Between February 2004 and February 2005 I wrote twenty six freelance articles for Francophile internet magazine Bonjour Paris + one article with Karen Fawcett (President) and Sarah Gilbert Fox (Directeur Général), which was published in the guide-book, “Paris For Dummies.” Here is one of the original twenty six, with the original self-penned lead…

Death In The Afternoon: The Catacombs

Pat Brien takes you on a Tour of Cemetery Montparnasse, which holds some of the most colourful and controversial of the deceased artists, philosophers, writers, performers, anarchists and Feminists who lived the history of Paris, before descending into the dark and murky labyrinth of the ancient and awesome Catacombs.

I’d heard of the Paris Catacombs several times, but something about this dark, winding labyrinth, buzzing with small electric lights, throwing shadows against cold, grinning skulls, leading to huge open spaces filled with still hundreds more vacant, gaping eyes, unknowing and unseeing, piled together, cramped and condemned, raising only questions and never revealing answers, reminded me too much of French bureaucracy, so I had always avoided it.

But I eventually hardened to French bureaucracy and softened to the idea of a trip to the Catacombs. Deciding on a visit to nearby Cemetery Montparnasse, as a sort of warm-up (if you’ll pardon the expression), I took the best of the metro stop choices: Edgar-Quinet, Line 6, coming out onto Blvd. Edgar-Quinet. A few steps South along the Blvd and I was standing awkwardly at the main entrance.

Entering and turning right, I was confronted by the first of many small temples, filled with crucifixes and holy figures, pretty picture-windows and flowers. I was almost moved to tears by the fact that the space inside was almost the same as that of my studio apt. But I felt a little strange standing in front of someone’s tomb and mourning myself, so I moved on.

Just past this is the modest resting place of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and writer Simone Beauvoir. Sartre apparently lived the last few decades of his life on nearby Blvd. Raspail, making the immortal thinker a home-body in all senses of the word.

A genuinely touching aspect of the grave of Sartre and Beauvoir is a dedication (larger than that to either Sartre or Beauvoir), to the memory of a 17 year old girl called Sohane, a French girl ofAlgerian origin, who was burned alive in 1984 for refusing to follow some kind of religious or cultural law (a dress-code, according to one helpful mourner).

Beauvoir is described in the plaque as a writer who wrote for the freedom of women, and Sohane as a martyr who died for it. It is very touching and strange to consider that a philosopher, a writer, and an activist, are still working together from the grave towards a common goal in Paris.

Knowing nothing of philosophy, I had always had a soft spot for Sartre because of his classic one-liner: ‘Hell is other people,’ a statement as exquisitely simple as it is painfully true.

Just ask a cool British guy called Sebastian, who I hooked up with and talked at for a period of hours on my first visit to the graveyard.

I will never forget some of the looks we received as we stood in front of Charles Baudelaire’s grave discussing ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer.’

But apart from Satre, Montparnasse holds yet another of the one-liner kings, Proudhon, the anarchist thinker who came up with the immortal: “Property Is Theft!”

To be honest, I never really understood that one. What if you rent? What does that make you? A liberal? As for Proudhon’s final property, ironically enough, I couldn’t find it.   The map I was viewing (a signpost at the top end of Avenue de l’Ouest), was clear enough, and the sections were clearly signposted, too, but I didn’t get there.

In truth, I was only interested in seeing if anybody had sprayed an Anarchy sign on his tomb, or in the hope that some fan-club nuts might have paid to have one painstakingly carved into a headstone.

All the thoughts of Anarchy somehow led me straight to the grave of Serge Gainsbourg (Division One, along Avenue Transversale). Serge’s grave was bedecked with photographs of the great man, along with metro-tickets, cigarette’s, and even flowers. I don’t know much about Serge either, only that he seems to have been loved for being unlovable, which is a pretty good trick.

Apart from Serge, Sartre, Proudhon, Baudelaire, you will also find here the Fascist Pierre Laval, executed for treason, car-maker André Citroen, César Frank, and a famous victim of French anti-Semitism at the end of the nineteenth century, Captain Dreyfuss. Some of the graves and temples are amazing, some of the sculptures astounding, like the huge hand over the grave of one Robert Thibier, who was probably the sculptor.

