[Date Prev][Date Next][Date Index]
INKYTEXT 329 PART I
_ _ __ ______
(_) ____ / /__ __ __ / /_ ___ _ __ /_ __/
/ / / __ \ / //_/ / / / / / __/ / _ \ | |/_/ / /
/ / / / / / / ,< / /_/ / / /_ / __/ _> < / /
/_/ /_/ /_/ /_/|_| \__, / \__/ \___/ /_/|_| /_/
/____/
TODAY IS THE 241st ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF ROBERT BURNS
1759 -1796
"If there's another world he lives in bliss;
if there be nane, he made the best o'this."
Issue No 329 Tuesday 25th January 2000
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
Editorial correspondence should be sent to InkyText@lancaster.ac.uk
Subscription requests to Inkytext-distribution-request@lists.lancs.ac.uk
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
ADVANCE NOTICE
There will be an INKYTEXT readers' party
at 5.00 pm on Friday 4th February.
Purpose: to celebrate life.
Music, French bottled lager, 4 litres of foul
Liebfraumilch, apple juice, cranberry juice,
olives, pretzels, peanuts, crisps and company.
You are invited. Venue to be announced.
AGENDA
1. Editorial: Soluble Fish - Millennial Thoughts on the nature of "reality"
2. News: Rob Bracewell, Chairs and Readerships, Quality of Merlewood, Finance,
Lord Baker, Senate, Lunchless lunch, Exhibition Opening.
3. Peter Scott Gallery: 25th Anniversary Exhition - Lancaster University
Art and Science Collections.
4. Paris Itinerary (III): The Marais and High Mass at Notre-Dame
PART II FOLLOWS AND CONTAINS
5. Readers' Letters: Prof Pott's Whale, Project Management, Paris,
Ruskin's sentences, Ruskin's Mother, Ritz Hotel, Tim Potter,
Marcus Merriman, Dave Robinson's farewell.
6. Small Ads: Booking form for Heaven, Evening Food at the Venue, Book Vouchers
Walkers wanted, Gala Concert, The Gregson, Graphics card wanted, Jumble
Sale, housing, Lord Inglewood, Furniture for sale, etc.
MINUTES AND MATTERS ARISING
---------------------------
Confusion sometimes arises between LUTV and Media Services, now
re-named Audio Visual Services. The latter are part of the Resources
Division and provide video replay facilities and AV equipment in
lecture theatres and other venues on campus. They also service and
maintain AV equipment. LUTV is part of the Humanities Faculty.`
For 'hommage' read 'homage'
For 'Stones of Venice' read 'The Bible of Amiens' (Clear sign of
dementia since I had it in my hand at the time.)
For 'massive support' read 'almost unanimous support' but the letter
on staff health was originally copied to the AUT not HoDs.
Sorry, not telling what happened in the Vicarage Car Park on the last
Friday of the Lent Term 1975, but the mythical accounts you may hear
have over the years grown in the telling. I did not fall into the
trench. And a future vice-chancellor was not forcibly ejected from the
ladies underwear department of Marks & Spencers. Not exactly.
The Finance Director of another (eminent) university was recently
asked if he knew of this journal. He vehemently replied that he
certainly did and could not understand why it wasn't stopped. This
gratifying confirmation of the computer illiteracy of senior
administrators, of the neanderthalism of their natural
authoritarianianism, and of their complete out-of-touchness with their
own colleagues, was very gratifying.
Mike and Lorna Mullett breakfasted in The Venue on Sunday and pronounced
it good (which at 2.50 it ought to be). Only 2 strips of Gouda and 1 slice
of salami this time. Less ham as well. Portion control. NB The unoaked
Chilean Chardonnay at 1.50 a glass is very pleasant. Am more dubious about
the red (Merlot) equivalent.
1. EDITORIAL: SOLUBLE FISH - MILLENNIAL THOUGHTS ON "REALITY"
-------------------------------------------------------------
The recent Feasts of Conspicuous Consumption were educational.
Actually, _pace_ Mr Blair, everything is if you've got the right mental
attitude... but that is the hardest thing of all to teach or learn.
Most of us, especially governments, senior civil servants and the CVCP,
still have some way to go.
One thing they taught was that some of the British - OK... the English
- do not take naturally to celebration. They learn it from others and
confuse it with spending money, going out, and drinking. Then they
claim that their celebration is best in the world. Or else complain
that nothing worked, it was badly organised and someone should be
sacked.
