Upstez

Boothosaurus

2009-06-19T18:23:00.004+02:00

Does anyone use phone booths any more? (Apart from weak-bladdered ne’er-do-wells, that is.)

I suppose it won’t be long before they become extinct altogether, and we’ll shake our heads at how old we must be to remember actually using them. Like electric typewriters. Or “please”.

Already in my mind they are taking on the warm glow of nostalgia. Burnished by memories of reverse charge conversations from the Boulevard St. Michel in my student days, shivering with cold and homesickness. Or, even further back, coded rings home to request a pick-up from the station after school, hanging up just in time to bring the coins clattering back. (Coins!)

I think they’ve always had a somewhat retro aura, haven’t they? Plush cabinets in old theatres. The groovy 60s capsules you used to see at airports. The opening credits of “Get Smart”. Then of course there’s the red, old-world charm of the local variety, only used these days as backdrops in tourist snaps.

Actually, I did see someone make a call from a phone booth this morning. He was on his mobile.

This England

2009-06-09T13:29:00.004+02:00

Overheard on the 319 to Sloane Square.
Two silver-bobbed ladies:

“Jasper set me up with the Internet. Are you online?”

“Oh yes. Emma emails from Botswana.”

“Isn’t it extraordinary!”

“What?”

“The Net! My dear, the things you can find!”

“I know! Marvellous, isn’t it?”

“I found one site which tells you how to train goldfish.”

“Goldfish?”

“Yes. It’s the most extraordinary thing. You teach them how to swim in formation.”

“What, like synchronised swimming?”

“Exactly. It’s all about how you scatter the food. I’ve been practising with the carp. I’ve managed to get them to swim to one end of the pond. Eventually I’m hoping for a sort of arrow formation.”

“How marvellous! You’ll have to throw the most enormous drinks party!”

Bonnet

2009-04-03T13:02:00.004+02:00

Do you remember Easter Bonnet Parades? Some of my sharpest early school memories come from those bizarre occasions when all the infant students would be forced to don holiday headgear and file around the playground while the seniors snickered and mocked.

One year Mum helped me make a “Cat in the Hat” affair, a crisp red and white cylinder. I was giddy with the thought that I might actually win a prize, until some daft sadist of a teacher put me in the “tall hats” group instead of the “story book” category. I had no chance against the towering creations around me.

The next year, Mum thought it would be character-building for me to compete on my own efforts, so while other kids’ parents pulled in favours from society milliners, I got creative with an ice-cream container, some foil and a couple of Mintie wrappers.

That year I walked in my own special category.

Despite these traumatic memories, I do love the idea of wearing silly hats in public. It’s a shame the Easter Bonnet Parade isn’t more widely celebrated in the grown-up world. True, in Australia we have Melbourne Cup Day, which is always good for a giggle at fascinators, but it lacks somehow the innocent abandon of the E.B.P. (Hard to feel innocent when you’re guzzling Champagne and betting on horses.)

That is why I was so pleased to read the below article in today’s Wandsworth Guardian. It’s good to see the spirit of competition so vibrantly alive this Easter. Even at 86, “funky” Mae Main be-ribboned her way to victory in the Battersea Pensioners Contact Club Easter Bonnet Parade.

Congratulations, Mae – I take my home-made hat off to you.

Rolf

2009-04-01T13:03:00.005+02:00

I never got Rolf Harris. I always felt slightly embarrassed whenever I saw him huff and wobble on TV, a dated relic perpetuating the Cultural Cringe. Then I saw him live.

He may be 79, but he’s no relic.

He was a revelation on Sunday night at the Australian Fire & Flood Benefit Concert. Funny, warm, commanding and unexpectedly moving, he was the emotional anchor of the whole show. I couldn’t help but respond, all the old numbers resonating in some profound core of identity acquired through a long process of Aussie osmosis.
I wasn’t alone: a lot of my compatriots were dabbing their eyes as Rolf worked his magic. Especially when he started “Two Little Boys”. I was stilled with shock when, during the opening eight, a deep-buried memory chimed: my twin brother and me, toddlers rolling on the floor in front of the old radiogram, delighted that someone was singing a song about us.

It felt good to give in to this collective nostalgia, to share it with other expats without shame. Although I still felt self-conscious singing along to “Tie me Kangaroo Down, Sport”.

Larks

2009-03-27T12:35:00.003+01:00

We had such a wonderful weekend in the Lake District, part of a boisterous bunch baptising a friend’s B&B (with fire). The highlight was a long, high walk from Grasmere to Alcock Tarn, climbing past streams and flinty cottages to the wide wind-scoured fells. The sky expanded above us as we breathed in the broad view, houses and cars comically small on the valley floor below. My childhood love of the Swallows and Amazons books gusted through me and I almost whooped with the joy of running through the grass, tacking uphill in the breeze. All we needed as we lay on the spongy moss by the tarn was a basket of pemmican sandwiches, ginger beer and an admonition from Sensible Susan not to eat too quickly.

It was a shame that the weekend had to end with a Bad Train Experience. It would have been quicker to fly back to London from New York than travel on Virgin Trains from the Lakes. Fortunately, I found a half-bottle of gin in my bag, so anything after Preston is just a pleasant blur. And my memories of the Lakes remain untarnished and exhilarating, just like an Arthur Ransome adventure, with less ginger beer.

Swallows and Amazons forever!

Competition

2009-03-19T15:22:00.002+01:00

Fignale

2009-03-13T16:21:00.004+01:00

One final act in my consumadrama: a letter from the dried fruit packing company responsible for the unidentified metal object in my figs. Quite a respectable concern by all accounts: royal warrants if you please. By Previous Appointment to The Late Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother 1971-2007. I’m not sure I’d use a deceased Royal to champion my comestibles but there you are.

Under this impressive letterhead, the Previously Appointed Manufacturers of Provisions and Dried Fruit describe in bewildering detail the entire sorting, grading and packing procedure. Multiple paragraphs explain such mysteries as infestation parameters, blancher infeed platforms, vibratory screens, non-ferrous test pieces and due diligence. It’s not just the technical syntax which is confusing: the product in question seems to change from fig to prune and back again throughout the process. Form-letter induced transmogrification, perhaps?

The message so subtly conveyed between these densely-typed lines is, of course, “WE DON’T BELIEVE YOU FOR A SECOND”.

I’m not really offended. I suppose there are people who spend their days opening packets of food and inserting bits of hardware in the hope of a juicy payout. It does seem rather a lot of trouble, but I can’t deny that I’ve made a profit from my complaint. Attached to the letter was a postal order for ten pounds.

Hush now.

Light

2009-02-27T15:04:00.003+01:00

I was taken to task on Tuesday for looking glum. A street-corner ne'er-do-well informed me (and the rest of Clapham Junction) that I seemed a bit down in the dumps. Being told you look “FUCKIN’ DEPRESSED” by an alcoholic bum certainly gives you pause for thought.
So this morning, despite the leaden skies, I forced a smile as I walked to the gym, just in case my derro friend was there again to comment on my mien.
They say that smiling, forced or not, releases endorphins. And I definitely felt bouncier as I grinned my way up the road. Especially when I realised that Dr. Cirrhosis McFilthymouth was nowhere to be seen. The clouds lifted and blue brightness broke forth.
I’m sitting now, facing the window, knees against the sill, leaning into sunshine. I close my eyes and inhale the pink-golden light, thoughts floating to beaches and childhood and bliss. A bumblebee taps the glass, drunk on the scent of daphne. I surf the surge of vitamin D and smile. For real.
After the last few grey heavy days, it’s wonderful to be lifted like this by the sun. Easy to see why Londoners embrace these bright harbingers of Spring, however brief, and crowd outdoors to soak and thaw. It’s impossible not to be seasonally affected.
No, it’s not Summer yet, but the endorphins are making me do it:

FigGate - the fallout

2009-02-20T15:42:00.003+01:00

Following from the previous entry, I received a very prompt and sincere email response to my foreign-object-in-figs feedback. Two days later came a real letter – gratifyingly grovelly – apologising again for the concern caused, and expressing the laudable hope that lessons could be learned. To that end, I was assured, the relevant buyers and technologists had been made aware of the complaint. Not just technicians or mere engineers, mind you, but Technologists. Colour me impressed! And as a token of their goodwill, a gift voucher was attached.
Five Pounds.
Better than a slap in the face, and certainly not to be sneezed at in these crunchy times. No indeed. More than fair.
That’ll buy a lot of figs.
This afternoon a letter arrived from the supplier, asking me to send them the offending packet in the freepost pouch provided. “Exhibit A” is on its way to who knows how many white-coated Technologists for forensic analysis. Wheels are in motion…

Figment

2009-02-11T16:18:00.003+01:00

No, I didn’t imagine it. This is what I found halfway through my packet of figs.
I realise it’s not broken glass or razor blades, and there wasn’t a huge risk that I’d put it into my mouth and break a tooth. (Even I’m not such a speed eater that my fingers didn’t have time to register the difference between smooth/dense and sticky/wrinkled.) But still, I mean to say. I definitely felt less than well at the thought and (imagined?) taste of rust and engine grease. Not sick enough to rush frothy-mouthed to Emergency or Fair Trading. But distinctly off-colour.
Once over my slight queasy shock, I wondered what to do. If anything. I could hardly claim physical or mental distress. I doubt “mild momentary nausea” would justify compensatory millions. But I felt that someone should know. If only for the smug altruism of helping protect fellow figgy shoppers from such unpleasantness. And what if a vast and complex packing conveyer somewhere was about to fall catastrophically apart? I hastened to my local supermarket’s website and fedback.
We’ll see what happens. I’ll either be able to glow with self-righteous indignation if ignored, or bask in grovelling thanks and apologies. And I might even deign to accept some small token of contrition.
Flex that consumer muscle!

Foxy

2009-01-31T15:47:00.003+01:00

The very first morning in our London flat I looked out the back window and saw an old fox treading along the garden wall. It was a magical introduction to urban English wildlife. I have since seen him a few times, slinking through our garden or trotting around Wandsworth Common. Finally today he rested long enough for me to take his photo. Bless his silver whiskers.

Sideswipe

2009-01-28T17:40:00.004+01:00

London is the most pavementally challenged city in the world. This can make a walk down the street incredibly frustrating, as every footpath becomes a warpath of eye rolling affront; every sidewalk a side-stepping minefield of manners.

Please, someone tell me: are you supposed to keep to the left or the right?

Perhaps it was naive think that the pedestrian rules would follow the Highway Code: in this country, you drive on the left, right? Rove down most motorways and you’ll find that the majority of Brits abide by this convention. So why is there so little consensus when it comes to travelling on foot?

I have theories.

Firstly, the puddle has been muddied by the Escalator Exception. Tube tradition demands you stand on the right of the moving stairs, leaving passage on the left for more rushed or sprightly folk. This curious anomaly (How did it start? Why?) is enshrined in signs and rigorously observed. And from staircase to street, people drift.

Secondly, this is a truly international city, embracing all comers regardless of habits formed on homeland autoroutes, bahns or strade. Thus the law of the left is diluted and London’s worldly-wise citizens adopt a more middle-of-the-road approach.

Finally, I’ve found that confusion accrues when wheels roll into the picture. As soon as people mount a bike, blade or scooter, they switch to motorway mentality and ride rigidly on the left, regardless of what the pictures on park pathways suggest. Unless the wheels happen to be on a pram, of course, in which case they weave slowly down the middle, taking as much space as possible, oblivious to everyone else trying to share the way.