Unfortunately, the name wasn’t listed.

Anyway, having spent some time wandering around, staring at the head-stones and into the temples, I was left with a feeling that the Montparnasse philosophy dictates that just because you’ve been dead for a few hundred years, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look good.

And with that, I was ready for…

From Cemetery Montparnasse, you only need turn right at the main entrance and hook back onto Blvd. Raspail, then follow it down to Pl. Denfort Rochereau, face a giant statue of a lion, and look to the building in front and to the left of it’s left nostril! It’s that simple. Or get off the metro at Denfort-Rochereau, Line 4, and use sortie ‘rue Denfert-Rochereau’, which will leave you standing directly opposite. The Catacombs are open Tue-Sun 10.00-4.00.

I was amazed by the queue. I had expected to see a few people milling around, of course: a grumble of tourists smelling a photo-opportunity with death, but I was greeted by a queue stretching a long way back. It looked more like the crowd for the Louvre; the Mona Lisa lovers.

‘Damn,’ I thought, ‘Maybe they buried her here? Maybe they’ve got her skull on display and I’ve missed all the snappy adverts: “Meet Mona In The Catacombs! Wonder At The Mystery Of That Toothy Grin! Fitted With Realistic Hair! Photo’s 10 E’s.”

THE CATACOMBS.

Yes, it was the tourist crowd. Somebody somewhere was making a fortune from selling bright orange shirts and trousers that were neither long nor short, just stupid.  All those little family groups. The women and children suffering meekly under the enforced enthusiasm and cross-eyed leadership of the dominant males. The crappy camaraderie.

I heard one guy telling his partner: “I don’t care what the guide-book says! I spoke to an actual French man!” I realized then that life is so much sadder than death. I put my shades on, to protect my eyes from the blaze of orange, and looked down the queue. ‘Maybe they’re here to be buried?’ I thought hopefully. But they weren’t, and I knew it, so I joined them.

One woman was freaking out because a spider had found it’s way onto her. Odd, considering that she was about to descend into one vast, dimly-lit, grinning pit of death. So we waited. Then we went in, paid our five euros, and began descending the steep, narrow, winding stairway to the Paris Catacombs.

After a long, dull start, in which minding your step on the rough ground and minding your head on the low ceiling, takes up most of your thoughts along some ancient, extremely narrow passageways, you come to a large, circular opening, then the skulls start.

Walls made of bones, interlaced with grinning skulls, some lit, some half-lit, some with shadows creeping over them, searching out the deep eye-sockets. Dates on plaques. The ancient dead. More skulls. Some chest-high bone walls showing how far back these Catacombs go.

Thousands of dead; a sea of bones, the odd skull sitting atop; some tilted in the half-light, looking for all the world like the fleshy, bald heads of living men. They did live once. All of them. You know that. They walked around above, dreamed, laughed, played it out, schemed and struggled until their turn was over. Now they were here.

I preferred them to the tourists, somehow. In fact, I stopped and waited until the low orange grumble had faded to dark, silence, and I found myself alone, just me and the dead. I soaked it up.

It felt good. Peaceful. Here were the real dead of Paris. Old bones even before they were so rudely dug up, probably already forgotten, and dumped here back in 1785.

These were the guys and girls who knew what being dead and gone was really all about. Here death actually was the great leveler, not like in Montparnasse Cemetery, with all its poseurs, its unsophisticated and fashion-conscious nouveau-dead, like Citroen and Laval, demanding attention and maudlin sentiment.

Here was a real community of corpses. Their own skulls were their tombstones; their bones piled beneath them, testifying to the fact that they once stood and walked in the sun.

The labyrinth wasn’t really a labyrinth. It was low and claustrophobic in places, dripping water and wet underfoot here and there, but there was no way to get lost.

For me, there was still a way out. And the tourists were long gone. They had collected all the drama they needed for all the phone-calls they were going to make, for letters they were going to write, and I had collected all the information I needed for the article.

