Pardonnez-Moi Paris - #1

"Almost Home" - May 2003

So, here I am, back again in good old Paris, after the Greek debacle. And I've decided what I'm going to do with my life. Well, with a bit of it anyway.

I'm going to write about the city. And my impressions of it. It'll be a bit like a diary or a journal. I'll introduce you to my favourite haunts as well as to my innermost thoughts as I make my merry way through my life. We'll meet strange characters, suffer disappointments, perhaps heartbreaks, together on this Lutetian odyssey. But we'll also share the joys of living in one of the most amazing capitals in the world.

It's full of French people, of course, but we mustn't focus on the downside only, we must learn to appreciate the underlying beauty below the tarnished veneer. That was just a little joke. I try to make them occasionally. I'll warn you next time. Actually, I like the French. No, I said I'd warn you next time. Really, I honestly do like the French. Despite the popularity of national stereotypes, I find people rarely fit them. Everyone has their own unique personality and most people like to laugh at a lot of the same things the world over, given half a chance. I hope we will do a lot of laughing together too. After all, people are darned funny creatures when all's said and done.

So, as I said, here I am, back again, in Paris. With a bit of a problem. I currently have no apartment, no job, and very little money. I do have a very good friend, though, who for the purposes of these notes shall henceforth be referred to as `The Scarecrow' for reasons best not gone into at this juncture.

The Scarecrow will be giving me a place to stay, as well as access to a splendid internet connection, and you can't say fairer than that, can you ?

He lives in a rather anonymous far-southern suburb of Paris known as `Vigneux-sur-Seine'. `sur Seine' means it's near Paris's famous river, and `Vigneux', means, well, err, Vigneux.

Without wanting to appear ungrateful, this is one of the last places I would have chosen to live. Not only does it have the personality and ambience of an undertaker's, but it's some way from Paris itself.

The train line into the city can be quite uncomfortable in the evening, swarming with gangs of black guys amusing themselves doing fun things like smoking joints, daubing the walls with menacing, if incomprehensible slogans, and continually roaming roaming the carriages, along the top floor, back along the bottom, up to the top again, and so on, checking out all the passengers. What they're looking for I'm not totally sure, but if you can imagine the worst, then I would assume it. I'm not racist or anything. If they'd been white, or even purple with yellow and green spots, I'd have said so.

On one of my ex-wife's (but then girlfriend's) trips from the airport into the centre she had her bag containing money, passport, plane tickets, keys and presents for me swiped, while we were kissing, of all things. These guys are damned clever, and we didn't see a thing, much less catch them. Bastards.

I've been a bit cynical about kissing people in public ever since. Not that it's a regular habit of mine, you understand, and I always ask politely first…

I'm going to miss the balconies, mind you. Greece has got lots of them, and Paris tends to be a bit more frugal in the matter. Not that that stopped me from getting into some quite severe trouble with Olive (as my ex will now be referred to) following a somewhat risqué comment to the Scarecrow concerning a cousin of hers whose apartment happens to have a more than adequate balcony.

Now, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about, but it all stems from the fact that there's a certain lascivious French expression whereby a woman is described as having `a lot of people on the balcony', only in French, of course. Well, I'm not going to go into the precise details of this lively image due to the family nature of this column, but suffice it to say that both the Scarecrow and I dissolved into very inappropriate puddles of ill-disguised mirth, complete with those disgusting noises people make when trying not to laugh, with the result that it all comes out the nose instead.

And so it came to pass. A great little schoolboyish snigger was had by all. Except Olive, that is. She didn't happen to be familiar with the expression in question, and was unusually eager to have it explained, immediately, and in some detail.

Now, one of the things I'm really looking forward to doing, as these journals progress and evolve, is sharing with you some of my personal homespun observations and insights into the complexities and vaguaries of human nature around the world, in all its wondrous,multifaceted glory.

And here's one for ya right away. Don't EVER suggest to your best mate over a couple of beers that your future Greek wife's nubile young cousin has got big tits, while the aforementioned future Greek wife is sitting next to you, EVEN through metaphor in a foreign language.

I don't know, maybe it's a cultural thing, but in my experience it Just Isn't Worth It. Let me be your guide on this one. My CD collection still bears the scars to prove it.

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So, let the above scribbled diatribe serve as a warning to you : that's pretty much the way it's going to be, and I can't see it getting any better.

If you liked it, then, there's no particular reason why you shouldn't tune in, same time, same web site in a few days for more of the same. And tell all your friends about it while you're at it, why don't you ? After all, how am I supposed to become rich and famous… well, famous… well, ok, infamous, if you don't ?

If, on the other hand, you feel that my `Pardonnez-moi, Paris' column is `not quite what you're looking for', then I can only concur and conclude that I've probably just penned one of the worst-written, most aimlessly wandering, incoherent and irrelevant pieces of rambling babble ever claiming to have the remotest connection with our magnificent French capital.

See you next week, then ?

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