Down and Out in London and Paris *
I fly in early in the morning, and I’m too tired for words – I didn’t sleep much the night before or on the plane (despite the comfortable lounge chairs they give us at the pointy end). Flying in is like anywhere – I used to think that every city looked different from the air, and the cities do, but they rarely fly us directly over a city these days, and airports are all starting to blend into one – a big field in the middle of nowhere. De Gaulle’s runways are miles from the terminal, and they let us out away from the buildings and down the stairs like a throwback to the old days, and I look back at all of the planes lined up and waiting as if for an officer’s inspection on a parade ground.
The buildings give it away, of course – those great combinations of concrete, steel and glass that look like video sets for dance tracks on MTV (generally because they are) mean I’m back in Europe, and it feels like a sort of homecoming. I head for the taxi rank and I’m thinking of the credits of Frantic – I can almost hear the Arabic music and see the beaded drivers seat – but the queue is too long, so I head down to the massive RER terminal, jump on, and watch France turn into Paris as it glides past my window. Gare du Nord becomes Les Halles, and I walk up and out and I’m here again, in the neighbourhood I last saw about 6 months and a lifetime ago. Walk by the Pompidou, and that friend of a friend’s apartment block I stayed in that fateful weekend, the bar we drank in, the Palais Royal garden we walked through, the restaurant we laughed (and were hungover) in.
Shower and change at the hotel, and look out the window at the Louvre across the road, and smile at how life can give me a job which allows me to do this, then down to the Metro, passing through all those stops that seem so familiar to me. Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast in my pocket, telling me his reminiscences of the town while I replay my own, and out to a grey, damp La Defense, a part of town I’ve never been to before. It’s a brilliant idea, of course – I’ve always admired the thought process that put all the high rises out of town a bit, keeping the city low and human, beautiful and livable. But La Defense looks incredible too – taller buildings, but huge open spaces between them make you feel impressed without being overwhelmed by scale, an ant in a farm. The Grand Arch lives up to it’s name, sitting at an odd angle – so French – with a pedestrian boulevard flanked by the sweep and flow of buildings curved and sloping, all differently sized, down to the river, with the line continuing on up the hill to the Arc de Triomphe, peering imperiously back at you.
I’m here for work, of course, but it’s lunch time, and I know better than to try and find a Frenchman in the office at this time of day. So into FNAC for a browse, checking out all the great music I can’t find in the US, where the idea of cutting edge music is Green Day, and then off for some lunch. I love eating in France – in other countries lunch means McDonalds, maybe Pret a Manger if you’re trying to be upmarket, but fast food rubbish really, no matter what sort of a spin you put on it, and generally eaten at your desk while you work. France stops. And eats. Even a simple omelette is a thing of beauty, of joy.
After the meeting I think about walking back, but it’s too late in the year and the rain drives me back to the Metro. I still walk around the garden at the Palais Royal though, and admire the small shops selling their bits and pieces all around the courtyard. It seems odd that all the individual shops can maintain their existence while, across the channel, the ‘nation of shopkeepers’ has turned the high streets into a collection of franchises, each identical to every other. People mock the French for their attitudes – I’ve done it myself – but Paris is still a city where everyone, regardless of social standing, can live well, eat well, and enjoy life in their own way. The only confusing thing is the attitude given out to the world by Parisians. Maybe the surliness is there as a shield – if they were too nice everyone would want to move here …
The next morning I have time to kill before my train, so I head downstairs for breakfast, watching the world pass by the square outside the window on it’s way to work, before deciding to have a stroll through my memories. In another life I rode around northern Europe with Eyman before basing ourselves on the other side of town, so it’s inevitable that I end up at Felix Faure to see how much other people’s lives have changed. The 3 Ducks Hostel is still there, but the ramshackle place of memory has become a modern, upscale destination for young Eurailers. The massive wall is still there, of course, with the spikes on top thrusting up and out and lying in wait – it seems unlikely that anyone climbs over it these days, maybe getting wedged between the points due to one too many drinks consumed in the dead of night in a seedy bar in the neighbourhood, and that seems a shame.
