In the valley of the blind

I heard that she said “an eye for an eye must open hand out” and although it wasn’t exactly Matthew 5:38 (why do Christians insist on giving the time?), I got the feeling that she meant; you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. I was only prepared to scratch hers with money though, don’t want to get embroiled in messy French adultery (as Matthew had warned against eleven minutes before at 5:27). It’s not that I’m all for the sanctity of marriage, far from it, just that it’s hard enough being understood when shouting loudly in their faces, let alone whispering sweet nothings in their ears.

“An eey for an er must open han ac out.” Again; “a knee for enya must open hannah count.”

The pencils were up both nostrils and I was lunging towards the desk to end it all when suddenly I finally realised she was saying “any foreigners must open an account.” Well, madam, I do not want an account, I merely want insurance. I am here for security and putting my money in a French account hardly fulfils that criteria. Within 2 months my pension would be spent on sanitising Berlusconi’s old office, my savings on keeping the Greeks in yoghurt and my bonds sunk in Germany (a mirror of The Spy Who Loved Me where a German was sunk by Bond).

We proceeded to have one of those delightful arguments, much beloved by my family, where we both got very angry despite not at any point understanding what the other one was saying. In the end her manager came in and led me away to another office where she, in vastly better English, proceeded to be even more of an obnoxious old hag. She told me I was behaving like a child for ignoring her advice. I can’t say I wasn’t tempted to rise to her bait but I am a better man than that; I bid her good-day, got up from my seat, pressed the buzzer to unlock the door and only as it shut behind me did I realise I had actually, instead, switched the light off. 

If I'm not Edvard, I'll never be Edvard

When I was 7, I made my mother a clay frog for her birthday, in art class. It had five roughly leg like protrusions. I could have passed one off as a tail but the vaguely recognisable webbed feet gave me no wiggle room for anatomical interpretation, artistic or otherwise.  It had no real face and even when I had realised, post roast in the kiln, my attempts to rectify this with glaze were confused at best. Mother stubbed a cigar out on it and broke off two of the legs before sending me into town with a twenty pound note in order to buy her a proper present, which was a bottle of gin. This, thankfully, is why I never pursued a career in art. Unfortunately, many of the day-glow neon children of liberals, all named after varieties of soya or breeds of earwig, seem to attract praise for the sensuous lines of their pasta portraits and the way the delicate splattering of their urine on the hemp carpet is reminiscent of early Pollock. This leads to them being modern artists and, consequently, to me spending 2 hours in confused irritation at Paris’ capital of modern art; the Pompousdo.

I believe the Pompousdo is a waterpark that has been abandoned and left to dry out, grubby and unwanted with a vast expanse of concrete in front, no longer the home to happy splashing and the rare bathing of French youth. The flumes still hang haphazardly to the side and the turbines of the wave machine stick uselessly out of the ground, sombre and forgotten periscopes. You’d think that emptying it of screaming children and poor people on their annual day out would be an improvement but life is full of surprises.


The large foyer is helpfully lacking in signs and so I wandered around. The first installation asked me for my ticket so I, never afraid to meet an artist on his own terms, fully immersed in the work by giving it some money at which point it moved on to other awaiting viewers. The second work was a piece on the difficulties of bi-dimensional transit, being as it was as a set of moving stairs that conveniently took me up to the 1st floor without having to waste energy walking; and who said art serves no real purpose? This was unfortunately not wholly reinforced by what I discovered there.

Yayoi Kusama clearly has some issues and although I’m all for giving her some potato shapes and water based paint, letting her loose on this scale seems to be the kind of happy-clappy indulgence that has slowly eaten away at standards and gave rise to many of today’s Radio 1 djs. Her style is apparently called Art Brut because, like the cologne, it’s the kind of twaddle only your weird spinster aunt would give you and it stinks like merry hell. Aside from some of her afore mentioned potato paintings, her main focus seems to be on filling rooms with mirrors and tiny spots, possibly to demonstrate to everyone, once and for all, that she’s completely dotty. If there was an underlying message to Kusama’s work, it was don’t leave her unattended with scissors.

