Wombat Diet

I have maintained for all the years we’ve had a home in London that we couldn’t possibly move until we’d been to Paris for lunch. As we live a short distance from the new Eurostar terminal at St.Pancras, the journey time — now 2 hours and 15 minutes — is short enough to permit one to do just that, and be home for dinner with time to spare.

But who in their right mind goes to Paris for just lunch?!

Finally, last Friday morning we set out, traveling light. I was afraid when I put down my small rucksack with a few things for the journey that my weekend-in-Paris girl heard the seemingly loud and umistakeable clunk of a champagne bottle on the floor. “Uh oh” I thought. But, not being used to the high life, she was oblivious. She was duly suprised later when, not just her favourite swiss chocolate, but crystal flutes were revealed as we sped towards the channel tunnel.

This is better than work!

she said as English the countryside slipped by, looking as pleased as I’d hoped she might. She sent one of those “I’m on the train” text messages. I believe, from the twinkle in her eye, that “Paris” and “champagne” may have been mentioned.

All too quickly we were at the Gare du Nord.

First impression: Ah, there’s our old friend from years past, the (Dad, Dad, Look! It’s the) Thalys.

Second: St.Pancras must now, surely, be a more impressive place to arrive for the first time.

Still, it was nice to be back after too many years. Next: money. It took seconds at ATM in the station. A waiting taxi took us to our hotel on the Rue de Rivoli. It “whisked” us of course. This it what taxis do in other people’s stories of the high life, ours for once.

I was mildly chagrined to discover by chance on returning home that we’d stayed, unknowingly, steps from the former address of Henri Cartier Bresson. I happened to see it on an air mail envelope from him when we got home. Of course that street was walked by as many famous people as any in London. Perhaps Paris feels it has too many to commemorate with a plaque. Still, I’d have liked to think of him when passing his front door. Then again, perhaps it would just be another excuse for tourists to have themselves photographed and irritate the current residents? He had to keep his address confidential in his life time.

We strolled through the Jardin des Tuileries opposite the hotel and visited the Musée de l’Orangerie, recently reopened after refurbishement. My companion was as happy as a bumble bee in a flower. Being acutely observant, however, she noted

I can tell when you’re ready to move on, you start looking at your phone

I was busy deleting contacts from the gadgetboy’s phone which I had inherited when he upgraded to an iPhone on the day it was released. I had planned to do it on the train.

I liked a few of the works in the museum, mainly by Utrillo (who, I discovered later, had a sense of humour I liked too) but not many. It just didn’t move me at all. Not the famous Nympheas in front of which people sat with far away looks on their faces, nor, say, the Modigialiani’s with the ladies with eyes like aliens.

The art lover was a little put out by my resolutely skeptical heart. (I have no trouble at all believing Modigliani could scarcely get the price of a lunch for his work. I’d have passed myself.) She’d have bumbled more happily if I shared the buzz but I cannot dissemble to save my life. How was it for me?

chacun à son goût

de gustibus non est disputandum

I don’t recall where the rest of the afternoon went… just window shopping and coffee and wishing London had as many little neighbourhood shops selling fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and meat, oysters and champagne etc. Supermarkets? Peuf!

Soon it was time for the next surprise, a rendezvous with some old friends.

We arrived at the restaurant where I had arranged for friends visiting from New Zealand to join us, as surprise guests, only to find that the restaurant had got the reservation for Saturday, even though I had confirmed it as requested earlier that day. Bah! So, there I was with a disgruntled customer on the street wondering how and when to confess that I had a booking for 4 and where the mystery guests were. And there they were, hiding in a doorway. What a relief, once the surprised party had recovered from the surprise!

Why is he hugging people in the street?

Fifteen years is a long time. What if we’d been in Paris at the same time and not known? We even had coincidental plans to go to the Louvre the following day at the same time but could easily have missed each other. Happily we had a memorable meal outdoors on the Boulevard Saint Germain. A delightful intersection really, and with wine as good as the company.

We had a long commute to the Louvre the following morning. Five minutes walk in the park!

