MaXXimum

Tom

December 1st, 2007 - Geneva, Switzerland

When December comes round you can be certain of two things in Plainpalais : that there will be a big top, signaling that the circus has come to town; and that there will be a funfair, complete with bumper cars, roller-coaster (or montagnes russes as they are more poetically known in French), shooting galleries and a bewildering array of the more and more stomach-turningly inventive rides that today's youth seem to prefer.

Of course, being a perverse sort, I chose to visit the funfair on the night of December 1st, when the rest of Geneva was either participating in or observing the Course de l'Escalade, so I had the place more or less to myself. What's more, it was drizzling with rain - which meant not only that the neon lights reflected dazzlingly on the tarmac but also that I got to see these security guards, normally charged with ensuring that adolescents are securely strapped in before being launched upside-down high into the air, waiting patiently for the first customers of the evening beneath their beautiful turquoise umbrellas.

[Added as an archive shot to Utata Project "Nocturnal 2" on April 5th, 2008]