Stick 'em up !

B pour Baguette.

Just came back from my boulangerie, not too long before that I sprang out of my bed alerted by the sunshine dappling over my face - it's a beautiful day, Spring has sprung. (There, used all 3 conjugations of the verb)
And walked around with a solatic smile on my face and arms raised, palms outward soaking in the sweet, sweet vitamin D until the roasting vapours of the bakery sent their ephemeral invisible hooks into my odorat organs.

Bread!

Now here comes further instruction in Parisian, and French in general, social interaction.
As an Irish person you should know that once you decide to come and live in Paris, and most places in europe actually, you have to face two important nutrional lacks in your life.
Milk and bread, those basic cornerstones of a hearty diet are simply not the same.
You can say goodbye to fresh, full cow-juice and hello to UHT powdered horror, demi écreme that never seems to go sour, even if you leave it in the press for a month. The press!!
I've found a replacement, lait entier which you can get from the supermarket in plastic bottles but it's nowhere near fresh and hasn't got that same invigorating taste as Irish bainne.
Back in the summer of 2006 I remember feeling the early onset of rickets, really hearing the grinding of bone on brittle bone in my knees and elbows as my body tried to nourish itself on UHT, so I'm on to mulitvitamin supplements.

It's a price I pay for quality théâtre.

And bread.
You won't be able to get your hands on anything homologeous to white fluffy, fresh sliced pans the likes of Brennans or Johnston, Mooney and O'Brien, you know those waxy paper packets which you can bury your nose in and inhale great gusts of childhood. Because the bread industry is totally different. Or rather, there is no industry, no big bakeries, just boulangeries, little boulangeries vieying every day (except mondays) for your palate.
And they don't make sliced pans. A crude American artifice it's seen as, and if you go to the supermarket you can find, neglected on the shelves packets of 'American Style sandwich bread' but it tastes abominable, way too sugary and can't withstand a buttering, the knife ploughing through it's feeble surface, the butter not budging from the blade.

But that's fine with me, because there is nothing like the Saturday morning baguette, or the afterwork demi-baguette bought on the fly on the way home. Well, the second being harder and just a full one cut in half from earlier in the day rather than a specially made demi from the morning which is.... anyway, I'm losing myself here, the point is -it's heavenly and I, like everyone else, can never resist biting the end of mine as I leave the shop such is the thrall of it's crusty fragrance.
In fact, under French law it is illegal to walk more than seven paces from a boulangerie without tasting your baguette. This is totally true yet, interesingly enough, nobody knows what the punishment for this cardinal sin is because nobody has yet being able to do it.
I'm betting it's directly to the guillotine though.

However, it's not so easy the boulangerie, oh no no no it's not !
This is why it shouldn't really be risked by foreigners, and generally isn't as the queues and obscure codage and systems frightens them off, as it did me for months.
So, only the French are customers then for the women behind the counter don't put up with any guff so let me tell you how it goes down -

First of all there are two doors, one for going in, one for going out, don't choose the wrong one as you'll either get pushed out of the way with a shaft of hardened dough in your eye or crushed by the automatic door. Go to the entrance where the queue is, logically enough.

Have your plan in mind already, know what it is you want to buy before you get in the queue, you can do this by looking at the sign on the window or the blackboard in the shop as you'll get asked what you want even if you're at the end of the queue sometimes, this shit moves rapidly and if you faff around you'll get oh la la'd out of it and given a mowldy stick.

So when you hear 'Monsieur bonjour" being cried at you in an osscilating ostrich voice which actually sounds like 'MeeeesYoBojyUUUUaaahuuu!?" with a question mark at the end that's your cue to rapidly respond what you want, in what quantity and how well cooked.
Those are the three things they want to hear and nothing else.
So, AFTER you say bonjour madame/mademoiselle or Monsieur you ask maybe for three baguettes, not too cooked and you can also specify the type from complet (extra fibre) campagne (grainy) céreal (even granier) aux noix (nutty) and a whole host of others depending on the particular shop and it's specialities, usually the array is flummoxing.
A fraction of a second later your order will be in your hand and the lady will have shrilled something at you that you'll have missed, it sounds like 'Sasratooo??" and here you can't hesitate or you'll be baled out of it, she's asking if you want anything else, and by now, you don't as you should have asked for it already and if you start going back on your tracks the old lady behind you in the queue will start making that Pffffffff blowing of the lips sound in frustration behind you.