It would take 7 months to just glance at everything in the Louvre

I read as we queued for tickets in glorious sunshine. At the other end of the spectrum, I was reminded: the famous New Yorker cartoon showing two tourists in a hurry

Which way is the Mona Lisa? we’re double parked!

Is there any humour in the Louvre I wondered? Probably in in-jokes in some of the paintings, gags on the Greek vases…

We had leisurely morning. Long enough to feel awe and excitement at the stupendous richness of the collection, not enough to feel saturated. I could spend a month in this microcosm, or a life if I had one to spare. How fine it would be to have a realistic virtual tour first (better than this), then the real thing.  I alone hadn’t visited before, but I enjoyed seeing much that was familiar, again and again.

Perhaps because I can’t help comparing the artifacts of ancient civilization with the fossil record I found myself wondering about the treasures that have been lost forever. How many Louvres and what priceless things? And what’s yet to be found?

As a boy my introduction to at least some of the contents of the Louvre was via film strips and a wonderful teacher (more enthusiastic than Sister Wendy) and books. The idea of visiting it was remote. Somehow it never got onto my to do list later on. I never spent long enough in Paris to get around to it; I was always passing through.

Odd really, to overlook something that magnificent. But then each cell of our bodies is aslo microcosm of untold history, just there, disregarded, unappreciated. We understand so little and are surrounded with a thirst for affected understanding and by absurd reverence for what is, objectively, dross. The Louvre is a time machine of cosmic proportions. Seeing the cultural locusts rushing the Mona Lisa I recalled Alain de Botton on Combray. (Proust is still on the read-someday list).

We parted from our friends, hopefully not for another 15 years, and had a nice lunch on a terrace overlooking the pyramid and the fountains (above).

In the evening we had table, for two now, alas, at the oldest restaurant in Paris, La Tour d’Argent–founded in 1582. The Ille de la Cite and the cathedral of Notre Dame provide a spectacular backdrop.

One of my classmates who dines in Paris regularly, indeed he spends a large portion of his income doing so, was sniffy about it. “They only have one real dish, the pressed duck. And things have gone down since the owner died.”

We had the famous duck and it was, indeed, very good. Everything was superlative. I could add nothing to the reviews available online (Telegraph, Virtual Tourist, Frommers and a blog post here). It would be churlish to say it was expensive. As one of the reviews put it “the value proposition was hilarious”. It was an experience. The wine list alone was an experience. A “list” of 14,000 wines is about the size of a phone book. The Chateau Leoville Barton 1999 was good, hilariously good. I will probably never enjoy such hilarity ever again.

The streets were a midsummer festival, full of live music. I was in the mood for a little more wine, so we returned to Chez René around the corner for a half bottle of Burgundy (a Gevrey Chambertin “Clos Mexevelle” 2002 Gelin). Not quite as good as the night before, and the maitre d’ wasn’t entirely thrilled that we weren’t eating. It was late enough, some tables were empty… but we didn’t stay too long. I hope.

We streeled home slowly along the Boulevard Saint Germain, past band after band on the pavement, one per restaurant seemingly, pausing to listen now and then.

Then along the Seine, another ribbon of illumination and music, crossing a bridge full of people sitting down peacefully enjoying a few drinks and congenial company on the longest night of the year.

If this was London…

said my companion. Then she speculated how things would proceed after a few hours of drinking in the street.

It turned out, we learned the next day, that even Sorbonne students get rowdy after a skinful. However, it was perfectly tranquil at around midnight.

Outside Notre Dame we watched some Brazilians demonstrating Capoiera. There was a different attraction every few paces.

The next morning we walked back along the Seine and visited the Pompidou Centre and Notre Dame and had a nice lunch in a sidewalk café. In my case, a kronenbourg and a vegetarian lasagne of a quality you would be happy to get in a pricey restaurant in London.

The city was impressively clean after the night before, save in one respect. It reeked here and there, and there, and there, and there too, of Eau de Metro.

I paused on the way back and took this photo of the Seine and the Eiffel Tower, which I will ascend for the first time on my next visit. I must. I have flown over it at night and looked down on the City of Light.

I was on a largely empty flight from Casablanca to Amsterdam and got to see Paris from the cockpit, back when that was possible. It was more beautiful even than this (from Wikipedia). Much, much, more so.