The 'Science of Happiness' (Science du Bonheur' - Stendhal) is not
part of the national curriculum, not taught in our schools. Still less
in our universities, where administrators are so inured to inflicting
misery on staff that they seem no longer aware of it.
Indeed the very idea of teaching Happiness as a discipline, or merely
offering training in it, would doubtless bring irate letter-writing
campaigns demanding that its proponents be locked up, listed on a
public data-base, driven out of town. And that our children be
protected from them. Whatever next? Teaching that sex can be
pleasurable?
More importantly, this year's events taught us how enthusiastically
and unthinkingly people now equate price with value. The sales of
champagne were particularly instructive. Who are these millions of
people who think they can tell the quality of Lanson, Taittinger,
Laurent-Perrier, Mumms, Veuve Cliquot, Piper-Heidseick, Pommery and
upwards? Most of us don't drink enough of the stuff to be able tell any
of them from a good Cava, Prosecco or Seaview Brut (which are often
virtually indistinguishable anyhow and sometimes well under a fiver).
People are paying extra for brands that have been established by the
very advertising which they are paying the extra for. The desirability
of this is taught in our business schools instead of being banned by
law or classed as insanity.
It was gratifying to see that in the Daily Mail's blind champagne
tasting, published on Christmas Eve, the experts rated only one as
24/24 (shades of TQA!), and that turned out to be Sainsbury's Blancs de
Noirs. This was being discounted to under 10 pounds before Christmas,
but had beaten some grandes marques up to four or five times its price.
Particularly gratifying for those of us who had a case of the stuff.
Gratuitous waste is everywhere a common feature of orgiastic
celebration, of course. (Witness City cocaine-users in charge of our
money.) It is especially obvious when expensive champagne is used to
drench one's companions instead of being imbibed, yet another curious
Anglo-Saxon custom. A better example would be this Thursday's
Up-Helly-Aa in Lerwick, where a Viking Jarl's ornate longship will be
burnt, amid song and copious libations followed by laughter and
revelry, to mark the end of the midwinter festivities.
Perhaps flaunting one's wealth provides some with a boost to the ego,
though it seems a bit solipsistic if no one else is aware of how much
you've spent. Yet the equation of worth and cost in a climate of
ignorance is one of the salient traits of modern economic behaviour,
and the commonest fallacy believed by those not Happiness-trained. Our
economists should study it urgently and try to obviate the working of
Gresham's law, the only entirely convincing piece of capitalist
economics I am aware of.
No one knows the 'real' cost of anything any more. How indeed can
there be a 'true' cost to calculate? One object is played against
another and supermarkets aim not only to generate enough capital to
cover depreciation and reinvest, but they try to accumulate enough
surplus wealth to launch banks. At our expense.
This exploitation of the 'Have nots' by the 'Haves' was a distinctive
feature of the closing years of the last century. Is there hope that
things will start to change? Perhaps, for the last century also saw the
birth of Surrealism, which, quite apart from being fun, taught us to
find in contradictions, oxymorons and apparent logical impossibilities
glimpses of a greater 'reality', an entirely real 'surreality' of
potential, which has always existed and always will.
This journal is often thought to be a repository of contradictions,
and its editor to hold ambivalent views on Ruskin, Christianity, drink,
etc. It is simultaneously puritanical and Epicurean.
There is no contradiction. Bread and cheese can be the Food of the
Gods, if the sun is shining, with the right person and in the right
place. Wholemeal or rye bread, of course, or sun-dried tomato ciabata,
with Roquefort. As always in Science and Surrealism, opposites join and
are reconciled. Remember that Epicurus himself drank only water. And
his idea of the height of bliss was lying under a tree in the shade
arguing about philosophy with old friends.
One could do worse.
2. NEWS
-------
MANY CONGRATULATIONS TO ROB BRACEWELL of History who has been
appointed Access Officer of Lancaster City Council, a post charged
with ensuring compliance with disability legislation.
BEST WISHES TO LISA CROSS (formerly Taylor), departmental officer of
Independent Studies, who is now on maternity leave. Also belated
congratulations on her marriage last spring, not announced here because
no one tells me anything.
TOTAL DESPAIR AMONGST STAFF IN BUILDINGS, with secretarial departures
and Martin van der Marel off for a month. Staff comment that they no
longer really care and no one tells them anything. (Have those
interviews happened yet?)