Exit by the exit door.

Another great thing about the boulangerie and patisserie are the cakes and tarts and fancy what nots on offer. And how you can order any sort of cake your imagination can come up with, and the frankly, quite gay joy you feel when walking out with the lovingly packaged and ribboned delicacy.

All that remains then is to share your Sunday morning tarte aux fraise or mille-feuille with a sulking french girl in order to bring her back to sunshine.

Works a treat.

Gastropodopolis

Because there is nothing that can be recommended more in life than living in Paris it can be easy for me to forget that the reality behind the dream requires that you be possesed of a soul and heart and calves of caste iron to withstand the systems, the moeurs and the peoplehood.
I've been here a bit now and already I've seem 'em come and go. Irish, American, Scottish, Australian, New Zealander, Canadian, English, whatever, I've seem at least one and often many of each of the main anglophone groups arrive with great romantic notions and energy only to have the inner, more difficult to access Paris denied to them due to their inability to handle their affairs or deal with the remorseless administration. Or even to be able to handle the sheer violence of the simplest matters like buying a stamp without having your ego torn apart and handed back to you with a disdainful sniff.
And so they head home after a couple of months - broken. Forever.
And if it's not the people, the systems, the tax, the impossibleness of lodgement that get them it's......l'amour.
And believe me, nobody gets out of that alive in this city.
I remember meeting a bloke in Abbeyleix back in Ireland over the Christmas who had spent a year or so here. When asked about it, he blanched, said, with a stutter that 'it...it put..f...fucking YEARS on me" then he held his forehead in his hand for a very long time as his shoulders heaved. I left it at that. I knew his type. He was now one of the Great Parislysed.
So with that in mind, I think it's up to me, one who, having faced the fathoms in these deeps and finished up, after I must admit several periplés, growing the necessary troisiéme peau so that now I can swim with the electric eels of Lutece with impunity - to write bit of advice here on this blog to perhaps prepare anymore foolhardy hard fools after me.
So let me start at the start, go through the middle, and perhaps finish at the end. I'm feeling classic. The next few entries here will correspond to our greek alphabet, of which you should be familiar.

A pour Arrondissment.

Paris is one big snail.
The numbered districts unfurl out from the centre to form an escargot shell and each have their own individual flavour (like snails themselves, mmm) which any Parisian knows innately. They often talk of these numbers rather than names of places so it's a good idea to have a vague idea what they mean. Or where you have the slightest hope of living. I'll make this brief by pointing out the most important thing in each area and labelling it what the locals sometimes do to give you the overall gist and follow with the HOLT (hope of living there) factor on a scale of 1 to 10.

1th - Louvre, etc.

Expensive, tourist ridden area at one end but also includes bloody Châtelet the main interjunction shithole of the metro. Beautiful along the river nonetheless. HOLT -0

2th - Bourse

Which means both treasury and scrotum in French. Elite interior financial and governmental area. Spookily quiet and beautiful in it's reserved austerity right in the heart of the city. You've also got the amazing Opera Garnier. HOLT-0

3th - Marais. (the swamp)

The gay area. Chic, classy, sassy, glassy, bassy, oh monsieur your knees are grassy!
There's actually a lot more to do here than merely sitting around being gay. I quite like it actually. But if you ARE gay, well, you're in for a treat and many an American fag comes here, gets used and abused and set fudge-packing home in tears. These queers take no prisoners.
HOLT - 0.5 (if you become a rentboy)

4th - Bobo.

Years ago I remember Zig And Zag going to Paris and having only one line which they used in every situation. It was "Ou est le centre de George Pompidou?" Well, that line won't get you very far (it's not even polite enough to start with) but here, my muppet pals from long ago, you will find it. And it's a magnificent art venue, always intriguing, mutating and inviting. Best view of the city from the top at twilight. This arrondissment is a curious mixture of tourist and true-blue Parisan who live on the island of St.Louis, which you will NEVER live on.
HOLT - Minus 20

5th - Sorbonne

Haughty student area, when you hear people talk about "the left bank" or the "Latin Quarter" well, this it. This is ACTUALLY it, the original of the species, and it's amazing, IF you know how to deal with it with getting ripped off or mocked openly. And unfortunately the only way to do that is either not be a foreigner or pretend really hard not to be a foreigner. But why, am I bothering, all of the people who frequent this place are smarter than most people I know, and definitely smarter than me, there's little fooling them. Greatest bookshops in the world here. It's paradise basically if can unlock it's secrets. HOLT - Minus 10

6th - St Germain.

