Hmmm. Churches in France do seem to be suffering a terrible run of luck lately.

[Sir C]

They search you and your bags when you go in. How is this so difficult to understand? There are also always a min of 3 policemen with guns outside at most 15 yards from the entrance or exit (different doors.)

There's always a queue of a min or two to 30 mins. And at that time, it's quite busy.

The place inside is rammed with tourists taking photos. There is no quiet corner to start a fire. You have to know how to get up into the loft from inside the church, which probably involves going into the back bit which is all fenced off cos they don't want you nicking holy water or whatever.

You've got to do that with **** loads of tourists looking at you, snapping you on their phones, get up, start a fire, get down, and get out without anyone having seen you, or got the security or fuzz, with the room begining to burn.

I've spent the last 3 months 'round that church. It just isn't possible.

I have been into Notre Dame plusieurs fois, mon mec, and I can assure you that no gendarme has ever had the temerity to attmept to lay dirty, garlic-stained doigts upon my person. I've walked in for easter Sunday mass without being stopped, for God's sake. When did all this security start all of a sudden and, perhaps more pertinently, why?

Furthermore, starting a fire in Notre Dame may appear tricky to you, because you're an ageing hippy, not a full time professional terrorist whose actual job it is to fúck shít up. I mean, show me a human heart and I'll tell you that it's impossible for me to transplant it into a different human body, but then I'm not a fúcking heart surgeon, am I?

[WES]

Not quite. “There is no indication that this was a deliberate act,” is what's been said. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Here's something that never happens in normal fire investigations: people ruling out arson while the thing's still smoking.

You think that saying there is no indication that this was a deliberate act and ruling out arson are the same thing?

Really?

[Sir C]

You don't need matches. They have loads of candles to light. But how are you going to get into the loft from a crowded hurch full of tourists where alll the front bit is fenced off? You can sit on a pew in front on the fence, or go down the sides where all the little nooks with saints and candles are. But you can't clamber over a fence, have a root round the back trying to find how you get up to the loft, get upstairs etc etc with no-one seeing.

More planes full of tourists have been kidnapped in my lifetime than major, guarded cathedrals full of toursists have been toarched. Fact.

There is no way someone queued up, went past security and got into the loft at 7pm. Not a chance.

Why are you banging on and on about the loft? You know precisely fúck nothing about how or where the fire started. Three blurry pictures oin the BBC website do not make you a qualified fire investigator.

[Burney]

I have been into Notre Dame plusieurs fois, mon mec, and I can assure you that no gendarme has ever had the temerity to attmept to lay dirty, garlic-stained doigts upon my person. I've walked in for easter Sunday mass without being stopped, for God's sake. When did all this security start all of a sudden and, perhaps more pertinently, why?

Furthermore, starting a fire in Notre Dame may appear tricky to you, because you're an ageing hippy, not a full time professional terrorist whose actual job it is to fúck shít up. I mean, show me a human heart and I'll tell you that it's impossible for me to transplant it into a different human body, but then I'm not a fúcking heart surgeon, am I?

I reckon it's perfectly easy. There's probably a YouTube video telling you how to do it.

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

Do they confiscate cigarette lighters then? And - given all the renovation work going on - would anyone look twice at someone dressed like a workman going up into the roof area? I doubt it.

Dear God. This is like talking to Corbynistas about 9/11 or whatever.

The scaffolding for the workmen is on the outside. The loft is accessed from the inside. And even if you dressed in a hard hat you are not gonna be allowed to climb over the fences that separates the altar and the back rooms (whatever that is in church speak) from the tourists on pews looking at the stained glass behind where you have to clamber.

[Sir C]

How about...ooooh, let's see...the Roman Catholic Church? They're not short of a bob or two - even with all the nonce money they've had to pay out.

And where does Mother Church get her money? From catholic folk who attend mass.

Why would you expect decent people to subsidise your sightseeing, you Godless heathen bástard?

[Burney]

You think that saying there is no indication that this was a deliberate act and ruling out arson are the same thing?

Really?

No. In fact my whole point is that they aren't the same thing.

[Sir C]

dear god. This is like talking to corbynistas about 9/11 or whatever.

The scaffolding for the workmen is on the outside. The loft is accessed from the inside. And even if you dressed in a hard hat you are not gonna be allowed to climb over the fences that separates the altar and the back rooms (whatever that is in church speak) from the tourists on pews looking at the stained glass behind where you have to clamber.

you know nothing from the loft!

[Burney]

Dear God. This is like talking to Corbynistas about 9/11 or whatever.

The scaffolding for the workmen is on the outside. The loft is accessed from the inside. And even if you dressed in a hard hat you are not gonna be allowed to climb over the fences that separates the altar and the back rooms (whatever that is in church speak) from the tourists on pews looking at the stained glass behind where you have to clamber.

I think it's hilarious that you think it's impossible to get to the loft of a publicly-accessible building full of people and undergoing renovations, start a fire and escape without anyone paying much attention.

[Burney]

And where does Mother Church get her money? From catholic folk who attend mass.

Why would you expect decent people to subsidise your sightseeing, you Godless heathen bástard?

Indeed! My poor ancestors who hadn't an arse to their trousers but were expected to hand over what meagre pittance they had so that some smooth-faced priest could sit on his well-fed rump and wear silk.

And I'm expected to pay again?! Fúck that.