I said goodbye to the dead and started making my way back up towards the light, towards a nice guy who would check my bag to make sure I hadn’t stolen a skull (to stick a candle on the next time I sacrifice a goat?).

He would then smile and point me out towards a street I had never seen before in my life, where I would be blinded by the sun and the blaze of slow moving orange grumble.

Oh well, C’est la vie!

Les Catacombs, Place Denfort-Rochereau, 75014, Paris. Telephone : 01.43.22.47.63.   Entrance : 5.00 euros. Call for discount information.

Entrance: Place Denfort-Rochereau. Exit: Rue Remey Dumoncel. Turn right and continue along to Avenue Du General Leclerc. Turn right again to head back towards Place Denfort-Rochereau.

Between February 2004 and February 2005 I wrote twenty six freelance articles for Francophile internet magazine Bonjour Paris + one article with Karen Fawcett (President) and Sarah Gilbert Fox (Directeur Général), which was published in the guide-book, “Paris For Dummies.” Here is one of the original twenty six, with the original self-penned lead…

A Brief History Of Paris

Pat Brien gives a brief update on all things Parisian from 52 BC through Victor Hugo to the modern day whilst providing a ‘quick fix’ variety of outings and events for those fast-lane types who need to see it, do it, buy the T-shirt and GO !

So you’re planning a quick stop-over in Paris and know little about it’s history? Be warned, quite a lot has happened since the official kick-off back in 52BC, when Julius Caesar first turned up in a teeny Celtic settlement on an Island in the Seine (the Ile de la Cité), then known as Lutetia. Julius decided that the place might be worth working on, even though the local Parisii were — surprise, surprise — something of a handful.

Some time later, in the 1950’s in fact, when Jack Kerouac first dropped in on Paris, he wasted a lot of time and energy — and found himself being laughed at quite a bit — as he desperately tried to locate the Bastille prison. Maybe he was looking for Burroughs and figured this was his best shot? Anyway, it does go to show that a little immersion into the history of the city may well enrich your visit.

But, if you don’t have the inclination to read a big fat history book, or be dragged all over town in a wide-eyed gaggle of amateur photographers as some ‘expert’ spells it all out for you, you could try ‘The Paris Story,’ a forty-five minute sound & vision history that is so sugar-coated you could put on weight as you watch it.

I bought my ticket from a friendly guy at reception who kindly spoke English as he furnished me with a post-card sized advertisement for something called ‘Les Visites de Paris,’ that ‘The Paris Story,’ turned out to be connected to.

The foyer of ‘The Paris Story,’ was quite pleasant, filled with tourist trinkets, guide-books, photography-books, brief histories and a dull looking exhibit called ‘Paris Styles,’ designed to help us ‘better understand the Paris monuments.’   My problem was that I would also have needed to better understand the French language, which unfortunately I didn’t.

Whilst waiting for the previous crowd of history buffs to exit the arena, I looked at the ‘Les Visites,’ card and saw several pictures of different events: boat rides down the Seine; a wine museum; a cinema complex; a cabaret show; a little train-ride around Montmartre; a couple of restaurants; tour Montparnasse. A full-on and fun-filled tourist trap, in fact. On the flip-side were the official titles of these events, along with addresses, phone numbers, web-addresses, etc., and discount coupons valued at one to two — and in the case of the cabaret show, five — euros.

Those coupons seemed very much a token gesture to me, but the idea struck me as a useful one for anybody on a flying visit into Paris; anybody who simply doesn’t have the time to stroll around and discover things for themselves. First you stop off at the Paris story to get a quick-fix history of the city — a kind of starter on the events menu, to stick to the food metaphor above — then you simply go a la carte and start picking off events as they catch your eye, moving effortlessly from one to the other as it suits. So the question is: Is that sugary starter going to spoil your appetite?

Let’s review: Once allowed into the arena I found myself in a cinema-seat with a set of head-phones attached and a simple little remote-control type device fixed in at the side. (I had been advised before entering to press the buttons on this device until the number 1 appeared on the display, which would give me an English language commentary. The fact that I found this a simple procedure means that it is fool-proof.)

