Place, Date, Time Fixed for Club Meet

Coming from the Louvre, this is how La Corona looks.

News from the 'Café Metropole Club'

Paris:- Wednesday, 6. October 1999:- Acutely aware that 'Club News' has been thin on the ground lately, I am pleased to announce that the 'Café Metropole Club' will have its first 'Club' session on Thursday, 14. October; starting at 15:00, for a two-hour meeting.

Today I discussed the club's meetings with the manager of the Café-Tabac La Corona. This café is not an owner-operated neighborhood café, but a full-sized establishment on the right bank of the Seine, located between the Louvre and the Pont des Arts, and the Pont-Neuf.

Here are the details for you to note:

Café-Tabac La Corona
2. Rue de l'Amiral Coligny
Paris 1. Métro: Louvre-Rivoli or Pont-Neuf
Every Thursday at 15:00, until 17:00.

It has a small 'salle' just off the bar and a large 'salle' behind the bar. There is a small terrace on the Rue de l'Amiral Coligny side, which faces west; and a big terrace on the Quai de Louvre side, which faces south. The big 'salle' has been practically empty every time I've checked it out in afternoons over the past six months.

However, the manager told me La Corona occasionally hosts the passengers of tour buses - especially around Easter - and the café is closed for two weeks in January. With these possible contraints in mind, he agreed to allow the 'Café Metropole Club' to hold meetings in the big 'salle' until mid-December.

Since the place has always seemed friendly enough to me on my passes through the bar for a quick café, I reckon we can go ahead with meetings every Thursday for the next few months. If it turns out to be less than comfortable, the 'Club' will simply change its location.

The purpose of the 'Club' seems to be to offer an opportunity to meet me, the editor of this online weekly magazine about Paris. Together, we will have an opportunity to transfer from the 'virtual' of the online magazine to the 'real' of Paris.

For my part, I am going to try to find out why you may want to do this. So don't be surprised if for every question you ask me, I ask you one. Do not be surprised if I ask for your permission to take your photo and run it in Metropole Paris, along with my version of your story.

For readers who are unable to attend 'Club' sessions, do not be surprised to see accounts of these encounters appear in Metropole Paris. The magazine's normal weekly edition will appear as usual on Mondays, but the weekly 'Club' meeting will be added to it on Thursdays.

There are two only 'rules' for the 'Café Metropole Club.'

The first is that I will be at it at 15:00 every Thursday; with the usual disclaimers for 'unforseen circumstances' such as illness, transport strikes, floods or other unpredictable natural disasters. If you look out of a window and see an unforseen natural disaster happening, there will probably be no club meeting, if the day happens to be a Thursday.

The second 'rule' is that everything you consume at the club is your responsibility. You may consider this to be the club's membership 'dues,' but for me it means simple bookkeeping - I don't have to keep any.

Club meetings will be officially over at 17:00. In theory, I have to return to the editorial headquarters of the magazine to prepare an account of the day's meeting for publication. In practice, if nobody shows up, I can go to a movie instead. Late afternoon movies start around 18:00 in Paris.

At the moment these amount to none. But this is your club as much as it is mine; so I expect there will be suggestions for services. If these are possible to implement then they will become available.

We are starting out with two 'rules' but otherwise everything else is a blank. Together we will make up the details of the 'Club' and together we will see what becomes of it.

Groucho Marx said he wouldn't join a club that would have him as a member. The Café Metropole Club is going to be so haphazard that even Groucho Marx would join because the only person required to attend its meetings is me. Look in the big 'salle' at the back.

A bientôt à Paris,