Pardonnez-Moi Paris - #2

"Reintegration" - June 2003

23rd June, 2003 – Les Deux Magots, Boulevard Saint Germain, 5ème

I lied in my previous (and first) column : I wasn't really in Paris – just wishing and pretending to be. Sorry. Now that's all changed. After a long journey from middle-of-nowhere sweaty Greece, I arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport around 8 p.m., local time. I like that expression: "local time". Makes me feel like some sort of international globe trotter and not the homeless vagrant I really am.

I arrived, symbolically, on midsummer's night, the longest day of the year, and it felt like it too, having been awake for about 36 hours with all the last-minute packing (is there another kind?) and stuff. I skillfully avoided all that `Fete de la Musique' madness by traversing Paris rapidly by the RER, the train which… traverses Paris rapidly.

Paris actually has an extremely complicated public transport system, although when you finally work it all out it's highly efficient and easy to get where you want to go.

Among the multitude of methods for zipping around the city are the RER, the Metro, the SNCF (a `train', which you might have thought was the same as the RER, but isn't), the Meteor (which is somehow pretending it's not just another Metro line), the RATP (which is actually the Metro and bus services combined), Aureole (your guess is as good as mine on this one), the funambule or something like that (a sort of ski-lift thing climbing up to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur), the `Bateaux Mouches' (the, err, `fly boats'?) on the Seine, the Tram (which pretends to be a bus on rails but is really just another train), the friendly, reasonably priced, and perfectly English- speaking city taxis, cycling (if you've got a death wish), rollerblading (if you've got a death wish against pedestrians), crawling through the city's sewers (no, honestly, you can…), risking your nerves and insurance policy in your car, and even, best of all, of course… walking.

Did you spot the weekly joke in the above paragraph, by the way? I told a teeny weeny little fib about one of the city's most familiar and exploitative ways of getting around. Clue: their name is very similar to one of your major fiscal obligations each year, and their fares are of roughly the same magnitude.

As part of my Paris renaissance, I decided to adopt a café. I thought I would start with one of the most famous, and probably pretentious, in Paris: Les Deux Magots. They actually call themselves a `Café Literaire' on their hilarious menu (just look at the prices), but a lot of that's just marketing flair `n' hot air I reckon, trying to draw on their glorious clientele of yesteryear to justify their laughable prices of today.

Nevertheless, I decided to get back into the swing of things with one of Paris' most potent symbols for me: a 33cl bottle of nice, chilled Pelforth – pronounced PELL-FORRR with a French accent, which is a strong brown brew which I'm rather partial to.

I had been looking forward to my first ever visit to this great bastion of French café culture for some days, but my feelings turn out to be mixed. I was served, after a mere seven minutes' reflection, by what I can only describe as an intimidating, though polite, sort of half-man, half-pitbull. He Monsieured me, which reassured me a bit, and I ordered, in confident French for once, the aforementioned dark amber nectar.

Taking my cue from every stupid tourist guide ever written, a bout of serious people-watching was now practically obligatory. The idea they all expound is that you are supposed to install yourself comfortably for the duration, order your microscopic thimble of distilled caffeine, and proceed to stare unabashedly and unblinkingly at anyone interesting who happens to shuffle by. Sitting there in the comfort of your temporarily adopted citadel, you rate the hoi polloi on scales of one to ten, awarding points for anything from dress-sense, sexiness, sassiness, snobbishness, sexual variations on a theme (this is Paris), relative and assorted body part sizes, possible country of origin, probable political orientation, and anything else that occurs to you, depending on your wont. It's quite fun, actually – look:

A woman just went by who definitely had her nose in the air, but upon reflection it was more a case of had her `nose job' in the air. This struck me just before I left the city a year ago as a deeply disturbing trend, especially among middle- to `of a certain age' well- to-do Parisian dames.

For some reason certain members of this echelon of French society seem to think that shamelessly displaying the depths of their nostrils to the world, admittedly impeccably plucked, somehow renders them more attractive. Oops! Shall we tell them? I find pugs easier to look at, and certainly more endearing. Sometimes they have one in their handbag come to think of it – a pug, that is – and you know what they say about dogs and their owners. That must be it.

To be honest I'm surrounded by far more Orientals than snooty French women as I write, including a suitably inscrutable Japanese gentleman who seems to have completely lost the use of his facial muscles, despite his female companions chatting away animatedly and smiling. He pointed out something on interest to them on a nearby building just then, and they screeched with laughter, but his face didn't change a millimeter, I swear it didn't.

Maybe Botox has finally reached East Asian shores and found its way into the board rooms of Tokyo. At least he doesn't seem to have had a nose job.

I much prefer the proclivity for cleavage the summer sun provokes to the nipping of nostrils in any season, although I can only suppose each knows what they want…

I'm disappointed to say that the place is sadly devoid of would-be poets penning potent hymns to a lost generation, present author excepted, of course. I imagined finding myself being suddenly eerily immersed in a world of word jousting and sonnet-swapping, while the grim reality is that it's just another typical tourist haunt, the weightiest tome on display being Collins Mini Dictionary and Phrase Book. Even the Pitbull's disappeared off somewhere, depriving me of even that red-faced source of inspiration.

I'm pleased to report, however, that I have a classic French café scenario on my hands, according to films I've seen anyway. Due west of my current position, approximately two tables away, sits an
attractive young lady, alone. She's pretending to read her book, but I KNOW, especially after my Pelforth, that she is secretly interested in me, but doesn't quite know what to do about it. The problem is we are sitting at 90 degrees to each other, and while our gazes most certainly cross, they do not meet, alas. For that to happen we would both have to simultaneously turn our heads quite obviously and stare, and of course One Doesn't Do That, does one.

In fact, if I feel her looking at me, and I look casually in her direction, her head is immediately buried in her book, and I do the same if she looks at me.

The challenge is for one of us to look at the other, and for the other to meet the gaze and not look away. But neither of us are here for that today, I feel. That's not my style anyway – I can't `chat up' a girl to save my life. So here we are – picture this – I'm writing, she's reading, and we decline to play the game, and sometimes it's better that way. It's nice to have been here with her, though, and shared a few furtive moments in this trashy tourist trap. I guess there's a chance she might feel the same, wondering about that guy alternately scribbling furiously, then gazing around, pen in his teeth, with a faraway look in his eyes.

Unfortunately, the generous tariffs don't allow me to enjoy a refill, so I nervously seek out the Pitbull, who eventually reappears, adroitly balancing an impressively expresso-loaded tray. He manages to accept my money and fish out the change from somewhere in his long, crisp white apron almost without stopping, gruffly merci-Monsieurs me once more and puffs off, redfaced, with his trayful of potent little Parisian coffees. I think I kind of like him.

So endeth my first real jaunt into Paris after the return of the prodigal son. The RER - not a train, remember – depresses me, and Les Halles and Gare du Nord are not pretty places to descend, but Paris – ahh, My Paris – it feels good to be back, on a sunny afternoon in the City of Light, around five, local time.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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