And I’m walking down the road, and the sky is blue and shining, and it feels like I’m walking through my childhood, through my neighbourhood. The names roll by, and the memories too – Commerce, La Motte Picquet, the fruit market, the Moroccan restaurant, the park in the square, Ecoile Militaire, the overhead train line and the metro below. And I turn the corner and the Eiffel tower towers and it makes me laugh. I walk through the park, past the young wedding couple (on a Wednesday – how strange), and that big brown pile of steel and dreams just gets bigger and bigger.
The queues are too long, of course, so I give up on going up the tower yet again, saying as always that next time I’ll go up again, and I wonder if I will – maybe it’s best to leave it a memory of a nine year old boy with eyes like saucers. Maybe the world wants it that way – strikes and queues are merely hints. So onward as ever, across the river and past the fountains – working today – and up the stairs for one last look for the mental photo album, and out past the Palais de Chaillot and onto the street. The inbuilt compass directs me now, and all I have to do is follow. Down the hill, the sun streaming, and all of Paris is here for me – the food market, produce fresh from the fields, the abattoir, the sea; the voices calling your attention to an aubergine here, some langostine there; past the corner café, the waiters starched white and upright; down the street who’s name I’ve forgotten already, with every designer known and unknown, each one trying to understate each other, wanting to look like they need sales even less than their neighbour; the American accents with no volume control bouncing off the walls, a cringing reminder of where I’ve come from.
And then I’m on Champs Elysees and I think oh yeah, of course, but I’m running out of time and I can’t head up the hill to the Arch, so I head down to Place de la Concorde, traffic buzzing around the queen bee of the obelisk, and across to the Ferris wheel, turning majestically, studiously ignoring comments about her larger cousin on the island next door, and through La Tuilleries, a sunny döppelganger of that morning earlier in the year. They do parks well here – you may have guessed. I take someone’s photo, she takes mine, and people stroll by, unable to maintain the Parisian façade of surliness as the sun smiles back at them. And I walk across the courtyard and by the pyramid, and I wonder if I’ll go into the Louvre on the day I scale the Tower. I hope so, I think, as I cross Rue Rivoli to get my luggage to head back to the Metro, to Gare St Lazare, to Le Havre. To work.
A train through France. One of my favourite things.
Le Havre is wrong – I won’t bore you with the details. I get to the Hotel Mercure, but the travel agent booked the wrong one (150km away), and there are no rooms tonight, so they book me into some crap place up the road instead. I place some calls to the States, for work and a moan at the hotel booker. It’s 21.00 before it’s done, and there’s nothing for it but to take a stroll around the streets, the gloom pulled around me like a coat. But I find somewhere to eat and drink, to read a bit. It’s France – life can’t be too bad. Later I walk back, and the stars come out to watch.
The next day is all work, but you don’t want to hear about that, and I don’t want to tell you. Suffice to say that it meant I had to go to London, and I’m thrown around for a while before a 70°descent into City Airport, and the cabbie says ‘where to guv?’ and the answer is the Great Eastern Hotel, and an upgrade to a suite because they can’t find my room number, and it’s bigger than my apartment in Brooklyn. And I walk around, trying everything in the place like a kid and, eventually, to sleep as much as I can between ever more insane dreams.
Another day of work, but it’s not all bad – I get to walk into the old offices as if I’d never left, I get to drink with my mates, I get to see the stupendously drunk James, I get to smile and laugh with them, and as ever it’s one of life’s singular joys. And the next day I get to walk along the South Bank, seeing the sights on one of my favourite walks, and smile at the kids running around in the Indian summer, circling lovers old and young, past the new Tate and it’s useless, neglected bridge, the Oxo tower and it’s wharf, and push through the crowds to put a smile on Jon’s face as I drop in unannounced, the same way that I do to my sister later. We cross over to sit on the Peppermint Lounge and play tunes with some more of my favourite people, smiling and drinking because we can. And later, this time, I get sleep like a child.
