Smelling A Rat

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Smelling A Rat ~

I Smell A Rat, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Rue de l'Hôtel Colbert? No doubt a street with a bit of history behind it. After all, there's a Galerie Colbert just near the Palais Royal, and if I'm not mistaken there's a place called Le Grand Colbert there too.

But that's not actually what I'm interested in here. As I said, there's a lot of history behind Paris street names, but in this case there's a lot above them too.

Can you see what's written on the wall above the plaque? Rue des Rats. Rats Street! Could this be anything to do with the fact that there were some medical faculties around these parts back in the day, with all the gratuitous blood-letting that tended to pass for 'cures' in those days.

And of course they say that there's a rat for every Parisian of this city. Although you could say that the rats are Parisians as much as any of us are I suppose. I wonder if the rats complain to each other about how there's a human for every (human) Parisian these days. Perhaps it's a chicken and egg problem: what came first - the humans or the rats?

Rats are a bit like wasps - you really can't help wondering what the point is. If God had hesitated momentarily when he was deciding on which species to create, chewed on his almighty pencil a moment, and then struck a line through rats (and wasps) would the world really be any worse off?

There may be an answer though, and I may be doing them a great disservice... don't they eat crap or something? Thereby reducing the amount of it floating around the streets.

Honestly I don't know if that's it, but I suppose maybe some other animals potentially eat rats, but I've never seen a cat eat a rat, or dogs horses or pigeons, so as long as they keep their snouts down about their biggest threat seems to be the rat eliminator, who lives in Rue des Halles, and has a chilling display of strung up dead (obviously) undesirables. It's right next to a baker's, which can't be the best advertisement for them (the baker)!

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