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How gold is made…
"Claude? Claude, calm down… This is not a method you can try at home."
How gold is made. -
Quasimodo Brasserie
In the Rue d’Arcole… I started to have Fawlty Towers imaginings of what it would be like if run by the characters… Quasimodo as a waiter, mishearing orders and spilling stuff. Claude in the kitchen, having to be dissuaded from using it for alchemy experiments, or doing weird Heston-type things with food and science…
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Paris Museums website
The Paris Museums website is rather splendid and includes the Victor Hugo Museum (Paris and Jersey branches), with illustrations to his works. You can log in for free. -
Hugo silent films
The 1911 film of NDdP and the 1912 of Les Mis, both directed by Albert Capellani, survive and were screened in Paris in 2013 as part of a Victor Hugo Festival, but neither has been released on DVD yet. Capellani's film of Quatrevingt-treize/1793 is on DVD, though, as part of a boxed set of his films (including Germinal). -
Perfect for Claude…
Spotted a t-shirt on ebay with the perfect slogan to boost our boy's confidence:
"With A Body Like This, Who Needs Hair?"
Claude, dear heart, we've been telling you this for years. Just because Esméralda calls you "old and ugly", it doesn't mean it's true… Tall, dark and smouldering-eyed…? Ahem! -
Claude's Day-Job...
Here's a map of the diocese, the pink/mauve bits showing the area over which Claude has responsibility as Archdeacon of Josas:
( Map… ) -
Dany Sandron & Andrew Tallon, 'Notre-Dame de Paris: Neuf Siècles d'Histoire'
Dany Sandron & Andrew Tallon's Notre-Dame de Paris: Neuf Siècles d'Histoire is an excellent history of the cathedral, well-illustrated, especially with cross-section diagrams showing the phases of construction and restoration over the centuries. There is also a lot of useful supporting information, including a map of the diocese showing the ( Read more... ) -
Lost in Translation 2: Nul "points" for Isabel Hapgood
I recently got an illustrated edition of the Isabel Hapgood translation of NDdP. She gets Claude's "badly healed" wound right, and Agnès/Esméralda's birthday as Sainte Paule's. However, I don't think she understands - or is glossing over for respectability - what Phœbus has been doing to the statue of the Bishop of Autun, his college's founder, for ( Read more... ) -
Another passionate tale from the Cloister of Notre Dame…
It always seemed to me this story haunts the hinterland of NDdP: Claude is an Abelard who needs an Héloïse… His tragedy is that the object of his affections is not worthy of the pain…
( Read more... )
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