We got a taxi back to the Gare du Nord and were on our way back to London at about 4 o’clock. Looking down on the Thalys I wondered why we don’t travel by train more often. Since then the beau frère has invited us for Christmas, which should mean a return trip to Avignon on the TGV. And this time I will go see the Roman amphitheatre at Arles.

Thanks to the time difference of an hour it still seemed very much like a summer afternoon in London when we got back, picked up a newspaper, and said

Just Paris

to the man at the front desk of our apartment building when he enquired if we’d been away.

(It does, after all, take longer to get to Manchester.)

Well dear?

I enquired.

Nice weekend?

She said that

It couldn’t have been better

There is, of course, no such place as Just Paris.

Tags: Eurostar, Gare du Nord, London, Louvre, Paris, St.Pancras

The sophisticated and glamorous older woman who keeps me left the Sunday Times colour supplement on my pillow recently, open at this article: Women who date younger men.

The story, about toyboywarehouse.com and the growing trend for empowered women these days to date younger men, looked more seductive on glossy paper with nice photographs. Of course it did.

Very funny!

I said, before promptly booking a weekend in Paris.

I will whisk her away on the Eurostar on Friday morning to a very nice hotel on the Rue de Rivoli and we’ll drink some fine wine, visit some galleries and, if she has any interest in… shoes?, her wish will be my command. After all, diamonds would cost a lot more and her shoe cupboard isn’t anything like that of Imelda Marcos.

This toyboy trend is getting lots of publicity here lately.

See Young men stay home as women go in search of a toyboy and Confessions of an English Gigolo, for example.

Of course, a weekend in Paris has been on the cards for a while. Now that I’m nominally 3/4 of the way through my studies and as it’s not the rainy season in London, it’s time.

Going by train is a doddle as we live so close to the station. They’re keen for us to know that it’s a carbon neutral trip. I considered going first class, for about 5 seconds, but decided on a better hotel instead.

What else can I do?

A foot massage?

Perhaps a little champagne on the journey would amuse her?

And some Lindt chocolate.

I’m also arranging dinner one evening with two antipodean friends who happen to be in town and whom we haven’t seen for years and years. This will be a surprise. She has no idea.

Tags: Paris, toyboy, weekend

As I expected, it’s been an interesting week politically.

First, Gordon Browne bought his government’s victory in the debate about how long people can be locked up for without trial. A “humiliating victory” it’s been called.

BBC journalist Martha Kearney reports on her blog finding the following in the Oxford English Dictionary

W. MCNALLY Evils & Abuses in Naval & Merchant Service xvii. 162 “The sailors in the navy are allowed salt beef… From this provision, when cooked..nearly all the fat boils off; this is carefully skimmed and put into empty beef or pork barrels, and sold, and the money so received is called the slush fund”.

So that’s where the term comes from!

Various members of her profession are harrumphing about the Conservative shadow Home Secretary David Davis forcing a bye-election at a cost of £80,000 or so to the taxpayer, but have said little about the cost of buying the votes of 9 Ulster Unionists, plus of course a few Labour MPs. The unionists alone are estimated to have cost £200m.

And then, lo and behold, the Irish threw out the Lisbon Treaty on what some in the UK are now calling Lucky Friday the 13th. I followed the debate, even watching recorded TV debates via the web. I was surprised how inept the YES campaign was, and how irrelevant to the treaty some of the opposition was. Yet, there was a thread running through all this.

The Irish actually held the vote early to avoid expected accidents resulting from Sarkozy frightening the horses with talk of an EU army. But they still had to put up with threats from the foreign minister Kouchner. Well, well, the Irish were not at all willing to tug a forelock and vote as instructed because they’d had some cash from the EU… quelle surprise! And who can doubt that many other nations would have voted the same way, perhaps for different reasons, if given a chance?

There was quite a good comment in The Times; a welcome bit of balance after some absurd efforts to co-opt what was in reality a multifaceted decision. Those facets were reflected in these comments on BBC journalist Mark Mardell’s blog which usefully summarised the likelihood of Ireland negotiating a better deal far more effectively than any official advocate I heard.