Don’t get me started…

Sprung

2009-01-23T13:06:00.003+01:00

It’s cold today, but not thrillingly so. It’s dismal with desultory rain, as if the weather couldn’t be bothered with extremes, but just wants to sit gloomily, spitefully in one place. An atmospheric manifestation of my mood.
So lovely to know that on such a day as this, I can look through the clammy kitchen window and see this:

My brave Spring bulbs offering defiant promise of fragrant days around the corner.

A handbag?

2009-01-09T16:19:00.006+01:00

This Christmas, I spent some time with a bunch of old bags in Amsterdam. Handbags, I hasten to add, before my Dutch family and friends take offence. And purses.
I’m referring of course to the Museum of Bags. (And Purses.)
Located in a stunning house on the Herengracht, an überswank canal, the museum is the result of a 30-year obsession of one Hendrikje Ivo, collector and accessory fetishist. I suppose once you hit 3000 bags, a walk-in wardrobe just won’t cut it any more.
Despite our initial misgivings and mirth (mandatory photos outside, lips puckered, underneath the ‘Bags and Purses’ lettering), the museum turned out to be a perfectly-proportioned treat. Not nearly as camp and frivolous as feared (or hoped), it presented a fascinating slice of history from the 16th Century to present; an oblique glimpse into the lives of our ancestors. It is amazing what the contents of a handbag can tell you about the society of the time. The objects women carry with them make such eloquent statements about their status and role: from the pendulous keys, scissors and thimbles on chatelaines hanging over full-hooped skirts, to belle époque fans and dance cards; from art deco powder compacts and lipsticks, to the phones and credit-cards of today.
The bags themselves are fashioned from every conceivable material, including glomesh, which reminded me of the purse Mum had which seemed dazzlingly, impossibly glamorous for 1970s Sydney. If you still have it, Mum, maybe you should wrap it in acid-free tissue paper. Or pop it on Ebay. It’s a museum piece, don’t you know.

Remembering

2008-12-16T13:38:00.001+01:00

Every Thursday morning, Dad would get up early to make a pot of tea. He’d put a banana on a plate, with a knife, because he always used one to make a cut at the base of the stalk to make it easier to peel. Or neater maybe. He was fastidious like that, in strange little ways. So I’d come out to find everything ready for my usual rushed breakfast, the morning after my weekly dinner and sleepover at Mum and Dad’s place, before making the trek back into the city. And because he knew I had to throw things down so quickly before running for the bus, he’d pour me a mug of hot tea, then add a dash of cold water to bring it to gulping temperature. He’d always remember.
Every morning I remember too. I make my mug of tea, then take it to the sink for a quick twist of the cold tap. It’s just one small ritual which hurts sometimes, and helps. It reminds me of the care I took for granted, and which I go on missing. Two years on, I’m learning to cherish these daily moments of memory.

The Devil Wears Lipstick

2008-12-10T16:15:00.002+01:00

Went to see a jewel of a show last night: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by theatre company 1927. A devious blend of sinister fairy tales, peep-hole naughtiness and nonsense verse, all delivered with gallows deadpan and cut glass accents, it left me feeling utterly elated.
After a mood-setting music hall Charleston, a series of darkly comic vignettes unfolded, blending white-faced actors with scratchy film and animation in a virtuosic display of precisely-timed anarchy. Edwardian nursery stories were deliciously subverted, so that children dress up as crack whores, twin sisters torment grandmamma with sticks, and the Devil does drag. Combined with 1920s touches of silent-film piano, cabaret and black bobbed hair, it was a bit like Louise Brooks reading Grimms’ Fairy Tales on acid. A perfect nightmare before Christmas.

Noooooo!

2008-12-04T15:04:00.006+01:00

Leaving France, I thought I'd escaped the sickening sight of finger heart. I almost spat coffee when I saw the below image in the Guardian jobs pages, at the bottom of a recruitment advert for an Associate Director, PR & Communications. I wonder if you can guess which organisation thought it appropriate and desirable to represent themselves with such a nauseating abomination...

Snugg as a bugg

2008-12-03T14:23:00.004+01:00

The first real frost overnight! Icing sugared backyard. Wandsworth Common looks anything but as I jog around it, in full winter regalia (running gloves and triple-layered top). I zigzag delightedly from puddle to puddle, cracking the ice as I steam around the great milky field. Disgruntled ducks tread gingerly on the pond, walking winter miracles on the solid surface. It’s been months since I’ve been able to go jogging, thanks to a dicky ankle, and to ease back into it on such a morning makes me hum with pleasure.
Less humming at home, where the cold really seeps and bites. No double glazing here, just thin chilly panes sapping the central heating. I find myself doing housework just to warm up. Yesterday, finally fed up with frozen toes, I stormed into M&S and bought myself the daggiest pair of slippers I could find. Tan moccasins. Dreadfully, wonderfully lined with thick faux fur. To deal with the cold, I’ve decided, you just have to embrace your inner bogan. Manky trackie daks, ratty cardigans and layer upon layer of fashion-backward poly-fleece.
In fact it seems that bogan is the new black here in London. There is one store in the glittering new Westfield London (infinitely flashier than Fountain Lakes, it seems, and blingier even than Bondi Junction) which has had to employ door bitches (seriously) to control the velvet-roped crowds clamouring to get inside. It’s the Ugg boot shop.
So there you have it. The London look for Winter 08/09: BoBogan (Bourgeois Bogan. Or should that be Fauxgan?). Top Shop shelves are already groaning with skinny jeans and check flannel shirts. Time to complete the trend with my fake fluffy footwear, which shall now be known as the mockasin.
As showcased in the timeless stylings of Michelle and Ferret.

Le retour

2008-10-28T11:48:00.003+01:00

It was our first trip to Paris as visitors last weekend. Since giving up our resident status and moving to London back in July, I have often wondered how this first visit would feel. Would we be mauled by melancholy and remembrance of things past? Or would it be too soon for that; would we simply fall back into a humdrum residential experience? Both possibilities made me apprehensive.
As it happens, our time was too rushed to take real stock of any reaction. From the moment we picked up the family wagon hire car, the weekend was a tense blur of motorways, ferry crossings, traffic and packing. Saturday, our only full day in Paris, slid by in unsatisfactory fits, shopping aimlessly while I tried desperately to think what I’d rather be doing. It was of course wonderful to see friends – generously warm and welcoming as ever. That was one of the very best things about our brief return: discovering that, for us, the beauty of Paris will no longer just be in the buildings or the river or the light.
Having said that, I did experience one thrilling, “pinch me I’m in Paris” moment. After battling the grey waves of shoppers on the rue de Rivoli, we turned a corner and there, backlit by sudden sun, were the towers of Notre Dame, capped by the distant dome of the Panthéon. Moved almost to tears by this familiarly ravishing sight, I was then delighted by a new marvel: the delicate white Tour Saint-Jacques, finally unwrapped after years of restoration. We sat at its foot sipping cafés express, gazing on the bleached stone tracery, and I realised with relief that I need not fear this Paris ambivalence. We will take the best of both worlds, sashaying like locals along the boulevards, while gasping like tourists at treats (re)discovered.
Let them have cake, and eat it, too.

Holiday highlights 2

2008-10-22T18:49:00.008+02:00

Dinner in Ajaccio, our cheerfully shambling waiter serving wild boar and bitter dark myrtle liqueur

The harrowing hairpinned Gorges de Spelunca, and the relieved rush getting out of the car unscathed

Square towers squatting on warm rocks reflected in bright gentle blue

Close encounters of the cloven-hoofed kind driving through unhurried trips of mountain goats

High granite picnics and crushed wild mint

Following a liquid jade tumble up and up to its round mountain source

Strong local beer tasting of chestnuts and malt

St. Florent sunsets over Cap Corse, shushed by waves on the pebble beach below

Holiday highlights 1

2008-10-15T16:14:00.009+02:00

Impressions from Bordeaux and the Périgord:

Chatty apéritifs with Mum on the thin hotel terrace, hung over the darkening spires of Bordeaux
The shock of grey gothic stone and hot terracotta looking down over Cathédrale St. André
Witnessing opulence restored leaf by gilt leaf in the jewel-like Grand Théâtre
The overblown tumult and exuberance of the Fontaine des Girondins

Picnics watching fish swim lazily in the Dordogne, fixed in the limpid current
Skirting the twilight vineyards, hands sticky with blackberries and figs
Staying with the sun from first to last through the full high arc of blue, day after day
Feeling slightly voyeuristic at vendange watching the harvester tickling the grapes beneath vineleafy skirts
Distant pops of hunters’ shot and treehouse ladders to canopy lookouts
Dining and laughing amongst the vines, evenings dissolving into parlour game idiocy
The postcard perfection of the Château de Montbazillac

Sunk

2008-09-17T14:42:00.003+02:00

I fear I’m becoming a naturalised Pom because of my kitchen sink. I have always sniggered at the curious English practice of washing up in a plastic bucket placed in the sink. I always thought this a pointless and parsimonious little habit – a bizarre hangover from post-war bleakness perhaps. (Was Fairy Liquid rationed?)
You’d thank that it would be drought-dry Australia with this thrifty tradition of sparse water washing. It’s only recently however that grey water collecting and whiplash showers have become so widespread there. Surely if there’s one country that should be up to its elbows in luxurious suds, it’s England. With so much water falling down everywhere outside, showers should be lavish monsoon-like affairs, rather than these anaemic dribbles which are so useless at removing shampoo.
So when quizzed about the bucket-in-sink phenomenon, most English people murmur something about being able to empty leftover wine into the sink without tainting the washing-up water. Now it won’t surprise you to learn that I’ve never had a problem with leftover wine, but I have succumbed to the English method simply because my sink has a leak. So until it’s fixed, I’ll have to go native as I snap on my Marigolds and bend over my frugal bowl of bubbles.
Fortunately, before I become irreversibly anglicised (dare I say minogued?) I’m off to France and Italy for a few weeks of continental therapy. I’ll blog more on my return, I promise.

Changing Rooms, Soane-style

2008-07-29T16:29:00.005+02:00

This bland façade at 13, Lincoln’s Inn Fields hides an Aladdin’s cave of artistic quirk. It is the Sir John Soane’s Museum – a bewitching magpie’s nest cluttered with curiosities in stone, plaster and paint.
Soane, an architect best known for designing the Bank of England building, seems to have been an early DIY renovation fanatic. He began in 1792 with a single house containing living areas, a library and drawing room where he schmoozed his clients. Over the following 30 years, however, he undertook an extreme home makeover, demolishing and remodelling, gradually spreading into the two neighboring properties. His aim was to create the ideal space to display his extraordinary collection so that “amateurs and students” of architecture could appreciate and learn from the classics.
Apart from an abundance of antiquities (including a cross-eyed Hercules looking for all the world like a dim-witted quarterback), there are countless fragments of architecture: plaster casts and marble cast-offs perching and crowding every inch of space. It must be hell to dust. There is even the enormous alabaster sarcophagus of the pharaoh Seti I, which the British Museum couldn’t afford, and had to be installed though a demolished wall. Soane threw a three-day party to celebrate its arrival.
My favourites however were the paintings: three Canalettos, glorious expanses of Venetian detail and light, and an embarrassment of Hogarths. An entire room in fact full of two Hogarth series: A Rake’s Progress and An Election. I could have stood for hours, gasping with recognition of the funny, brutal and poignant characters in these canvasses.
The star of the museum, though, is the building itself. Soane’s wonderfully modern eccentricity shines through in the way light is coaxed into every corner of the house, through glass domes and metal grilles, so that unexpected shafts illuminate even the depths of the sepulchral chamber. Here, you really do feel like you are exploring a crumbling crypt or the half-excavated streets of an ancient city.
Just as Soane, in his home-reno makeover madness, intended.

