Firemen.

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

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

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

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

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!

"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.

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!