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Today had an amusing Globe and Mail piece on that Da Vinci Book.

Seems the caretakers of French churches and museums are getting pretty frustrated at the sheep-like tourists wearing a tread around Europe to each of the "artifacts" mentioned in the book.

Every few minutes, a knot of tourists is led at speed by their guides through Saint-Sulpice's great west doors. They beeline to the gnomon -- the 11-metre-high, white marble obelisk in the north transept -- oblivious to light, organ, frescoes, chapels.

[...Father Roumanet's sign next to the obelisk] reads, in part: "Contrary to fanciful allegations in a recent bestselling novel, this is not the vestige of a pagan temple. No such temple ever existed in this place. It was never called a 'Rose Line.' No mystical notion can be derived from this instrument of astronomy except to acknowledge that God the Creator is the master of time."

Also, over 1,000 copies of the Da Vinci Code left behind on the Eurostar Chunnel train, according to The Telegraph; "by far the most common item left" in the last 18 months. Most are paperback copies in English, though some are in Dutch, Spanish and German.

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That doesn't strike me as being a terribly new phenomenon - I recall going to the Louvre with my family on our European vacation, and while the Mona Lisa room was packed, the rest of the museum was fairly dead. I walked right up to the Venus de Milo, for instance.

On the one hand, as you say, cultural sheep. On the other hand, they're spending money, so what do the caretakers care? Would they rather nobody came by? Gotta pay the bills somehow.

Heh. The article counters both of those points.

These particular sheep only visit very obscure artifacts. (except for the mona lisa, I suppose).

And most of these obscure churches don't charge admission. The cure of the Saint-Sulpice church has a good response to that, if you *ahem* want to read the article... ;)

Churches don't charge admission, but even tourists eat, and buy postcards, and other touristy type stuff; money still gets put into the local economy. Like it or not, that's how even the cure will eventually get fed.

Pretty shabby of the tour organisations to not cough up a share though, but not surprising - I'd bet it's a pretty cutthroat business and hey, if the doors are open...

A Frenchwoman dismissing Americans as being condescending, that's pretty rich too. :-)

Having now read TFA (it's that or figure out how to set up Outlook to IMAP) ... well, I can understand where they're coming from (it's what I figured), I just don't have a lot of sympathy. I lived in Nova Scotia, as you know, and we got more than our share of tourists too. "How quaint!" they'd say, "Where do we find the lobster and tidal bore, we only have a few hours in town you see."

You get sheep everywhere there's tourists; you can either figure out how to shear them, sigh and roll your eyes and moan about it, or else close up shop. Not much other choice.

Yeah, it is a common story, indeed. And the story of the Mona Lisa--*shrug* whatever. But I can imagine being mildly pissed if I managed one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, and millions of people came to see the outhouse because it was in a movie, or whatever.

When I was in Korea last year, one of the things they showed us on our outing was a rock promontory that features in a Korean soap opera that is also popular in other countries in east Asia. The view was spectacular, but the tourists were really, really weird.

I don't fault them for feeling annoyed; it's a perfectly human reaction. I'm just wondering why this is apparently worthy of publication in a major Canadian newspaper. "Everybody has the same problems we do," maybe? It bugged me when I lived out east too, but eventually you just learn to shrug and take it, because really, you have no other choice. Unless violence is an option. :-)

Here, the tourists seem to be less of a "problem". That, or I just go out less and the city is bigger.

This is the way that Sony's tens of millions of $$ are manifesting themselves in the 'higher quality' newspapers.

(US$45m to publicize that movie in the US alone.)

That doesn't surprise me. Stinky Hollywood.

As I age, I find myself feeling more and more left wing, not less so.

What was that old saying, show me a man who's conservative at 20 and I'll show you a man with no heart; show me one who's liberal at 50 and I'll show you one with no brain? Something along those lines.

feh.

And I just now took screenshots of Outlook. So now I feel doubly dirty. I viciously edited them with the gimp though. On Windows!

I'm more conservative economically than I was 10 years ago, but a lot of that is a consequence of moving to Canada where I can be in the economic mainstream but still support public health care. There's a much wider space for me to navigate, and so I've become more moderate.

Windows is evil. My Mac is the greatest thing ever...

As I age, I find myself feeling more and more left wing, not less so.

Idly, I wonder if that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't ended up in academia...

I suppose this might be more of a factor in the US, depending on region...

Maybe? Hard to say. My earliest memories are going in to the U of G with mum while she worked on her grad degrees, then moving to Edmonton for her to do her PhD at U of A. I've been around academics all my life.

Still, maybe I wouldn't be moving as quickly were I not continually around 'em. Who nose. :)