"...workers smoke cigarettes on the roof." I'm no arson investigator, but lit cigarettes bandied about along a 650+ year old wooden roof?
Did investigators find the cause, the ignition point?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rick...
Did investigators find the cause, the ignition point?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rick...
they certainly ligthed the cigarett with something else than a match ! How could they find the ignition point ??? Have you looked at the pictures ?
No, interior services made investigations about workers and found nothing... at least, we french, are not aware if something else than an accident is the cause. The reality was this project was ruled by fools and naives from the head of the cultural minister to the boss of the enterprises than worked here till the catastroph.
No, interior services made investigations about workers and found nothing... at least, we french, are not aware if something else than an accident is the cause. The reality was this project was ruled by fools and naives from the head of the cultural minister to the boss of the enterprises than worked here till the catastroph.
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diyiggy,
good post. The same idiot company was responsible for another fire at another cathedral but still got this contract, brown envelopes come to mind. As someone who spent the best part of his life in construction I could not believe that as the scaffolding went up so did a high pressure water supply as well. All that timber would have been bone dry. Every area should have had this supply and in the digital age, sensors to detect smoke and flames automatically activated.
Of course had the French revolution been a real revolution not a reaction to starvation caused by two failed harvests then all the churches and cathedrals would have been destroyed along with all the priests,nuns and bibles.
good post. The same idiot company was responsible for another fire at another cathedral but still got this contract, brown envelopes come to mind. As someone who spent the best part of his life in construction I could not believe that as the scaffolding went up so did a high pressure water supply as well. All that timber would have been bone dry. Every area should have had this supply and in the digital age, sensors to detect smoke and flames automatically activated.
Of course had the French revolution been a real revolution not a reaction to starvation caused by two failed harvests then all the churches and cathedrals would have been destroyed along with all the priests,nuns and bibles.
I don't know if it had been already discussed but 'batiments de France' ( the organisation in charge of historical building in here) is not really loose on rules:
You cannot modify anything about those buildings...
I will give you an example i have to face: i'm located 800m away an 'historical' cross. I'm into the 'batiments de France' area around it: i can't do anything about my house without an approvement from one of this guy.
I'm not even in eyesight of the cross... and those guys are not very openminded i tell you ( even about color of paint)...
In a building as Notre Dame this guy probably forbidden the use and installation of automatic fire protection. Despite being an ERP ( building receiving public)...
Try to build something new ERP without an automatic fire prevention system in France and see what'll happen...
Rules are 'variable geometry' in France ( and it can in part explain why there is so much 'social movements' around here...).
You cannot modify anything about those buildings...
I will give you an example i have to face: i'm located 800m away an 'historical' cross. I'm into the 'batiments de France' area around it: i can't do anything about my house without an approvement from one of this guy.
I'm not even in eyesight of the cross... and those guys are not very openminded i tell you ( even about color of paint)...
In a building as Notre Dame this guy probably forbidden the use and installation of automatic fire protection. Despite being an ERP ( building receiving public)...
Try to build something new ERP without an automatic fire prevention system in France and see what'll happen...
Rules are 'variable geometry' in France ( and it can in part explain why there is so much 'social movements' around here...).
Local people of Batiments de France are in real life rulled by towns mayors and real Estate companies corrupt them as some administrativ judges. I see it at Brive la Gaillarde where they construct 18m heigth modern buildings in the middle of old classic block of houses where the biggest are 9m heigth.... in a protected patriministic area. Of course with ugly balconies everywhere...North oriented, so not being thermically in the rule to profit of the State subventions for the purchasers while they finally can have the fiscal help but are fooled by the Real Estate company that build it with the complicity of the local authority against the global warming rules (rta2020). How to destroy the patrimoine. So State is w1sting monney by helping people to buy Real Estate that not respect the thermal rules, minimum green garden area around the building, etc.
When you need incomes to pay all local state agents and raise always taxes for worse and worse results and life quality, I call that a communism country....the country of State agents. If only they were all effective.
@blackstuart : french revolution is not a real revolution from the masses but more from a new bourgeoisie than manipulated the masses of the towns. And btw a lot of religious patrimoine but not only was destroyed, burned... It didn't happen luckilly in GB where the buildings are safe... while there the masses have still virtually nothing today and still feed their aristocraty...but they like them whatever they lie so that is okay I assume.
Mais que fout la cours des comptes...fait chier ces baronnies locales.
When you need incomes to pay all local state agents and raise always taxes for worse and worse results and life quality, I call that a communism country....the country of State agents. If only they were all effective.
@blackstuart : french revolution is not a real revolution from the masses but more from a new bourgeoisie than manipulated the masses of the towns. And btw a lot of religious patrimoine but not only was destroyed, burned... It didn't happen luckilly in GB where the buildings are safe... while there the masses have still virtually nothing today and still feed their aristocraty...but they like them whatever they lie so that is okay I assume.
Mais que fout la cours des comptes...fait chier ces baronnies locales.