HAVE YOU LOOKED AT OUR NEW WEB PAGES? Rather good. The minimalist but
stylish front page is a single framless screen, as recommended by
leading design authorities. New and updated News at the top - remember
Donnatexts are no longer issued and even some Vickytext type material
can now be found in the super new online diaries of events. The new
Peter Scott Gallery pages are excellent.
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR LANCASTER SCIENTISTS who have again succeeded in
a bid for major infrastructure funding. The latest successful
multidisciplinary bid involves the three hard science departments
within IENS, and follows our recent millennium award and successful
bids by high energy physics (JREI), low temperature physics (JIF) and
the Polymer Centre (JREI).
The JREI bid announced this week will fund state-of-the-art
micro-thermal microscopy and analysis, and involves a team from
physics, biomedicine, plant biology and the Polymer Centre.
[NOTE: Forgive me, but aren't we losing the Polymer Centre....? (Ed.)]
LAST YEAR'S ACCOUNTS are being analysed for you. More anon. Academic
staff declined from 902 to 897. Emoluments of the VC including
benefits-in-kind rose to 90K. The number of staff earning over 60K
increased from 2 to 3, and the numbers earning over 50K from 14 to 21.
Our total income was 76.1 million and our surplus 4 million. As the
previous year overall comparative performance indicators are now
omitted.
LAST TUESDAY saw another of the HoDs' unconstitutional lunches
initiated by Professor Hanham as a way of by-passing Senate and
ensuring the loyalty of the officer cadres. The present VC introduced
the surrealist variant of the lunchless lunch. He was not present. The
Deputy VC spoke on the buildings programme, Prof Davies spoke on new
sources of funding and attempted to interest people in the single
regeneration budget and Mr McGregor tried to explain the accounts and
the need for continuing re-investment in our infra-structure (and loss
of staff).
SENATE LAST WEDNESDAY WAS PATHETIC and without John Wakeford would
have been worse. At least he won from the VC agreement that if a
department was being closed Senate could discuss it before it was too
late. (Think he had Philosophy in mind.) And he made Mr McGregor
justify the absence of an options appraisal with a 'nil option' for 20
minutes. Prof McClintock was also pointed (see below). Not really
worthy of much further comment. One gets the government one deserves.
(Are the Continuing Audit people reading this. Anyone know who they
are?)
HAS THE UNIVERSITY made a serious attempt to evaluate the scientific
quality of the Merlewood outfit? The question was asked at Senate and
the VC replied that colleagues in Biology and ES had told him a couple
of years ago that the NERC ITE at Merlewood was of high quality. Was
some sheepishness observed amongst reps from those departments? Prof
Trevor MacMillan said (it seemed to some reluctantly) that we would
probably be able to learn from each other....
Objective indicators seem less encouraging. One scientist has been
poking around to try to assess Merlewood publications. So far as he can
tell, there have been about 400 papers since 1981 - which would be 5
each if there are say 80 scientists there. And 5 each in almost 20
years is described as "pathetic by any scientific standards", and less
than a tenth of the output of our own people in comparable areas of BS
and ES (who are only part-time researchers anyway!). He may have missed
some papers but since he was searching with "Merlewood" in the address
field he prolly didn't miss 9/10ths of them. Can so large a disparity
cannot be explained away by pleas of "commercial sensitivity"?
If we have made the right decision, it is more by luck than through
careful judgement based on, for example, advice sought from the small
panel of disinterested experts that one might have expected, given the
level of expenditure. A lot of the work in Merlewood is prolly
relatively low level (but lucrative) consultancy for external bodies,
and the number of ace researchers may be relatively modest. The
University's decision could still be the right one, perhaps, but the
supporting evidence was not sought and the arguments have not been
made.
LORD BAKER (oily former Education Secretary Kenneth Baker), whose
final appraisal was one of the high-spots of an earlier issue, spent
yesterday on campus, hearing presentations in computing, communications
and engineering. He is on the board of various telecoms groups and asked
some astute questions. This was arranged as part of Pro-VC Davies
forging of potentially lucrative bonds with industry. We are rumoured
to be trying to get into bed with a phone company or ISP.
THE PRESS OFFICER recently attended a Marketing and Communications
seminar at which she was slightly startled to discover that her
department is now called Marketing and Communications. Still some way
to go on the communications front....
