No Alarm Bells

Halloween Flops

Paris:– Monday, 31. October 2005:– It is possible that at long last, after a prolonged period of weather that is not natural to this area and season, there is a possibility of its coming to an end. It is as if it has been playing Russian Roulette, spin the cylinder and pull the trigger and it lands on an empty chamber. Click. Another warm day with sunshine.

It was warm enough today even if there wasn't bright sunshine like yesterday and the day before, and for most of the last two months. I have switched coats so often that the sleeves have worn out. But now, tonight, the TV‐weather news Joe seemed to be saying, without actually saying out loud ‐ hinted at, well, I'm not sure.

Tomorrow, he said, clouds along the Alps, clouds along the west coast, clouds up along the Channel, but here ‐ confused, clouds, and sunshine, and he said 'variable.' Meaning? It could be semi‐sunny? Maybe, maybe not. A high of 17 degrees is forecast for Tuesday, which must be a couple of degrees warmer than normal for Toussaint, 1. November.

Wednesday might be a lot more simple, with clouds that drop water out of them. The BBC agrees with this and another forecast I've seen confirms it, plus Le Parisien's map and loaded with blacks puffs. The upside is a high temperature of 19 degrees.

It looks like Tuesday may replay on Thursday with clouds hovering over the same areas, but the opinion seemed to lean towards a cloudy day with sunny periods after maybe a bit of morning rain, with another high temperature estimate of 19 degrees. If this one's not loaded it could slip up and give us another bright Thursday, like the past several.

Metropole's out–of–house but in‐tune weather scribe, Météo Jim, treats all to a glorious end of October in downtown Pommeland and provides us this week with Las Vegas' odds for the end of the hurricane season, to end with Zeta by 30. November.

Frost has kissed the fields of Pommeland, turning La Grosse Pomme into Le Grand Citrouille. According to tradition, Indian Summer will burnish the fields with haze and warmth. If you believe the Weather Channel, this appears to be the case. Temperatures for le jour du Grand Citrouille might reach 70 anglograd ‐ 21 eurograd ‐ and Toussaint will also register the same temperature. A cool front will arrive from the west on Wednesday and cool Pommeland/Citrouilleland into the lower 60's anglograd which is 7 or 8 degrees too warm for this time of year. It would seem that Golden November is replacing Melville's 'damp, drizzly October' of the soul.*

*Disclaimer – announced last week, this week's special feature is the lack of a 'Disclaimer' for this week's weather report from Pommeland, because October is over, again.

Café Life

There is one report and one story on this week's Au Bistro page and both of them may alarm you. France is a modern country but it has its warts, and since these are similar to ones you probably have in your country they should be no surprise.

There are poor people living in France and there are unemployed people. Some of these live in places where other people are poor and unemployed, in places where a lot of young people with energy are in the same boat. Some of these are bitter and angry.

The government has a lot of plans, for it would like to have everybody working and everybody living in a fine place and paying taxes, but the government can only do so much, and only at its own speed. As it is, it does not seem as if there is a job for everybody, and there's not enough fine places to live.

I will let you make up your own minds about the notion of using armed police to keep a lid on things. If that's the way the government has decided to handle its 'sensitive' situations, then that's the way it is.

Meanwhile you are hardly likely to find yourself in Paris' suburbs with names like Argenteuil or Clichy–sous–Bois or any of 40–odd other similar localities outside the Périfreak.

But if you land in a such place by chance, just remember to stay cool, say as little as possible, do not try to take any photos of local color, and quietly turn around and take the train or bus back the way you came.

The Avian bird flu scare is exactly this – a scare. The government wants us to know that it is on top of the situation, so it is telling us more and is telling us it is doing more than we really need to know. They are being careful and we can help ourselves by staying cool.

I know everybody loves Halloween except me. I liked it when I was a kid but I didn't like the idea that it wasn't a holiday. In France we have Toussaint the day after Halloween, so it is a holiday. The kids even get a whole week off. But I don't, so I've gone off Halloween.

As it turns out so have the French. Ten years ago Halloween was a fête on the rise and merchants happily jumped on the bandwagon, so that Halloween and the color orange were everywhere you looked. These days even the Monoprix only has minor tokens, and a report on TV tonight said that spending for the pumpkin party is down by 50 percent.

Metropole partner Philippe of Petanque America wrote a couple of weeks ago to let us know that he is organizing the 'first ever' International Petanque Tournment in Miami. This will be Petanque America's second tournament, open this time to all comers. It could be pretty interesting because it will take place on South Beach where folks casually wear next–to–nothing for the climate, which has many fewer blizzards than Minnesota or Helsinki.