Welcome to Parigi!

Even if it is wet and raining, Samaritaine's terrace still looks good.

In Return for Rome's Mayor Last Week,
a CD from Milano This Week

by Ric Erickson

Paris:- Monday, 10. November 1997:- It feels good that the weather has decided to be normal for this time of year. It is not good for some people because it has also decided to be stormy in some places.

But around Paris, breezes are a welcome change; making the sky worth looking at occasionally because there are things happening up there. Sometimes there a big white fluffy clouds scooting from west to east, and sometimes there are very grey clouds bearing down.

It is not really cold yet, with all this hint of rain around, and anybody visiting these days should be able to get by with a coat and hat.

Retailers have got a lot of posters up now for warmer clothing and down in the métro, where it is always warm, some of the underwear posters are interesting - if you like your peep shows to be metres-wide.

There are a lot of other interesting posters in the métro tunnels now - and it seems as if there are too many interesting things going on. Maybe this is the reason this issue has two poster pages. The actual reason for it is I had sort of one apple and one orange and I didn't want to put them together, so I found two more to make it symmetrical.

I especially like the idea of the RATP winning some award for their big 'M' anti-pollution poster, because I liked it the first time I saw it. From a topical point of view, the RATP had it in the métro and around town before the summer pollution crises; so it shows they have the right idea.

They are a bit worried though, because they are facing the prospect of having to order umpteen dozen new diesel buses, and they are wishing they could get ones which use some sort of other fuel. I recently saw however, that they are looking into some sort of liquified gas, but I don't know if this is something they could get for their next order or if it is further down the line somewhere.

At any rate, right now the winds from the Atlantic are blowing through Paris and it is all pretty fresh.

A while ago I was flattered to get a request from the Italian publisher, Shendene, to put an issue of Metropole on their CD-ROM, 'Ulysee' - which will be sold on newsstands in Italy.

This is a new venture by this firm, which has publications in the field of electronic publishing - and the idea is to narrow the plethora of available Web sites, for a public not yet connected to the 'Net or for those just starting out.

Each CD-ROM features a major topic or theme, and Metropole is - supposed to be - featured on the just released title, 'Parigi.'

Chiara Villotta, of Ulysee Net wrote, "The main objective of our new publication is to provide an innovative tool aimed at promoting the Internet and, in particular, the best sites to be found."

Although slated for October release, I received a copy of the CD-ROM on Friday. I'm not sure of its issue date. I could not find any Metropole URLs in the featured sites' index; but did find URLs for the 'Ric's Report' features which appeared in 'The Paris Pages.'

Not finding Metropole could have been oversight on my part, due partly to having jammed the drawer of my CD-ROM drive so that it won't open - and finding the landscape of the backup machine to be somewhat foreign.

The Web site for Ulysee Net has 'Parigi' listed, but pages for 'Parigi' were 'under constructio' when consulted yesterday. The site itself is in Italian, so if you know this language or just like to look at it and wish you did know it, then it is well worth a visit.