Like above only more residential and perhaps that bit more expensive. The only thing you can do without having to take out a loan is play pétanque in jardin du Luxembourg. But be ready to have old men scoff and scorn your pathetic ball-lancing skills. You miserable roastbeef.
HOLT - Minus 15

7th - Trocadero

The real one, not the sham one in London. Here, if you come at the right time at dusk and stand at the low wall after the courtyard to look beyond the fountains see the Eiffel Tower and the champs de mars beyond framed by Les Invalides......you will begin to understand, you will begin to understand..
HOLT, a surprising 1, if you decide to live in a carton under the bridge with the rest of your bum friends.

8th -Champs Elysées.

You can come and walk along and enjoy the pulse and bustle but you won't be able to buy anything in any of the shops, but they will let you come in just to laugh and point heartily at your shoes and the disparity between the rent or mortgage you pay and the products they have on display.
HOLT - hah hahhhahaa! ohh! (wipes tear from eye)

9th - Pigalle
Sex district. If you want to buy sex or things to do with sex then here's your dive. Funny place really, you can either pay one euro to go into a booth at Sex-O-Drome or FuckCitee and watch a naked woman pleaure herself or pay 40 euro and watch a naked woman pleasure herself less convincingly at Crazy Horse or Moulin Rouge. It's your move Big Player.....
HOLT - 2

10th - Gare Du Nord.

Avoid.
HOLT - 1 But you won't live long enough to enjoy it.

11th - République.

One of the last places in the Western world where you can still buy games for the Neo Geo, Master System or SNES.
HOLT - 2

12th - Bastille

This is a place of fun and hedonism which gets a little blue later on, so make sure you stay when you see it getting mauve or violet as the real shindig is on the way. But caution, you'll miss the last metro and be FUCKED if you want to get a taxi, so try and ask where the bus-stop, once you've been mugged by that guy, go to the central pillar and try and fight your way onto a bus, when on the bus keep your eyes down and don't reveal yourself as an anglophone at all costs unless it's a girl.
HOLT - 1

13th - Bibliothéque

Chez moi.
The top half is oriental of all shades and the bottom half is french village, a charming combination and I live in the latter half. The most well behaved Chinatown you'll ever find and very few English speakers, no tourists. Larvly.
HOLT - 1

14th - Montparnasse.

That big dark finger pointing accusingly at the sky is the only skyscraper they ever allowed built in the city and people either love it or hate if for that. I used to work in it on the 18th floor actually, how do I feel about it? After relfection, I either Late it or Hove it.
This is where you can eat proper crépes as it's Breton territory.

15th - Just known as the Quinziéme.

I used to live here too, in a flat the size of a lilliputian matchbox. Two types of people in this mostly residential area -Well off catholics and their rampant kids, or illegal arabs stuffed into the cracks in between. Once again, a schizophrenic mix that somehow functions.
I went completely mad here once don't you know? That was......interesting.
HOLT- 1

16th - Charles De Gaulle

Well, not really as that étoile straddles 17th and 8th but somehow you always end up there from here. Just stand and watch the traffic chaos around the Arc, from there walk back up towards Concorde and you're understanding will deepen if weather conditions permit.
HOLT -0

17th - ?

Is a place of mystery, nobody knows what goes on in there. Nothing goes in, nothing comes out.
It's locked down so tight that ********cette ligne a été supprimé par ordre du conseil executive du dix-septiéme @ Paris. Merci pour votre inattention*************

HOL*****On a dit chutt!!*****

18th - Montmartre

Well, we've already seen the bollocks, so here is the heart.
Again, the true wonder hides itself prudently from the teeming masses of tourists and the endless uphill struggle of the place forces many to renounce. But there is true magic in that that hill. Every brick is held together coquettishly by tromperie, deceit, lust, love and disappointment.
It's all poetry.
HOLT - For one night, you can fall in love with a local, spend the best night of your life, then spend the rest of it trying to feel like that again, before dying alone, unsatisfied.