AUSSIE IN CHIPPY FROGGY TITTY SHOCK

2008-07-15T13:13:00.005+02:00

We arrived in London last Thursday. The first thing I noticed was the sickly-savoury smell of hot chips, wafting and soaking entire stretches of street. Chip shops here as common as boulangeries in Paris, and while the warm greasy pall is perhaps not as exquisite as butter-pastry bouquet de baguette, it must have spoken to some deep need within, for my first meal here was fish and chips with a pint of Guinness.
“Oh la la, mais quel cliché, le fish and chips, c’est so British!” This was the next surprise: almost every second person you overhear seems to be speaking French. I had heard that there has been a massive influx of young frenchies to London, keen to gain experience in the anglo-saxon corporate world, but I was not prepared for the sheer number. Someone told me before leaving Paris that London was now the second French city in the world by population, and I find that utterly believable. It’s quite comforting to hear the familiarity of French all around, making the cross-channel transition softer somehow. But I’m ashamed to admit how often I feel a mean surge of schadenfreude when I see a poor frog-out-of-water grappling with English. See what it’s like? See?
Language is just one reason why I am feeling instantly comfortable here. So many unexpected idiosyncrasies seem to remind me of Sydney, from red-tiled terraces to the way shops are strung out along the high street. Sunday trading! Customer service! And – bright zenith of pleasure - fat weekend newspapers!
There are of course other aspects of life here which strike me as particularly British. Bosoms, for example. Our first night in London was a marvellous introduction to that unique “oo-er” naughtiness which is so very English. We went to a taping of The Sunday Night Project hosted by Alan Carr, the current Queen of TV innuendo, and his guest Barbara Windsor, of “Carry On” fame. We enjoyed classic clips of Barbara’s bra pinging off and giggled at character names such as “Doctor Nookey”. It may be a French(ish) term, but the double entendre is, to me, quintessentially English. Take this smutty gem from “Carry on Columbus":

Marco: I wouldn’t if I were you, miss. I’ve heard these waters are full of man-eating sharks.
Chiquita: Oh no! So if I fell in, do you think they’d swallow me whole?
Marco: No, I’m told they spit that bit out.

Ah, England. The land of Charles Dickens, tabloid headlines and Mrs. Malaprop. I feel at home already. Yes, we’ll miss Paris. Painfully. But so far it’s been an encouraging opening (fnar!) to our cross-channel odyssey.
Or, as the Rev. Spooner might have called it: “A Sail of Two Titties”.*

* With apologies to Monty Python.

Steamy

2008-06-11T18:01:00.006+02:00

Just try to resist those krazy prices!

P.S. Happy Blogiversary to me. Thanks to you.

Cat Lady

2008-06-11T17:33:00.002+02:00

I see her every so often on my morning run, this woman walking her fat tortoiseshell in the park. On a leash. The cat seems so utterly mortified to be seen in public in such a demeaning situation, and punishes its misguided owner by refusing to walk very much at all. It just stands there, facing away from pointing passers by, tail twitching indignantly. Simmering and waiting for the shame to end.

Cat Lady coos and coaxes, but Minou won’t be having it. Usually, having passed them in the same place a few times, I see her walking sadly up the hill, the cat grimly triumphant in her arms.

I’ll miss them.

Chunnel vision

2008-05-30T11:19:00.002+02:00

It’s time to face it. Time to admit that our days in Paris are numbered. In a little over three weeks, the lease ends on our apartment and we have to move on.

We’ve set our sights on London.

Like so many Frenchies, we’ve decided to give our careers a shot in the arm by going where the work is. LSP has suffered for so long, swimming against the tide in the French job market, where experience, it seems, counts for nothing unless you’ve been to the right school, and handwriting analysis is seen as a legitimate recruitment tool. I, too, will have more options to broaden my field of work, being able to work in the UK thanks to a British-born grandmother.

So we’re shaking ourselves out of what has become, if we’re honest, semi-retirement and plunging back into the fast lane. The main thing, we tell ourselves, is that we’re staying in Europe, close to our ever-expanding clan of friends and family here, and still providing an attractive option for our Australian circle to visit!

The master plan is still Paris; but Paris on our terms, in security and certainty. One day, with replenished resources and renewed desire, we will return to carve our slice of this wonderful place.

In the meantime, we are keeping the farewell melancholy at bay by packing and looking for somewhere to live. Nothing like a rising wave of panic to stem the tide of sentiment.

Lord. Even my metaphors are muddled.

Shhh!

2008-05-20T12:10:00.004+02:00

The most annoying man in the world was at my gym this morning.

I was in the middle of my wake-up workout, whittling away the grogginess, when my slowly sharpening focus was shattered. The swing doors smacked open and in he strutted: Mr. Cocky McTosspot. You know the type. His invasive swagger advertised his inadequacies so loudly that he might as well have been holding a sign saying “I DRIVE A RED SPORTS CAR.” He was one of those sad little men who compensate by making as much unnecessary noise as possible.

Ratcheting up the seat on the machines with an arrogant flick. Adjusting the weights with showy clanks. Huffing and straining, veins popping ostentatiously. Dramatic grunts and hiss-counting reps: “Dix-huitttttttt, dix-neufffffff, VINGT!” and then dropping the weight with an echoing crash as if to crow “Hear that? Hear how much iron I can lift?”

Mister, if eye-rolling made a noise, I’d be DEAFENING you right now.

Then, appalling cherry on the cake of his awfulness, he answers his mobile and shouts belligerently at some poor assistant. Repeatedly.

My mind seethes with revenge-thoughts of frightening violence. I stand up and tap him on the shoulder as he admires himself sickeningly in the mirror. I reach down, take his phone, place it on the floor, and smash it to pieces with a 25 kilo dumbbell.

OK, that last bit didn’t actually happen. But I did give him a really withering look on my way out. Take THAT, McTosspot!

Lemon Drops

2008-05-14T12:27:00.011+02:00

Back in Paris after a glorious time on and around the Amalfi coast. Impressions and highlights:

The transformation of Capri in the evening, when the daytripping hordes have emptied onto the ferries, and the island exhales into dusk.

Sunset Bellinis made from fresh white peaches on an impossible terrace hanging – so high! -above the soft darkening sea, pink cliffs fading in the twilight chill.

Trying not to hum "Funiculì, Funiculà" on the ride down to the Marina Grande.

Arriving at our villa in Amalfi, running from room to room trying to work out which one Ingrid Bergman used to sleep in.

Breakfasts on the blue-tiled terrace, squinting into the diamond-dazzled sea.

Exploring the terraced gardens dropping down to the water, picking armfuls of fruit and flowers.

Days spent at the tiny beach club, lizard-like on the rocks, and long shady lunches of seafood and wine.

The crystalline sea, so cold it made you laugh, enticing with mysterious grottos and white pebble coves.

The colourful chaos of a religious festival greeting St. Andrew’s relics, arriving by boat from a two-day visit Rome, to be re-interred in the Duomo, 800 years to the day since they first arrived from Constantinople. Priests and policemen, sailors and schoolchildren, everyone bedecked in robes, band-striped uniforms (swoon!) and medieval finery, church bells topping the joyful din.

Fireworks after dinner, deafeningly close, lighting up the buildings clinging to the hillsides like a Neapolitan nativity scene.

Afternoon gelato and after-dinner digestifs.

White-knuckled bus trips along clinging cliff-top roads, winding and lurching from near-miss to near-death, trying still to take in the beauty flashing by.

The first thrilling moment in the streets of Pompeii when you share the sensations of its original inhabitants, shockingly immediate.

The smell of wood smoke and wisteria in the gardens of Ravello, perched prow-like over the coast.

Being told I spoke Italian with a Portuguese accent.

Above all, and everywhere, the scent of citrus blossom; the lush yellow and sharp syrup of lemon.

Alien

2008-04-14T17:44:00.002+02:00

I should have been prepared for the sweet-sad hit of homesickness when I crushed the eucalyptus leaf and breathed in the dry, blue sky scent. It had been a reflex action on seeing the gum tree so unexpectedly in the middle of the Parc André Citroën, a modern and rather strict stretch of green between the Seine and the 15^th arrondissement. In seeking shelter from another bustling spring shower, I’d found myself in a towering glasshouse featuring the flora of Australia and New Zealand. I wandered around the unlikely patch of sandy scrub, revelling in the familiarity of the plants and quietly amused at how incongruous they looked, these straggly spiky things, encased in their glittering palace and categorised with bombastic botanical signage. I walked and greeted them one by one, pricking my skin on their sharp little leaves and smelling their small honeyed flowers. I ran my finger between the red fibre ridges of the bottlebrush, licking the nectar drips and tasting my childhood.

Sweet, yes, but sad too, to see these friends transplanted so far from home. The anaemic silky oak stretching towards the glass roof made me think of the shivering clumps of wallabies I’d seen in the dismal menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes. Or the poor mute kookaburra pining in the Hong Kong zoo. At least I’d chosen to uproot myself and come to the other side of the world, unlike these dejected specimens, enforced foreigners, bravely drawing my pity away from myself.

The rain passed and I held the gum leaf to my nose, inhaled home deeply, and stepped out blinking into the gorgeous, garish green.

Buds

2008-03-17T14:25:00.004+01:00

We had a little taste of Spring on Saturday, with late-teen temperatures giving everything a sheen of burgeoning brightness. I love seeing the tips of the chestnut branches swell and shine, so ready to burst overnight in a fresh riot of feathery green.

This was my view as I sat out on our balcony for the first time this year, luxuriating in the anticipation of leafy peacefulness.

There is something so quintessentially French about the way they prune their trees. It makes the springtime transformation even more miraculous: black brutal stumps throwing out such verdant, misty filigree.

Only a few weeks to go until they remove the signs in the parks telling you that the lawns are having their Winter rest, and picnic season will finally be able to spread out its gingham blanket invitingly.

Not quite yet, though. La Chaîne Météo has just told me to expect storms with the possibility of light snow next week. Rough winds indeed.

Liberté, Egalité, Fidélité

2008-03-12T18:18:00.008+01:00

At what point can you say – with the conviction of a local – that you truly live in Paris?

We have been here for two years now (can you believe it?) and there have been many important Parisification progress-markers: renting an apartment, opening a bank account, making friends, obtaining a Carte de Séjour, finding a job, falling off a Vélib and attending the Bastille Day fireman’s ball.

While these are all impressive and hard-won achievements, I’ve found it is the everyday accomplishments which really count when it comes to feeling like you belong; the exhilarating mini-milestones which mark your integration. We were walking in the Parc Montsouris on Sunday (it’s our local, don’t you know) when we happened to bump into a French friend. Well, friend-of-a-friend is probably more accurate, but the point is he was French, and we knew him. We had a chat, promised to catch up for a drink and moved on, secretly thrilled by our first Totally Random Acquaintance Encounter. Absurd how much it made us feel like we’d arrived, this knowledge that, just like any other Parisian, we could run into people we knew at any time.

You come to cherish and celebrate these little landmark moments: the first time you stare haughtily back at a passer-by, until they look away. The day when the boulanger selects the choicest, softest baguette and hands it to you with a smile. That occasion when someone asks you for directions, and you can confidently give them. Or that sweet golden instant when the supermarket cashier asks if you have a carte de fidélité and you proclaim “Oui!”, producing it with a nonchalant flourish.

It’s taken me two years but I finally have “frequent shopper” loyalty cards for my two local supermarkets. They’re completely useless, of course, in terms of earning discounts or extra value. I couldn’t even tell you what the complicated accruals mean at the bottom of my docket. Their worth lies entirely in the “resi-dentity” they bestow; they make me feel like a true riverain, a card-carrying member of the neighbourhood. I finally belong in the local shop. For local people. And perhaps in another two years I’ll learn how to redeem my millions of points and exchange them for a novelty key-ring.