TONIGHT SEES THE FORMAL INAUGURATION of the Art and Science exhibition
at the Peter Scott Gallery, a celebration of 25 years of collecting at
Lancaster. This wonderful show (see below), the best exhibition there
has yet been in the gallery, should get the philistines and
neanderthals from the southern campus up there at last. It will be
opened by Prof Whitaker, chair of the Peter Scott gallery committee.
The VC has a prior engagement but Prof Abercrombie, Prof Davies and the
Secretary will be present.
SATURDAY'S FYLDE/FURNESS SELL-OUT BURNS SUPPER features piping by
student Joanna Gray, singing by the mellifluous student Claire Beard,
accompanied by Ben Noakes, and highlights Robert Denver's unbeatable
rendering of Tam O'Shanter, all the way from Ayrshire. His brother,
Professor Denver, will recite Holy Willie's Prayer, the Editor will
propose the toast to The Immortal Memory of Robert Burns, and Dr Damon
Berridge will carry the haggis.
3. PETER SCOTT GALLERY: 25TH ANNIVERSARY EXHITION - LANCASTER UNIVERSITY
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ART AND SCIENCE COLLECTIONS.
---------------------------
Only Connect. This is a celebration of Lancaster University, which was
designed to break down the boundaries between disciplines, the very
reason why we deliberately and wisely didn't have faculties when we
were created. It is an inspiring and creative exhibition that not only
brings to light aspects of the universities work and property that we
never knew we had, but reveals all sorts of hidden synergies between
them. Many congratulations to Mary Gavagan, the enthusiastic curator,
whose inspiration it was.
Lots of sex in it too. The specimen of Euplectella, or Venus' flower
basket, a sponge found only 1500 metres under the ocean and given as a
marriage gift by the Japanese, looks astonishingly like a long flexible
dildo. And Phallus Impudicus or Stinking Ragwort is a highlight of the
display of astonishing plates from William Curtis Flora Londinensis of
1777 (from the Library's rare book room).
Better still, Peter Flint has dug out a tray of Biology specimens of
the moths that frequent the very flowers displayed, revealing haunting
similarities between the two. The Edgar Hare Collections of
lepidoptera, arranged in related series, are amazing - especially when
you see the size of some things he found in Hest Bank. Funny thing this
evolution lark.
Then there's Ken Oates's prize-winning electron microscope photos.
These are truly amazing. When the contents of a rat's testes are
enlarged 14000 times one can glimpse the very origins of life in the
division of cells to form spermatozoa. Of rat life at least. And I have
no idea what a Golgi complex is but enlarged 125 000 times it is very
beautiful and needs only the addition of colour to be a surrealist
abstract image.
How do giant turtles copulate? With difficulty I imagine. Max Ernst's
surrealist etching of Galapagos prompts the reflection. Wilhemina
Nicholson's plant studies (from the Dame Irene Manton collection) are
more harmless, and can be contrasted with the magnificent Chinese and
Japanese plant and animal paintings Dame Irene collected. Almost liked
her pressed flowers too, though normally I am not capable of, as
Baudelaire put it, 'going soppy over vegetables'.
Then there's Ruskin. His drawings of leaf and plant motifs copied from
Gothic Venetian sculptures are linked in a sense to flat Art Nouveau
type stylisation of the kind you see in the Pilkington ceramics of the
John Chambers Room. Perhaps his drawings of quartz from Swiss glaciers
might even interest Professor Macdonald FRSE.
No whale skeleton alas, but a photo of it being dug up, and Prof Potts
is going to give a lecture on it in March as part of National Science
Week, for which the gallery has been given 2K which will fund a
story-teller as well. Some nice smaller skeletons too.
Great pity that there are no crystals or fractals. An even more
ambitious exhibition trail, involving Engineering, Maths and Physics,
was initially planned but Ms Gavagan's hassles over the gallery's
ludicrous budget last term took up too much time.
The two cultures are an English tragedy. Leonardo was artist before he
was design engineer. Art necessarily precedes science since, for all
things except humans, essence precedes existence. You have to have the
idea of the thing before you can create it. Humanity demands the happy
marriage of the two. The word Science merely denotes knowledge as a
whole and is not meant to divide it.
My own passive interest in Science is normally limited to anatomy, in
particular the anatomy of females of the species Homo Sapiens. But this
exhibition opens ones eyes to the richness and interest of the
scientific treasures accumulated all over the university in a few
decades.
4. PARIS ITINERARY FOR STUART AND JOAN RILEY (III) The Marais and High Mass
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We left you outside the Madeleine, your wife clutching a single rose.
