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Notre Dame on fire

I was there a few months ago and it is very impressive.

It actually seems the damage isn't too bad - just the wooden roof and spire, which will be easy to rebuild. The main stone bit and windows are supposed to be ok. There's also not much in terms of treasurers in there, because all of those were destroyed and melted down in the French Revolution.

I bet it was a workman's cigarette that started it. I've been up in a medieval spire, and all the dry wood in them is an absolute tinder box
 
Jordinho said:
No stereotyping happening here.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1117998765464535040
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Probably doing it as a tax write off. If we or the EU are at no time asked to help out, I will admit I was wrong as well as pleasantly surprised.

When we went inside it, I had the same opinion as when I was in the Vatican. That if they sold half the stuff off they could truly help the people they pretend to represent. Instead of paying hush money to unfortunate people who were cruelly abused by employees of the Catholic church.

Nice building, vile organisation.
 
Fire during maintenance work you say? integrity of the structure still in tact? Cutty Sark mkII!
 
If Notre Dame was such a tinder box, it was negligent of the French to have a lack of fire protection.

They should have had an enormous saucisson of fire departant champignons on standby. One prick et voila, un tidal wave de protection.
 
Bullet said:
If Notre Dame was such a tinder box, it was negligent of the French to have a lack of fire protection.

They should have had an enormous saucisson of fire departant champignons on standby. One prick et voila, un tidal wave de protection.
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The Houses of Parliament are in the same boat apparently. One spark could potentially burn the place to the ground (again).
 
Rorschach said:
The Houses of Parliament are in the same boat apparently. One spark could potentially burn the place to the ground (again).
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All medieval roofs are the same. And its always been quite common for them to burn down. Parliament I think it a bit different (the building is much newer) - that's more shoddy wiring
 
Terrible disaster, I dislike religions but always visit such sites as I'm amazed at the vision and scale of the builds, particularly when you take into account the way they were built and the logistics of the operation. I can't see how they will repair the damage in a 5 year programme and can see the EU will be picking up a large bit of the tab.
 
K.D.D.D.D.Soc said:
Terrible disaster, I dislike religions but always visit such sites as I'm amazed at the vision and scale of the builds, particularly when you take into account the way they were built and the logistics of the operation. I can't see how they will repair the damage in a 5 year programme and can see the EU will be picking up a large bit of the tab.
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The damage isn't that much (relatively). All the stonework is fine, apart from a little bit of vaulting that fell under the spire. It's really just the wooden roof and spire that will need replacing. You can't even see the roof from the inside because of the vaulting.

The same thing happened to York Minister in the 80s, Castle Howard in the 40s, Windsor Castle in the 90s, and you'd never know the difference now
 
Gutter Boy said:
All medieval roofs are the same. And its always been quite common for them to burn down. Parliament I think it a bit different (the building is much newer) - that's more shoddy wiring
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Yes the electrics are shoddy if the reports are to be beleived and it is also full of dry old wood, so really this should be a warning to sort it out. Loads of asbestos in there too I read in one place.
 
Rorschach said:
Yes the electrics are shoddy if the reports are to be beleived and it is also full of dry old wood, so really this should be a warning to sort it out. Loads of asbestos in there too I read in one place.
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It's a real mismatch of buildings once you get in there. The big entrance hall is the original medieval bit, then the two wings (HoC and HoL) are gothic revival.

The big loss round there was actually the Palace of Whitehall, which burnt down a few hundred years ago
 
  • French billionaire François-Henri Pinault, who owns firm behind Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent and is married to Salma Hayek, pledged €100m to Notre Dame
  • His long-time friend and advisor, former culture minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon, said such gifts should be tax deductible
A close confidant of the French billionaire who pledged €100 million towards the restoration of Notre Dame has called for such donations to be 90 per cent tax deductible.

Former French culture minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon made the suggestion before the flames in the cathedral had been extinguished.

His suggestion came as his close friend François-Henri Pinault, who owns the firm behind Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent and is married to Salma Hayek, pledged the nine-figure sum to help 'completely rebuild' the Gothic monument.

Mr Aillagon has long been a close advisor of Mr Pinault's and now manages the Pinault Collection, the Pinault family's vast art collection.

Were the government to enact the policy, French taxpayers rather than the wealthy donors would foot most of the bill for repairs.

Ninety per cent of the sum donated would be taken off the wealthy individual's tax bill, leaving the Exchequer significantly out of pocket and needing to make up the shortfall from general taxation or by cutting spending.

Haha I frigging knew it, the wifes says Im a cynic, I said no my heart aint in it. I tell you what I am right an awful lot of the time about this sort of stuff.

I reckon the French tax payer will have to pick up the bill and they dont do that, so they will go cap in hand to Brussels, which means, yeh we are going to be paying for it.

The thing I remember most from our visit there was that to be fair the funicular was better then the one in Hastings. I went on a sort of a funicular in Hamburg once, strangest experience of my life and I have had a few.
 
“Due to France’s laws regarding secularization, the French government owns all churches built before 1905, including Notre-Dame.

“The government lets the Archdiocese of Paris use the building for free, and will continue to do so in perpetuity. The Archdiocese of Paris is responsible for the upkeep of the church with the Ministry of Culture giving it about €2 million ($2.28 million) a year for that purpose, as well as for paying employees.”


Roman Catholics: The Vatican's Wealth. Bankers' best guesses about the Vatican's wealth put it at $10 billion to $15 billion. Of this wealth, Italian stockholdings alone run to $1.6 billion, 15% of the value of listed shares on the Italian market.


But - it gets a little more murkey as each diocese operates effectively independently financially. I cant find what the Archdiocese of Paris is worth directly, but I did find the archdiocese of Cologne claims to be richer than the Vatican. So I dont think its a stretch to assume Paris has a healthy bank balance.

Especially when you consider:

Notre Dame is Paris’s most popular destination for tourists. In other words, it’s the biggest tourist attraction in one of the world’s biggest tourist cities. Before the fire broke out, it was open 10 or more hours a day, seven days a week. Approximately 30,000 people visit the cathedral each day, and nearly 13 million people visit each year. Some come for the stunning Gothic architecture; others make the trip to pray and view sacred items in the cathedral’s reliquary, including the crown of thorns. The cathedral has been free to enter, but visitors were required to pay a small fee to enter the crypt (€6, or just over $6) and the tower (€8.50, or just over $9).

and

PARIS - The Catholic Church is going digital in Paris.

The city’s archdiocese will introduce a system allowing contactless card payments during Sunday’s mass at Saint Francois de Molitor, a church located in an upscale and conservative Paris neighborhood.

The archdiocese explained Thursday that five connected collection baskets with a traditional design will be handed out to mass attenders during the service. They will choose on a screen the amount they want to donate - from 2 to 10 euros ($2.4 to $12.2) - and their payment will be processed in “one second.”


Personally I think its a great shame that a beautiful building has suffered such an event, and that it absolutely should be restored.

However, I see no reason at all why the church shouldnt foot the bill. And I certainly think all the cash being donated to it is in bad taste - this is money that could be given to far worthier causes.
 
Its a shame but it is just brick and mortar.

Jonathan Pie made a cracking point. Total are putting in 100m to restore an monument whilst making huge profits and caring not one bit about our biggest monument the environment.

I have become more reflective in the last couple of years for some reason, might be getting older, might have been travelling the world, I think alot comes from being in London and seeing how a big city lives and operates over a number of subjects, be that terrorism, the rush hour, homelessness and the one thing I day in day out get astounded by is peoples mindsets.

People that would not spit on a homeless guy they walk pass in the street cry over monuments and thats a broad example but its just an example.
 
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