Last tango in Paris

I really like making friends. I like the way we all bounce around life and our friends introduce us to friends we would never have otherwise met.

Such is the case with Paula.

Paula is from the United States and has been mentioned here before, but in brief - she is a person with an enormous personality and a continually bubbly outlook on life. Last night was her last night in Paris, and so she and I went out for dinner.

I confess that things didn't go exactly to plan - which is why I write this at 11:30 ante-meridiem, rather than post-cibum. It began with Paula turning up, as is her wont, a little late, although since this time it was a mere 40 minutes I think I should be quite thankful. We met at the Gare de l'Est, and strolled in the light drizzle that swirled about us to the restaurant, with a brief detour through a homeless kitchen.

The restaurant we went to is called Les Enfants Perdus. A google will give you their site, but unfortunately the link for the menu is currently broken. You can find it at 9 Rue de Récollets in the 10th arondissement, only about five minutes from the station.

When we arrived, the first thing we noticed was the size - it is not large. The bar is extremely small and was staffed by a tall and impressively be-whiskered man while two waiters rushed about in the French style. I believe that at French restaurant schools waiters are taught that every inch of space must be utilised, and consequently the three small rooms that made up the restaurant were thronged with people. Squeezing myself and Paula in was a struggle, but we made it. We had reserved a table, and just as well - two couples were turned away as we arrived.

We ordered very, very slowly. The service was excellent, if perhaps a little over-attentive - but only a little. I gave her a small gift, as a souvenir of Paris - I'm quite she has no others - and we finally ordered. Paula decided to be brave and ordered foie gras while I picked salmon crumbed with sesame seeds. It was served with a sort of vegetable that was utterly delicious while Paula's came with duck pâté and caramelised red onions and solid slides of toast. My salmon was absolutely delicious, the slight saltiness of the fish combining with the sesame and vegetable to make a fantastic mouthful. From the look on Paula's face, her bravery had paid off, although I had to lend a hand with the duck, of which there was a much larger portion.

We had also ordered a bottle of wine, and before the starters arrived the proprétaire, the owner, came over and - having apparently been told we were speaking English - launched into an explanation of the wine we had chosen. Thomas did not sound like your average French restaurant owner, and that's because he isn't - he's an ex-pat from Chicago. Thomas is an absolutely fantastic guy, and he explained that the wine we'd picked was still very natural. Paula and I looked at each other and placed our fate in his hands; the wines are all very reasonably priced and so we asked him to surprise us. He did not let us down, and came back with an absolutely exquisite Marsannay from 2009. If you have one, keep hold of it, because I imagine in three years it'll be even better. As it was it went incredibly well with both the starter and the main.

The main came after a wait of around thirty minutes, which suited us perfectly - neither Paula or I like to rush our food, and our meal took on a distinctly Parisian bent: before long we had covered religion, politics, touched on science, travel and were finishing our plates and moving towards the nature of free will when I noticed that the last train home left in five minutes, a third of a bottle of excellent wine still remained and the bill had yet to be paid.

What could have quickly degenerated into disaster was saved by the friend Paula was staying with, a Greek called Efi who speaks four languages and is studying law. And is astonishingly pretty, which makes no difference one way or another but merely proves that some people have all the luck. She kindly let me spend the night, although we still managed to stay up until three just talking.

We rose again at half past six, dressed quickly, Efi and Paula saying goodbye and clearly unwilling to let go - a last hug was followed by another and another. It will be interesting to see if Efi and I become friends, and would deliver us in a beautifully cyclical manner to the beginning of this piece.

The answer to yesterday's riddle was five minutes past three; the reason clockwise is the direction it is is because it is the same motion traced by a sundial in the northern hemisphere. Had the clock been invented in Australia and the same mechanism been used, clockwise would be what we think of as anti-clockwise. I do hope that made sense, I prefer to explain with the aid of gestures, but I have faith in your imaginations.

Today's riddle is: What place in England is called Hill Hill Hill?

