Sean Kenny

Members of the force's sports squad, responsible - among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access. Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said. Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs".

There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said. A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said. "The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there." Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."

In 2004, Parisian police were conducting a training exercise in the french catacombs and found, after moving past a desk and a tape playing audio of snarling dogs, a fully functional movie theater and bar. When they returned 3 days later, the equipment was gone, with a note: “Do not try to find us.”

A really wonderful twenty minutes of music here.

open.spotify.com/track/21Aapi...

Oh yeah discovered this phenomenon a couple of years ago, which was an unpleasant few months. The lack of centralised knowledge on this condition really is a problem.

Taking a taxi was an unutterable horror for many people back then. Just wait an hour for the bus and save £3!

Such reticence is admirable.

Will you be suing the climbing wall that swapped grades for bands under civil law, or pushing the CPS for a criminal prosecution? 🤪🤪🤪

Yes but perhaps not when interest rates are high and the economy is still running a bit hot. Shifting activity from consumption to investment probably better rn but would be super unpopular.

Can’t see out of the windows cause the condensation,
Remember the time I took
a chainsaw to the nation?

Eating scotch eggs in an Austin Allegro,
Tea in a thermos whilst I crash the peso

And to do it when a pensioner!

Dylan got Christianity. Cash cursed God.

Two parties whose rise is partly fuelled by material concerns, neither of which has the ideology or policies available to effectively deal with those concerns... sounds brilliant, can't wait.

Just think, had they raised income tax to start a long term process of rebuilding public services, that public services would still be rubbish and everyone would be poorer, they would be SO popular...

‘I'm trying to take a photograph of someone that they have never seen and neither have I. You're trying to gain a secret of a life'.

Alen MacWeeney.

Evocative photographs of 1960s Dublin.

Look, universities still exist, a house was built on a field and a Turkish barbers opened in Peterborough. With a record like that, of course no one is representing the pensioners!

I’ve always pronounced it “Bewks” to rhyme with pukes. But who knows?!

Clearly more cosmopolitan than British skiiers! (I don’t ski.)

Fair enough, but I’d never heard of them!

Maybe “Chinese Science” would be a better title.

I do struggle to see how the government really understand actually existing Britain, never mind express any enjoyment or pleasure in its better aspects.

Yes, fun is not a priority, but the phrase bread and circuses exists for a reason…

Never heard of it, probably because no English people go there, thanks to that z!

This is a government of tedious Gradgrinds whose vision of the UK is 1950s cosplay but with AI. A later pub opening time is spot on a another “40 years too late” policy for yesterday’s Britain.

It would involve councils owning places that can be cheaply rented by various groups, ie requiring real money and capacity, purely for “fun”. So it is not going to happen under this government.

All French climbing areas are weird to pronounce.

Aberdeen Steakhouse.

Scientists develop first ‘accurate blood test’ to detect chronic fatigue syndrome Research could offer hope for ME patients – but some experts urge caution and say more studies needed

ME/CFS is a devastating condition that has long been denied, dismissed, psychologised and underdiagnosed. Research is at last starting to catch up with it, with glimmers of hope for those who have been left untreated for so long.
There's a huge BUT coming ...🧵
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Yeah but you have your dignity.

They did indeed get what they wanted.

As ever, such different routes, such similar outcomes.

Yes, when you go on a website where people post their opinions there is a risk that you will read some opinions. Even against a saint!