Absinthe Paraphanalia, a photo by AndyRob on Flickr.Can you just imagine what kind of havoc could be wreaked on a party by turning up with this Absinthe paraphernalia a couple of bottles of the 60% stuff? Ok, this is apparantly an absinthe fountain, which is used not for dispensing absinthe itself, but for water. Absinthe is rarely drunk neat, because alcohol at that strength burns flesh so an absinthe fountain is a neccessary accessory for delivering the right amount of ice-cold water into a glass of absinthe. The sugar cube and silver slotted spoon would appear a bit frivolous but no doubt seemed like a good idea at the time.Spotted in Paris Breaks to the MaraisThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogAbsinthe ParaphernaliaRelated posts:Two FountainsWhy is Samaritaine in Paris still closed?Elche Palm Gardens with Surprising Water Feature Sculpture

The Forth bridge, St Helena and Lake District have been put forward for consideration as worthy sites alongside Stonehenge for Unesco world heritage status. The decision will be made in June not in Bahrain, as originally planned but in Paris.

This article titled “UK nominates 11 sites for Unesco world heritage status” was written by Maev Kennedy, for The Guardian on Tuesday 22nd March 2011 01.00 UTC

The Forth bridge, the remote island of St Helena in the South Atlantic where Napoleon died in 1821, and the Lake District are among 11 places the government will nominate today as worthy of becoming world heritage sites to be ranked alongside the Pyramids and Stonehenge. The government will also make a third attempt to have the corner of Kent where Charles Darwin wrote the book that changed the history of science recognised as a world treasure. John Penrose, the tourism and heritage minister, said: “Few places in the world can match the wealth of wonderful heritage we have available in the UK. The 11 places that make up the new ‘UK tentative list’ are fantastic examples of our cultural and natural heritage, and I believe they have every chance of joining famous names like the Sydney Opera House and the Canadian Rockies to become world heritage sites.” Places that failed to make the ‘tentative’ list include Blackpool, the former RAF airfield at Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire, the Rows shops and half-timbered houses in Chester, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western Railway. The government has been consulting on the type of sites which Britain should put forward after concern from Unesco, which has maintained the list since 1972, that it was increasingly dominated by castles and cathedrals in western Europe. There has been a conscious determination to broaden the geographical spread of the list and the types of sites nominated, leading to the inclusion of penal sites for transported convicts in Australia, four hydraulic boat lifts on a Belgian canal and the wonderfully named Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump prehistoric butchery site in Canada. Britain is nominating a judicious mixture of natural, built and industrial sites, including the slate industry of north Wales with its spectacular shale heaps still bearing witness to the days when Welsh slate roofed half the world, the Jodrell Bank observatory in Cheshire, Scotland’s beautiful Flow Country, the endlessly repainted Forth railway bridge which had the longest single cantilever span in the world when built in 1890, Gorham’s cave complex in Gibraltar, and Cresswell Crags, the limestone gorge honeycombed with caves which has some of the earliest evidence of human habitation in Britain and the country’s only known Ice Age rock art. The list is completed by two leftover scraps of the British Empire: St Helena and the Turks and Caicos. The government has still not given up on Darwin’s home, now in the care of English Heritage, where he wrote On The Origin of Species. Once the scientist found Down House in 1842 he left as rarely as possible for the rest of his life. He wrote the Origin and all his later work there and conscripted his children as assistants in taking observations on the fauna and flora in his own garden and the surrounding fields, which are remarkably unchanged. The government first nominated it in 2007 but withdrew on being warned the Unesco advisers were not convinced of its genuine scientific importance. It was resubmitted, with the ingeniously coined description “landscape laboratory” in 2009 to mark the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth, but still failed to make the cut. The government, undaunted, will again add it to the list of proposed sites. The list of sites judged among the world’s most precious now runs to 911 in 151 countries: 704 cultural, 180 natural and 27 mixed. The new nominations were due to be considered by the world heritage committee in June in Bahrain but, due to the turbulent state of politics across the Arab world, the meeting has been switched to the Unesco headquarters in Paris.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogUK nominates 11 sites for Unesco world heritage status

Related posts:The world wide web is shrinking Nuclear power stations and reactors operational around the world: listed and mapped How to Save the World

The story from 2005 when the Samaritaine department store in Paris closed initially for 5 years ostensibly for a refit. Unfortunately the magnificent art deco building is still closed due to some dispute over building regs.