Milestones

Milestones were once simply that: stones that marked the passing of miles. Now they are metaphorical, and they mark important moments in our lives.

This is not so grand as that, but I thought I'd mention it anyway because it's a small source of pride for me, and a little vice here and there is good for you. So I am really quite absurdly proud to say that last night my blog passed 2,000 views, which is a very small number compared to the number of people who watched Psy's record-breaking video (total as of 7pm, 8/1/13: 1,146,732,756).

On the other hand, this is a small blog about my life and despite the fact that there is a whole Internet of brilliant content out there - I know, I've seen less than 1% and it's amazing - you take the time to read about me every day. So thank you very much.

If you only come for the riddles then fair enough, they're pretty good riddles. Yesterday's asked

Why has nobody ever seen Donner?

And the answer is because Donner is German for thunder, and one cannot see sounds.

Today's question: if clocks had been invented in Australia, what time would this be?

My day today has been progressive. I've finally got my translation back with feedback, although the feedback is written in a hand that makes me long for the student evaluation forms again. He has promised a meeting in which I can berate him about his handwriting and we can finally close the book on this particular project. He's a really nice guy who laughs a lot and takes a lot of my teasing with great humour, but he gives as good as he gets.

So that project is nearly over, and it'll be something fun to add to my CV. You know, for a given value of "fun" approximately equal to 0.

I've signed up for French lessons in preparation for the TFI, the Test de Français International which will also look groovy on my CV. There will be groovy all over my CV. I may put an LP as a background to underscore how groovy it is.

I'm going to see if the QI elves can answer this question, because I'm rather chuffed with it. If you can, comment below. Answer tomorrow.

Internal memos and breakfast meetings

I got an internal memo today in the internal post. Some of my readers, including the four Russians (Zdravstvujtye, by the way, and welcome) probably get internal mail all the time. Their desks are veritable mountains of internal memos and notes. But my desk isn't. I've never had an internal memo because I've never worked anywhere big enough for there to be a need for internal post. If something needed to be widely circulated, all twenty of us would be told on-shift. Easy.

But I got an internal memo, and the subject thereof was the many holidays that are coming up. My favourite has to be Ascension, the day commemorating Jeshua-Bar-Joseph's return to Heaven. If you believe that to be true, then you may well spend the day in church, but since the French believe in committing to holidays, I am looking at a five-day weekend in May. I'm seriously excited by this prospect and so I would be indebted to you if you could recommend places in Europe to spend my days. I may even try to find somewhere with a church, because although I am not a believer, the love and care that has been put into - and continues to be lavished upon - cathedrals and their like is worth seeing.

It occurred to me suddenly that I had left a riddle without an answer over the weekend, and I can only apologise. The riddle was Black pool, and it turns out that Blackpool, England is etymologically twinned with the town of Dubhlinn or in English: Dublin, in the Republic of Ireland.

Today's question (these seem to be turning into QI questions) is as follows: Santa has 9 reindeer. But why has nobody ever seen Donner?

In brief, today I finished stamping envelopes and typing up handwritten evaluation notes. I am always surprised when anyone hopes to get useful data from named evaluations, especially when the writers are less powerful than those who will receive them. There is always a worry that the writer will be pulled over hot coals or invited for an interview without coffee, which might be worse.

My English-teaching colleague is back today, and my French-teaching colleague on Wednesday, so with any luck I might be teaching and learning again before long. A brilliant reason to teach came from my Monday student today who, incredibly sweetly, has bought me a French film as a Christmas present. It's called Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis and is, by all accounts, the funniest French film in the history of the world. I absolutely cannot wait to watch it, but I have to get an early night, as I have a morning meeting tomorrow.

Again, I know there will be rolling of eyes as veterans of the morning meeting read this but again, I say, this is new to me. I have worked in bars for most of my career; the earliest meeting we ever had was 3pm. The prospect of coffee and croissants while discussing a project in French with a co-worker is really very exciting, and no amount of eyeball-rolling will make me think otherwise.

