Jesus was black

I'll just take a minute or two out of a ludicrously busy week or so before going to sleep. Parents are here, although they're off this afternoon. Delayed Christmas, exchange of presents, rushing around Paris trying to find new things to entertain them with, etc. Yesterday, among other things, we decided to visit St Denis' basilica (where loads of French kings are buried) and St Sulpice (where some stuff happened which was crucial to the Da Vinci Code but which like most of the book is actually complete trout droppings).

Basilique de St Denis, yesterday.

Oh no, British Institute Newsletter injokes. Sorry. For everything ever.

We grabbed sandwiches from the legendary St Lazare sandwich shop (I was on the verge of fixing up Chakkers with the girl working there last summer whom he clearly fancied, but he forbid me, and now there's a new one whom I find quite hot and flirted with as much as is possible during the course of ordering two ham sandwiches and a couple of beignets, which as you can imagine is not a great deal and certainly not enough to get her number - Chakkers, would you pop over and do the dirty work? Of course Father misses the point entirely and asks quizzically "do you know that girl from somewhere then?" Ok, this bracket is getting far too long). We caught the métro up out of Paris into St Denis and visited its 12th-century basilica.

They had a nativity scene with a black Joseph, black Mary and black baby Jesus. Kudos for this kind of thing. The constant Western portrayal of Jesus, and other biblical characters, as a white Westerner, is one of the biggest nonsenses of organised Christianity. The dude was from Israel. Probably looked more Arab than anything. If stereotypes run true, and Jesus showed up somewhere in south-central US tomorrow, they'd think he was a terrorist...

Back in Paris, we saw the cunning north-south meridien timeline thingy at St Sulpice, the "PS" stained-glass windows which mean something entirely different to what Dan Brown suggests, and this year's nativity scene, which took not only the biscuit but also made off with several fig rolls and a small fruitcake:

Utterly over-the-top nativity creation at St Sulpice this year.
Featuring fully-functional running waterfall and real gesticulating arm action figure shepherds.

Meanwhile on a less churchy subject it seems they're reinstalling a ferris wheel on place de la Concorde. You will probably know the story about the millennium one being dismantled in 2002, shipped to Birmingham and rebuilt - with one small oversight. They forgot to replace the tape recording, so as you rose up in the midlands, you heard about the marvellous views of Paris you were currently enjoying.

Ferris foul, and foul is fairground - Macbeth, I.i.11

But now it seems it's back. Or something very much like it. Any Birmingham readers noticed any ferris wheels going missing recently?