Now all I need is a plaid nylon shopping cart and I’ll fit right in.

Frightfully

2008-03-03T10:22:00.003+01:00

I finally watched Atonement last night. As far as I can make out, it’s a film about people talking veh veh fast, whilst walking tehly tehly quickly. I found it all quite exhausting. (I can’t imagine how the actors felt.)

What is it about Keira Knightley: the jaw? The mouth? Dreadful.

Excess

2008-02-27T16:58:00.006+01:00

I was delighted to note, on one of my neighbourhood wanderings (incurable flâneur that I am) that a local street is named after M. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.

It tickled me that he is described as “magistrat et gastronome”: only in France, I suspect, would the two be considered of equal importance.

“Oh yes, he was a brilliant lawyer and politician. But his real claim to fame, bien entendu, is that he really loved his food.”

I first came across the name of this renowned epicure in the beautiful burgundian village of Époisses. We were tasting the local cheese, a rich-runny marvel of pungent creaminess, its dusk orange rind washed lovingly with marc de Bourgogne. Our host proudly told us that Brillat-Savarin himself had proclaimed Époisses the King of cheeses. (Not the Baby Cheeses, then?)

Having done some research, I now realise what a high honour it was to have been thus described by such a fromagophilic giant of gastronomy. This is the man who wrote: "Dinner without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye." He obviously took food very seriously indeed; another famous quote of his asserts that "The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity, than the discovery of a new star."

Riiight.

Perhaps the street sign should read: “magistrat, gastronome et hyperboliste”.

Renovating?

2008-02-14T14:25:00.005+01:00

I must give you the name of our local painting & decorating supplies shop.

X-rated

2008-02-12T18:23:00.001+01:00

It’s not every literary exhibition that comes with a parental warning. It’s a bit of a shock, then, to see that under-16s are forbidden from entering the French National Library’s latest: L’Enfer de la Bibliothèque Nationale. And at the risk of sounding prude, it’s a good thing, too!

The exhibition displays some of the racier contents of the library’s “sealed section”: the hell-vault used to protect the reading public from sexually explicit and morally corrupting writing, images and photography. It showcases everything from manuscripts of the Marquis de Sade to Japanese erotic woodblock prints via naughty postcards and early porno films.

Now I’m not suggesting that under-16s should be necessarily excluded because of the saucy nature of the exhibits (and, let’s be clear, some are very saucy indeed). The unfortunate fact is they’ll probably have seen worse on the web, Net Nanny notwithstanding. It’s more because of the sheer blushing, squirming embarrassment of looking at anything of a sexual nature with one’s elders that I think youngsters should stay away.

Even I, at more than double the minimum age, felt exquisitely uncomfortable as I sidled around the display cases, trying not to spend too long in front of any one image, lest the old lady on my left thought I was some drooling deviant. I made such a show of reading the captions and accompanying explanatory notes that I barely even registered the rude pictures themselves, so swift was my nonchalant, “I’m an intellectual not a pervert” scan. Funnily enough, the old lady had no such compunction in inspecting the exhibits in great and appreciative detail. In fact it was quite difficult to get close enough for even a cursory glance at some displays, so thick was the cluster of forthright grey-haired admirers.

It doesn’t matter which side of sixteen you fall on, there is just something deeply disturbing about looking at explicit images of fornication next to someone who could be your grandmother.

Apart from that, the exhibition is most enjoyable. Oh, but not in a dirty, hands-in-pockets sort of way, you understand. Gosh. I mean it’s very instructive and historically edifying. Yes. Edifying.

Look out for the medieval illuminated manuscript with a tiny, colourful drawing in the margin depicting a nun plucking phallic fruit from what can only be described as a penis tree. You’ll find it through the flagellation room and past the bordello guidebooks on the left. You may need to elbow a few grannies out of the way, though.

Image: Création c -album, photographie Alain Goustard/BNF, architecte Dominique Perrault © Adagp, Paris 2007

Snap

2008-02-05T14:57:00.000+01:00

Why do we take photos? The one above, for example. I took this just over a week ago, as I arrived in the South Pacific rapture of l’Ile des Pins in New Caledonia. Was it not enough for me to stand awestruck and drink in the stupendous turquoise beauty of the scene? Why did I have to imprison it in pixels before running across the talcum-fine sand and sighing into aquamarine bliss?

I think the first reason lies in the “pinch me” reflex: a need to capture visual evidence of having really experienced such a too-good-to-be-true place. Could this really be happening? Better take a photo to make sure, to produce as Exhibit A when I wake up from my holiday-dream. Hey presto: paradise proved.

The second reason is, of course, so that you can show others. Not from some sadistic “look where I’ve been nyer-nyerdy-nyer-nyer” impulse. (Well, not always. Although I must say it did give me a thrill to feel everyone crane their necks in our wintry Parisian café as I showed LSP my vacation photos on the laptop. Even the impassive waiter hovered excessively, taking much longer than usual with the cruet and bread.) Our essential human urge, when faced with the good fortune of finding such perfection, is to share it. As freely and broadly as possible.

I was lucky enough to be able to discover this breathtaking place with my Mum and my sister, which made it even more priceless through our shared, gleeful disbelief. (Indelible, heart-swelling memories of happiness which burst to the surface the instant I look at our pictures.) But for all those dear to me who weren’t there, I have this image for you. Isn’t it wonderful? I hope it makes you feel the same warmth I feel when I look at it.

And one day, may we stand together, grinning, in front of an equal splendour, and take a photo of it.

P.S. Thank you for your continued interest in this blog, and sorry for taking such a long break. I was so touched when in Australia to have so many of you ask when my next entry was going to be. Now that I’m back in my Parisian garret after such a lovely time in Summer, I hope you’ll keep checking in and not be too disappointed.

Miracle

2007-12-21T14:37:00.000+01:00

I have been walking around Paris this week, thrilled (and chilled) to the marrow. I learnt in some sweltering primary school science class that water becomes solid at zero degrees. And I still get a spine-tingling kick every time I see that distantly-gained knowledge confirmed somewhere other than a freezer.

Having grown up in Sydney, where you buy ice from the service station to put in the bathtub to keep your Christmas beer chilled, the fact that it can be so cold outside that water freezes is something still so exotic and extraordinary to me that I have been going out of my way to visit bodies of water, just to see if they’re congealed or not.

The lake in the Parc Montsouris? Completely frozen over. The sight of its strange, grey, flat solidity makes me want to laugh with joy, even though my fingers feel as if they’re about to drop off as I doggedly jog through the pre-dawn frost. I watch intrigued as the park gardiens break the ice around the edges of the lake with long-handled wooden mallets, sending thick transparent triangles sliding into the centre. The round lake in the Luxembourg Gardens is frozen too, the central fountain austerely festive with Christmas card icicles. The Stravinsky Fountain next to the Pompidou Centre is solid as well, its bright creaking sculptures reflected dully in the scratched silver below.

It’s all quite wondrous, the cold transforming even the ugly and mundane into things of wonder and allure. Crackling puddles, sparkling gutters, even dog pee takes on a new and fascinating sheen when criss-crossing the pavement in brilliant crystalline streaks.

I know I should be more ho-hum about this phenomenon if I’m ever going to be a real Euresident, but the little boy from Sydney in me can’t help but be enraptured by this marvellous wintry mystery. This miracle of the season. May the novelty and wonder never fade.

Warmest wishes for a glittering Christmas!

Do you speak Vélib?

2007-12-12T16:20:00.000+01:00

It was only a matter of time before someone published a collection of all the new words which have been cleverly coined since the rise of the Vélib phenomenon. Anne Abeillé has put together the Dictionnaire du Vélib to highlight some of the inventive neologisms which have (unofficially) entered the language almost overnight. Some of her favourites: “Vélibation”, meaning a boozy night on the Vélib; “Vélibabouchka”, a Vélib-riding granny; and “Vélibataire”, a single guy on a Vélib (from the French word célibataire, meaning bachelor).

It seems an English version is in the pipeline, so I couldn’t resist adding a few of my own suggestions (in no particular order):

Vélinguist n.
Someone obsessed with the language surrounding and inspired by Vélib.

Vélligerent adj.
Suffering from Vélib Rage. “Don’t get Vélligerent with me, mister. It’s not my fault there are no more bikes left.”

Vélebration n.
Festivities resulting from the opening of a new Vélib station near your home.

Vélincident n.
Any unpleasant occurrence or mishap whilst riding, such as accidentally swiping a parked car.

Vélitigation n.
The potentially unfortunate outcome of a Vélincident.

Ad Vélibber n.
A person who is unsure of their cycle route. Can also be used as a verb: “I don’t have my map with me, I’ll just have to Ad Vélib it.”

Véli Belly n.
The queasy feeling resulting from cycling home after a particularly large meal.

Jellib n.
The state of one’s muscles after riding up a long hill. “That Ménilmontant’s a bitch – my legs have turned to jellib."

Chain Gang n.
A group of delinquent youths who delight in vandalising and damaging innocent Vélibs by pulling the chains loose, for example.

Flat Chat n.
The words exchanged around a Vélib station when determining which bikes have deflated tyres.

Hell’s Bells n.
The painful cacophony of ring-ding-a-lings which betrays a group of excited first-time Vélibbers (Vélib Virgins).

Vélegance n.
The natural style and grace of an experienced Vélibber (a Vélib Veteran) as he or she swipes and swooshes away.

Heartburn

2007-12-06T12:12:00.000+01:00

This is my pet hate. Next time you watch Star Academy, look out for it in the shots of the audience. I guarantee you’ll see it: some pathetic tween making a stupid heart with her fingers. There’s always one, and you can bet the camera will somehow manage to get a shot through the finger-heart, framing the performer; a touching and powerful image of the love shared at this deeply moving occasion. Excuse me while I throw up a little in my mouth.

Is it just a French thing, or has this heart disease spread globally? Do you see it at Anthony Callea concerts? I tend to think not, having watched the most recent series of Australian Idol, which remained mercifully heart-free.

Yes, I think it must be a Franco-saccharine phenomenon, which has even spread from TV variety shows and teeny-bopper pop concerts to the sports arena. I’m referring to the French swimming champion Laure Manaudou, who became a pin-up for the power of l’amour when she left the French swimming team to follow the love of her life to Italy. The sickening image of Laure finishing a race, ripping off her goggles and finger-hearting to her lover boy made me retch for weeks.

I can’t explain this reaction I have; it’s not like I don’t enjoy seeing, feeling and celebrating that loftiest and most beautiful of human emotions. I don’t go around shouting at couples to stop holding hands. (Although don’t get me started on public snoggers. I mean just get a room.) This aversion reminds me of a friend who simply cannot bear that hand sign people make, thumb and pinkie extended, to represent the telephone. Makes her physically ill. That’s what the hand-heart does to me. The mere sight of it, childish and cloying, makes me nauseous.

I suppose you could say I’m heartily sick of it.

The votes are in...

2007-11-26T13:28:00.000+01:00

and the winner is... Kylie! Our very own pint-sized pop princess is France's favourite Star Academy mentor, beating the equine Québécoise with a 16% margin. What with one thing and another, I'm quite a proud Aussie at the moment.

Fantasy

2007-11-18T13:54:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I lived out a long-held dream and sang Patricia Kaas in public. With a microphone.

I fell in love with Patty back in the Winter of 1989 when, as a student in Paris, I spent long hours in front of the TV watching the afternoon teen music shows (to perfect my aural comprehension, obviously). Kaas had just released “Mademoiselle Chante” and was on high rotation. I rushed out to FNAC and bought the cassette which I played obsessively on my walkman. (That sentence makes me feel so old.)