So: a morning meeting, an early start (which means an early finish), an opportunity to put on a recipe for pork and sweet potato stew that I got from my Aunt and a fantastic French film to watch as it cooks.

Tomorrow looks absolutely marvelous from here.

Complainte de la Butte

Lamenting is, quite frankly, what I feel like doing. The Moulin Rouge was, perhaps, once graced by dancers who enjoyed what they were doing, who got a thrill out of the nudity and the panting men who slavered over their exposed legs. There must have been a wonderful feeling of naughtiness, of things being done that are not generally done.

Now, of course, if I gave you zero money and I asked you to come back with ladies go around with no clothes on you would go immediately to the internet and find some site (I know not what) and you would come back with an awful lot of pictures. You would not have disabused me for taking photos, you would not have seated me next to a maudlin chap who looked as though he was having less fun than the girls, and the girls you brought me might well be smiling.

In short, I am deeply disappointed by the Moulin Rouge. The show was essentially a group of mediocre but perfectly proportioned dancers whose only purpose was to show off the extravagant and - admittedly - gorgeous costumes. They were, unfortunately, out of time, unsmiling, and clearly bored out of their minds by the monotony of doing three shows a day.

I am quite sure that three shows a day, every day, are enough to turn even the brightest of characters into a Scrooge of the highest order, but if you cannot muster the act of enjoying yourself, if you cannot make every show as fresh and bright as if it is the first and only time that you are doing the thing, then you are in quite the wrong place. I saw a group of beautiful but completely unsexy people; mannequins for the wonderful costumes.

I also saw why Swarovski's shops are so bereft of anything worth buying; every crystal in the entirety of France must have been sown or stuck to one of these bodies. The stairs were full of them. The stairs. 

I will say that the staff are flawless; within two minutes I saw a bouncer speak French, English, Chinese and Russian. I would love to see a bouncer back home in Aberdeen speak English and Chinese, or English and French, or even English.

In any case, it was something to see, and a thing to tick off my list. But I have to say that it is the first time that in a room containing semi-naked women and me not a person was having fun.

And quite frankly

In short, don't bother with the Moulin Rouge. It is a terrific waste of time and money.

No, it's not even terrific. It's just a waste.

Mr Hemingway, I presume!

"Mr Hemingway, I presume!" is, in fact, a quote I just made up, based on the famous quote "Dr Livingstone, I presume?" which is quite the correct way for an Englishman to greet another Englishman, even if the latter has been missing for seven years on the "Dark Continent."

In short, it appears we English are remarkably unwilling to demonstrate any emotion at all save politeness and a willingness to journey halfway across the world to ask about another chap's wellbeing.

This may explain why even though I had tickets for the Moulin Rouge tonight, on my birthday, where whispered suggestions implied that chaps who go on their birthday meet the cast for photos - although, of course, such photos could never end up here because (for a start) my mother reads it - I gave them away.

I say gave, but that's quite untrue. A very eager American couple bought them off me for twice their face value. I was not touting - the aforementioned suggestions had me clinging tightly to the tickets - but they made a compelling case on the basis that tonight was their last night in the city, and they were so keen, and they didn't realise you had to book, and before long I had agreed to let them have the tickets for face value.

Karma, who is normally the sort of lady who hangs about for quite some time before dishing out rewards, turned up with the sort of speed with which this chap clearly approached the dinner table and before I knew it he had pushed a wad of notes into my hand, babbling that since it was his last night he had no more need of it.

I was on the point of reminding him that one can find an exchange service on the corner of almost every street in the world when my companion gently took my arm and led me away. It is pleasant to have friends who lean toward the vice of avarice. For a start, it has made me a modicum wealthier. In any case, we have rebooked for tomorrow, with a half-bottle of champagne each, and I am rather excited about how exactly I'm going to get home. Meanderingly, I suspect.