I'm not sure how long your walk has taken. Under an hour if you stroll
briskly, but perhaps you slowly awed your way around the Place Vendome,
studying the Obelisk and the windows of Chanel or Philippe Patek; or at
Concorde you eyed the Orangerie, and the Assemblee Nationale over the
river. And at the Madeleine don't forget to look back over the Place at
Lucas-Carton, one of the score or so of ultimate restaurants that vie
for honours.
It may be time to go homewards. If not, hmm, you could venture into
the broad and bready avenues and boulevards of the 8th, but I think
that's for another time. Or you could stroll back to the Opera along
the Boulevard de la Madeleine and the Boulevard des Capucines. Or
indeed you could at this very station (Madeleine) take _your_metro line
(Line 8) Direction Creteil-Prefecture and get off at one of your two
stations.
But you have also to snack. I think I'm going to send you on the other
metro line from here, METEOR, the newest, the fastest, the only metro
line with its own web-site they originally said, and certainly the only
metro line in the world intended to run diagonally across a city centre
to link two parts of the national library.
NB: it's deep. Hop on and sit at the front. Hold tight. It beams you
from Madeleine to the Bibliotheque, via Bastille, Gare de Lyon and
under the river, while thrilling your stomach at the same time. Emerge
and wonder at the new Bibliotheque Francois Mitterand. Four 17-storey
glass walled towers shaped like open books on a gigantic plinth
sheltering a wood with 80 ft trees and twice the size of a football
pitch. Within the plinth are the reading rooms, looking out on to the
garden. And anyone can buy a ticket and become a reader in the upper of
these. I'd have made it my building of the last century, but for the
fact that it doesn't yet function well and the Museum of Scotland was
completed in time.
Go in if you have time. The cafe's a bit pricey but good. Otherwise
take the metro back again to Bastille and wander up Beaumarchais and
home.
THIRD HALF-DAY
--------------
Now time to get to know properly your own _quartier_ - the Marsh. In
recent years parts of it have become the biggest and most visible gay
and lesbian area outside San Francisco, but no need to let that worry
you. Very relaxed and mellow: model of tolerance by both sides. At some
hours of the day you may be astonished to see more or less mono-sexual
cafes packed with the close-cropped heads and tanned, depilated,
muscular, tank-topped bodies of handsome males. Or indeed females. Try
to be Parisian about it: bored and indifferent.
The great houses of the Marais have mostly been sand-blasted and
restored in recent decades and most are now public buildings of some
sort. In between every kind of small commerce plus lots of antique
shops and tea-rooms. I'm told EGT - Earl Grey Tea - (_the a la
bergamote en francais_) is a lesbian drink, whatever that means. If you
have a tea remember to ask for _lait_ with it - and specify _lait
froid_ or you'll get it boiled.
Go out of your street and stroll down the rue de Tournelles until it
reaches the rue des Francs Bourgeois, the principal east-west artery
through the Marais. Turn right and you'll almost immediately fall upon
a majestic and slightly Italianate 17th century square of perfect
proportions, the Place des Vosges, once called the Place Royale.
You'll enjoy the cafes and restaurants of the arcade. In the SE corner
is the Maison Victor Hugo, home of Romanticism, with the motto Ego Hugo
a testament to the vanity of genius. From the SW corner you can
actually wander through into the gardens of the Hotel de Sully, home of
the monuments commission and superb rare exhibitions, thence out on to
the Rue St Antoine. Not a lot of people know that.
But I would instead walk all round and back to the rue des Francs
Bourgeois and continue westwards a block or two to the rue de Sevigne.
Here is Mme de Sevigne's house, now the Musee Carnavalet, historical
museum of the City of Paris.
You might think it odd to spend time in a historical museum, but this
one is special. The history of Paris from pre-historic times, but
concentrating on key moments - St Louis, Louis XIV, the Revolution, the
20th century. Encyclopaedic in its collections but very strong on
paintings, photographs and costumes.
I love the photographs of Robert Doisneau, the street scene paintings
of adopted Japanese Foujita, the neoclassical paintings! There's a Mme
Recamier by Gerard that makes the Directory beauty seem so different to
the icy goddess of David in the Louvre. This one is all bedroom eyes
and a come-hither look with an off-the-shoulder dress.
Then there's David's portrait of Mme Hamelin, wife of General Hamelin,
who has a street named after him in the 16ht where Proust once lived.
