A Staircase by the Sea

I'm just back from a 10 day vacation in France and among the usual holiday snaps is this one, inspired by Coil's sleeve for The Anal Staircase EP. This pic was taken inside the Phare de la Coubre, a majestic French lighthouse near the town of Royan on the Atlantic coast. If you're ever in the neighborhood I'd highly recommend a visit, the views from the top are quite stunning, and there's a small museum onsite with various lighting and signalling equipment on display.

Near the summit, 300 steps later...

A treasure of the pre-GPS era, the Phare de la Coubre built in 1905

The view from the top, looming 210 feet over the Côte Sauvage (The Wild Coast)

Over the course of the holiday I caught quite a random selection of late night TV movie screenings - all of 'em dubbed en Francais but I persevered - among them the original Shaft, Picnic At Hanging Rock, The Blues Brothers, Luc Besson's Nikita, a film I hadn't seen previously, and was impressed; a beautiful restoration of Umbrellas of Cherbourg, with Catherine Deneuve at her most stunningly gorgeous; and a really terrific 1977 French-Canadian thriller called La Menace, starring Yves Montand and featuring one of the most spectacular truck-goes-off-a-cliff set pieces I've seen in quite some time. Well worth seeking out...