After revisiting the work of bi-dimensional transit (shown in opposition) I came to an exhibition of German buffoon Edvard Munch, designer of the mask from the movie Scream and namesake of the popular crisp; Monster Munch (of which he designed the packet – not the actual crisp shape itself though, that was  after his time). If not quite as crackers as the Japanese lass, he was certainly a few colours short of a spectrum. Half the display was the same paintings done 3 or 4 times and then abandoned as he clearly was clearly getting nowhere. He’d have been better off cutting back on the fruit loops and concentrating on the crisps as you really feel that the monsters he portrays there are enjoying a quite terrific snack. In comparison, I find the little Italian fellow on Pringles distinctly lacking in bite.

A Fourth-Generation Gentleman of the Buckinghamshire Darlings, Now Living in Easy Circumstances on Cape Continental [and Smoking Too Much]

Listen; Jonny Foreigner has come unstuck in time. Today is Armistice Day in France. This is the same as Remembrance Sunday in England except that the French have ironically forgotten not only what it is should be called but what day it was on. It’s a day to try and remember how many wars we’ve had and the date is significant because it’s two days after 9/11 (today is 11/11 for those of you who haven’t checked) which is when the world decided enough was enough and we would prevent all future wars by ruining the economy and not being able to afford them any more.

It’s a public holiday here in France because it’s the only day soldiers are allowed to go on strike. Everyone has to go on strike at least once a year in France, it’s a legal obligation. A national holiday was introduced so everyone could stay at home because we all know what soldiers are like. I had a second-cousin in the marines who survived 12 years in combat only to snuff in on leave at a Hanoi brothel. The autopsy was unable to reveal if it was the 3 litres of absinthe, the 2 pounds of suspicious sushi, the belt around the neck or the lemur. We had to hold the funeral in secret for fear any of his squadron would attend the wake and we’d end up with more blood on our hands.

The symbolic flower of the Armistice is the cornflower, a small, bright blue thing. They are not to be trusted with poppies as they are naturally a self-indulgent people and would use them to make heroin and listen to jazz. The worst they could do with a cornflower is make a crème brulee (which they did, originally only on this day but, as I just mentioned, they have as much self-restraint as Hugh Hefner).

Remembrance Sunday is much more important in England because we were more involved in both of the world wars. You can see this reflected in the poetry of The Great War as Siegfried Sassoon is all filth, gas and dismemberment (reminds me of the locker-room after rugby) whereas in France they have Arthur Rimbaud who wrote Le Dormeur du Val about a typical Gallic soldier who slept through battle. So it goes.

You spin me right aroindissement

The local area, Gambetta, is as much of a muchness as much of the city seems to be; if you’ve been anywhere in Europe, you’ve probably seen it all (with the exception of Spain, not because it is exceptionally exceptional, except at accepting the minimum of basic amenities, but because it’s exceedingly hot). I’m in the 20th arroindissement, somewhere to the east. The word arroindissement means ‘to make round’ and the areas are so named from a day in the 19th century when the 20 town planners were trying to decide whose turn it was to buy drinks; they tore up the map they’d been working on and used it to draw lots. The next morning, still stinking drunk, they tried to jigsaw the city back together again but found they could only do it using the numbered sides and decided that was probably enough detail anyway, the small stuff would work its self out.

This goes to explain a number of things. Firstly; the completely arbitrary numbering of the districts, only sloth and inebriation could produce such utter disarray. In London, they were so organised that they got in elephants to build castles and canaries in to build wharves (not the birds but early Norwich City fans, all highly suited to building as the extra finger of inbred-wrought polydactyly gave them astonishing grip). Secondly, it shows why everyone around here, in the 20th, is a tight fisted scrooge who would steal the croque right out of your monsieur and why everyone near the louvre, in the 1st, is an impoverished drunk. The arroindissements are sometimes called quarters because too much fannying about with the metric system left the nation unable to count.

