Notre Dame is on fire !

It would be a sign that the whole lot should be bulldozed and we should rebuild our political world to suit the times we live in. You do not need a building where M.Ps slag each other off and try to get their grubby paws on as much cash as possible to impress their opponents. The party system is now redundant.

 

How much is the pope coughing up? I see they saved the "crown of thorns"! has it been date tested? Probably just a bit of 1200 year old hawthorn. In architectural terms I'm ok with this rebuild, the rest of the nonsense goes straight over my head.

 

No real need for an actual parliament these days, could all be done by internet link.

 

Someone is going to look very foolish if it transpires the fire started by someone being a plonker.

 

Plonkers abound. My son went into work last week to find a cleaner had unplugged the incubator (he's a research biologist) to plug the vacuum cleaner in and didn't replace it. Weeks of work and cultures ruined.

 

Quite, I wouldn't like to be the bloke who's dropped his Gauloise onto some 850-year beam or something... (amazingly, the oak beams of the ribbed roof had never been replaced, they were the original ones, the oldest roof wooden frame in the world apparently; ).

Great front page in yesterday's Libération, "Notre Drame":

 

Did Quasimodo escape? We need to be told. (Too soon?)

 

Did Quasimodo escape? We need to be told. (Too soon?)

My pupils love Notre Dame... largely thanks to the game Assassin's Creed. I sometimes play some excerpts with questions to answer (in French), especially the non-exam classes, it really motivates them, especially the boys. That combined with some Parkour footage and a few extra questions works reasonably well as a motivational tool (aka "a carrot").

 

Credit where credit is due: the billionnaire François-Henri Pinault who's pledged €100 million for ND, but who came under criticism in France for wanting tax relief of 90% on that instead of the standard 66% - cf my previous posts (he didn't directly ask for it but via his main adviser J-J Aillagon, a former minister of culture under Chirac), has just announced that he will renounce to ask for any tax relief on his donation.

Don pour Notre-Dame: la famille Pinault renonce à sa réduction d'impôt

He's come under some flak in recent years as I wrote yesterday (the usual, his group Kering has been sued for tax evasion, in Italy, and the French and UK Inland Revenues are also on his case, he's reckoned to have dodged paying a cool €2.5 billion) so it's only fair to salute his honourable decision. Let's hope Bernard Arnault, Françoise Bettencourt &co do the decent thing and follow suit.

 

He was round Esmerelda's, he's ok.

 

One of several around Paris. My father, an Orangeman, received a blessing from Pius XII and his brother, at a different time, was blessed by a Prince of the Church. This Prince wasn't the Prince that my father grew up with. The wedding in Greece to the Greek will be (if we get to that stage) a Greek Orthodox wedding but even if my father had been alive he would have been able to attend since there is no prohibition on Orangemen around Orthodoxy. The prohibition didn't prevent him going to my nephew's wedding to a girl of the Latin Rite although, after meeting Maleficent for the first time, he wanted to know my possible intended surname.

 

This was a mass performed as a religious service. I have sung masses with my school choir in Protestant East Belfast. There are many who do think the Pope, whoever he might be, is the Antichrist and good, innocent, Protestant boys like me shouldn't cross the threshold.
At a time, if a Protestant wanted to marry a Roman Catholic in Northern Ireland they had to take instruction and 'turn' as well as promise to bring any children up in the Roman Catholic faith.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ne_Temere

This changed in 1970 but

Matrimonia Mixta (1970)[edit]
Ne Temere was replaced in 1970 with the motu proprio Matrimonia mixta issued by Pope Paul VI. Section 15 revoked the automatic "latae sententiae" excommunication imposed by the 1917 Code of Canon Law for marrying before a non-Catholic minister or for failing to secure the Catholic upbringing of the children.[10][11] The 1970 apostolic letter made the granting of a dispensation by the Ordinary conditional on a promise by the Catholic spouse to remove all danger of defecting from the faith and to do all that he or she can to have all the children baptized and brought up in the Catholic Church. The non-Catholic partner was to be made aware of these promises made by the Catholic spouse (sections 4 and 5).[10][11][12]

This removed the Ne Temere requirement that both the Catholic and non-Catholic spouse must pledge to raise their children as Catholics during the wedding, which was criticized as "legislating for Protestants".[13]

The regulations in Matrimonia mixta have been maintained in the 1983 Code of Canon Law.[14]

For all the Orangemen in my family we are not purely Protestant and this will worsen come September (allowing for my son's failings) so I may stand up and shout, 'Never, Never, Never, never'.

 

My apologies, Nellyfuf2, I usually do capitalise such things but I have fallen. I was warned about this when a youth.

 

So the pressure is on someone else's tax. I don't agree with gift-aid or tax relief. If you earn a bit over the personal allowance you can reclaim tax at 20% on your donation even though you haven't paid 20% of your income in tax. If the charity claims then you are routing your giving to your preferred charity while other things must find money in other ways. Gift Aid and tax relief for charity should be ended.

 

Four Billion wasted?

 

Well the story has pushed Brexit off the news for 2 days. Did anyone check where Theresa May was on Monday evening?

 

I think it's wrong that you can't get tax relief on lottery tickets. People only buy them because the money raised goes to good causes, don't they? How can it be right to get tax relief on charitable donations, but not on lottery tickets?

 

Do you have any ISAs?

 

It's an idiot tax. So Mr Nell says anyway, just buying a Lottery ticket. And then, maybe some good cause will get a bit of a grant. Like. Like we can't do all the things that our society should be doing within our funds - hey ho, the Welfare State.
Anyway, back on topic - Frances still has St Denis, Chartres, Amiens and Rheims...…..

 

Give their money away to help other people? The same could be said for many individuals, perhaps you too.