Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens

Well, this certainly has been a funny turn of events. As part of further efforts to enhance the band's profile online, I have been shown how to "hash tag" things and why this is necessary or relevant. As far as my understanding is aware, "hash tagging" is like putting an obvious label on your tweets so people who are interested in what you have "hash tagged" are directed to it somewhat. Some organisations have set up some sort of automated re-tweet dealio where if their key word is hash tagged, their account automatically re-tweets the tweet to spread the word much faster.

So I was told, when I tweet about the band, do this- #RATP.

After a few days of doing this, we were bemused when we were receiving automated re-tweets from a whole bunch of french people.

As it turns out, there is a RATP more well known than Ricky and the Pigeons. (I know, unbelievable, right?) Allow me to introduce you to the Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens. Here is their logo.(I know, ours is cooler)

Basically, RATP is the major transit operator responsible for public transport in Paris and its surroundings. Its operational divisions include the Paris Métro system (16 lines), part of the RER, an extensive bus system, and three tram lines. It also operates the Montmartre funicular. So they are pretty much in charge of everything. 

What makes this ever more hilarious, is that in amongst their administrative tweets about changes to bus routes etc, there are a few automated re-tweets about Ricky and the Pigeons and our gigs. This is fantastic. For our sake, I hope they don't notice because although the french aren't our target audience, any publicity is good publicity!