The history of the name Gambetta itself has been somewhat harder to trace. My internet research threw up (excuse me) a number of possibilities. The Gambetta method, as famed by the much loved American sports hero Vern Gambetta, seemed the most likely. The main aim of this method is, I quote; “to develop Athleticism, the ability to perform athletic movements.” A vital skill, as any athlete will tell you, and one that many forms of exercise seem to foolishly neglect, such as the popular ‘stillness sports program’ of the late seventies. Vern also tells us; “a healthy athlete is an oxymoron,” which is just one syllable away from what I believe. Since I could find no direct link to Paris, I decided this couldn’t be my man and I was also disappointed to find that nowhere in the blurb did it say ‘Gambetta; we’ll make your game betta’.

I also came across Leon Gambetta, a one eyed Frenchman who gave Tours of Paris in a hot air balloon to avoid doing any work for the government. During one of these Tours he got so lost that he ended up in Spain. Later in life, after blowing enough hot air to finally return himself to the capital, the subject of governmental work came up again. He, still disgusted by the idea, shot himself so hard that he got cancer and died at 44. Quite why you would name an area after this man is beyond me so I’ve decided that it must be from the lesser known Italian guitarist Beppe Gambetta, in honour of his 2008 album Rendez-vous.

The House of Windowless Rooms

Today, I betrayed Queen and country by committing the vilest treason I was able; I began to teach the locals my mother tongue (not my actual mother’s tongue as she swears like a sailor after her second breakfast G&T. In fact, if the air’s not blue before noon, I can only assume she’s passed out or throwing herself at the gardener again). I was left with little choice as there are few skills that are valued here, other than the aloofness and sluggishness beloved by the service industry. I’m working from a hovel out by L’Arc de Triomphe, which was built by Napoleon to celebrate getting his first motorcycle and to give him and all the other appalling French drivers something to aim for when they blundered their way up the Champs-Élysées. The office is run by a bitter Norwegian shrew, who has no more business being involved with the language than I do playing prop for the Harlequins.

My first assignment was out in zone 3 at a place called La Defense. It appears to be some sort of financial district, perhaps explaining why it was so empty; they’re probably all in Greece, stealing hubcaps and taking back the silverware. It’s also a practise ground for French architects, leaving an incoherent sprawl of blocks, spikes, towers and bugger me if they didn’t build a second bloody ‘triumphant arch’. It’s spectacularly named Le Grande Arch (didn’t need to be Voltaire to come up with that one) and was commissioned by Mitterrand in the 80s to celebrate the fact that the French could now build cars that could stay together more than the length of the Champs-Élysées so would therefore need something else to aim for, which is why they are both in line. It looks like it’s made of Lego and, surprise surprise, it was designed by 2 Danes. It would have been no great shock to walk in and find the walls papered with bacon and bloody cinnamon pastries.

I was shoved into a lift by an usher with many years service experience and I eventually found my way through a series of sterile corridors to a single, windowless room. A Hundred metre tall building and I get four blank walls and a carpet the colour of vomit. After an age, in walked Joseph, Ines and Estelle and eternity began. Inspired by the carpet, they spoke English like they were spewing bile and chunks and the best I could do was hold their hair out the way and tell them it’s would be alright. After 2 hours, they left, giving me ten minutes to mop up what was left of my resolve for the next group, who were no better. As Jean-Paul Satre said of the French; ‘He’ll be other people’ meaning – they’re all the bloody same.

Houston, il y a une probleme.

54 years ago today the Russians sent a dog called Licker into space, partly just for the fun of it and also because their Sat Nav had broken so they were trying to get to the moon by smell (which is something Gagarin complained of while in orbit so clearly Licker was a pooper as well). That said, this was no mean feat by a country on it’s knees. I mention this to give you some comparison of the difficulties I came across today. I was not trying to get into space, merely a few kilometres up the road and yet I, like Licker, found it all dreadfully confusing and almost slumped, similarly drooling, against the window of the metro as the hours past.