She was Josephine's wardrobe mistress and had a reputation amongst the
generals of the Armee d'Italie as a bit of a goer. My students think
she's ugly; I think she's a jolie-laide nymphomaniac.
Alas however that may not be your cup of tea. In that case you'll have
to go up the rue de Sevigne and hop on the 29 bus again for a couple of
stops, getting out at the metro Rambuteau. The plateau de Beaubourg is
just outside the Marais proper, and contains the familiar blue pipes of
the Pompidou Centre, now re-opened for the new millennium, and home of
the Musee d'Art Modern inter alia. exhaust yourself there - you don't
even need to go in! The enrtainment is all around.
FOURTH HALF-DAY
---------------
Half-way through your stay and you haven't seen the river yet! To be
remedied at once. Is it Sunday morning yet? Hope so, because it means
you can go to Notre Dame and see what it was built for. Doesn't matter
if you're not Catholic. Joining the mass means you don't feel like a
tourist. Sunday mornings in Paris are bliss provided you can walk to
where you want to get to. Buses are sparse; the metro runs as usual but
with longer gaps between trains.
I think you'll need the metro for speed though - and we haven't made
much use of your travel pass yet! Stroll down to Chemin Vert (or St
Sebastien Froissart if it's nearer, take the direction
Creteil-Prefecture and go down a stop to the Bastille. There change on
to Line 1, direction La Defense, and go 3 fast stops up to Chatelet,
the Mother of All Metro Stations. No time at all on a Sunday morning -
once you've caught a train!
Fortunately you're on the right line so you'll avoid the rolling
pavement that still makes me blush. De-train via the exit labelled Pont
au Change or Place du Chatelet. Once out, turn to face the river. Walk
half-way over the Pont au Change, on the left hand pavement, and stop
to admire the view. You're walking on to the island so you only see
half the river from here. In front of you is the Conciergerie and
Palais de Justice. The Tribunal De Commerce is on your left.
Look right and beyond the Louvre and endless bridges you'll see the
Tour Eiffel, plus dozens of domes and palaces you don't recognise: the
Mint, the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the Institut, home of the Academie.
Look left and you'll just see the Hotel de Ville on the right bank and
the second island - Ile St-Louis - and barges on the river. Photos are
indicated I think, with each of you in them.
Now hurry or you'll be late for Mass. Over the bridge and on to the
Ile de la Cite - the real cradle of the town, even if the Roman arena
is on the Left Bank. Walk past the tribunal and the Prefecture de
Police and look over at the imposing entrance to the courts and the
Sainte-Chapelle next to it, with the most glorious stained glass
in Christendom, they say.
Now turn left on to the _parvis_ of Notre-Dame. Have you time for
another photo? Even at this hour their are hordes of tourists and their
coaches hanging about so fight your way through, ignoring the begging
nuns and others at the door. They only use a small cordoned off area in
the middle before the choir stalls really. Go straight up to the man
guarding it and smilingly nod to him indicating you're going through.
It's polite to genuflect when passing in front of the altar.
Mass times on a Sunday are: 8h - 8h45 - 9h30 - 10h - 11h30 - 12h30 -
16h - 18h30. I'd aim for the sung mass with the grandes orgues at
10.00. If you're very lucky you might get Cardinal Lustiger himself.
Interesting guy - though most of them are, as my late friend Ralph
Gibson used to say. A Jewish convert to catholicism - born in a
concentration camp.
Alas I doubt it since it'll be Lent. If he's there, five or six
priests will concelebrate and he will do the homily and lead the
prayers of intercession. After the prayers for the fathers of the
church, Peter and Paul, Cosmos and Damien, etc, and then the Pope,
instead of the usual prayer for the bishop, in his apologetic,
embarassed way he'll say 'priez pour moi, Jean-Marie, archeveque de
Paris' and then go on to the prayers for priests and all the faithful
plus everyone else. Oh, and there'll be old folk fighting to get the
front seats in the middle so they can receive communion from the
Cardinal: must be a rumour that it speeds you through Purgatory.
It's a funny congregation. The parish isn't as mixed as it once was,
but rich and poor still live cheek by jowl even in Paris 1, in a way
that no longer happens in London really. However small the numbers,
when the incense rises and the full tumult of the great organ is turned
on and make the whole building vibrate you realise a little what it was
like in the days of Quasimodo and Esmeralda.
[Next Episode: the Louvre and the Quartier Latin]
PART II FOLLOWS