You know you're in Paris when...

Last night I was walking along the arcade de louvre, the covered sidewalk across the street from the Jardin des Tuileries and Musée du Louvre. I had just spent the last hour curled up with a book in a coffee-and-dessert shop in the Marais, and was on my way to meet a friend for a book signing event at W.H. Smith, the large Anglo-bookstore located near Place de la Concorde.

I could just catch glimpse of the Eiffel Tower - with it's bizarre blue lights - shining over the tops of the trees in the Jardin. I looked away for a minute, distracted by something in a shop window, and when my gaze returned, the steel lady was doing her shimmy-dance, sparkling up a white-and-gold light storm. Ah, I thought, it must be seven o'clock. The strange decadence of this thought then struck me.

Here in Paris, we tell time by the illumination of the Eiffel Tower. It's true though, we can - at least at nighttime. Every hour, on the hour, after dark, a thousand mounted flash bulbs go off in an unsynchronized manner, and the steel lady sparkles evocatively for about 3 minutes. A little bit like a showgirl on the nearby Avenue des Champs Elysées. Ah, Paris...