I miss this place, I think the next day in Richmond Park, the wild life grazing and the roast dinner settling nicely, and I miss these people. I can go to the pub with the artists, and do, and it feels right. But the grand prix is on and I have to go, and it’s in the US, and it reminds me that my future is there. And maybe that’s alright too.
* with apologies to George Orwell.
(September 2000)
The buildings give it away, of course – those great combinations of concrete, steel and glass that look like video sets for dance tracks on MTV (generally because they are) mean I’m back in Europe, and it feels like a sort of homecoming. I head for the taxi rank and I’m thinking of the credits of Frantic – I can almost hear the Arabic music and see the beaded drivers seat – but the queue is too long, so I head down to the massive RER terminal, jump on, and watch France turn into Paris as it glides past my window. Gare du Nord becomes Les Halles, and I walk up and out and I’m here again, in the neighbourhood I last saw about 6 months and a lifetime ago. Walk by the Pompidou, and that friend of a friend’s apartment block I stayed in that fateful weekend, the bar we drank in, the Palais Royal garden we walked through, the restaurant we laughed (and were hungover) in.
Shower and change at the hotel, and look out the window at the Louvre across the road, and smile at how life can give me a job which allows me to do this, then down to the Metro, passing through all those stops that seem so familiar to me. Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast in my pocket, telling me his reminiscences of the town while I replay my own, and out to a grey, damp La Defense, a part of town I’ve never been to before. It’s a brilliant idea, of course – I’ve always admired the thought process that put all the high rises out of town a bit, keeping the city low and human, beautiful and livable. But La Defense looks incredible too – taller buildings, but huge open spaces between them make you feel impressed without being overwhelmed by scale, an ant in a farm. The Grand Arch lives up to it’s name, sitting at an odd angle – so French – with a pedestrian boulevard flanked by the sweep and flow of buildings curved and sloping, all differently sized, down to the river, with the line continuing on up the hill to the Arc de Triomphe, peering imperiously back at you.
I’m here for work, of course, but it’s lunch time, and I know better than to try and find a Frenchman in the office at this time of day. So into FNAC for a browse, checking out all the great music I can’t find in the US, where the idea of cutting edge music is Green Day, and then off for some lunch. I love eating in France – in other countries lunch means McDonalds, maybe Pret a Manger if you’re trying to be upmarket, but fast food rubbish really, no matter what sort of a spin you put on it, and generally eaten at your desk while you work. France stops. And eats. Even a simple omelette is a thing of beauty, of joy.
After the meeting I think about walking back, but it’s too late in the year and the rain drives me back to the Metro. I still walk around the garden at the Palais Royal though, and admire the small shops selling their bits and pieces all around the courtyard. It seems odd that all the individual shops can maintain their existence while, across the channel, the ‘nation of shopkeepers’ has turned the high streets into a collection of franchises, each identical to every other. People mock the French for their attitudes – I’ve done it myself – but Paris is still a city where everyone, regardless of social standing, can live well, eat well, and enjoy life in their own way. The only confusing thing is the attitude given out to the world by Parisians. Maybe the surliness is there as a shield – if they were too nice everyone would want to move here …
The next morning I have time to kill before my train, so I head downstairs for breakfast, watching the world pass by the square outside the window on it’s way to work, before deciding to have a stroll through my memories. In another life I rode around northern Europe with Eyman before basing ourselves on the other side of town, so it’s inevitable that I end up at Felix Faure to see how much other people’s lives have changed. The 3 Ducks Hostel is still there, but the ramshackle place of memory has become a modern, upscale destination for young Eurailers. The massive wall is still there, of course, with the spikes on top thrusting up and out and lying in wait – it seems unlikely that anyone climbs over it these days, maybe getting wedged between the points due to one too many drinks consumed in the dead of night in a seedy bar in the neighbourhood, and that seems a shame.