There are a number of issues with the Parisian underground system. The first is that it smells like Licker has marked his territory all over it, making sure no other dogs try to explore it. The second is that the stations are all devilishly unpronounceable and even when they look reasonable they come out of the tannoy mangled like Licker on re-entry into an indistinguishable tangle of spit and gristle.

Then, continuing our Russian theme, we come to Stalingrad! This stop in the north east has probably caused the death of much more than a paltry 2 million soldiers and civilians. It is a warren easily comparable to the smoking rubble that clung to the Volga and trying to make your way between the lines requires stealth, resilience, peak physical health and a casual disregard for human life. Much like the Germans, I naively put my faith in ‘the power of the will’ and my sanity was the inevitable casualty. I ended up in a taxi, leaving the one HiWi who’d tried to give me directions to fend for herself.

The whole reason for my invasion of the Parisian heartland was to sample some of its much lauded culture. I finally tracked down the venue I was after by waving a flier at the taxi driver who gesticulated in Gallic insubordination before consenting to empty my wallet for a 30 second rampage around 2 corners. Didn’t have enough spirit to complain. I  dashed into the venue and thrust some randomly denominated notes at a girl at the desk and was ushered to a cheap plastic seat behind 3 giants and a pillar; silence descended.

A mannish looking Japanese woman appeared and proceeded to spend 30 minutes crawling around an origami duck. If this was interpretive dance, I think someone had mistranslated somewhere between hiking her children’s pyjamas high enough to dissect her and recording a one armed stroke victim playing a xylophone as backing music. The second half was a big improvement as I managed to find a cushion. A feminine chap from Laos took to the stage and there was no misunderstanding the message here, as he curled neatly into the foetal position, washed by delicate piano. So, as instructed, I went to sleep.

I chategorically fail to find a flat

Today, by no means as a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that my hostess is an incomprehensible hag with vinegar on her tongue and sand in her crevices, I began searching for an apartment. I’m not looking for anything fancy, just a place to plant the flag, put my feet up and watch David Attenborough (not Jacques Costeau, get bored of all the water, what about the other animals Jack, you water Nazi? Fascism runs in the family, clearly. Although at least Pierre, who was somewhere while Jacques fannied about, kept it quiet. Bloody Richard Attenborough was everywhere, living off his brother’s fame. What did he ever do except play Santa?).

But it seems my moderate aspirations are the insane delusions of a feckless dreamer. For the average London price here you would barely get enough room for a cat, let alone to swing one. The cat would also possibly need to sublet. The first place I visited had an entire kitchen painted by a backwards 5 year old and the man I thought was the landlord was in fact aiming to be my future roommate; the tour of the flat took roughly 11 steps and I was quick to hot foot it once I realised I was paying for a fold out camping stool to lie on in the corner of this man’s bedroom. I’m surprised it didn’t have a bowl next to it. I am the cat who sleeps by himself, thank you very much.

The next joint seemed better but the fellow was rather shifty and it turns out he’s subletting a subletted sublet, the mind boggles; You’re waiting for a train.. Well listen, I told him, I’m not here to be jollied around just to have the real landlord turn up and throw me out on my ear. You can play no pranks with Skimbleshanks. I marched out once again but truth be told the whole affair was beginning to get to me rather. Doesn’t help that you can’t just pop into a place and get some tea, it’s all café au lait if you s’il vous plait; coffee is so…so…self-righteous, don’t you think? I’m not wholly against the stuff it’s just that tea should be the bread and butter drink and the fact that it’s like a rare novelty over here frankly takes the biscuit.

At the final place of the day, I found myself being interviewed by a smug Swiss girl who, in all her attempted kooky charm, took great pains to explain to me how she’d made her dress herself. It looked like she’d glued bits of curtain to her very recently jettisoned training bra. I matched the inanity of her questions with a disinterested vagueness and I think she mistook this for philosophical chic; by god she was cracking onto me by the end of it, flexing her new found puberty right in my bloody face. I escaped, for the third time that day, by a whisker.