A Question of Protocol

I'm confused.  What is the correct response when your eldest says he has lent all your Tom Lehrer CDs to his new girlfriend?

Paris 1: Notre Dame

The reason for a lack of posts in the second half of July is that we were on holiday in Paris.

We went out by Eurostar, which was fine.  But then the damn hotel we'd booked with (the Pavillon Republique les Halles just off of the Boulevard de Magenta) moved us to a different hotel in the same chain (because of 'flooding on the fifth floor' or some such problem). I have to say we thought they were lying, it was the weekend of the end of the Tour de France, and we suspected they had an overbooking problem. Anyway we ended up further out at the Pavillon Péreire Arc de Triomphe - which despite its name and their claims is not near the Arc.  It is out beyond Wagram, quite near the Peripherique.

So we ended up spending more money and time on the Metro than we intended, and our efficient detailed daily plans went out of the window.  Still, we did what we could and had fun.

The first day included a trip to Notre Dame.  I'd forgotten about the details of the frieze above the door:

Each person is judged, and those condemmed to Hell are led off to the right by a learing Devil, to suffer horrible tortures.

Although I think that the cathedral doesn't look its best from the front.  From other angles the fantastic, ornate flying butresses can be seen...

But who are these strange green beings?

Missing

Well.  I enjoyed the 'Comedy Prom' on the radio last night.  But there was a a name missing.  They played Franz Reizenstein's 'Concerto Popolare' (misspelt in some of the literature), and jolly good it was, too.  But, and but again, they could have noted that it was written for the first of the Hoffnung Concerts in 1956.  A piece of history - and a precursor - that they seemed to have forgotten.

Poem of the Week

The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

On Queues and Security

I needed to get my passport renewed in a rush the other week, so after some reearch I decided to go up to Victoria and apply in person.  This was surprisingly easy to organise, despite the fact that the Web site said it was hard to get an appointment at this time of year.

It's a new building, bigger and swisher than the old place I half-remember on Petty France.  And they take security, and flow of applicants, very seriously.  High security screening on the way in, then you queue to confirm what documents you have and get a ticket - a bit like the deli counter at Sainsbury's - for the queue you should go to.  Then from that queue, (which when I joined to it seemed to be a point at which a number of other routes through the system merged, so there were different ranges of ticket numbers), I went to a cubicle to present my documents.

The photos weren't good enough.

So the woman took all the documents, gave me another chit, and directed me to the Photo-Me booth where for a fiver I acquired some more (better, I guess) photographs.  Then I went downstairs again to the first queue to get a ticket so that I could queue again.  This time I was clearly on a different pathway (rephotography, I guess, or some such), as I got a number from a different series and I queued for less time.  And saw a chap in a different cubicle who could still (successfully! Hurrah! I had been getting nervous) find my documents, check and add in my photos, and then give me a ticket for another queue.

Where I went, and queued, and eventually paid.  

And got another chit with a number I could use to track the eventual delivery of my new passport.

Now, you may say that all of this queueing is actually more efficient (it probably is), and it is certainly very British.  And there are lots of uniformed chaps and chapesses making sure the queues are neat and tidy and don't go off in the wrong direction and marginally impede another applicant heading for a different queue.  Overall, though, the impression from all of those uniforms and all that ordered waiting, is one of serious security management.  And this is continued after the visit.

Because I wan't in when the secure courier first tried to deliver the passport (for which you are required to have several other forms of identification handy to satisfy the courier that you are the person you claim to be), I had to schedule a further visit.  The service which manages this requires a long PIN and some other details.  So I rang them up (more queueing), only to find an automated system including a voice recognition tool that didn't. The Web site isn't great, and doesn't send confirmation of the fact that you've successfully re-booked - at least not that quickly.  So I struggled.

Eventually I outwitted the automated phone system and found a route through to a human (or I guess a far better automated system, but I think not).  Of course there was a queue for him, but he was very helpful - once he'd taken me though all the security to confirm that I was me.

So with the day arranged, and me working from home, the courier arrived.

On a low-spec motor scooter with L plates.  And he asked for a signature, but no documents.  It was as tho' they'd decided that for the last mile of the journey my serious, secure, much-queued-for passport could be entrusted to the local Pizza delivery boy, as he was going that way anyway.   Rather sweet, really.

Still, it worked, so I can't complain.

Now, I wonder where I put it?

Dynamic, Periodic

Have a look at this.  Play with it.
It's a super-duper, interactive Web Periodic Table

Unregulated, Unfit

So.
And so.
I stand by what I wrote about the horrid Murdochs  in 2009.  They are unfit, completely unfit, to own any media whatsoever.  Period.  
(Just thought I'd put my oar in again).