Blue Labor Day

And Other Whimsies

Paris:– Monday, 5. September 2005:– According to tonight's TV– weather news forecast we are not going to have good times tomorrow. This is perfect. I can rant and rave, oh, gloriously crummy weather, absolute muck, pinnacle of gloom, pit of depression, yata yata, grumble, whine, moan. You see, I'm out of practice, and winter may only be one mean weather system off in the future.

Tomorrow, if they've gotten this right, it might be gray and rainy. If it's not right it may be partly sunny, at least until the rest of the rotten stuff gets here from Brittany. If this arrives earlier, forget it. But, what ho? This is not so bad because the high is supposed to be 26 degrees. It means, I suppose, that it may be humid even if there is no actual rain.

For Wednesday I must revert my ranting and raving back to praise for weather suitable for barefoot canaries. While the southern half of France lurks under edge to edge cloud cover, here in the funky north we can expect a pretty sunny day, along with a high of 27 degrees.

This is supposed to continue on Thursday. But a belt of serious rain has been forecast for the Channel area and this may advance towards us, and then again it may not. If not, then we have sunny weather again, sandwiched between that Wednesday muck to the south and the danger in the northwest. Meanwhile, as they say, here is it supposed to be 27 degrees again. Le Parisien, with lower numbers says Thursday will be bof!, followed by re–bof! on Friday, which shows a dark rain cloud near Orléans.

We shift focus back to Pommeland this week with Météo Jim sending a bulletin about fêtes, weather and spurious degrees, but including times of limpid climes.

Pommeland's weather pales in comparison to what has happened along the Gulf Coast. Experts had been saying for years that a storm and disaster of this magnitude would occur and unfortunately it did. To put the area affected – which includes total devastation, flooding, tornadoes, power outages and wind damage – in perspective for non–US Metropole readers, this would be an area equal to half the size of France.

After leaving New Orleans, tropical storm Katrina went up the Mississippi River and then northeast along the Ohio River. It inflicted some damage on Montreal and then headed out to sea.

Pommeland is now enjoying its Fêtes du Travail three–day weekend with the actual celebration of Laborious Day coming today. Weather is a beautiful early September gift of sunny days, low humidity and temperatures around 80 degrees. However, after seeing what the Weather Channel had predicted for the past several weeks, experience says to add about 5 or more degrees to the predicted high.

Café Life

If I don't get Metropole's events online within the next year or two I will be able to copy everybody else who does them slightly more frequently. But I am only joking, hardly serious. I used to gnash my teeth and do an events column every week. Maybe I should fire me and get an intern to pay me to let them do it for free. I feel so unreliable.

Last Monday's killer hurricane Katrina is little more than a puff of wind today. The week's appalling scenes from the Gulf Coast disaster zone are etched in our memories forever and there's more bad news yet to come. I received a few emails, not apparently from regular readers, asking for aid from Europe and France.

The European Union and the French government hardly need any hints from me. Reports say that European countries have considerable reserves of refined gasoline, and they have offered to ship it to the United States. In France the foreign minister says she has three cargo aircraft full of urgently useful items ready to fly as soon as American authorities tell him where they should land.

France has a stockpile of appropriate material on hand in the hurricane zone, in Martinique, and two of the cargo planes are based there, gassed up and ready to go. Other reports have said the Croix–Rouge is saddling up, getting ready to perform their mission.

On behalf of the Café Metropole Club, I hope its members who live in the region of the hurricane damage are safe and sound.

Today, the first Monday in September, is Labor Day in the United States and Canada. Europe borrowed this day and placed it, for reasons of solidarity, on May 1st so folks could bug the government before the holidays. On this day workers are supposed to celebrate, and many do so by having a parade to protest about the latest dumb outrages by stupid management. In Paris something is always wrong so there is never no parade, but there are other years when corks are ready to blow and the mechanics and shopworkers, the bus drivers and the train workers, teachers and scientists, the whole bleeding working world takes to the streets to give the big red finger to the MGT. Here are links to the ugly, the bad and good May Days in Paris from 1996 to 2005, as they appeared here.

May Day in Metropole Paris:–

1996Red Flags On May Day
997Hide and Seek May Day Parade

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