Every morning my head would fill with her husky, jazzy, sophisti-pop voice, all the way from the Porte de Clignancourt to St. Michel. I would step lightly up the boulevard as dawn broke, humming with pleasure at the exhilarating arpeggios: “Elle voulait jouer Cabaret…” Turning into the place de la Sorbonne: “En buvant dans les verres, Un fond de picon bière…”. Taking my seat in the Amphithéâtre Richelieu: “Je peux vous dire qu'elle en rêvait, D'un jazz band sous un clair de lune…” And all the while feeling swooningly Continental.

No doubt any French readers are pointing and laughing at me now: I’ve probably just outed myself as the biggest dag on the planet. (While I’m at it, I might as well tell you that my other favourite chanteuse was Mylène Farmer. I know.)

Which is why it took so many beers to get me up on stage in that fabulously low “gayraoke” bar last Saturday night to fulfill my teenage fantasy:

“Mon mec à moi il me parle d’aventures, et quand elles brillent dans ses yeux, j’pourrais y passer la nuit. Il parle d’amour comme il parle des voitures, et moi j’l suis où il veut, tellement je crois tout c’qu’il m’dit.”

For those present, thank you for your generous and indulgent support.

Wrinkly

2007-11-16T17:48:00.000+01:00

This is what I’m going to look like after the weekend. I’m going to fill the bath with blistering water, lower myself slowly, monkey-like (oo oo ee ee aa aa), and luxuriate endlessly, pinkly, warmly. My toes will be nimbly prehensile, turning the tap for countless hot top-ups, my body reveling in steamy bliss as I marvel at the luxury of having it again: hot water. On tap.

It’s been seven days. A week of icy showers; boiling the kettle to wash up; freezing showers; messages left with the plumber; glacial showers; waiting in the apartment; calling the landlord… and really, really cold showers.

It’s not normal to have blue hands for a whole week.

And that’s why I am going to have the longest bath in history, and emerge looking like a Giant French Prune.

Delicious.

Filthy habit

2007-11-09T18:01:00.000+01:00

I’m going to get all strait-laced, thin-lipped and tut-tutty for a moment. I’m sorry but I am. It’s just this: why oh why do people have to spit in public?

Every early-morning jog is invariably marred by having to dodge countless blobs of froth-slimy hideousness. Why do people feel the overwhelming need to get rid of their saliva when running? Granted, it can tend to get a bit thick and gloopy (sorry), but surely this is reason to conserve it rather than dehydrate the mouth further? I certainly don’t eject it and I’ve never choked on my own spit. I just don’t think it’s necessary. Perhaps those who exercise outdoors feel they have some special dispensation to perform anti-social and disgusting acts because, well, they’re rugged and active and that’s what sportspeople do?

Now if this were legitimate (and I’m not conceding for an instant that it is, let's be quite clear), it makes it even more inexcusable for non-exercisers to hawk and spatter all over the street. Yet I see it everywhere and at every time – people discharging mid-conversation, spritzing and hissing with odious abandon. Vile sputters of mucous-drool leaving glistening gobs of festering filth behind them…

Am I overreacting?

In trying to think why this makes me shudder so, I dredge up a particularly sick-making childhood memory of walking behind a man in Hong Kong (where spitting was even more distressingly common than it seems to be here). Either it was a particularly breezy day, or the pedestrian traffic was moving at a faster-than-usual clip, because it seemed only a split second after hearing the sickening hack that the resulting phlegm smacked wetly on my neatly pressed shirt. Scarred for life.

The other reason I really dislike the habit is because I think it is often done with intent. Let’s go back to jogging for an explanation. I have noticed that the more attractive you find the person running past, the more likely he is to spit in passing. It’s as if, sensing some incoming ogling (not that I ogle, but you get my point), a sputum-defense mechanism swings into action to make the object of appreciation less appealing. A sort of gaydar jamming technique, so the gentle thrill of any innocent eyeballing is completely ruined. Fiendishly and depressingly effective. Because really, who could ever look with appreciation at a common expectorator?

All spit, no polish.

Flappers

2007-11-04T12:27:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I charlestoned my way through a day in the life of a thoroughly modern woman of the 1920s at the Musée Galliera exhibition Les années folles: (1919 – 1929). A delirious collection of couture dresses and accessories captured the innocent decadence of this breathless decade, from sporty “anyone-for-tennis” ensembles to glitter-dripping cocktail frocks. Poiret, Lanvin, Worth, Patou – the names almost as dazzling as the outfits themselves. My favourites were the utterly chic little black dress from Chanel and the intriguingly named “Lesbos” dress by Lanvin – an exquisite absinthe-green and silver creation shown at the 1925 Paris exposition in the “Pavillon de l’élégance” (see the sketch above).
The crowds and the claustrophobic layout made it a bit of a challenge to move between the displays, but it did mean I got to hear some wonderful snatches of conversation. Like the elderly lady in raptures before the woollen bathing suits studded with brocade and sequins, only to turn away, shaking her head and saying to no-one in particular, “of course they itched dreadfully”.
Too too thrilling!

Toussaint

2007-11-02T17:54:00.000+01:00

It was almost festive in the Montparnasse Cemetery yesterday, tombs bright with chrysanthemum and cyclamen, the aisles between the headstones crowded with visitors; gossiping, strolling, commemorating the faithful departed. This is the custom, it seems, on these days of All Saints and All Souls.
Granite glinted dully in the struggling November sun as the living bent to the task of sweeping, scrubbing, weeding and remembering. Some grim, some cheerful, some weary and resigned. Duty? Grief? Habit?
It is a tradition which I find foreign and old-fashioned, and yet I can appreciate that there is comfort to be found in ritual. Even if it seems strange to me to nominate one particular day each year for remembering those we have lost.
Great for the florists, though.

Surprise

2007-10-30T15:17:00.000+01:00

It’s so typical of Paris. Just when you thought she’d revealed all her sightseeing secrets, she casually casts another jewel in your path. So it was on Sunday we stumbled across the Domaine National de Saint Cloud. I’d seen a picture of it on one of those Monuments Nationaux flyers you see in museum cashiers and hotel lobbies. Not having heard anything else about it, we’d assumed it would be some third-rate park or wannabe Jardin de Versailles.
It turned out, of course, to be a magnificent surprise. Four hundred and sixty hectares of manicured lawns, ancient forests, breathtaking vistas and monumental fountains, all perched above the Seine at the western edge of the city. There used to be a grand château; home to Catherine de Médicis (she got around, didn’t she?), Marie Antoinette and Napoleon amongst others, it was burned down during the Prussian siege in 1870. Now all that remain are the expansively lovely grounds laid out by le Nôtre, empty and echoing. They are an enchanting fusion of formality and wildness, with grandiose water-features (a 90-metre Grande Cascade) in stark relief against densely wooded groves. For us, the melancholy sense of lost grandeur was deepened deliciously by the red autumnal richness of the soft and mamfy* day; fragrant wood-smoke curling from half-hidden tea houses nestled rustically amongst the trees.
Enthralling to realise that all this is so close to the tourist-trodden trails of the capital, tucked away at the end of Métro lines 9 or 10, a serenely evocative treasure to discover. I am filled with delight by this city which continues to astonish me with new wonders and unexpected riches.

* from the self-styled acronym for "mists and mellow fruitfulness", with apologies to Keats.

Converted

2007-10-24T13:34:00.000+02:00

When it comes to cathedrals, I’ve always been a Gothic kind of guy. Addicted to the vertical high of a soaring Gothic nave, I have dragged LSP* across half of Europe in search of spidery stone buttresses, jewelled rose windows, fan-vaulted cloisters and flamboyantly filigreed facades. (Phew. Alliteration overload. Sorry.)
Howsomever.
Eight days in Burgundy have opened my eyes to a different style of architecture: the Romanesque. Older, simpler and sturdier, this precursor to the flashy frippery of the Gothic has a particularly strong presence in Burgundy, with every village seeming to have an older, more steadfast example. And there are of course the stirring masterpieces of Fontenay, Vézelay and (what’s left of) Cluny which anchor this region so robustly in the Romanesque.
So what is it about this style which has converted me? Compare the following images:

The first is the gloriously Gothic crossing and transept of the Eglise St. Ouen in Rouen. Delicate, dizzying perfection. The second is the aisle of the Romanesque Abbaye de St-Philibert in Tournus. Rough, massive and uneven; and yet, to me, so much warmer and more eloquently moving. Because I realise that what captivates me about Cathedrals is not so much the genius of the architecture itself, or the beauty of the buildings. Rather, it is the people who built them, and the subsequent generations of men and women who came to worship and marvel, who leave such a powerful imprint on the place.
Somehow I feel closer to the countless artisans and pilgrims before me when I can see the flawed humanity of their creation – the rough-hewn chisel marks forming an infinitely more immediate connection than the exquisite coolness of smooth stone.That’s not to say I’ll never go Gothic again in my historical ramble through religious architecture… but for true resonance, it’s (good, old) Romanesque for me.

* Long-Suffering Partner

Elegy/Apology

2007-09-23T12:25:00.000+02:00

Dad used to love telling the story of the time he took my brother and I to see Marcel Marceau. I’ve always been a bit mystified by Marcel’s choice to tour Australia in the 70s, and by Dad’s decision to take two toddlers to see him, but I guess French mime was seen as incredibly sophisticated children’s entertainment back there and then.
The story goes that we were each bought a box of Jaffas (just in case Marcel failed to excite us, it was thoughtful to provide a crunchy sugar/chocolate rush as well).

All the Australians reading this will know exactly where it’s going.
After a silent rollercoaster ride of gesture and expression, walking against the wind and feeling along invisible walls, Marcel was working up to his final image of exquisite pathos. The hushed audience edged forward in their seats and held their breath as time seemed to slow... and then… and then… a shattering candy cascade was unleashed as hundreds of Jaffas bounced and rolled deafeningly down the aisle.
Dad maintained that Marcel never truly recovered, and would wake up in cold sweats at the memory of that fateful Sydney show.
I’m sorry Monsieur Marceau. I don’t really remember your show, but as far as the Jaffa incident is concerned, I’m sure it was my brother’s fault.
I hope now you’ve found quiet. And peace.

Trying times

2007-09-09T14:06:00.000+02:00

It’s Rugby World Cup time in France, and the oval ball is everywhere – even on the Eiffel Tower, transformed into giant goalposts for the occasion. Everyone has jumped on the rugger wagon, and you can’t turn a page or a corner without seeing an oval-shaped object: chocolates, phones, books, hats. Everything is fair game (I kill myself). This being Paris, you can even pop into Chanel to get your gear on the way to the game.
Every company, brand and institution is falling over itself to prove its close ties to the game. There is Société Générale, the financial partner of the IRB; Toshiba, official TV provider; Eden Park, official clothing brand of the French team, and Vivien Paille, official provider of dried pulses and vegetables. (True.) My favourite advertisement, however, is this one: You know the World Cup is in France when rugby has its very own foie gras. Initially unconvinced by this tenuous link between ball sports and duck liver, my skepticism is blown away by the logic of the copywriting: "rugby and foie gras, two expressions of the same terrain". Of course! Rugby is really popular in the south-west of France, and that’s where they force-feed poultry to make foie gras! Crystal clear. That’s not drawing a long bow at all. Or, to use a more appropriate metaphor, kicking a very, very long goal.

Pavarotti's Botti

2007-09-07T15:43:00.000+02:00

The sad death of Luciano Pavarotti yesterday reminded me of my favourite apocryphal story about the great tenor. It seems he was being interviewed on a live satellite cross as part of a televisual tribute to our very own antipodean diva, Dame Joan Sutherland. When asked what special message he would like to give to the soprano, in front of millions of viewers, his loud, effusive and heavily-accented reply was:

“I would like to give her a big kiss from my bottom…”

Cut to a frozen-smiled Joan, blinking to camera. Pan to a mortified host, silently sweating. Pull back to a bemused studio audience, holding its breath. And gingerly cross back to Luciano, finally ready to finish his sentence:

“…of my heart.”

