November 2012

Paris has some of the finest construction works in the world. Louise holds that I am wasting my time, and that a guidebook on building sites is useless because by the time they are plotted on maps, photographed, captioned and then published in some slim (or fat) volume to be sold alongside the Lonely Planets, the Frommers and the Rick Steve’s by some papeterie on the Rue de Grenelle, the construction will have been completed and the high-viz workers and the traffic barriers will have departed. This is a common misconception which holds that building works are ephemeral; the truth is that they are as fixed and permanent a part of our cities as the cathedrals, palaces and park benches where the privileged prayed, ate and lounged while feeding cake to the pigeons… Continue reading →