This article titled “Parisian store to close for safety refit” was written by Jon Henley in Paris, for The Guardian on Saturday 11th June 2005 00.08 UTC “On trouve de tout à La Samaritaine,” the slogan used to say: you can find everything at La Samaritaine. But not, sadly, for the next five years or so, because the venerable Paris department store is to shut down for a major refit so it is no longer a danger to its customers. “I am fully aware of the enormity of this decision, but the safety of our staff and clients comes before everything,” said Philippe de Beauvoir, managing director of what was for a century the least pretentious, most chaotic and probably the most useful of Parisian department stores. Mr de Beauvoir said that over the past two decades the late 19th-century belle époque complex on the banks of the river Seine had not had “anything remotely near” the heavy investment it needed to bring it up to modern safety standards. “The experts’ report is extremely serious: the building is a danger to the public and we are obliged to close it as soon as reasonably possible,” he added. Shutting the store will cost its owner, the French luxury goods group LVMH, between €2m and €3m (£1.3m and £2m) a week, he added. Paris city council safety experts have said the steel and glass structure would withstand a serious fire for barely 15 minutes instead of the 90 required by law. Its wooden floorboards are unchanged since the building opened in the 1870s, its electrical system represents “a permanent danger” and its fire extinguishers are “wholly inadequate”. The store stocks more than 250,000 different products on its 30,000 sq metres of floorspace and can hold up to 10,000 shoppers at a time. Union representatives said the 1,600 staff had been summoned to a special meeting on June 15 at which the official closure date would be announced, quite possibly for the following day. “We’ve been promised no redundancies,” said union spokesperson Madeleine Charton. Unions want the work spread over six or seven years, allowing at least part of the store to stay open.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogParisian store to close for safety refit

Related posts:Why is Samaritaine in Paris still closed? Japan ministers ignored safety warnings over nuclear reactors Angela Merkel orders safety checks on Germany’s nuclear power stations

Deutsche Bahn plans to run 200mph trains from London to Frankfurt, Cologne, Amsterdam and Rotterdam from 2013 for German Eurostar Deals. Safety concern about having an electric motor engine underneath every carriage as the trains travels through the Channel tunnel are to be swept aside in a rush for truly pan-european high speed rail travel, more than just Paris breaks.

This article titled “London to Frankfurt high-speed rail link back on track” was written by Dan Milmo, for The Guardian on Sunday 20th March 2011 17.45 UTC Plans to transport 1 million rail passengers a year between Frankfurt and London are back on track as an independent report prepares to back German rail operator Deutsche Bahn in a row over Channel tunnel safety. DB’s ambition to launch a Teutonic Eurostar has been threatened by French objections to the state-of-the-art rolling stock it plans to use in the tunnel. David Cameron and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, are believed to have raised their concerns about the row with the French government, amid fears that it will hinder the growth of pan-European high speed rail services. However, this week the European Railways Agency is expected to endorse new trains manufactured by Siemens, the German industrial group, which beat France’s Alstom to a coveted Eurostar rolling stock order. The order for inter-city express (ICE) trains, which will also be used by DB in its Frankfurt-to-London service, met with opposition on the other side of the tunnel. The French government supported Alstom’s argument that the Siemens trains are unsafe because their motors are distributed under each carriage. The row split the Anglo-French intergovernmental commission (IGC) on channel tunnel safety, which resulted in the ERA being asked for a second opinion. Sources close to the process said the ERA is likely to recommend that so-called “distributed power” trains can be used in the tunnel, clearing the way for the ICE carriages. It is also understood that the report will not raise objections to DB’s proposal to couple two separate trains – a proposal that raised safety concerns in some quarters. As a consequence, the IGC is expected to come under further pressure to allow the ICE trains to operate through the tunnel. DB plans to run 200mph trains from London to Frankfurt, Cologne, Amsterdam and Rotterdam from December 2013, expanding the rail market between Britain and the continent by 10% by carrying 1 million passengers a year.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogLondon to Frankfurt high-speed rail link back on track for Eurostar Deals to Germany

Related posts:Leeds to Paris in four hours – but high-speed rail plan faces protests Eurostar Paris trains from London getting busier Eurostar sponsors crowdsourcing

Notre Dame viewed from the Batobus I think possibly the most useful thing you can learn about Paris breaks is that you don't necessarily need to book the  whole package in advance. Paris is a city which has...

Twitter Paris Breaks I won a prize for decrypting the acronym SoPi as South of Pigalle for someone called @benjilanyado who is currently conducting an unusual Paris break by following directions from twitter users. The prize is “a big bloke on a house, rue Biot, 18th” so I suppose that means I can blog it here:

Pigalle Pigalle is the name of a metro station, a main street and an area of Paris famous mostly for the Moulin Rouge nightclub and other entertainments connected to a greater or lesser extent with the sex industry. It’s also a popular area for reasonably prices hotels popular with tourists on Paris breaks from London, being not very far from the Gare du Nord. The little quiet area just south of Pigalle has been undergoing a process of gentrification in recent years, with an influx of affluent and artsy foreigners. The nickname SoPi you will notice is not French. It was coined by an American as an act of cultural imperialism trying to make the whole world a bit more like New York (SoHo and NoHo)

TwiTrip to Paris

Follow Benji Lanyado as he live blogs his way around Paris using tips gleaned from Twitter: Paris twitter trip #twitrip

Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blog South of Pigalle Paris Breaks Competition

Related posts:Why is Samaritaine in Paris still closed?Paris breaksTwitter writing competition - a story in 140 chars

More and more people are reluctant for whatever reason to spend a year's savings on one big annual holiday these days and instread prefer to arrange cheap breaks away at weekends or for just a few days...

The Eurostar fast speed train from London to Paris via the Channel Tunnel.