Before giving - and promptly receiving - we had a drink in the Hemingway Bar. Well, sort of. The Hemingway is closed, as is the Ritz, until 2014, so we had a drink in the Vendome, which was exceedingly pleasant and eye-poppingly expensive. Have you ever seen a cartoon where the character goes from being louche and debonair to the over the top, eyes shooting out of the eye sockets and whole body in a sort of complete spasm?

I do not recommend doing that, especially not in the Bar Vendome. One must maintain the casual and debonair air, even as one wonders how much one's kidneys are worth, and if the wonderful barman would mind taking it himself. I should make it clear that the service was incredible. The waiters have perfected the art of waiting. They are essentially invisible until some desire for a top-up or an extra pastry enters the mind, and then they are there, as if they are gliding on castors or skateboards. They are the opposite of, for example, my keys, which are obstinately in the way of everything I try to do until I leave the flat; at which point they disappear completely and can only be found by muttering the prayer to the god of lost things. This is accomplished by repeatedly patting down one's pockets while muttering the name of the lost object. Extra points are awarded if you utterly empty your pockets and then pat them down again, in the vain hope that what you seek is hidden somewhere in the lining.

They never are.

Instead one finds them on the desk, or in a pocket one has already checked ten times or - only once, but memorably - in the fridge. I've no idea what they were doing there.

Probably just chilling.

I'll depart on that, but I'm happy to give the answer to yesterday's riddle and today's.

Victorious people (feminine) young goatherd.

victorious - you could have Victoria, the Roman goddess, or Nike, the Greek. You might also have picked Andraste, the Celtic equivalent, but if you had you'd be wrong, although that Celtic knowledge may come in handy with the next question. 

People - Latin populus, which doesn't appear in many names, or Greek laos. We may be getting somewhere.

Victoria-populus is not a name, but Nike-laos could be squidged a bit (and, indeed, was) to form the anglicized Nicholas. The feminine of this has several versions: Nichole, Nicola, perhaps even Nikki.

Young goatherd was a bit cheeky; it might have been easier as young goat herder. A young goat is a kid, (a word still used in English to describe a child in a casual manner) and the person who looks after them would usually be a man.

Nichole Kidman!

That was a tricky one to start off with, so let's try something easier.

The riddle is Black pool. It's a European capital.

Good luck. 

Words, words, words, I'm so sick of words

Although actually, unlike poor Eliza, I'm actually jolly keen on words and even more so on their roots. Where words come from is a source of constant fascination, and I'm really rather hoping that I can find some etymology courses when I return to university.

A small note of thanks at the top of the page to Third Year Abroad, who are the best resource on the entirety of the web if you are hoping to spend some time abroad during your degree. I discovered them far too late, and they were still brilliant. Discover them now if you've not gone anywhere yet!

With that in mind, I shall offer a cryptic clue with etymological roots. It will (hopefully) delight and perplex you, and if it does not, you can simply skip right past it. Answers will be offered the next day, and I shall mention anyone who gets the answers.

Today has been a productive day, but not enormously stimulating. We have 1,500 books to mail out, and since I am a lot cheaper than the outside company we use for the task of sticking labels and stamping envelopes, I have been sat in front of a gradually diminishing pile of envelopes all day. It's not the most exciting job in the world, but it left my mind free to wander, which is never unpleasant. It's also quite pleasant to see one's work as a physical thing; finishing today the number of envelopes I'd stamped and stuck made a pile that rose up to my shoulders, or the stomach of a normal sized man.

I also printed all of my posts out for my colleague, who tells me I'm amusing, but also said that there were some references she didn't get, some humour she couldn't quite figure out. It's quite strange to see that even in 40 years, what is "current" has made huge leaps.

It's also been a day full of planning; on my lunch breaks I discovered that an awful lot of excellent PR firms offer apprenticeship schemes for graduates. It's really exciting to line up what I want to do and to know what the process is like, and I can start researching the firms in which I want to work.

