to think you can't guess what the most interesting thing DS saw in Paris was

[cakeorwine]

He's 17 - we just spent a day in Paris. Did the usual tourist sights. But there was one thing he saw that fascinated him and he couldn't stop talking about it.

Can you guess what it was?

I remember my French boss a million years ago telling me that Paris was covered in dog poo.

A man juggling knives in his pants with a stiffy

something I have actually seen on the royal mile in Edinburgh and of which I immediately took a photo

They are all over London Bridgw and Westminster Bridge.

We saw this 2 weeks ago. It’s organised crime and there are multiple plants in each game. It was awful to watch.

Has your DS led a very sheltered life?!

Ah Paris. With the best chocolate eclair on the street opposite the tower.

I need details! (And possibly the photo you took).

Oh I do miss Hustle! At least they only conned people who deserved to be conned.

Paris has improved massively in terms of dog shit. I hardly noticed any. Even the metro stations didn’t stink of piss as they once did.

Paris was the place where I was amazed to see kerbside parking with virtually no gap nose to tail, and a driver leaving uses his car to shunt about six cars in front of him forward, and the six cars behind him backward to make a gap big enough to pull out. A local explained that due to this custom, a typical "block" can accommodate 3 more parked cars than in other cities. Only the last car by the junction on the end puts the handbrake on fully, and the others by only one notch so they can be shunted.

In Germany I saw two young men fist-fighting in the street outside a bar. Two police officers were there, stood at the front of the watching crowd. They waited to intervene until it was clear that one of the fighters was "winning" before arresting them. A third officer explained that it was safer for the officers as the "loser" was just pleased it had ended and the "winner" was proud of his win. They had no inclination to fight with the police and would invariably plead guilty if they were charged!

My favourite Paris-based fact is about Paris Syndrome.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome

To be fair, I can definitely see why it came about.

We took my 3 year old to Disneyland Paris and his favourite most fascinating thing was a duck.
Not even Donald, just a regular bloody duck, which we could have seen at the park, for free. Which we had seen countless times, at said park.
The worlds biggest meltdown when that sodding duck waddled off.

DD was 4 when we went to Paris. Her favourite thing was the circular orange plastic seats on one of the metro platforms.

My first thought

I always see people getting robbed at those card shark demos - while the tourists are too busy being amazed by people moving cups round, someone else goes round and pickpockets them. Seen it happen in three different countries.

Blokes just standing peeing everywhere. Which i was shocked at, id never go again.

I can believe it.

We reckoned that the police might also turn a blind eye and take a cut of the profits....but that might just be me being cynical

I remember reading that Thomas Cromwell mastered this con as a youngster (according to Hillary Mantell)

A fool and his money ...........

We were in Paris last week and there did seem to be much less dog shit than there was when we were last there 20 odd years ago. And far fewer cars. And feckin hundreds of electric scooters.

My ex went to Paris and spent most of his time in C&A as uk no longer had it 😳

When I was a child we used to go to Harrods as part of days out in London, to look at all the gorgeous puppies in their pet department! Seems unreal now.

The exploding pavement artwork?

Why would what you’re thinking be unreasonable?

I don’t see the problem with it. They are performing their sleight of hand with great dexterity and people are prepared to wager money on second-guessing the outcome. If they can’t spot the transfer of the ball from cup to hand or vice versa then that shows how good they are at the trick.

I was going to list those things and add rude people, lack of food that caters for any type of special dietary requirements and sometimes literally shit on the streets