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SEPTEMBER 2008 : BRITAIN and FRANCE
A cappuccino in a café on London's Baker Street.
Pin contemplates the climatic joys of the British summer
One-upmanship at London Zoo...
...to get a glimpse of this chirpy little fella...
...and his buddy.
Post-zoo, and the crap weather takes it toll - smile, you buggers, smile!
Café Nero - the poor (wo)man's Starbucks.
Attack of the sluggish Pin clones!
Leaving London, we catch the last Eurostar before the Chunnel burns down, and encamp in Paris' 7th arrondissment in the splendidly modern Hotel du Cadran.
The view from our hotel window - we will shortly be filling our faces in this establishment...
At the Café Central next morning poverty and a crap exchange rate means a shared breakfast set: in the background the kindly waitress who slipped us paupers an extra free coffee.
We take the metro to Concorde, then walk towards the Louvre, and encounter the splendid Place Vendôme: apparently some geezer called Napoleon built this green pole to commemorate his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz.
See, told you it was called Place Vendôme.
Finally we reach the Louvre and its glass pyramid, and decide to spend a beautiful sunny day under the earth gawping at dusty old things...
I want to head for the Roman gear, but get distracted on the way by Horus...
...his pal the Sphinx...
...some other Egyptian bits...
...but sadly no creepy exposed mummies.
Apparently the Egyptians liked to shove jewellery into people's faces...
...and have animal-headed men lop folks' heads off.
Finally we reach the Roman galleries and are confronted by this fine two thousand year-old arse - well worth waiting for!
The Romans taught their bairns early how to dispatch farm animals.
Some famous Roman geezer whose name escapes me. Biggus Diccus?
Nice headgear, sir! Watch out for those lintels now!
Ah! I know this one! It's Mr.Hadrian of Wall fame, done in bronze. The statue, I mean, not the wall. A bronze wall would be daft.
Marcus Aurelius, one of the few competent Emperors in the later Roman period. Bit of a miserable bugger, though: see his still extant book, Meditations, for proof.
This is most definitely not Biggus Diccus. It doesn't matter how long you stare at it, pal, it's not going to be getting any bigger any time soon.
Fear of legal action prevents me from saying who this reminds me of. Still, it's proof that the Romans had a sense of humour.
Finally! Nicolas Poussin's Les Bergers d'Arcadie, a painting which features prominently in the ur-conspiracy theory book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. The last two times I was in the Louvre it was mysteriously absent, obviously because THEY didn't want us to see it.
After what seems like an eternity in the museum we escape to the banks of the Seine and observe the interesting cloud formations.
Most tourists in Paris train their digital cameras on the big sights around them, but I think it is equally valid to look down sometimes.
Next day we joined the enormous queue to get in to Versailles. Look at the grumpy foreigner!
In this shot I skillfully frame the picture so that the obligatory ungainly scaffolding obscuring the palace entrance is hidden.
Pin, Palace.
Not only was the palace uglified by scaffolding, they'd also allowed some godawful crappy modern artist to shove his 'art' all over the place. Put away your fiery biscuits, sir, for they do not sit well with the palatial neo-classical backdrop!
This shot is wilfully arty, 'tis true, but as well as trying to get a slice of the variously-hued bed chambers in one frame, I was also avoiding the bobbing heads of a veritable United Nations of tourists.
We note from the size of the beds that the French royals of yesteryear were short of the arse: Pin-sized, in fact!
A chapel, innit?
Such was the density of the touristic throng, I abandoned my usual idea of silent contemplation before committing scenes to the digital, and just blazing away with the Nikon and only discovering the great beauty of the royal chambers once viewed back home on the old iMac.
Incongruent, sir, incongruent! Quite funny, though, I suppose...
This was the royal shithouse. Are you now beginning to see just why the revolution had to happen?
The famous Hall of Mirrors, only with the bottom part cut out to hide the thousands of slobbering neanderthals grappling with their cheap video cameras. Yes, I am a condescending elitist, I know.
Finally Pin manages to take a photo that is (a) level, and (b) doesn't make me look like an addled gurning Mark E.Smith clone. Judicious cropping was required, however. Note the wonderful Get Blanched T-shirt.
At the far end of the hall was another ghastly modern art 'thing,' which I utilised to get a Van Eyck Arnolfini Wedding kind of a vibe going, if you know what I mean. Hmm, didn't really work, did it?
Right at the back was a major thoroughfare, so I had to wait bloody hours to get a couple of seconds free of loping plebs invading the scene.
By the time we had emerged from the palace into the splendid and vast gardens, the weather had taken a turn for the worst. Just imagine how much better this would have looked if the sky had been blue.
This cropped image doesn't really do justice to the sheer size of the gardens: the patch of water right down at the end near the horizon is actually a couple of kilometres away, and the rowing boats on its surface are all but invisible.
Another crop from a wider panoramic picture, showing how the cloudy skies actually helped out by forcing me to use a slower shutter speed which captures each droplet of water perfectly. Ooh, he's gone all technical and geeky on us!
