Friday 1 February 2013

Friday night, I'm going nowhere

Well, not entirely true. I've not gone far today, but I've left the flat at least.

Today has been interesting. My sick colleague (see yesterday) decided to stay at home and, with my other colleague in Spain, I was flying solo in the office. I'm really quite proud of how I managed it; I answered several calls and aided several slightly confused seniors through the maze that is the Internet. I also took messages, filed money, and worried about double-entry bookkeeping which, I maintain, I should not need to worry about at the mere age of 23.

Incidentally, do I look lots older or lots younger than 23? A student of mine asked today if I were married. Bizarre. Incidentally I said yes, because saying no is really difficult for me as an Englishman. She nodded, pleased, and said "Tu as l'air de quelqu'un qui est tombé en amour."

Really? Do I look like someone who is in love? 

Saying that, I recall being in love, and the hopeless, lost, head-in-the-clouds person I was certainly bears more than a passing resemblance to my current self. Unsettling; apparently being in love is approximately similar to being unsure of one's location in Paris, which might go some way to explain it being the city of love - in fact, it's the city of confused and lost tourists, which actually amounts to the same thing.

In any case, my afternoon was spent packing and sticking boxes - I'm definitely getting into a sort of Hobbit/Victorian vibe, where even manual labour has to be undertaken in a waistcoat - and finally I escaped, at 5, to a bar where I sunk a double Talisker, 16 years old. The bar in which I drank has prompt but rude service, and every time I go I'm reminded of why I don't go very often. 

Thus, with one drink inside me, I strolled to the local stationers and perused the books, looking for something lined.

I must explain at this point that (for reasons utterly unfathomable to my otherwise remarkable brain) the French seem only to produce exercise books with squared pages. I can't get my head around this bizarre trend. Does it help with cursive handwriting? Because I absolutely despise it.

While perusing, I met a friend of mine and asked her for a drink. Just one drink, I assured her, proffering my arm. I am a gentleman, after all. She kindly agreed to accompany me and, arm in arm, we made our way to the Café Leffe, where we talked and supped for the next four hours and thirty minutes. 

One drink turned to two, which turned to Irish coffees, which turned to emergency Turkish food on the way home. A kebab has a certain greasy loveliness; one recognises even through the haze of alcohol that it will be an unpleasant memory but, in the moment, it is utterly delicious.

Following the demolition of the aforementioned sandwich I am home, my blog is finished, and since +Blogger thinks I'm in England it still counts as today.

Two sessions of three hour lessons this weekend plus all museums are open, for free, on Sunday. I'll be at the Musée d'Orsay or the Institut du Monde Arabe.

Cannot wait.

Oh; my drinks guest made this. It's about CCS, carbon capture and storage, and presents the idea in a fairly easy-to-understand way. If you've ever wondered about how we can clear up carbon dioxide while continuing to use dead dinosaurs to make plastic (which, by the way, is kind of cool) then watch this. Well illustrated and voiced, it's a useful bit of learning to be installed in your brainspace.



P.S: If you're interested, I imagined a press release for a fairy-tale, since it's National Storytelling Week, over on my PR blog. You can read it here, if that's your bag.

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