There was a main cinema screen with two small screens fixed at slight angles on either side and when the lights went down Victor Hugo appeared — as a kind of ghostly hologram — on the left screen,   and started talking to ‘lady’ Paris, as we the audience found ourselves immersed in a night-time view of the city looming up above one of the gargoyles of Notre-Dame.

The music swept romantically across the night-sky as Monsieur Hugo charmed the lady and the lady responded, softy delighting him with a tale of how a bunch of people had once had their heads chopped off on place de la Concorde. I wondered if they’d had discount coupons like us, but nobody else seemed interested.

But somehow, through all the glossing over and the smug mood — I didn’t blame them for the smug mood; a smug mood is understandable considering the subject — the story itself still managed to make itself heard and I actually found myself interested in it. For some reason, the story of the middle ages and the innovations in gothic architecture throughout that period, held me spellbound.

The story gave the secret of the amazing design innovations, explaining how architects allowed great cathedrals to be built whose weight was not supported by the walls, thus allowing great walls of glass with light pouring through; stained glass temples of natural light — visions, awesome and beautiful — telling their own religious histories and tragedies, illuminated and glorified by the sun itself.

Astounding.

Obviously, gothic architecture took off in a major way for a few hundred years, making itself much more than just a part of the city’s history, then everyone got bored with it and decided to hold a renaissance instead, during which time simple little pictures and sculptures of naked young nymphs became the order of the day! Ah, Paris!Of course, I’m making fun because ‘The Paris Story’ is put across in such a frivolous, glossy way, that it’s hard not to.

Having said that, the very fact of having so many powerful and conflicting events and images reduced to forty-five minutes of post-card pretty history makes certain things stand out to those who are paying attention.What really struck me was that one thing remained constant throughout those years: the absolute influence of the Roman Empire.

Even today, looking around Paris, that influence is palpable, from all those grand, bold designs to the unashamed celebrations of sensuality and luxury; from the hunger for knowledge to the strong-willed push towards progress, that original influence has never left this city…

…but it didn’t win the battle for its soul.

One major factor that jumps right out at you despite the limitations of ‘The Paris Story,’ is the battle for the soul of Paris between the original gladiatorial Roman influence, all military precision and mathematical genius, swords at the ready, and the starving artists, with only the soft touch of brush against canvas, the gentle tap of quill against ink-pot, dreams of a better world against the machinations of political cynicism; dreamers battling it out against schemers for the soul of the greatest city on earth. And the artists won.

Actually, you don’t even need forty-five minutes to sum up this town and everything about it. Jack Kerouac summed it up in one sentence on the day he first arrived in Paris, stepping off the train, looking around himself and announcing (and I quote):

“Wow! They really built themselves a city!”

Les Visites de Paris (Get off the beaten track!) www.lesvisitesdeparis.com

‘The Paris Story.’   11bis, rue Scribe (just West of Opera Palais Garnier), and open Nov-Mar 9am-6pm; April-Oct 9am-8pm, playing every hour on the hour (Price: Adults, 8 euro; under 18/students, 5 euro)

Vedettes du Pont-neuf, 1 square du Vert Galant, Paris, 1er. Tel. 01.46.33.98.38. Metro. Pont-Neuf-Cité. www.pontneuf.net   (Boat-rides down the Seine.)

Montmartrain. Departs: Place Pigalle. Parvis du Sacré Coeur. Tel. 01.48.00.90.80. Metro. Pigalle. www.lesvisitesdeparis.com ( Mini-Train-ride around Montmartre.)

Etoiles du Rex. 1, blvd Poissennière – Paris, 2er. Tel. 01.45.08.93.40. Metro. Bonne Nouvelle. www.legrandrex.com (Cinema-complex.)

Restaurant   ‘La Bonne Franquette’. 18, rue St. Rustique, 18er. Tel. 01.42.52.02.42. Metro. Abbesses. http://labonnefranquette.com (near Place du Tertre.)

Canauxrama. 13, Quai de la Loire, Paris, 19er. Reservation by phone. Tel. 01.42.39.15.00. Metro. Jaures. www.canauxrama.com. (Boat-rides.)

