''I Need Help from an Expert''

From left, the 'Rendez-Vous des Amis of the Week'
with Lauren, Doug, Marion and Don.

One Who is More than Half Right

Paris:- Thursday, 22. May 2003:- Due to yesterday's arrival of the cable-Internet guy in my household I cannot remember what the weather was like other than it was not raining when I returned from buying the essential part required for the cable connection - an Ethernet slot, with a whole computer attached to it.

Therefore, I assume today's weather has been the same. It has been mostly cloudy but warm and humid, with no sunny periods that I actually saw.

Tomorrow's weather may even be more humid and will likely top the week's - maybe the month's - record for high temperatures, with 25 degrees predicted by both Le Parisien and tonight's TV-weather news. There may even be sunny periods.

Thus ends the good news. Read no further if you normally find the other kind less than compelling.

Saturday is expected to be ghastly. You don't want the details. No sunny periods are expected. Unless you plan to do some shopping for an umbrella, it will not be a good shopping day. The other bad news about Saturday is that is it likely to be cool - to match the rain? - maybe somewhere in the region of 17 degrees.

For Sunday, tonight's TV-weather news diverges from this morning's Le Parisien prediction. Mom's Day in Paris will not be partly sunny. It won't be partly anything except mostly raining. It will also be cold, with probably not more than 16 degrees as the high.

Even though Le Parisien's weather map looks optimistic, it says the day will be the 'fête des grenouilles.' With street demos planned by most unions for the day throughout the country, plus some sort of strike by Air France. Sunday could be pretty interesting, if wet.

Such a relief, then, to change the subject to today's meeting of the Café Metropole Club, which is a sunny occasion no matter what the weather or the state of the current 'Crise Sociale.' This is an item not on the agenda the club doesn't have.

So good - the relief - in fact, that I leave much earlier than usual to get to it. My métro ride from Denfert to Châtelet is even fairly peaceful between stations when the wagon doors aren't open. Then I can hardly hear the brass band playing in the wagon in front of mine.

After taking a lot of photos of Paris around Châtelet when the sun isn't shining I finally arrive at the café La Corona to find Monsieur Ferrat behind the bar busily twiddling his fingers. When I ask him what he is doing he says he is busily twiddling his fingers because there aren't enough customers in the café.

I am, therefore, very glad that I have brought today's Le Parisien to read. I have fallen behind with the news on account of the Radio-France strike yesterday which had radio France-Info broadcasting music from Brazil instead of news.

I thought my radio had de-tuned itself overnight, and this was partly confirmed by my hot water tank only delivering warmed-over water instead of the usual ultra-hot stuff. I will try to remember the day named after Saint-Constantin may not be under one of my lucky stars.

Anyway, I am reading the pictograms about the coming demos, manifestations and strikes, between now and Thursday, 12. June - another club day! Ooh! It is on the disaster calendar because it is the day that the BAC exams start.

As I said, anyway, this is a far as I get - page three, after skipping page two entirely - before Marion and Doug Gellatly arrive. This couple from Port Hope, Ontario, were responsible for one of last week's 'Cities of the Week' and the 'Quote of the Week.' They immediately ask me about the strikes. We glumly look at the newspaper's pictograms together.

Doug tells me about accidently leaving his camera at FNAC's Bastille outlet and going back there and finding a security guard who had put it under lock and key for him. I guess the moral of this story is if you are going to accidently leave your camera someplace, it should be at FNAC-Bastille.

Doug also has a wonderful 'Quote of the Week.' I think it was Marion who uttered last week's unforgettable quote, so it is in the same family, but not in the same week, and since there are no 'rules' anyway, it can be allowed.

"You are only half right," he says, to me, the club's secretary.

Unfortunately my secretary's notes do not include any context for this quote other than its text. But I think it may have something to do with UNIX and the Gellaltys taking millions of photos on their trips, and turning them into slide shows set to music, that they burn onto DVDs and give to their friends who love watching 80 photos of, say, Paris, as a musical slide show lasting three minutes.

This certainly beats tossing the prints into a shoebox labelled 1976 and putting them in a closet forever. Imagine it! Ordinary folks producing their own photographic musical shows and publishing them on DVDs. I'm glad somebody is actually using the nifty gear they've made for us.

"Ooh, it's hot out today!" is the first thing Lauren Camera-Murray says when she breezes in from the Quai du Louvre and pulls up a club chair. With this, I begin page two in club notes booklet number six.

Lauren's news is that she and Stephen have found a new apartment to rent. She says it has two art-nouveau fireplaces, but that neither of them work. She also says the apartment is not a split-level 'jewel.' I guess this means the fireplaces are a substitute for semi-levels.

Because Stephen works on 'California time' he can't always come to meetings. On days when there aren't any meetings, Lauren often goes to the American Library near the Champ de Mars to borrow books to read - and soon, to read beside her new art-nouveau fireplaces!

Doug tells me that young and pretty girls are always talking to him - in Budapest - and recently in Paris on the métro, because they want to try out their English. Marion does not deny this.