19th - Black people
HOLT - That depends how much game you got, shorty

20th - Arabs
HOLT - That depends on how much game you deprive yourself of, my brother.


I'm sorry, I couldn't write a blog about arrondissments without letting rascism slip in somewhere, man I've been living here t..........quite long.


Till B.

Here I am, Here I stay

I think it would be remiss of me not to notify my fellow Gaels of an interesting snippet of table-quiz trouncing knowledge (If only that noble pursuit hadn't long ago been annihilated by rapid evolution and abuse of internet capable portable telephones and similar devices) though for a time I'd considered guarding it jealously for myself to add to the pile of accrued wisdom which I will reflect back on at the end of my life and cackle in pleasure at - this forbidden lore known only to a select few.

But I'll let you in on this one, seeing as you're probably Radge, and there is a relevance.
So, if you want to amuse and astound your brethren, sit back, cross your legs, jut your lower lip in concentration, squint your eyes and heed my words of education.

Once upon a time, a distinguished family from Limerick, the Mac-Mahons saw the light and moved to France, there they lived long, fruitful cheese-fulfilled lives and produced a son by the name of Patrice.
Unlike so many of his fellow emmigrants young Paddy enjoyed a luxurious and privileged life and so logically sought to ease his ennui through military service. So off he went to Algeria to kill people, and he enjoyed himself immensely in this until being shot. But people were made of sterner stuff back then so he got over it and soon was back merrily killing people again, and effectively, so much so that he became General of the Foreign Legion - the most infamous and murderous of all French regiments.
So efficiently bloodthirsty and cunning was Paddy that, having acquitted himself well in the Crimean War and other engagements Napoleon the Third made him a Duke. Nice one!
Paddy loved killing arabs, that's for sure, but when the Germanic folk started acting up he soon showed that he was just as dextrous at killing those filthy Prussian dogs too. Only problem was, there were far too many of them and better organised, so Paddy had to let hundreds of his own men die before he figured out that he'd better retreat and figure out how to deal with the Hun. But it was all right, as they were Alsatians, nearly German themselves sure, thought Paddy.
Worse was to come though, as he decided to follow Napoleon to Sedan, and we all know how that ended. As for Paddy, he got shot again. Everything looked fucked.
But chance was to come his way, as in the aftermath of that disastrous conflict for France, disgruntled workers and bookish types with those John Lennon round glasses started asking for this that and the other and wanted to run the show according to new fangled ideas like social democracy and autonomy. Bollocks to that! Thought the upper classes and establishment and so each side thought it best to try and solve the situation through the time honoured method of bloodshed and murder.
T'was a bloody week.
But in the end Duke Paddy Mac-Mahon, who was leading the Versailles troops managed to get the upper hand and the Communards gave it up. After this surrender Paddy, keeping his eye on the ball, played his trump card - he had pretty much the whole lot of them, and thousands of other workers, rounded up and killed.
That's what they get!
This sort of thing looked great on a CV back then and so it was to pass that Paddy became nominated the first and only French President of Limerick origins. A job he did for six years.
Now, if you go to Charles De Gaulle Etoile, you can take one of the mighty avenues that come off this impressive star, one of which is Avenue Mac-Mahon, in honour of this fine killer of men.
And of course he left French history with one of it's fondest, and funniest military quotes -

La fièvre typhoïde est une maladie terrible. Ou on en meurt, ou on en reste idiot. Et je sais de quoi je parle, je l'ai eue.


To Mac-Mahon!

(clink)

Chinese Gooseberries all round!

I've just discovered the kiwi!

Let me explain. You see, all my life I've avoided eating kiwis just on the basis that they look like a German Shepard's ball bag. And they do. That's fairly indisputable. So I happily went about my life plucking kiwi pieces out of fruit salads, avoiding kiwi milkshakes, and generally living a gentle, undisturbed or remarked-upon kiwi-free existence.

But I was wrong.