Considering where it came from, that’s a BIG kiss.

Bravo!

Parisaurus

2007-08-31T15:56:00.000+02:00

It's almost 18 months since we moved here, so I thought I'd mark the occasion by sharing some terms I've come up with to help describe the unique experience of being an outsider in Paris.
If you've ever lived in, visited or even read about this city, I'm sure you can think of many more... feel free to share any others you come up with and I'll compile them in future posts!

aisle high n.
The dizzying sense of euphoria experienced by Australians when they see the range of alcohol available in French supermarkets.

bark de triomphe n.
The self-satisfied yap uttered by a poodle when it sees you step in its freshly-laid crotte.

Dionify v.
The mystifying tendency of the French to elevate Canadian singers to god-like status.

expatois n.
The curious brand of franglais spoken between expats with varying proficiency in French. “Why don’t you pop in chez moi pour un apéro around six-thirty?”

FNAC jacket n.
Extra-thick skin required to shop at the customer-unfriendly retailer of cultural and electronic consumer products. “The guy in the DVD department just laughed at me when I asked for help… lucky I had my FNAC jacket on.”

haught couture n.
A certain look and attitude cultivated by sales assistants in the boutiques along the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. “Epitomising haught couture, the Chanel shopgirl looked down her nose and spat at me as I gazed at the window display.”

height stroke n.
Seizure caused by climbing too many monuments to get a bird’s eye view of Paris.

hellivision n.
Saturday night in France without cable.

kafkardiac arrest n.
The heart-constricting climax of frustration when, after 8 hours of dehumanising bureaucracy, you are told you need 2 more passport photos, 17 more copies of your birth certificate and another chest x-ray before you can get your Carte de Séjour.

métrognome n.
A diminutive underground train busker, usually playing the accordion. “The mournful strains of the métrognome halted abruptly as I tripped over him.”

mood poisoning n.
A sickening change in outlook caused by a random act of rudeness. “He was really cheerful this morning, but picked up a nasty case of mood poisoning from the bitch in the Post Office.”

phlegm brulée n.
A special dish served by proud French chefs when Anglo-Saxon philistines send back an “underdone” steak.

sacré blur n.
What a tour-group tourist sees of Paris in 48 hours.

sneer campaign n.
The relentless process between entrée and dessert whereby a waiter completely undermines your self-confidence and makes you question what on earth you’re doing in Paris.

unwhinged adj.
Describing the sudden evaporation of negative thoughts precipitated by a glimpse of unexpected beauty. “I stormed out of the Préfecture in tears of anger, cursing and swearing, when I looked up to see the spire of Sainte Chappelle glowing in the afternoon sun, and I was instantly unwhinged.”

waterlouvre n.
The sinking feeling experienced in a museum when you finally surrender to the fact that you can’t possibly see everything in one day.

Pop goes the Pinacothèque

2007-08-24T15:25:00.000+02:00

It’s almost a week and I’m still smarting from the slap of being ripped off. I went to slake my curiosity at the newest cultural attraction in Paris – the Pinacothèque, opened in mid June. It is a privately owned museum magnificently sandwiched between the gastronomic temples of Fauchon and Hediard on the Place de la Madeleine. Its opening exhibition highlights the work of Roy Lichtenstein, the primary-coloured king of comic-strip Pop Art.
Now I’m generally a glass-half-full kind of guy. And I will say that I enjoyed the exhibition itself; it was an illuminating and surprisingly intellectual study of the artistic process and the derivative/transformative nature of inspiration. (Gosh – even I don’t know what that last sentence means… how impressive is that? I might have to consider a new career as art critic or wine connoisseur.)
Howsomever.
I couldn’t help but feel that this particular glass was on the half-empty and outrageously overpriced side. Firstly, the space has not quite finished being transformed from its previous incarnation as the Baccarat Crystal Museum (which apparently was as tacky as it sounds). So the paint is still fresh and smelly, the concrete unfinished and the electrical wiring still disturbingly visible. The Lichtenstein exhibition is in the basement, so it feels like you’re looking at pictures in someone’s garage.
Secondly, the guards all seem to have graduated from the Rude and Surly Academy of Museum Personnel, with first-class honours in Aggressive Photo Prohibition, and a minor in Unnecessarily Heavy-Handed Direction-Giving. Before descending to the substratum, we had wanted to have a quick look around the ground floor’s light-filled spaciousness. One of the guards actually shouted at us, instructing us to go down the stairs to the exhibition. Other guards, possibly needing a break from strip-searching art lovers and confiscating cameras, actually stood gossiping sourly right in front of the canvasses, breathtakingly oblivious to the polite neck-cranings and throat-clearings of the frustrated aficionados.
Finally, and most gallingly, there was the price. Eight Euros. You’ll appreciate that this is a not inconsiderable sum for an Expatrician. Not that I condone anything as crass as putting a price on Art, but when you consider that you pay less than that for access to numberless masterpieces at the Musée D’Orsay, it does seem insultingly steep for a hundred-odd works, no matter how good. So unless you’re a Lichtenstein loony, I’d think twice about popping in to the Pinacothèque.
Call me a philistine, call me cheap. I guess I’m just looking for a bit more brush for my buck.

Outrageous fortune

2007-08-18T12:24:00.000+02:00

Apologies to all my readers for the blog lapse – and thank you both for your patience. Naturally I have an excuse for my postlessness; I even have a doctor’s note to prove it. It seems I have suffered a traumatisme and have une épaule fragalisée – a fragile and very tender shoulder.
We need not go into any lurid detail regarding the cause of my accident: let’s just say that I’ll think twice the next time I consider riding a vélib home after a few quiet drinks at a friend’s place. What I would like to discuss is my new-found appreciation for orthopedic appurtenances and physiotherapeutic paraphernalia.
The doctor I eventually found, obviously bitter at being the only one stuck in Paris in August, had filled a page of prescriptions with even more indecipherably spidery handwriting than strictly necessary to sustain the cliché. The pharmacist duly worked through the list, building an impressive mountain of analgesics, calmatives and relaxants, but eventually had to admit defeat concerning the last item. Four pharmacies and much head scratching and colleague-consulting later, I found someone willing to hazard a guess. And so I became the mystified yet impressed owner of une contention bandoulière: a shoulder-immobilising arm sling.
It took me a good hour to put on. It has so many straps, velcro tabs, adjustment buckles and padded bits that even now I’m not entirely sure I’ve got it on the right way. So I went (clumsily, left-handedly) online to look for some helpful diagrams or simple instructions. Here’s what I found:
What do you notice about the above sling shots? That’s right. All the supposedly post-traumatic sling wearers are smiling. Cheerfully, inanely, and in that disturbing last photo, sultrily. Now you have to take it from me; if you’re wearing an arm sling, chances are you’re not smiling. And you’re certainly not feeling sultry. I’d like to see some models with a bit of verisimilitude: wincing in pain, sheepishly bruised and orthopedically unsexy. Broken bones are not fun... or are they?

Just when I thought I’d seen it all, I discovered Broken Beauties, “bringing a more uplifting and appealing look to your broken arm or arm injury.” What next – bedazzled neck braces? Crocheted crutch covers?
Speaking of crutches, I have a theory: French doctors prescribe almost all patients with crutches, regardless of the injury or illness. It is incredible the number of people you see in the streets of Paris, walking briskly along, waving a crutch about. No limps, casts or bandages in evidence. Whenever I see someone with crutches now I try to guess the ailment: sore throat? Insomnia? Pink eye? The next time you’re out and about in Paris, keep an eye open for healthy crutch-bearers. I guarantee you’ll see them everywhere: parking their car in disabled spots, jumping the queue at the post office, elbowing ahead of you in the marathon, edging you off the dance floor with a high-kicking Charleston.
Of course they probably did have something wrong with them, and their doctor actually did prescribe antibiotics and eye drops, but the pharmacist just couldn’t read the handwriting, and wanted to get rid of those dusty béquilles in the back of the shop.

Another step

2007-08-07T15:37:00.000+02:00

Panting up Heartbreak Hill at the Parc Montsouris this morning, I called on an image which often comes to mind at such exhausted-to-the-point-of-giving-up moments.

It is a sweltering Sunday morning in Hong Kong. I am nine years old, and sulking. As part of his campaign to get me interested in physical exercise, my father has taken me jogging. I am dragging resentfully behind, gasping and gulping the viscous heat, considering tears. We are plodding up a dusty road to the headland reserve above Clearwater Bay, where the cliff top pagoda shimmers distantly. Hearing my exaggerated huffs of pain, Dad turns and waits while I, sweating and scowling, catch up.

“I can’t run any more. It’s too far”
“Come on, you’re doing well. Just think how great you’ll feel when you get there.”
“I won’t feel great. I’ll be too dead. Look how much further we have to go.”
“Don’t think about what’s ahead – just look down and concentrate on the next step. Putting one foot in front of the other. Just one step. Then, concentrate on the next one. Foot after foot, step after step, and before you know it, you’ll be there. I promise you’ll feel great.”

So I pouted, and then put one foot in front of the other, and I suppose I eventually made it to the pagoda. I’m not sure if I felt great or not – I was probably too busy feigning heatstroke or limping with intent. I don’t remember much beyond that one gleaming moment of paternal encouragement, magnified and polished over the years of recollection.

Cherished even more now that, years later, Dad’s campaign has borne such unexpected fruit, and I find myself enjoying my morning jogs, craving the satisfaction of physical effort. I would give anything to run with him now above Clearwater Bay, and thank him for his words which have helped me through all sorts of trials.

Step by step, day by day. That’s how we go on.

I miss you Dad.

Expatrician

2007-08-01T13:33:00.000+02:00

I spend more time at the supermarket these days. (And it's not always because someone pays by cheque in front of me.) It's because I've started comparing prices. Any brand loyalty I had is unceremoniously ditched wherever I can save a few centimes.

This penny-pinching behaviour is not really like me at all. I don't enjoy it, and I dread the day I start clipping coupons. There comes a point in one's bank balance, however, when thrift happens.

Back in Australia, coming from a comfortably owner-occupied DINK household, it had been many years since I'd had to worry about price checking. I'd pile my trolley high with premium brands, blue-ribbon cuts and over packaged gourmet goodies, rarely even looking at the total as I punched in my PIN. Yesterday, replacing the outrageously priced packet of heritage Puy lentils with its generically cut-price "Euroshopper" cousin, it dawned on me.

I am an Expatrician.

We're quite common here in Europe. You'll often find us spread out on a picnic blanket somewhere, pretentiously al fresco, quaffing a sensibly reasonable rosé. (Have you seen how much they charge for drinks at cafés here?) We also congregate in the Louvre on the first Sunday of the month (no entrance charge). Free outdoor cinema? The grass is thick with tight little groups of us. Frugal foreigners, trying to wring a champagne experience from a backpacker budget.

I recently met an architect who traded her Sex and the City loft studio in Sydney for a student dive in London. Shared bathrooms, cleaning rotas and no closet space for the Manolos. At least she's earning pounds sterling: I am paid in Australian Dollars, which come in handy if you ever want to play Monopoly. So I walk instead of taking the métro. And do creative things with chickpeas. And suggest drinks at our place instead of going to a bar.

And now you may ask it. The question that's been bubbling and growing inside you as you read this self-pitying bleat of a post.

Why the HELL are you still here if it's all so hard, you pathetic whiny foreigner - why don't you just GO HOME where you were so much more comfortable?

