Images from Paris that made me smile or chuckle

France is a very visual culture and it doesn't surprise me that it is the home of farce. Some of the faces of the Parisiens were straight out of films. Stereotypical haughty and high and mighty. On French television every night there are panel programmes talking about politics and the panelists are lawyers, journalists and philosophers. Opinion and debate are sacrosanct.

The sight of a head waiter and bar man arguing passionately and heatedly about the responsibility of keeping an eye out for new customers so that they don't have to wait too long to be seated and served. The volatility subsides with both shaking their heads and offering Gallic shrugs.

Here are four examples of the visual culture I'm talking about even though two of the examples involved the Japanese.

All these viewed through the lenses of my dark glasses

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A Japanese gentleman in his mid 70s making the sign of the heart hands emoji to his wife who was sat across a green square from him who when she saw it doubled up with laughter and a huge smile.

Again a coach load of Japanese tourists had been unloaded with a packed lunch on the Plas de la Concorde. They were all eating or trying to eat filled baguettes from a silver foil wrapping. The facial expressions of those eating and trying to eat was a picture. Sushi it certainly wasn't.

I only saw one cat in Paris and this was a Siamese kitten who was gamely fighting her owner for the food placed down in front of them on a cafe terrace.

Two elderly bald monks with dark grey vestments trying to work out how to use a photobooth in Gare Montparnasse at 10.30am on a Monday morning. 

“Vive la France”