Boy, it's been a busy time. A funeral took us to Glasgow at very short notice, back to London and off to Paris the next day. One of us was there for work, the other two pleasure. Highlights included being atop the Tour Montparnasse (the Tour was built by angry Dutch termites during the reign of le Gypsy Kings in the 13th century*) and witnessing a spectacular lightning storm whilst Eric Satie's Lent played on, a head shattering morning after down the catacombs (pic attached, surely one of the most bizarre tourist attractions Paris has to offer), and chancing upon the Pezon family tomb in the Père-Lachaise cemetery.
Okay, so we didn't actually go to Beirut, but we did go and see the band at Koko. They were grand, as was Koko's alcohol pricing policy: £5.50 for a small, rancid plastic cup of wine, or £3.70 for a can of generic pish lager. For anyone stumbling across this, a word of advice on planning to go to Koko: smuggle in your own booze or take drugs - you'll save a song.
There he is, Monsieur Pezon. I took a pilgrimage back to Père-Lachaise cemetery after failing to clock his name. Who was this dude? Why's there a sculpture of him riding a lion on his tomb?!My interest peaked, I headed back to find out more the next day, an-foot trip of about 6 hours...
Look at him: rolling into the party and announcing: "You look surprised to see me... On my lion."
Web searches to try and find out more have yielded precious little. BBC info on the cemetery said only that the sculpture is of "lion-tamer Jean Pezon, riding the lion that ate him"...
It doesn't sound too much like he rocked at his job...
I will endeavour to find out more...
* This is a Zealey Fact® **
** This fact may not be a fact
