Barges, Bounty & Beasties

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Barges, Bounty & Beasties ~

Barges, Bounty & Beasties, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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We can probably safely admire the efforts of the powers wot be, who are doing their best to transfer a ton, no, actually many many thousands of tons (shall we just say millions?), of goods from thundering lorries or trucks (depending on whether your an east or west Atlantiqueur respectively) with barges on the Seine. Some of them are mighty impressive, to be sure.

You sometimes see three or four of these monoliths above actually tied together nose to tail like elephants, or mammoths rather, and I always marvel at the apparent risk they're taking. One itchy skipper's elbow, I can't help imagining, a one degree flutter magnifies itself into a 20 metre miscalculation and it's ciao-ciao Pont des Arts for the umpteenth time...

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But I suppose they know what they're doing. Just, if you want to take a quick dip in the river, don't expect them to shudder to spectacular spray-splaying halt in less than about 3 Ks just for your benefit.

If you look at this boat, you can see the advantages. Each of those single containers would need a truck (or lorry) all to its little selfsome, thundering through the streets of Paris on its way to... well, what exactly is in those things, apart from lots of dead Chinese and arms-for-drugs and illicit stuff of all shapes and sizes if you believe any police series you may care to watch? It's not as though they're full of Bounty Bars or Kellogg's Cornflakes or Pampers, is it?

Well, as strange as it might sound, I don't see why not. That means that once the stuff has arrived, maybe a container for each supermarket, loaded up at some distribution centre somewhere in some remote and eminently pollutable location, they arrive in Paris on silent, low energy, efficient monsters. Then they're off-loaded to be taken, perhaps one day by city lung and ear-friendly electric vehicles, the short distance to their ultimate destinations - our local supermarkets - at ungodly hours to disturb us sensitive residents even less. Cool!

Anyway, that's enough about barges, what am I, the new ambassador for the Paris flippin' Ports Authority, or what? They should be paying me for this article!

I used to live on a barge on the Seine for a year, by the way. Spiders, ya gotta love 'em. They get EVERYWHERE!

Just check your cornflakes carefully, that's all I'm saying.

And why not...

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