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diyiggy - your confusing real communism with State Capitalism - look at China and it's 'new' emperors. Yes the French peasants were fooled, the same with the English peasants who fought for the English parliament in the English Civil War. They were called the Levellers. At the end of that war their leaders were hung. Nothing changed the peasants were still treated like merde. When I walked away from a political life in the UK it was because I knew that the majority of the people still had the peasant mentality - they weren't really freemen and women.
'The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master. Whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim' - Gustave le Bon.
'The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master. Whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim' - Gustave le Bon.
Nah I am confusing nothing. I am not red. But saying that thet the french revolution popular mvt just show an epinal image we learn to kids like a religion. If you had read university books and also stutied deeply history after say 1789 you will know it. Well for the England I just said masses were less furious and have not burned and hung as much as the french.
Of course I agree with the last part of what you say and I just sad of the stupidity and populism of my country fellows. Deep lack of culture...same problem as everywhere.
I confirm if our state employees were less and more effective (some are of course...but one see alwayss the half empty part of the glasse)...such cathedral had escaped to the flames. They are lazy not voluntary, they do not know what it is to make an enterprise, work together and so on. Here they have the reccord of non worked days for false medical diseases.
We have a joke here: the inly thing that doesn't disseaper in a mayor building is... the wall watch...
Of course I agree with the last part of what you say and I just sad of the stupidity and populism of my country fellows. Deep lack of culture...same problem as everywhere.
I confirm if our state employees were less and more effective (some are of course...but one see alwayss the half empty part of the glasse)...such cathedral had escaped to the flames. They are lazy not voluntary, they do not know what it is to make an enterprise, work together and so on. Here they have the reccord of non worked days for false medical diseases.
We have a joke here: the inly thing that doesn't disseaper in a mayor building is... the wall watch...
I use local trains Rodez - Carmaux / Carmaux - Albi - Toulouse and the ticket inspectors do sweet f/a - why have them. Cathedrals in France are always built on the highest ground to physically and mentally dominate the peasants, I have no time for religion any religion. In the Tao - discard hope, grasp reality.
Inspector tickets are not state employees....they eventually sweet on your line...also because they have incomes if they catchs... but frankly i never saw them sweeting. It is not only in France religious monuments are build in high area. As I said yes that is a domination. Here we di not talk of that. Btw french revolution was also against that fat monks...many were also from Aristocraty... had wives...of course children... forbiden in the credo. Just to illustrate they sweat less than orhers and have all rhe lands with the aristocrats.
But hey those cathedrals are pretty. At least in France you do not buy the house just for 99 years like in GB.
But hey those cathedrals are pretty. At least in France you do not buy the house just for 99 years like in GB.
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diyiggy - translation of - sweet f/a means they do absolutely nothing, spending their working time in the driver's cab. Cathedrals were a visible sign of control by the church, that's why they had to be destroyed. Kill a king (quite rightly) then make a foreigner, a Latin, Emperor crazy but then the Duke of Wellington called his ordinary soldiers - the scum of the earth/l'ecume de la terre. Tout ce que je m'attends a ce qu'ils fassent, c'est tirer avec leurs mousquets et mourir.
Your describing - leasehold (also exists in Hawaii) only an idiot buys into a leasehold apartment, like my wife did before I met her - keep the people stupid, it's much easier to rip them off then. However the majority of people in the UK own freehold properties.
Your describing - leasehold (also exists in Hawaii) only an idiot buys into a leasehold apartment, like my wife did before I met her - keep the people stupid, it's much easier to rip them off then. However the majority of people in the UK own freehold properties.
ah ok, sorry, my bad english level... I am quite limited about that, alas. Hey you live in a very beautifull area if not far from Rodez. Beautifull area where you are... I love that plateau but as well the green part from Najac, also Figeac in the North as well as to the correzian causse. Conques church, all the templars building as well as Soulages museum... Good choice you made !
Chartres retains all of its stained glass, as does Bourges.
The great romanesque basilica/churches/monuments like Conques and Moissac are as intact as they ever were. On the other hand the great abbey of Cluny was turned into a quarry!
The great gothic cathedrals were products of the "Mediaeval Warming Period" which yielded an enormous increase in the productivity of agricultural land.
During China's "Cultural Revolution" monuments were destroyed with reckless abandon, but when the People's Army went to destroy the cave carvings of Dazu (dating from the 7th C) the peasants themselves revolted and protected this historical treasure with shovels, picks and pikes. Dazu is now a UNESCO world heritage site.
La Cathedrale de Chartres is very impressive cause of the tainted blue hues of stained glass.
If touring in east of France Strasbourg, Reims are not bad either.
My favorite still is chapelle 'Notre Dame du Haut' in Ronchamp, Haute-Saone (70). Located in early Vosges and designed by Le Corbusier during 50's.
So different looking.
If touring in east of France Strasbourg, Reims are not bad either.
My favorite still is chapelle 'Notre Dame du Haut' in Ronchamp, Haute-Saone (70). Located in early Vosges and designed by Le Corbusier during 50's.
So different looking.