The other day in the caféteria they had no mandarins left, what was I to do then in order to round off my dessert? Quandry you see, as I'd already eaten a banana that morning and the apples had nothing going for them. So I decided, well, what's a kiwi next to a horse's dick? And so I took a couple and put them on my tray, all the while fidgeting nervously knowing that hardened kiwi-eaters were looking on with suspicion as I ineptly handled them. You seem to just have to rotate two kiwis in your hand, and that leads the mind into dark, dark places.... But anyway, when it came to eating them I didn't know what to do. I started to peel them mandarin-style but it wasn't working out, the skin was tough and not coming off in smooth peels but in little unglorious bits, I was destroying the kiwi.
Panic!!

I could feel the gazes of others on me as I put it down and pretended I wanted to eat something else, but there was nothing else left on the plate, I had to keep going! I started to eat it like an apple, but there wasn't enough peel gone and I could only get my incisors in there and scrape out miserable shreds, juice getting on my cheeks, stares of gallic reproach lancing into me from all corners of the restaurant. I was fucking up in front of my peers!!! But then suddenly it didn't matter.......the taste....this taste that I had for no good reason denied myself for so long....I'd never tasted a kiwi before. They are gorgeous. In fact, now I rate them one of the best fruits of all time because unlike most other fruits....YOU CAN EAT THE PIPS!! What a revelation. And so I have learned the true way of eating them, like a boiled egg, scooping them with a spoon. Well, what more can I say but that the old French saying is true, 'never be put off by food that looks like a nutsac, unless it's actually hanging off an animal'

The Kiwi, the fruit so good it could almost apply for meat status.

And it would have a good case for getting it!





*********STOP THE PRESS*********
Additional pertinent kiwi information discovered post blog.

Kiwifruit also serves as a natural blood thinner. A recent study performed at the University of Oslo in Norway reveals that--similar to popular mainstream aspirin therapy-consuming two to three kiwifruit daily for 28 days significantly thins the blood, reducing the risk of clots, and lowers fat in the blood that can cause blockages.[10]

Perspective through the dendrites

Crunching through the freshly packed Parisian snow yesterday the cold reached such an intensity that I did a deed I hadn't done in years.
I pulled up my scarf to cover my nose.
Strange memories came to me then with the stifling, prickly sensation of icy wool on the muzzle as I bore on against the incessantly falling flakes towards the crisply glittering lights of La Défense.
Fractal memories of shivering in another epoch, similarly wrapped, standing atop a truck dangerously over-laden with fossil fuel, itself frosted over. The scaldingly cold pain as rime-covered plastic bale twine cuts into finger joints. Or slippery coal sacks rip free from numb digits. Freezing Saturday mornings spent like that, with glimpses of other kids through windows enjoying the cartoons.
Well, that was a bummer.

But that being said, and hard work aside, I had a great childhood. And an animal adolescence.
And a brilliant life now.

And as the temperatures drop again, and I make it back to mon quartier and notch up the heating in all the rooms, I notice the homeless guys outside. Then turn to the TV to see Palestinien kids getting blown asunder.

I'm a lucky, lucky man.

From where I'm sitting

From where I'm sitting, Ireland has a strange look to it.

So much so that at first glance I hardly recognised her. She uttered my name with a hint of hesitation on my way past and we both chuckled with our lack of instant reconnection. And as I had been hearing nothing but the despairing wails of financial discord drifting over the electronic and marine waves these past six months I couldn't help but notice the disparity between those pessimistic caterwaulings and the emminently comfortable lifestyles being pursued.
Instead of hollowed-out gimlets staring at the empty walls in arch despondence, from where I'm squinting I see glimmering eyes fixed on acres of flat-screen plasma TV surface as expensive sports coverage packages pass.
Rather than frugal and cautious belt-tightening meals there are great swathes of swine hewn down as replacement for the burned dioxin-riddled carcasses in order to supply an unflagging hunger for sausage and rasher to round out already bloated family menus.
Is there any other interior design apart from sofly lit beige and bone-white minimalism, with decking and darkwood furniture, and of course leather couches? Not from where I'm lounging. And sipping Perlenbacher, or Adelscott, or Leffe. Getting hard to find yourself offered a can of Smithwicks.
From where I'm jostling, this car is mega-long, scarily silent, and the dashboard is as wide as I am from foot to forehead.
It must be easy to be an apprentice burglar these days. You just go to any new housing estate, master breaking into one beige house and you have the knack. Every house has the same layout, you could do it in your sleep, or preferably, the owner's. Great atmosphere around here too I hear said from where I'm frowning, very quiet seems to be the desired quality. More important than life or vibrancy. But they say they'll build a Centra soon, and a pub in a few years. The markets permitting.
From where I'm quaking, everyone is forcing themselves to enjoy themselves as they play poker. Texas Hold'Em is the sarky succesor to Trival Pursuit. Ah yes, a game where pure chance, deception, ego, bravado, lieing and one-upsmanship apports the victor the spoils. A game that can't be played for a pleasure un-accompanied by monetary gain. A game I suspect people try desperately to like more than they actually do so that either harmony reigns or they don't feel left out. A game that is no more or less boring than rolling a dice and betting on the outcome.
Across the glass minnarets completely covering the bar table there are seven former brunettes who fail to convince me of their blondeness but succeed in conveying their blandness.
From where I'm shrugging they can look my way all night, even talk to me, and never understand how I feel towards them. I'm willing to bet they'd be surprised.
From where I'm listening, these accents sound strange.
From where I'm standing, the words I get in edgeways seem to come out sideways.