It seems an awful lot of Irish people, as well as every crank in the country, voted NO on the precautionary principle. Not signing up for something you don’t understand is surely a good idea.

The dishonesty afterwards was astonishing, not only in Ireland, and further proof if any were needed of politicians not just not listening, but hearing only what they want to hear.

I will not be surprised to see Declan Ganly, the maverick leader of the NO campaign, have a siginificant impact on Irish politics. He’s had a rather triumphant political baptism and looks a lot more credible politically now than most of Ireland’s current political leaders.

I’ve seen suggestions that the Irish can raise a glass to the far-sighted individual who protected the Irish constitution by requiring that amendments to it be approved by referendum. No other democracy in Europe is as secure from parliamentary whims (which can take nations into poorly justified wars, as in the case of Britiain’s war in Iraq, or treaties the populace don’t support).

Often credited is Éamon de Valera, the controversial Irish patriot and rebel, and later President of the Republic, spared by an accident of fate from execution by the British after the 1916 rebellion; shooting a man with an American passport might have affected the chances of getting America to join the war. In reality, DeValera imposed his own will on the Irish constitution and erected barriers to changing it.

He tried to get the Irish to abandon proportional representation but the requisite constitutional amendment was defeated. Hoist on his own petard? Perhaps not. The constitution was drafted by civil servants overseen by him.

Europe faces an interesting choice of futures now. One in which it goes back to the drawing board and addresses the democractic deficit, and one in which it tries to carry on as before, thereby vindicating the anti-Lisbon Treaty campaign, fueling the arguments of opponents and, very likely, ending up with a fractured union.

In Googling for some information on the Irish constitution I found some interesting tributes to its greatest scholar, John Kelly, a distinguished constitutional lawyer and historian and, apparently, the finest speaker ever to grace the Irish parliament and a devastating wit. Perusal of some of his interventions in debates (it’s all online) indeed revealed a very funny man as well as a brilliant one. The leader of his party, John Bruton, said on his untimely death

His work on the Irish Constitution made that fundamental document — upon which all our freedoms are based — accessible to thousands of people who might not otherwise have fully understood it. Laws that are not properly understood are not laws that protect us. (emphasis added)

Europe can hardly wonder at Irish predilections.

Tags: Ireland, lisbon treaty, referendum

Things are hotting up in Ireland as the countdown to Thursday’s Lisbon Treaty referendum continues.

I’ve watched some of the videos and been quite fascinated by some things that are peripheral to the main issue.

First, there’s the strange business of only the Irish having a referendum and the extraordinary phenomenon of a host of people from all over Europe descending on the country to campaign in pretty fluent English against the treaty and exposing it as a monstrous self-amending conspiracy.

Regardless of the actual outcome, which I’m convinced will only be a temporary outcome either way, this is an almost biblically strange sign of the times. Cosmically even. A sort of Iowa primary with a galactic component.

Take the Irish Prime Minister, or Taoiseach. Biffo is what the Irish call him I gather. Big Ignorant Fucker From Offaly. Also known as “Jabba the Hut.” He has stepped forward to replace Bertie Ahern, who resigned recently over some financial problems.

Bertie was described “the most cunning of them all” by his predecessor. Coming from the greatest crook ever to hold public office in Ireland, that was quite a compliment. Why did the Irish not pay more attention? Dublin journalist Fintan O’Toole writng in The Guardian a couple of months back:

He deftly embodied the chumminess implicit in his name. Known exclusively as “Bertie”, he dressed down: it took him a long time to exchange his beloved anoraks for suits. He lives in a relatively ordinary suburban house. He could be seen drinking a pint of Bass with his male cronies in a local bar on Dublin’s north side any weekend night. He was so available that it was said he would perform the official opening of a packet of crisps. He convinced everybody, even professional sceptics like myself, that he was interested in power, but not in money.

Bertie, it seems, was like one of those Sicilian farmers who only seems to live the simple life but who has thrived as the world around him has been transformed (who’d have thought when he first entered politics it would be possible to have a school with no Irish-born children in his part of Dublin?).

So, Biffo, is in fact, Ireland’s Dmitry Medvedev?