Tour Montparnasse – ‘The best view of Paris!’ Rue de la Arrivée, Paris, 15er. Tel. 01.45.38.52.56. Metro. Montparnasse-Bienvenue. www.tourmontparnasse56.com.

Restaurant ‘Les Noces de Jeannette’. 14, rue Favart, 2er. Tel. 01.42.96.36.89. Metro. Richelieu Drouot. http://lesnocesdejeanette.com (near Opera.)

Musée du Vin. Rue des Eaux, 16er. Tel. 01.45.25.63.26. Metro. Passy. Closed Monday. 10am-6pm. Free glass of wine. www.museeduvinparis.com (wine museum.)

Artishow. Caberet Transformiste Parisien. 3, rue cité Souzy, 11er. Tel. 01.43.48.56.04. Metro. Rue des Boulets. www.artishowlive.com. (Diner Spectacle.)

Out of his tree headbanger Keith Richards, 62, was recovering in a hospital in Wellington, New Zealand, yesterday, after being diagnosed with ‘mild concussion and a fractured ego.’

Up to monkey business as usual, the legendary Rolling Stones chain-smoking bad boy proved that idiots grow on trees by falling out of one whilst on vacation in Fiji.

Rumors immediately started circulating that Richards was more dead than usual, more horribly disfigured than usual, and plastered in a different way than usual (by actually being covered in plaster cast from head to foot. Or feet.)

A Rolling Stones spokesperson (my mate Duggy), told me exclusively yesterday: “It could have been much worse than it actually was,” he enthused. “Luckily for Richards, he fell from the top branch, which resulted in his bouncing from all the branches below on his way down, thus slowing his descent and causing him to land on his head. “

Ironically the accident happened shortly after a concert in Wellington on April 18, during part of The Stones ‘A Bigger Bang,’ tour. The fall happened at at an exclusive Fiji resort and questions have been raised about what Keith was doing up a tree in the first place.

“He’s coconuts!” exclaimed my source Duggy. “At least that’s the official story! He went up there, grabbed hold of his nuts, and fell out again! It’s that simple. And so is he, apparently.”

But the truth may be more complex. In fact, we insist that it is. Fiji has a notoriously strict ‘NO SMOKING’ policy. Smoking is barred in all public places and is heavily frowned upon even in wide open spaces, often causing confrontations that have in the past led to threats, violence, torture, rape, murder and castration.

And that was just one guy!

Duggy claims that Keith’s wife Patti told him exclusively yesterday: “I knew that the smoking thing could be a problem, but Keith claimed to be fine with it. Everything was going well for a while, then one day, out on a stroll, I turned to say something and he’d disappeared. I was horrified. I looked around for ten minutes, panic-stricken, then suddenly he appeared again, smiling and much calmer than he had been.

“This went on for days,” she went on and on. “One day I noticed that one particular tree had a few dozen cigarette butts on the ground around it, and that several coughing monkeys had deserted it. I didn’t suspect anything, though, until Keith fell out and landed on his head in front of me. “

The build up to the Release-to-Manufacturing (RTM) SharePoint 2016 is starting to seem reminiscent of the build up to the arrival of The Beatles in America back on February 7, 1964. “SharePoint 2016 is coming!” is the cry at large in the tech community. “We haven’t a clue when, but it’s coming!”

But it’s possible to say that the Fab Four in this case are named: Hype, Hybrid, Hit and Myth.

According to the usually on-the-money CMS Wire, the big day is March 14 (“Maybe”), hand-in-hand with Office Online Server (OOS). Their source is a tweet by a Microsoft Program Manager, with no official confirmation, other than a statement that the SharePoint Server 2016 release is “on track.”

The marrying of dates between SharePoint 2016 and OOS does makes sense when considering that Microsoft MVP Vlad Catrinescu apparently suggested that hybrid SharePoint® deployments will require OOS to support various features of SharePoint 2016.