It's a question I've been asking myself a lot lately, as it happens. And in searching for an answer, I've come to realise a few things.

"Back home" in Sydney, I had started believing that my main purpose was to buy stuff. My partner and I would find ourselves with nothing to do on a weekend, and so we'd go and buy a new LCD TV. Or a stainless-steel side-by-side fridge. Or a few Ben Sherman shirts. We consumed out of boredom, not necessity.

Giving up jobs and moving to the other side of the world is, it turns out, an excellent form of priority-shifting shock therapy. It forces a complete reappraisal of what's important, and what you need to be happy.

I'm re-reading a book called Stumbling on Happiness. In it, Daniel Gilbert reviews the research behind the psychology of happiness. He reminds us of a fact which resonates with my newly-embraced Expatrician outlook; that more money does not always mean more happiness.
"Wealth increases human happiness when it lifts people out of abject poverty and into the middle class but [...] it does little to increase happiness thereafter."

So until I hit abject poverty, I must conclude that I am still, essentially, happy. And so much happier to be petit bourgeois in Paris than soulless in Sydney.

Although I wouldn't mind, just occasionally, not having to scrimp at the supermarket.

Working from home: a Procrastination Limerick

2007-07-27T17:46:00.000+02:00

I stare at the LCD screen
And go through my daily routine
Of Facebook and blogs
And other "time hogs"
With snatches of work in-between.

Vélib’: a verdict

2007-07-24T13:57:00.000+02:00

It's just over a week since Paris unveiled its Vélib’ experiment: a bold scheme offering free bikes for short journeys around town. Over 10,000 bikes in stations every 300 metres or so, growing to double this number by the end of the year.

You can subscribe to the service on a daily, weekly or yearly basis. The first 30 minutes are free, then you are charged in incremental amounts for every additional half hour.

I think this is a brilliant idea; beneficial on every level from the health of the environment to the health of me and my fellow Parisians. I signed up enthusiastically for a year.

Since the grand opening on 15th July, I am pleased to say I've averaged one trip a day by Vélib’. That is not to say it's been all smooth riding.

There have been quite a few glitches and frustrations. Many of the (technologically impressive) stations have been out of service, meaning that it's hard to find bikes available. In fact I had to give up on the very first day; the 5 stations I tried in my neighbourhood were either off line or empty. Many subscribers have found that the system didn't register the return of their bike, resulting in very scary balances: I checked mine on Friday night after a 25-minute morning pedal to find a rental period of over 6 hours, and a charge of 42 Euros on my account!

Recognising these errors, the city has agreed to cancel the debts in these cases; it took a couple of phone calls but my charge was reversed without question. Considering that the whole network was designed, constructed and installed in a ridiculously short time (a matter of months), these kinks are quite understandable.

The scheme has almost been too popular for its own good: I have already witnessed an instance of "bike rage" - two riders fighting over the last available Vélib’ at a station. On the whole, though, the novelty and civic-mindedness of the program results in a warm feeling of friendly solidarity; a shared recognition of the inherent goodness of the idea.

I must say I was quite apprehensive about riding on Parisian roads, but I have been pleasantly surprised by the extent of clearly-marked bicycle lanes along the main thoroughfares, and with the exception of a few hairy moments around the larger roundabouts or the narrower lanes, it has been relatively stress-free.

And the petty inconveniences and teething-problems are so quickly forgotten as the you glide along the banks of the Seine, or bounce cheerfully over the cobblestones of la Butte aux Cailles. It is impossible not to smile - to laugh out loud - with the pleasure of it.

Riding around this stunning city is an intensely exhilarating experience and a perfect incarnation of democracy à la française: Vélib’erté, Egalité, Fraternité!

Tonsurephobia

2007-07-20T15:50:00.000+02:00

I hate getting my hair cut. No, it's not a fear of sharp things near my head, nor is it the result of a particularly distressing childhood barbershop experience. (Although there was the time my father decided to save some money by giving us kids a "homestyle" trim involving shears and a bowl. But that's a whole other therapy session.)

And it's not as if things could go spectacularly wrong. Some of my longer-tressed friends have truly harrowing stories of butchered bangs and uncontrolled public sobbing.

So I don't know why I find the experience so unpleasant that I keep putting it off until I reach the "all-over mullet" stage.

Perhaps it's the fact that I can never explain exactly what I want. Every time I'm asked "So, what are we doing today?", I panic. "Um, I'd like it short and neat, but with a bit of length on the top, but not too much, and kind of like the last cut, but something different, and sort of youngish, but not too extreme, and, and..." Really what I'm waiting for is for my stylist to step in and say "Yes I know exactly what will make you look completely hot. Let's do it!" But it never happens. Instead, I get a cut as vague and shapeless as my description.

This is bad enough in my mother tongue; here in France, it is so impossibly hard that when I sit in the salon chair I find myself wishing I was at the dentist.

The next thing I hate about haircuts is the "robe" they swaddle you in. Mankind has not invented a fabric more non-breathingly synthetic than the stuff these are made of.* The temperature outside may be approaching absolute zero, but I guarantee within two seconds of being enveloped in the suffocating embrace of these hellish polyester ponchos, you'll be sweating "like a whore in church", as one of my more sophisticated friends so poetically puts it. Unless you're in a sauna, there is nothing more unpleasant than feeling sweat trickling down your spine.

Then there are the minor irritations. Like not being able to flick the scratchy bits of cut hair from your nose because your hands are bound within the heat tent. Or the awkwardness of having to stare at yourself in the halogen-bright mirror, wondering whether the bags under your eyes always look so dreadfully dark, and then realising that everyone must think how narcissistic you are because you can't tear your gaze away from the haggard vision before you. Or the coiffeuse rolling her eyes and looking at her watch every time you take a sip of coffee.

And finally, the horror of the styling product. When, to make the vague and shapeless look hip and stylish, a few kilos of wax, gel, mud or fudge are slicked and scrunched and twisted through, achieving a look which, even if you'd wanted to, you would never be able to recreate in your own bathroom. So as a last humiliation, you walk home looking like an electrocuted drag queen.

Yes, I hate getting my hair cut. Although I'm proud to say I've just come back from the salon, and I'm not shaking nearly as much as usual. Why? Because I had the brainwave of printing a picture taken of me the last time I was really happy with a haircut (when I was in London for a wedding. I looked hot.) With a raised eyebrow my stylist took one look at the photo, nodded, and reproduced it beautifully. No sweat.

Well, less sweat.

* Yes, I know half of these sentences end with prepositions. As Theodore M. Bernstein says in The Careful Writer (Atheneum: 1968), anyone who calls such expressions wrong will find that he or she "hasn't a leg on which to stand." So there.

Great balls of fire

2007-07-16T11:26:00.000+02:00

Yes, the Bastille Day fireworks were spectacular. Watching them glitter and bloom behind the Eiffel Tower with 600,000 other people on the Champ de Mars, I suffered a beauty overdose and actually wept in rapture.

But the highlight of the weekend's festivities was the much-anticipated Fireman's Ball on Friday night. We went to the caserne at Port Royal, paid our 5 Euros and entered a delirious fairyland of lights, laughter and libido. Firemen everywhere. In uniform, out of uniform, behind the bar, on top of the bar, dancing, flirting, smiling, welcoming. I was a little overcome to begin with, so we headed to the champagne bar to sit down with some bubbles and collect ourselves. Then, like kids in a candy store, we launched ourselves wide-eyed into the dancing throng, losing ourselves in the joyous energy. Grooving grandmothers, excited children, drunk girls, whooping boys; the whole neighbourhood enjoying this frenzy of good-natured fun. A surprising and wonderful mix of wholesome decadence, innocent debauchery, and good clean lust.

This city intoxicates me.

Skin Deep

2007-07-13T12:14:00.000+02:00

Walking back from the boulangerie this morning, my baguette deliciously warm and fragrant, I looked up and suddenly stopped breathing. At the end of the street, heading towards me, was a distant vision of such staggering beauty that I simply had to stare. Brazenly, Frenchly. It seemed impossible that such a gut-twistingly gorgeous specimen should be sharing my footpath. I finally remembered to breathe again and watched transfixed as he approached. Such shoulders and waist, such turn of leg and cut of jaw. Closer and closer, details popping sexily into focus.

And then, finally, he was close enough for me to get a proper look. I almost dropped my baguette in disgust. Those teeth - like tombstones! That skin - so unfortunate! That eyebrow! Looking away, I hastened home, the disappointment bitter in my mouth.

This ugly duckling in reverse was - alas! - a classic example of what we used to call D.O.A. - Deteriorates On Approach. When we were at Uni, and TV medical dramas were at their height, we had amused ourselves by subverting this acronym (Dead On Arrival) to reflect our more immediate preoccupations. We skipped countless tutorials coming up with pages and pages of these lust-killers. Permit me to share some which come to mind:

DOTA - Deteriorates On Turning Around
DOOM - Deteriorates On Opening Mouth
DORIQ - Deteriorates On Revealing I.Q.
DOIF - Deteriorates On Introducing Friends
DOSU - Deteriorates On Sobering Up
DOSOOT - Deteriorates On Singing Out Of Tune
DODDLE - Deteriorates On Dancing Dangerously Like an Elephant
DOPPITY - Deteriorates On Picking Pimples In Teenage Years

Ah, the gilded superficiality of youth. Perhaps, in hindsight, with the wisdom and wrinkles of age, I should finally add:

IORIB - Improves On Revealing Inner Beauty.

Faits divers

2007-07-10T11:51:00.000+02:00

I came across this startling little item last week. Let's talk it through:

You're sitting at home on a Saturday night in your Montparnasse apartment, when you become aware of a nasty odour. You realise it's coming from above. Judging from the stench and the smoke billowing down, someone is cooking up a smelly storm. It's that young man in the maid's room under the roof. Again.

Enough's enough. You screw up your nose, climb the stairs, and knock on his door. He opens, you say your piece.

And then he STABS you in the THROAT. Your husband rushes up to help you, and he gets knifed too. The young man drops the knife, jumps out the window and runs away over the rooftops, finally jumping to his death. Your husband watches helplessly as you bleed, bleed, bleed, and die.

A dispute over cooking smells results in a murder-suicide. I cannot understand. I try to make light of it - how dramatically French to be so offended by culinary criticism - but it doesn't work. I ask myself: what on earth was he cooking? I hastily review tonight's menu and check for offensive ingredients.

But ultimately, I can only shake my head in disbelief at the tragic, tawdry pointlessness of it all. The unknowable illness which caused such a reaction, and the untold sadness left behind by this little paragraph so easily missed on the metro ride to work.

DISTURBARAMA

2007-07-05T18:26:00.000+02:00

Check out the cover of Nouvel Obs this week. Is it just me, or does Pete Doherty look freakishly like Liza Minnelli? This image is going to stalk my nightmares for weeks.

Bom Chicka Wah Wah

2007-07-03T13:43:00.000+02:00

I'm seeing this everywhere lately. And I'm afraid I love it! Such a sassy expression; just saying it makes you feel all Foxxy Cleopatra. Go on. Try it.

Bom Chicka Wah Wah.

Damn girl you fierce - Shazzam!

It is a superbly useful phrase, and has even been picked up by French trash mags such as Public (above). Now that's an adjective with attitude. (And, much as I'd love to be called the most BCWW personality of the week, you can't help but think that Lorie wasn't too impressed with the photo.)

Of course it's all the result of an infectious advertising campaign for men's deodorant. Here's one of my favourite ads. And here's another, in French. Inappropriate? Certainly. Hilariously.