After the cold impersonality of the palace proper, Marie Antoinette's faux folk village in one corner of the vast gardens provided a welcome respite from the effects of mass tourism.
Rustic dwellings interspersed with gardens full of both floral delights and more mundane vegetable matter.
The Scottish connection!
That would be lavender (dilly, dilly) behind the rather woeful rose.
The place was also graced with a wide range of farm-type critters, too.
Not in a pear tree. This comment only works if this is a partridge: if it's another game bird, we're buggered!
'Aye, Jethro, there be plenty a-silage to go roond.'
Next day we head a little further afield, this time to the delightful town of Chartres, about an hour outside of Paris by train.
Studies in Rustic French Architecture, Series II, No.1
A twelfth century giant, and we're going to be climbing that bugger shortly...
Once again, I have to choose my angles carefully, as certain vital parts of the edifice are under scenic sheets of plastic and scaffolding. I suppose we should be grateful that they are taking care of it.
Chartres Cathedral is reknowned for its original stained glass. That's right, folks, them winders is eight hundred years old!
No air-rifles, boomerangs, frisbees or long pointy sticks, please!
Inside, and there are hordes of idiots trying to take pictures with flash. No, no, no, people, that's not going to work...
...switch the damn flash off, lean against something solid or prop the camera on something, then breath in, hold your breath, and shoot...
We foolishly poney up extra euros for the privilege of staggering and gasping, all sweaty and dizzy, up to the toppermost of the poppermost! No, I don't know what that means, either.
At the top, Pin clings to the spire in a state of vertiginous catatonia, whilst I go gargoyle hunting...
A fine specimen! Now, the question is, was he always so ugly, or is that the result of eight hundred years of bird shit and acid rain?
I confess that at this point the vertigo was getting to me, too.
To get these shots I had to lean out over a very thin-looking piece of twelfth century masonry - yikes!
My knees were definitely wobbly at this juncture...
Cheer up, mate, it might never 'appen!
This was taken from the most vomit-inducing spot on the spire: the balcony was only about two feet wide, the balustrade thin and crumbly-looking.
Glad to be back down again taking some more expert shots, unlike those flash-utilizing creeps!
The patented Lightfootian 'all detail, no background' shot triumphs once again!
I'm no great fan of the catholic church, but you've got to hand it to them, they've got something primal, atmospheric and captivating going on with these candles
The big bit at the end of the church. I know there's probably a technical word for it, but I'm buggered if I can remember it. Perhaps, an apse?
Look! There's a ghost in the bottom right corner!
Studies in Rustic French Architecture, Series II, No.2
One last look at the cathedral before we head off to see what else the town has to offer.
Aha! Some jolly old jabbering yokels bumbling down the alley!
And what the street looked like after we'd overtaken them.
Studies in Rustic French Architecture, Series II, No.3
Studies in Rustic French Architecture, Series II, No.4
Studies in Rustic French Architecture, Series II, No.5
Apparently we are on 'Street of the Cocks.'
Studies in Rustic French Architecture, Series II, No.6
Oh, Chartres, you historic diadem in France's back passage!
This fellow ate half of my baguette!
Studies in Rustic French Architecture, Series II, No.7
Studies in Rustic French Architecture, Series II, No.8
Heading back to Paris on one of them nice shiny double-decker trains the French are so fond of. That's Pin on the left.
Our final night in Paris, and as is customary, we take a late-night stroll after having stuffed ourselves in a posh restaurant. Pictured, the Hotel Splendid and the moon.
We turn right at the École Militaire, and, quite unexpectedly, we are presented with this stunning vista..
It may sound clichéd, but Paris never fails to surprise us with its beauty and splendour. Now how the hell did they do that?
Turning right, we head back into the elegant boulevards of the 7th Arrondissement, looking back over our shoulders at the mesmerizing tower...
...when all of a sudden it bursts into a myriad of flashing white lights for no apparent reason.
Pleasantly lost on the way back to the hotel...
...but soon we find our street again.
All images © 2008 Andy Lightfoot: no unauthorised reproduction without the author's prior consent. Enquires to that effect should be directed here.
01/2010 : Ujina, Hiroshima
01/2010 : Recent Pictures
09/2009 : Spain
05/2009 : Kyoto, Otsu and Shiga, Japan
03/2009 : Hokkaido, Japan
09/2008 : Britain and France
04/2008 : Chubu, Japan
10/2007 : France
03/2007 : Kyushu, Japan
10/2006 : Norway
08/2006 : Kansai, Japan
03/2006 : Australia
09/2005 : Czech Republic
08/2005 : Tokyo, Japan
03/2005 : Australia
01/2005 : Hiroshima and Kyoto, Japan
09/2004 : Britain, Finland and Germany
03/2004 : New Zealand
09/2003 : France and Switzerland
03/2003 : New Zealand
12/2002 : Hiroshima, Japan, Denmark and Sweden