On top of that, a keynote given at this year’s SPTechCon in Austin, Texas, by Senior Director of Product Management for Microsoft and OneDrive, Seth Patton, and Senior Product Marketing Manager for SharePoint and Office 365, Chris McNulty, promised an ongoing commitment to on-premises, but one that was described as “hybrid at the core.”

So, does all this amount to various clues carefully collected by the SharePoint faithful, or strategically sprinkled crumbs designed to build expectation and get people talking? If the latter is true, it’s certainly working. Expectations are sky high and everybody is talking. SharePoint 2016 is already a hit.

The facts ought to be more straightforward, but even they leave tantalizing questions about SharePoint 2016. SharePoint expert and author Todd Klindt was quick to point out that SharePoint 2016 Release Candidate (Released 20 January), is just a patch away from the earlier beta 2 release. Microsoft’s Bill Baer has talked often about how patching will get better in SharePoint 2016, but this is now in evidence.

Baer’s words are backed up by the fact of a simple patch – a small download of Release Candidate for those who have beta 2 – rather than a wipe and reinstall. Is this a sign of things to come? Well, it was promised and it was delivered in advance, in full working order, so it’s probably time to take that one to the bank.

Hybrid enthusiasts (with hybrid search configured), can also look forward to being able to index one million items for every 1TB of hybrid storage they use and search legacy versions of SharePoint without having to upgrade those versions. Nice.

So how much is true and how much is rumor, speculation, or misinterpretation? Only time will tell.

And, happily, there isn’t much time left to wait. If you believe the hype.

Coming soon on Bamboo Nation: SharePoint 2016: With Great Power Comes Great Sensitivity.

The build up to the Release-to-Manufacturing (RTM) SharePoint 2016 is starting to seem reminiscent of the build up to the arrival of The Beatles in America back on February 7, 1964. “SharePoint 2016 is coming!” is the cry at large in the tech community. “We haven’t a clue when, but it’s coming!”

But it’s possible to say that the Fab Four in this case are named: Hype, Hybrid, Hit and Myth.

According to the usually on-the-money CMS Wire, the big day is March 14 (“Maybe”), hand-in-hand with Office Online Server (OOS). Their source is a tweet by a Microsoft Program Manager, with no official confirmation, other than a statement that the SharePoint Server 2016 release is “on track.”

The marrying of dates between SharePoint 2016 and OOS does makes sense when considering that Microsoft MVP Vlad Catrinescu apparently suggested that hybrid SharePoint® deployments will require OOS to support various features of SharePoint 2016.

On top of that, a keynote given at this year’s SPTechCon in Austin, Texas, by Senior Director of Product Management for Microsoft and OneDrive, Seth Patton, and Senior Product Marketing Manager for SharePoint and Office 365, Chris McNulty, promised an ongoing commitment to on-premises, but one that was described as “hybrid at the core.”

So, does all this amount to various clues carefully collected by the SharePoint faithful, or strategically sprinkled crumbs designed to build expectation and get people talking? If the latter is true, it’s certainly working. Expectations are sky high and everybody is talking. SharePoint 2016 is already a hit.

The facts ought to be more straightforward, but even they leave tantalizing questions about SharePoint 2016. SharePoint expert and author Todd Klindt was quick to point out that SharePoint 2016 Release Candidate (Released 20 January), is just a patch away from the earlier beta 2 release. Microsoft’s Bill Baer has talked often about how patching will get better in SharePoint 2016, but this is now in evidence.

Baer’s words are backed up by the fact of a simple patch – a small download of Release Candidate for those who have beta 2 – rather than a wipe and reinstall. Is this a sign of things to come? Well, it was promised and it was delivered in advance, in full working order, so it’s probably time to take that one to the bank.

Hybrid enthusiasts (with hybrid search configured), can also look forward to being able to index one million items for every 1TB of hybrid storage they use and search legacy versions of SharePoint without having to upgrade those versions. Nice.

So how much is true and how much is rumor, speculation, or misinterpretation? Only time will tell.

And, happily, there isn’t much time left to wait. If you believe the hype.

Coming soon on Bamboo Nation: SharePoint 2016: With Great Power Comes Great Sensitivity.