This is obviously a fairly sophisticated campaign - they've even created (or "sponsored") an entire pop act. It's not the most subtle or progressive of approaches, but heavens above it makes me laugh. Even if I am about as far removed from the target audience as is humanly possible, without actually being Germaine Greer.

So even though I wouldn't be caught dead wearing that sort of deodorant body spray (because to my nose it all smells a bit like shower curtain mould), I am grateful to that doubtlessly underpaid creative ad-type who decided to sass up our world.

Firemen.

2007-06-28T14:07:00.000+02:00

There's just something about them.

I was running around a grey Parc Montsouris this morning, willing my love handles away, when the clouds parted and a joyous shaft of gold spangled the bright and shiny object on the steep road ahead. Callooh! Callay! A (fire-engine) Red Letter Day: the pompiers were in the park!

There is nothing more likely to buck you up and put a jaunt in your jog. I know it's too too yawnmaking, but I just think firemen are, well, lovely. Especially French ones. And it's not just the short shorts, the tight blue t-shirts, the crew-cut sharpness of them. It's the fact that they run around the the park in unison, the embodiment of esprit de corps, with such discipline and dedication. These guys are fit, focussed, and oh! so fine. I feel I could collapse with complete confidence in their presence, and don't think I haven't considered it.

Now I don't want to cast nasturtiums, but I used to live down the road from a Fire Station in Sydney, and whenever I walked past, I used to see a couple of beer-gutted blokes watching TV. I'm sure they were heroes in an emergency, but let's just say I was never tempted to feign unconsciousness for a bit of mouth-to-mouth.

The sapeur-pompier parisien seems to be a perfect specimen. Multi-talented, magnificently-thighed, and perfectly willing to undress in public. (The day they got changed out of their trackie-daks in front of their truck I almost did have a coronary. For real.) And it seems they also organise fireman's balls (stop it) on 14 July. Kings of the night indeed.

Pompiers in the park: I salute you for your valour, your commitment, and your downright dishiness. Thank you for brightening my day.

And now do I get a prize for making it to the end of this post without a single pump- or hose-related double entendre?

Drinktionary

2007-06-25T15:01:00.000+02:00

After a heavy weekend of research, I have decided to compile a list of new words I've coined to help describe the unique world of excess drinking; an alcoholexicon to which you are invited to contribute your own entries.

alco-poptart: a person who will sleep with anything after a few Bacardi Breezers.

blubbly: describing a person who, having drunk too much Champagne, becomes tearfully sentimental or melancholic.

bordeaux-line: the point after which a meal changes from a sophisticated dinner to a blurry wine-fest.

brandicoot: a species native to the region of Cognac, characterised by a curious stumbling gait and indistinct speech.

calvadross: substandard apple brandy served to tourists in Normandy.

cariff-raff: the undesirables who congregate around a newly-ordered pichet of wine.

chardonnaysal: the whiny tone some people affect after a few too many glasses.

dorkscrew: the unfortunate person you end up sleeping with at the end of a bottle-strewn binge.

incaskeration: the unfortunate state of having to drink wine from a box.

grin and tonic: the irrepressible smile caused by the first sip of a desperately-needed drink.

kir crash: the tragic moment when you lose the ability to speak after one too many aperitifs.

k-martini (also wal-martini): the gut-stripping result of mixing cocktails using cheap spirits.

lagerhythm: the complex, unsynchronized series of internal beats to which people dance towards the end of a pub crawl.

sake-asm: the cutting tone used in a sushi restaurant when asked whether another bottle is really such a good idea.

sancerrity: the state in which you tell your friends how much you love them after a couple of litres of white.

slangover: the distressing aftermath of a big night, when the only words that can be found to express the pain are monosyllabic profanities.

vodkarisma: the savoir faire and confidence imparted by a shot of Absolut.

Becks @ Beaubourg

2007-06-22T16:54:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I went to the Samuel Beckett exhibition at the Centre Pompidou. I found it fascinating, thrilling, disturbing and quite wonderfully moving.

Fascinating to view different versions of his plays; side-by-side French and English productions highlighting the brilliance of this self-translating writer. Thrilling to see scores of handwritten manuscripts (surely that's tautological?) with doodles and crossings-out giving insight into the genius behind Waiting for Godot, Play and Oh les Beaux Jours. Disturbing to be assaulted by such powerfully stark images, such unsparing metaphors for the human condition. Moving to come face to face with yourself with a shock of recognition, mirrored in the bleak, buried, broken characters of the Beckettian universe.

Finally, it was inspiring to be reminded what can be done with words. Or, in Beckett's case, with words and the spaces between them. It is above all his language which dazzles. And so let me finish with a few of my favourite Beckettisms:

"All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead. "

"In the landscape of extinction, precision is next to godliness. "

"I shall state silences more competently than ever a better man spangled the butterflies of vertigo. "

"Personally I have no bone to pick with graveyards, I take the air there willingly, perhaps more willingly than elsewhere, when take the air I must. "

"That's how it is on this bitch of an earth. "

"Words are all we have. "

P.S. Better get your skates on if you want to experience the exhibition: it closes on 25 June.

A textistential crisis

2007-06-19T15:13:00.000+02:00

My grandmother once - famously, crushingly - said of my sister: "She's always been a slow reader." It's hard to know quite why my sister was singled out for this crippling observation (she is, I am pleased to attest, a perfectly capable reader). To be fair, we all must have seemed slow compared to Granny's page-devouring pace. But it was my sister who suffered the years of family jokes and gently merciless teasing and, for all I know, cannot to this day pick up a book without having to quash a lurking sense of inadequacy.

This history of persecution is by way of providing background to my latest crise de confiance: I think I may be one.

A slow reader.

I hasten to dispel any special-needs images you may be forming of me bent slack-jawed over the page, mouthing words and tracing text with a clammy fingertip. Let me explain. I borrowed a book from the library three weeks ago and it's almost time to take it back... and I'm only a quarter of the way through it. In my defence, it is a 600-page doorstop of a book (Babel Tower by A.S. Byatt). And I haven't really given it a chance: a paltry few paragraphs in bed each night (often the same ones, over and over). I haven't really sunk my teeth into it, let the characters matter to me, caught myself up in the plot. And I tell myself that I've been taking time to savour the language, rolling sentences around in my mouth, re-reading especially lustrous phrases, catching cadences with little cries of delight. That's what I tell myself.

But the fact remains that I have to take this beast of a book back to the library in three days' time and make a decision. Do I return; or do I reborrow?

I can't think of the last time I gave up on a book. I've always been one of these determined types who will plod through to the last page for the grim satisfaction of finishing. And in the hope that it might get magically better. But let's be honest, if I haven't been captivated after 160 pages, is my life really long enough to read resentfully on?

I'll give it another three days to get its claws in, then I'll return it and move on, no regrets, to a new book. Something clever, captivating and, above all, concise.

I think my sister would agree with me when I say that sometimes it's not the reader who is slow: it's the book.

Cheque Out

2007-06-15T10:54:00.000+02:00

I know it's boring but I have to vent. Yesterday I went to the supermarket in the glamourous Italie 2 Centre Commercial (the closest thing Paris has to Fountain Gate Shopping Centre). After gathering the ingredients for my mouthwatering Thousand-and-One-Nights-Chicken (I must give you the recipe some time), I approached the check-out and joined what seemed to be the most promising queue: no old ladies clutching coupons, no dangerously overloaded trolleys, a relatively perky check-out chick (sorry, "Cash Hostess"). Things were moving along nicely, I was calmly resisting the Hollywood Chewing Gum impulse display, and the woman in front of me had remembered to weigh all her fruits and vegetables. The Hostess told her the total, there was a brief pause as she reached into her handbag, and then my world came crashing down.

She pulled out a chequebook. Are there any words to express the heart-sinking, inward-groaning, teeth-gnashing despair of someone caught behind a cheque-paying customer? (Well apparently there are, and they're all double-barrelled.) The fumbling for a pen, the asking five times for the amount again, the searching for I.D., the shaky signing, the careful tearing, the cash-register printing, the writing of the licence number on the back, the deep, drawn-out, undiluted pain of the whole process is enough to make even the mildest-mannered shopper start looking for something sharp.

Apart from homicide, I've found the best way to deal with the situation is to turn around and look at the people behind you. You're not likely to get a sympathetic smile (because, this being France, at least half of the people in line will also be paying by cheque). What you need to look for is the person in the queue with only one item. It's usually a bottle of water or a packet of Petit Ecolier biscuits. This poor sod has got to wait even longer than you, and all for a measly sip of water or sugar hit. (Although, frankly, I have no pity for this sort of person either. If you're only buying one item, just go to the corner shop, pay 1 more centime and get a life back.) Once you've bathed in some healing schadenfreude, you can turn back and keep unloading. Then it's your turn to dazzle the supermarket with your speed and grace as you pack your bags, punch in your PIN, and harrumph past the cheque-payer as she fumbles hopelessly amongst her 20th Century tangle of paper, pen and pocketbook.

This reminds me of one of my favourite observations from rhino75, who remarked that everyone in front of you at a French supermarket seems to be buying groceries for the first time in their lives. Unfortunately, it's not just supermarkets where people produce chequebooks. I once waited for 30 minutes at a tabac while a woman bought a lottery ticket with a cheque. My blood pressure still spikes just thinking about it.

Some old-fashioned habits, like waiters wearing long aprons, are charming. Others need to go the way of steam engines, slide rules and S Club 7. Unfortunately, this particular anachronistic addiction seems to be far from dying out. I suppose there's really no point in causing a scene. I mean, what could I do... write a letter?

No. Like all truly modern whingers, I'll just go and start a Facebook group about it.

POW!

2007-06-13T15:00:00.000+02:00

"Ha ha. Very punny."
"You know the word pun is an acronym."
"Is it? What for?"
"Play On Words."
"Oh yeah, of course... No... hang on. That can't be right. It's P U N, not P O N."
"Oh my God. Isn't that weird? Maybe it's actually Play UPON Words?"
"Yes, Play Upon Words. That must be it. Pass the ice cream."

This is a transcript of a conversation I had with my best friend some years ago, at the tragic tail end of a particularly messy night. It marks, I believe, the beginning of my absurd love affair with acronyms.

I say this now because I suspect my future posts will be littered with odd little groups of letters, giving the impression that most of the vowels have fallen off my keyboard. It's a habit born of a love of corny wordplay, combined with years working in the Travel Industry, which is an acronymic paradise (or hell, depending). Imagine my paroxysmic delight when consulting the FFA* for an IATA fare from CDG to JFK. Nowadays, in the corporate training world, I'm in a new kind of heaven. I am in the process of writing a Negotiation Skills course teaching BDMs how to SWOT their BATNA. And my boss just asked if she could TIS my BOF. (Excuse me while my toes curl.) I am especially excited by a good TLA.

So now you've been warned... keep reading AYOR.

--------------------------------------------------
* for the acronymously challenged:

FFA = Fares From Australia
IATA = International Air Transport Association
BDM = Business Development Manager
SWOT = Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats,
BATNA = Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement
TIS = Total Information Share
BOF = Brightness Of Future
TLA = Three Letter Acronym
AYOR = At Your Own Risk

And we're off.

2007-06-11T17:41:00.000+02:00

So the thing is to just start writing.
There is a certain expression I have been seeing a lot lately. It is a curious blend of blank amazement, dumb incomprehension and cloying pity which makes me feel very small indeed. It is the expression aimed my way when someone finds out I don't have a blog.
Well, bullseye.
I have joined the cult and present my newborn novice self, shakily mixing my first metaphor and hoping for indulgence.
I comfort myself with the thought that no-one will see these first Fisher-Price posts, so will not spend too much time preening and polishing.
I suppose the next step is to have something to say.
Oh well. At the very least I can now say this: C'est parti!