Having just returned from a spectacularly hot France I thought I’d share a few random thoughts that hit me while I was there. But first, to set the French scene a bit of music, Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot singing ‘Un Jour Comme Un Autre’. For reasons unknown, I like this number;

This is a statue in the Palace of Fontainebleau just outside of Paris. I was told that normally you must queue for ages to get in the place. What with the high temperature the day I visited (40 degrees Centigrade; 104 Fahrenheit) very few people/tourists had been stupid enough to go out and about, except me. No queues at all.

While I was standing looking at the statue an older American bloke was stood next to me. We stood together vacantly staring at it. It was then that the American asked me what I thought the statue of the girl with multiple breasts was all about. In my mind, I was guessing it might be a representation of some Greek Goddess, but I didn’t mention that. All I said was, “I think she’s the one who went down in history as the most successful wet-nurse of all time.” He just nodded in agreement then let me know his wife was about three rooms back still reading the notes on what was in each room and that he was bored out of his brains. Nice guy. We got on well.

Monoprix is a French retail chain. Having run nearly out of toilet paper where I was staying I popped into the branch in a town called Provins (a beautiful old medieval town I would strongly recommend to anyone). The place sells pretty much everything yet after looking everywhere and then some, I couldn’t find toilet paper. I discovered that they didn’t sell it. Why? I mean they sold everything else you might need for a bathroom or loo.  This could mean only one thing, namely that the residents of Provins are all morbidly constipated.

French chateaux and palaces major on ceilings like this one from Fontainebleau. I rarely look up. But this one (the photo shows only a little part of it) did catch my eye. The gold plating is the genuine stuff. The sad thing was I didn’t have a ladder, a wallpaper scraper and a bag with ‘SWAG’ written on it with me at the time as there was a small fortune to be made what with the room being empty save for me.

Here’s another Fontainebleau shot. It shows the last ‘royal throne’ left in all of France. Looking at it the thought struck me that it was a good thing the English King, Henry VIII wasn’t French as likely his larger than average bum wouldn’t have fitted it, and even if some of his servants had shoehorns on them and had manoeuvred him down onto the throne he would have ended up stuck in it. Vive la France!

 

By the way, here’s link to my new album, ‘DREAM RESCUER’. It costs not much, and is available worldwide.  If you fancy buying it and feel able to post a review on Bandcamp, I’d appreciate it.

https://zoolon.bandcamp.com/album/dream-rescuer

Also, the Zoolon Audio website it is at www.zoolonaudio.com

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