And I’m walking down the road, and the sky is blue and shining, and it feels like I’m walking through my childhood, through my neighbourhood. The names roll by, and the memories too – Commerce, La Motte Picquet, the fruit market, the Moroccan restaurant, the park in the square, Ecoile Militaire, the overhead train line and the metro below. And I turn the corner and the Eiffel tower towers and it makes me laugh. I walk through the park, past the young wedding couple (on a Wednesday – how strange), and that big brown pile of steel and dreams just gets bigger and bigger.
The queues are too long, of course, so I give up on going up the tower yet again, saying as always that next time I’ll go up again, and I wonder if I will – maybe it’s best to leave it a memory of a nine year old boy with eyes like saucers. Maybe the world wants it that way – strikes and queues are merely hints. So onward as ever, across the river and past the fountains – working today – and up the stairs for one last look for the mental photo album, and out past the Palais de Chaillot and onto the street. The inbuilt compass directs me now, and all I have to do is follow. Down the hill, the sun streaming, and all of Paris is here for me – the food market, produce fresh from the fields, the abattoir, the sea; the voices calling your attention to an aubergine here, some langostine there; past the corner café, the waiters starched white and upright; down the street who’s name I’ve forgotten already, with every designer known and unknown, each one trying to understate each other, wanting to look like they need sales even less than their neighbour; the American accents with no volume control bouncing off the walls, a cringing reminder of where I’ve come from.
And then I’m on Champs Elysees and I think oh yeah, of course, but I’m running out of time and I can’t head up the hill to the Arch, so I head down to Place de la Concorde, traffic buzzing around the queen bee of the obelisk, and across to the Ferris wheel, turning majestically, studiously ignoring comments about her larger cousin on the island next door, and through La Tuilleries, a sunny döppelganger of that morning earlier in the year. They do parks well here – you may have guessed. I take someone’s photo, she takes mine, and people stroll by, unable to maintain the Parisian façade of surliness as the sun smiles back at them. And I walk across the courtyard and by the pyramid, and I wonder if I’ll go into the Louvre on the day I scale the Tower. I hope so, I think, as I cross Rue Rivoli to get my luggage to head back to the Metro, to Gare St Lazare, to Le Havre. To work.
A train through France. One of my favourite things.
Le Havre is wrong – I won’t bore you with the details. I get to the Hotel Mercure, but the travel agent booked the wrong one (150km away), and there are no rooms tonight, so they book me into some crap place up the road instead. I place some calls to the States, for work and a moan at the hotel booker. It’s 21.00 before it’s done, and there’s nothing for it but to take a stroll around the streets, the gloom pulled around me like a coat. But I find somewhere to eat and drink, to read a bit. It’s France – life can’t be too bad. Later I walk back, and the stars come out to watch.
The next day is all work, but you don’t want to hear about that, and I don’t want to tell you. Suffice to say that it meant I had to go to London, and I’m thrown around for a while before a 70°descent into City Airport, and the cabbie says ‘where to guv?’ and the answer is the Great Eastern Hotel, and an upgrade to a suite because they can’t find my room number, and it’s bigger than my apartment in Brooklyn. And I walk around, trying everything in the place like a kid and, eventually, to sleep as much as I can between ever more insane dreams.
Another day of work, but it’s not all bad – I get to walk into the old offices as if I’d never left, I get to drink with my mates, I get to see the stupendously drunk James, I get to smile and laugh with them, and as ever it’s one of life’s singular joys. And the next day I get to walk along the South Bank, seeing the sights on one of my favourite walks, and smile at the kids running around in the Indian summer, circling lovers old and young, past the new Tate and it’s useless, neglected bridge, the Oxo tower and it’s wharf, and push through the crowds to put a smile on Jon’s face as I drop in unannounced, the same way that I do to my sister later. We cross over to sit on the Peppermint Lounge and play tunes with some more of my favourite people, smiling and drinking because we can. And later, this time, I get sleep like a child.
I miss this place, I think the next day in Richmond Park, the wild life grazing and the roast dinner settling nicely, and I miss these people. I can go to the pub with the artists, and do, and it feels right. But the grand prix is on and I have to go, and it’s in the US, and it reminds me that my future is there. And maybe that’s alright too.
* with apologies to George Orwell.
(September 2000)