Ramblings of a disused brain

Friday 4 September 2009

DON'T do that!!!

Eureka! It struck me like a bolt of lightning. The magnitude of the conspiracy boggles the mind. The clever deception by Church authorities and naïveté of the public which fell into the trap with their eyes open truly is something to admire.

No, I'm not talking about the latest book by Dan Brown.

What I am talking about is how the Church at Notre Dame is trying to shake its "Hunchback of Notre Dame" image. The Church belongs to an elite, elusive and nearly extinct genre of tourist places in Europe - one where entrance is free.

On approaching its hallowed grounds, I was getting ready to whip out the dusty old wallet and dish out the dough, just like I'd done at every other place in Paris. In return for this eagerness, I was greeted by the icy glare of the attendant at the entrance who muttered something in French, which I initially understood to mean, "You don't have enough money to sniff the air around this place, let alone coming in and looking around." The insult hit me so hard, I brought out the plastic in response - I'd rather live the rest of my life in debt than be insulted by you! Same icy glare, temperature reduced by a further 2 degrees.

Now I was perplexed. This was the first place since the road-side dhaba on NH47 just outside Perundurai that refused to accept a credit card. My super fast brain quickly deduced that the attendant must be trying to convey something. I frantically looked around for help and found it in the form of a notice pasted on the wall, in English, that said "Free Admission." Aah, the bloke was actually saying I can walk in for free. Nice.

Just below that sign and all way into the main Church hall, there was the symbol of a camera that was struck off. My keen sense of observation told me that this means, in return for letting you into the Church for free, you agree not to take any photos and peace and happiness prevail in the world. This was confirmed by another notice in writing that said so in as many words.

Those who know me would agree that I'm a stickler for rules and abide by all laws, as long as they are convenient to abide by, so the camera was promptly dumped in the bag. That's when problems started. Apparently, either I was eagle eyed to have spotted 4 million signs saying you're not allowed to take photographs or every other visitor in the Church was blind as a dingbat. The place was swarming with cameras, all with flashes blazing. Good thing this was Church, were it some other place, all it needed was some music for a new entrant to think he'd entered a discotheque of sorts with funky strobe lighting.

Stifling the urge to start dancing and controlling rage is an exercise I wouldn't recommend. That's exactly what I did. I began questioning why (mostly) honest, (mostly) law abiding citizens would want to so blatantly ignore the photography ban boggled the mind. When the dust settled, I concluded by blaming digital cameras behind the outrage. These small, handy little blighters almost talk to you and goad you into getting click happy.

However, even after I returned to London, I was searching for answers. This morning, I hit the jackpot. As I was sitting on the Tube, travelling at 5 MPH, it struck me. Tell a person there's wet paint on the wall and they will always touch it to make sure its wet. Telling a child not to break the window is the most certain way of making sure it is broken. Similarly, after being taunted for years about the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Church suddenly found out that nobody wanted to take any photographs of an ugly thing. So, at a brainstorming session, one bright spark must have come up with the idea that putting up signs of "No Photography" would certainly result in photographs being taken by the millions, simple, clear reverse psychology.

So, while everyone else came back with this:


I came with this: 

There is a problem with my theory though. The hunchback of Notre Dame might be trying to re-invent its image, but what about the Lido? The exact same thing happened there the previous night. There is a photography ban at the Lido while the show is going on. Fair enough, considering the show is exotic and a work of art, you don't want it all over YouTube. Further more, the last thing Lido authorities want is for a dancer to get distracted by a rogue flash and trip over his or her step bringing the house down, for all the wrong reasons. All clean, undisputable logic.

However, here's the important part. While the Church at Notre Dame has a reputation to correct, Lido is no hunchback, Lido is associated with beauty, among other things. Thinking about the Lido shattered by theory on reverse psychology, somewhat... until I had a hard think about the Lido's runaway photographer - he was Indian. Then it all made sense again. They were two separate incidents, Notre Dame is still trying to shake its image, while at Lido, the photo was just an Indian thing - we don't follow rules, simple!

2 comments:

  1. :) Were there any sayings about the world now in Notre Dame?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Put him as the supervisor of Notre Dame.

    ReplyDelete