Cool Fête

Summer Begin Bungled

Paris:– Monday, 21. June 2004:– It is not particularly significative that it is the first day of summer and we're having a good old day of March or April. Sometimes we do have summer on 21. June, but seldom as often as we deserve.

This is also the day that was picked by a great savant for the Fête de la Musique, probably in the hope that sweet strings would flatter the rude currents. For the 23rd edition, France's yéyé girls will be getting cold tailfeathers tonight. Let's see if there isn't some summer weather to be salvaged here.

Caramba! I think this morning's radio said the high was to be 24 degrees today. This morning's Le Parisien says 18, which feels more like it was. Tonight's TV–news weather has forecast an incredible mess of clouds, rain, winds and higher temperatures for Tuesday. Hold onto your hats because it may be breezy. The TV–weather lady said it was to be 'uncertain.' This means the weather will be confused, not her.

It may still be breezy on Wednesday too, and the high is expected to be lower, at 20 degrees. Finally on Thursday the sky may be a bit brighter, the winds less, and the temperature too. There might not be any rain, and there might be less of this on Friday. Altogether the outlook is less than rosy.

Café Life

All newspapers worth a euro here carried a program for today's extensive musical events. During the day these aren't on every street corner, but in the evening outdoor bandstands are occupied all over town.

I haven't gotten a lot of material ready in advance for this issue, and I hesitated to even go down to Denfert – where I pick up loose demonstrations and Fêtes de la Musique without hardly lifting a finger.

So much better then to go only a third of the distance to find some rock'n'rollers outside the closest café, which was in the spirit of the fête by being open. Drums, two guitars, two harmonicas, but no kazoo, were being appreciated by a small crowd, informally standing around in the street.

France–2 TV put up a huge stage at Trocadéro – and with a big cast of pop stars you never heard of, it expected to complete its evening of broadcasting. When I got back from going nowhere, FIP was broadcasting the Olympia's first fête ever.

Public transport is swinging along with this by offering unlimited travel from 17:00 today until 7:00 tomorrow morning for a single 2.50€ ticket. And the RATP and the SNCF go a step further by running Métros, buses and trains all night long.

All that really remains to make this fête a bigger success is holding it on a holiday or weekend, and having real summer weather for it. As it is, folks take what they can get.

Last week the city announced its plans for your summer in Paris. This did not involve anything about the weather, so city spokesmen concentrated on the 'reception ambassadors,' who were successfully introduced two years ago.

These will again number 170, composed of young Parisians, some of whom are employees of the RATP. This makes sense, because some of their info kiosks are within the public transport system, while others are located at sites handy for visitors. Together, the ambassadors speak 13 languages. Individually, they are bilingual or trilingual.

This years' ambassadors took up their posts on Saturday and will continue to dispense their aid and services until Sunday, 1. September. Basically, instead of asking hapless residents, policemen or roller–flics questions, you are supposed to ask the ambassadors, who have been given enough training to know the right answers.

You can easily spot the ambassadors because they will be wearing plum–colored polo shirts and orange caps. They did not chose these colors. The info kiosks have the same color schemes. Also, you can request the free brochure entitled 'J'aime l'été à Paris, et en Ile–de–France' which has been published in French and English. It's a handy, info–packed booklet, so get yours soon because only 400,000 copies have been printed.

Last Wednesday was Bloomsday throughout the world but it passed my consciousness without making a ripple because the Daguerréotypistas that would notice it, were off in Capri ata three–week wedding party. Maybe they held a mini–Bloomsday down there.