A Household Hint

Fluff Follows Weather

Paris:– Monday, 22. March 2004:– Tonight's TV–news – after a vital but long report about the first round of yesterday's regional election results – had a report about how France–Météo's service will feature better forecasts starting in the summer.

The problem with France is it is too near a big ocean – the unpredictable Atlantic. If we want better weather, France should switch places with Austria. But the weather boys have been working on their problems, for years, and they think they'll be able to give better, longer–range predictions, next summer.

Meanwhile in the here are now, tonight's election news has taken so much time that the weather–news reduced its forecast from the usual three days – to tomorrow, Tuesday. This is supposed to be a day with partly sunny skies in the morning, getting less and less 'partly' as the day goes on.

Tomorrow's high of eight degrees may seem like less due to winds of 70 kph batting the northwest of the country. Whether these winds will penetrate as far as Paris is unknown, because winds are seldom taken into account in popular weather reports.

Today's Le Parisien managed to hit the streets with 15 extra pages with detailed voting results from Sunday's election. The paper's weather feature suffered a bit too with an absence of color, but managed to run its predictions out to the future as distant as next Friday.

For Wednesday the paper says everything will be cold, but the high is still predicted to be eight degrees. Winds are indicated as being less, mostly blowing at 50 kph towards Cherbourg.

Thursday will be a day of total rain, I think. The temperature may hop up to ten degrees, and the wind will pick up 10 kph, but it is expected to blow out of the Channel towards the Atlantic. While I'm at this, I'll toss in Friday as well, with its party sunny–cloudy skies, its 12 degrees, and winds still blowing towards the Azores.

In text, Le Parisien says it will be all gray, but that we should be happy with the temperature. It concludes with a suggestion to be 'patient.'

Café Life

In our modern age, in the 21st century no less, there are thousands of things that can go wrong within a household without warning. Along with light bulbs burning out for no reason, there is no way to prepare adequately for a busted toilet seat.

What are they made of? How, exactly, it is possible to break one without trying? Short of taking an axe to one – who, excepting the insane, would do such a thing? – a modern toilet seat should last a long long time, even if it is a cheap one.

Even though it is not my own toilet seat and I only rent it along with the apartment – there are, no doubt, apartments without toilet seats – it is a tenant's duty to maintain an apartment's accessories in good repair.

At first I considered repairing the toilet seat with superglue. I would have tried this if I had any. I went to Monoprix and was not too surprised that there were no toilet seats. Easter chocolates have displaced a lot of vital items. The bigger Montparnasse Inno didn't have any either.

The ones downtown at the BHV were too expensive. Samaritaine didn't seem to have any. Maybe there is a rash of broken toilet seats going around. But BHV is having a sale, and there's one for 15€ in its catalogue, which includes a toilet paper roll holder and a toilet brush unit. The entire set would make a nice birthday gift so long as the birthday person likes white

Finally, at Leroy Merlin, which has opened a big hardware store near Beaubourg, I found a classic model in white for 17.80€. The box it came in neglected to say where it was made, or what it is made of. It looks exactly the same as the one it replaces. It might be hard white goat cheese.

This column has become much longer than usual, so the remainder of it can be found on this week's unique 'Café 2' page, which is actually in this issue.

Today's 'LA SANCTION' on Le Parisien's front page is in type four millimetres taller than last week's 'BOULEVERSÉS,' measuring almost 40 millimetres. French voters turned out in force yesterday and gave the government's UMP party a sharp slap in the face in nationwide regional elections. The showdown comes next Sunday when voters return to the polls to separate the runners–up from the winners.

Pop this link to a recent issue's 'Café' page, where the usual plugs encouraging 'support for this magazine' and its 'Lodging' page are impatiently waiting for you to visit them.

Have a look at the last meeting's text and photo version of the "Hi Mac!" club report. There was a fine time for some new members and some existing members, who would have totalled 15 if all had been there at the same time.

The coming meeting of the Café Metropole Club will be on Thursday, 25. March. The Saint's Day of the Week will be Saint–Announciation. This one is not in the Saint's book. The big red dictionary says i is, 'The festival, on 25. March, in celebration of this event.'