Biffo’s Wikipedia entry, however, provides the best political laugh I’ve had for a week.

Yeah, well, there’s a mirror in the toilet if you want to go in there and talk to them.

Brian Cowen responding to Martin McGuinness stating “We’ll have to consult the [IRA] army council on this” to certain proposals made during the peace talks concerning Northern Ireland.

The other sign of cosmic forces at work on Europe’s periphery is to be found on wiseupjournal.com, an Irish anti-Lisbon treaty web site.

Prominently displayed there is a link to a book by a man called Michael Tsarion. The introduction begins

The object of my book Atlantis, Alien Visitation and Genetic Manipulation, was to offer forth a theory concerning the origins of evil. I had long desired to discover how humankind’s penchant for sadism, cruelty, and injustice came about.

The book tells the story of the intervention of alien beings from distant galaxies who, upon their arrival to our planet, engaged in several genetic hybridization experiments.

One look at biffo and stuff like this is certainly fairly convincing evidence that aliens have been interfering with Irish DNA. This is far more serious stuff than the nannygate nonsense making news in London!

Googling Mr.Tsarion to see which universe he hails from (Northern Ireland allegedly) I found some debate on one of the reptile web sites over points of difference between his theories and those of Davide Icke.

They must be greatly encouraged by the growing talk of popular disillusionment with the “elite” reptiles running Europe. No wonder the reptiles don’t want referenda!

And we’re looking for alien life on mars and further afield?!

Tags: Ireland, lisbon treaty, reptiles

It will be an interesting week politically in these islands. The Labour government looks set to lose a vote on Wednesday on detaining terrorist suspects for up to 42 days.

On Thursday the Irish, alone, about 1% of the EU’s population, will vote in a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

Traditionally, the Irish have been more pro Europe than many of their fellow Europeans. The tabloid press explanation in the UK is that Ireland’s prosperity is the result of EU handouts.

Economists tell a different story. Petr Mach, e.g., a Czech economist, says

The real cause of their rapid economic growth was tax and public expenditure cuts in 1989, and not the membership in the EU.

He goes on to suggest that the Irish have out-negotiated the rest of the EU, though for a Czech to complain that that Irish divided their country into two regions so that one, with less than the European average income, could continue to receive EU funds seems a trifle ironic.

The latest World Bank Development Indicators put Irish per capita gross national income ahead of that of the US, never mind the UK. It’s time for the Irish to start paying for Eastern Europe, who, The Economist recently argued, joined in the nick of time for everybody’s sake.

This weekend the British press appeared unanimous in its pleas to the Irish to vote against the treaty and save Europe from itself. Today’s Independent, however, owned by Irish entrepreneur Tony O’Reilly, takes a different view.

It will be a close result; it may depend on the turnout and in turn on the weather. Conservative MEP and Telegraph blogger Dan Hannan, in quite a good article in the The Spectator, argues that Ireland’s EU referendum will be no walkover — which is why he notes on his blog that

Irish ayes are not smiling

What a pity that the Irish Times, with Europe watching and with 83% of readers polled on its own web site indicating people don’t have enough information about the treaty, wants €7 for access to what may be as good an exposition of the issues as is available. What a sorry lack of imagination not to get access to this sponsored if it really couldn’t be provided as a public service.

Sooner or later it seems likely that Britain will vote to leave the EU. That will be an interesting disengagement. Most Britons don’t yet realize the extent to which British law is already influenced by European law, the popular press tending to focus on alleged Eurocrat edicts on straight bananas and the like.

The 2006 Companies Act, e.g., ends the primacy of the old Anglo-Saxon model, prevalent in American and the UK, of a company being accountable primarily to its shareholders. Directors are now legally required to take account of environmental and social interests in their decision making.

It will be years before the legal ramifications are clear, but the European consensus is that the business of business is not just business, as Milton Friedman famously claimed.

Changing demographics are pulling America in this direction, according to another Spectator article, away from its supposed laissez faire traditions and toward a more inclusive social model.

Ireland’s and all of Europe’s demographics are changing too, more than many realize. More and more people are voting with their feet, and this won’t change any time soon.

Tags: EU, Ireland, Politics, referendum