From where I'm from seems to be gone.

Certa-tude

I had searched with great determination and thirst to find a watering-hole I could call my own, or could call me it’s own, until I found what I can now proudly call my local.
Most of the places crossed off the list fell into one of three F categories – too false, too French or too fucking expensive.

False as in those hickety hoo ‘Irish’ bars where not one of the staff comes from our island and can’t recount the history of the stuff hung on the walls or the characters that frequented in the past. And the supposedly Hibernian food on the menu bears little resemblance to anything you have ever scranned on. Apparently we eat a lot more quail than you would think. There’s no balding, white shirted, sleeve-rolled up barman called Shay to tell you how the GAA got on or who he fancies at Punchestown. Ah, I tell a small untruth here, you can get that at Corcoran’s in Pigalle, but tellingly, if you walk just a few yards down to O’ Sullivan’s you’ll be back in a foreign land. However, saying that now, Dublin is getting fierce like that too these days. But at least there is a good quantity of bastions of solid pubbery. Just look at the list on Radge’s blog. Or ask Radge, he knows pub.

However, what I meant by French was the ambiance. The people themselves are grand but just don’t comport themselves as you would expect in an Irish pub from the heartlands say. Alright, they just don’t drink enough, you get me. They have a half, and go somewhere else, talk amongst themselves. Don’t sit and fester, getting ever so maudlin around 7 pints before letting the head sink despairingly into the folded arms in front. Like real folk.
And that’s fine. But for serious drinking, I needed more.
(I believe I needn’t clarify the ‘too fucking expensive’ category)

And so it was that one portentous evening I found myself sat at bar Certa.
The buzz was different, there was a calm that spoke of things to come, and the very walls resonated with the accumulated laughter of revelers of quality. And as usual I tried to speak to those around me, and lo! They answered, and reacted and in moments I knew I was among friends. You can see the glimmering in certain people’s eyes, like a pack intelligence, they have evolved to know who is cool and who isn’t, who gets it and doesn’t, if you are doted with this gland give thanks to Darwin and the blind watchmaker for you are amongst kings of the earth.
Folken like this can spot each other a mile off, and I knew I was in a certain sense, in my right place.

The ease of camaraderie, the relentless welcome, and the, dare I say it, trust, I have found in this, what amounts to one single long room, is something precious. I drink until closing time, mouth running at double team, conversation flowing like mead at a banquet, then drink later with the barstaff, all around Paris, here there and anywhere. Good lads and girls, French but sound, not a given that.

And what is more. The history, unknownst to me until recently, gives me great pleasure indeed. For I have discovered, first through the Princess of Chesnay and then expanded on further by the Patron Jean-Luc himself that this bar was the haunt of none other than one of my utter heroes, Salvador Dali himself, and his band of cohorts.

Yes, the Emperor of Montmartre and I both were drawn to this place; it all begins to make sense. And not just he, other notable characters too, and get this, Winston Churchill liked to come here on his Parisian trips.

Little wonder then that I find myself inspired as I sit sloped on the bar, hunched over my notebook, writing feverishly, automatically, sipping Affligem, turning and regaling all around. I have put some nice lines together, wrapped up in an unbelievably living atmosphere.
Important and terrible and hopeful and hurtful lines, but honest ones.

There are ups and downs at Bar Certa, but I think I’m on the right way.