We'll Always Have Paris

Ah, Paris. It's never really been my favourite city – I'm not sure that I have one – but it always repays a visit at any time of year, at any age. My partner had a few days' business to do at the OECD, so I tagged along for the week, together with our daughter, now 23 and living in that other not-really-favourite city, London. I won't bore you with our itinerary, meals, and so on, but will share some observations and a few of the 400-odd photographs I took. This may take most of this week.

I found one problem with Paris is the way this gigantic pylon thingy keeps interposing itself into the view, like some annoying selfie-bomber. It's inescapable; wherever you go, there it is. The tourist board should do something about it.

One very good reason it's so visible is that the city authorities have clearly banned any further high-rise developments from the centre of town. Unlike, say, the post-modern architectural horror-show that is central London, the Paris of 2017 would not be unrecognisable to the generation of 1917. The other reason it's so ubiquitous is that the thing is so monstrously fucking colossal (pardon my French). I mean, srsly:

It's also a very odd colour, seen close up, a sort of undercoat colour, somewhere between rust and military desert-camouflage beige. Maybe it's being repainted; if so, what a job! May I respectfully suggest doing the job properly, this time, and to use a fluorescent pink paint to make it really stand out, and also so that it resembles more closely some of the souvenir versions on sale nearby.