useful trick key. With it and the 'shift-key' I feel confident of reaching the millennium - but beyond that, the outlook is murky.

Last week's feature article "When the French Ate Grass - Bread for All Seasons, All Meals - If There Was Any" seems to have been premature. 'Bread Day' was celebrated in France on Friday, 16. May, as it every year on the day of Saint-Honoré.

This street, known for its 'Arts de la Table' shops, featured elsewhere in this issue, also has a very interesting building at number 18. Until recently, it was the home of the Museum of Advertising. This Art Deco building is like a tattooed-lady; it is covered in hand-painted tiles, as sort of a display-case of the tile art as done at Choisy-le-Roi. These begin on an outside wall, and more are in the entrance. There is spposed to be a modern art gallery inside - open from 13:00 to 19:30 daily except Sundays - but I saw no sign of this. The building's construction of cast iron, glass and ceramic tiles alone, is supposed to be worth a visit.