Le Manege de Monsieur Barre (Corrected Version)

I realise that I haven't written anything for a week so I thought that I needed to write something. As it does, something caught my eye, so I decided that it would be the subject for the day. I wrote that yesterday, and, as I expected, I got some of the details wrong. But thanks to my very good friend Daniele I can correct them and get them right in this updated version of the blog.

A few years ago we were visiting with our friend, Daniele,  who lives outside Paris in France. One day, she took us to see an exhibition of Monet's Waterlilly paintings in a little gallery. The Gallery is called the Musee Marmottan and you can see a picture of the Museum just above. You can find this Museum at 2 Rue Louis Boilly, 75016 Paris, France. You can phone them on 01 44 96 50 33 or go to their website at www.marmottan.com

Full-screen
(Thank you very much to Google maps and the Internet in general)

I have to say that the Monet painings blew me away then, and I still find his paintings sublime, but that is not the point of the post.

When we came out of the Gallery I can clearly remember there being a small park at the bottom of the street that the gallery was in. Daniele tells me that the park is in Le Square du Ranelagh, I don't recall that, but I do recall being amazed by what looked like a clockwork roundabout that was running there. It looked so odd and very much out of time that I remembered it.

This morning I took Jasper Spaniel for a walk into Glossop because I had to go to the Adult Education Centre. I'm very interested in taking better photographs and thought that it might be interesting, now that I've got some time, to go on a Photography Course. Of course there aren't any. But there was a course called, Computing: Digital Imagery, so I thought I'd give that a try. It might be fun.

I love looking at the photographs taken by really good photographers over the years and this is one thing that the Internet seems to be very good at, images. So, this afternoon I was looking at some of Robert Doisneau's photographs. I am particulary taken by a photograph I found called "Baiser Hotel de Ville 2002" which is lovely. I do like the way that he gets the central figures to stand out from the background, and yes, I do realise that it is a reworking of an older photograph.

But while I was looking at this website, what do I find

but "Le Manege de Monsieur Barre" of 1955. Do you realise that when this photo was taken I was just four years old. (By the way, when I first wrote this yesterday, I mistakenly used the word Menage, instead of the correct Manege. Later that day I got an email from Daniele that pointed this out, as follows."By the way, under the photo of the roundabout in your blog, you wrote "ménage" instead of "manège" and it means something else. "Faire le ménage" means doing the housework... but it can mean marriage as well.. So it changes completely the meaning of the photo...le ménage de monsieur Barre would mean Mr Barre's marriage..." or, I guess, it might mean Mr. Barre's Housework, and that puts yet another spin on the picture.

I'm not even sure if this is the same little roundabout that we saw in Paris that day, but it does, at least, remind me of it. Daniele also pointed out to me that she has not seen the little Roundabout (By the way, another name for this would be "Merry Go Round") working for some considerable time, apparently it was run by two old ladies and, I guess, if it hasn't been working then the possibilities might be grave. Isn't it awful when something that has been working for a very long time just ceases. Sometimes I wish I had a time machine!

Probably when she reads this, Daniele will write me an email that begins..... " You stupid boy ......" But I can take it, I have broad shoulders, .............................. and a broad tummy .......................... which is why I've taken to going on 2 hour long walks with my doggy in the pouring rain. (She wrote me the email, and the title line read "You stupid boy" but she was just kidding. I love my French Friend very much!)

Ils sont fous ses Anglais, totalement stupide.

Ah well.

Bon, Ben

Another day

another blogpost.

See you soon.