Nerdy, but with any luck there could be a job at the end.

The weekend is ahead, and I'm planning on heading into Paris, finding an excellent restaurant and eating with Orlando. Leave a comment if you know any particularly excellent restaurants, and if you don't know Paris, here's a gorgeous timelapse video to enlighten you about the City of Lights. Nota bene the twin Eiffel Towers at 2:14, which are an absolute tourist trap but well worth seeing.

Finally, my cryptic and etymological conundrum which is a star of film: Victorious people (feminine) young goatherd.

It took me twenty minutes to work that one out. I hope you're quicker.

Tampons, and other false friends

I have never needed to ask for a tampon. It is not a source of pride, nor is it something I feel has been particularly missing in my life. It's simply something that I have never had any need to do. Nor, in fact, have I ever been asked for a tampon. My rough cheeks and gentlemanly manner have apparently notified anyone who needed one that I was a tampon-free-zone.

Imagine my surprise, then, when my colleague asked me if I had le tampon. My brain promptly melted out of my ears. Did she mean un tampon? Had my gentlemanly manner deserted me? Had my smoothly shaven cheeks given her the slip?

My mind rebelled at the very thought. I recovered (manfully) and managed to ask for clarification.

"Le tampon," she repeated. She pointed in the direction of my desk, and then made a stamping motion.

This was sufficient for me to realise, in a sudden rush, that un tampon is also a stamp. Not the kind you stick to letters, but the kind with a pad of ink (which was used before we had the one you stick, explaining why we use the same word. English is essentially very lazy.)

I handed it over with relief. She gave me a very strange look.

The rest of the day passed without great incident; I finished typing up the comments from student evaluation forms - I'm getting very good at typing in French on a French keyboard but consequently have a weird five minutes when I get home and q is in a's place and some silly person has swapped the m key with the colon/semi-colon. And a full stop is now easily accessible, whilst on a French keyboard one needs to first apply the shift key. Utter mental confusion reigns.

And of course when I go in tomorrow, the opposite will happen, and I shall seethe for several minutes as I try to work out who put my w on the bottom row and why the @ symbol has been shifted to the other side of the keyboard. Occupying two brain spaces is quite difficult, but we shall overcome.

And, best of all, my private lessons restart this weekend. Really excited to see the students again. Especially because the one I help with homework got an A+ for the projects we were working on. Seriously chuffed. 95%, get in.

It's only half past six, and my mother bought me a crêpe pan for Christmas. Let's hope I don't make a total pig's ear of this...

Pig's ear, by the way, is cockney rhyming slang for beer. Likewise tiddley wink means drink. That's why in England people sometimes get a bit tiddley, meaning drunk.

People in Scotland don't get tiddley. They just get drunk.

Ghost Town

First up, housekeeping. To the right of this post, if you're reading it online, is an email sign-up box. If you'd rather get these blogs out and about, or if you're not tech-savvy enough to know about feed readers, you can put your email in there and get these posts straight to your inbox. Which is handy if you've got email set up on your phone, because it should mean you can read them as you sit on the bus or ride the Underground or snatch five minutes between hectic shifts at your job at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Gosh.

It was my first day back at work today, and I'm happy to say I really missed it. It's interesting to find that even though I've been learning this language since I was about 8, I still get really nervous speaking it around Actual French People. Or even Actual English People Who Moved Here When They Were Nineteen. It's good that I'm nervous, though, because it means I pay far more attention to my endings, agreements, and the various other bits and pieces that I tend to forget after speaking for a while. It's really, really easy to get complacent when speaking a language one has a good level in. The fact is that native speakers let you get away with an awful lot so as not to appear stand-offish or rude.

My colleagues are all lovely, and as a result I really have to urge them to pick me up on the mistakes I make. Re-reading What Every Body Is Saying by Joe Navarro is also helping a little; if you're interested in body language then I can't recommend a better first read. It's helping me to look for the signs when I make a mistake; generally it's a half-hidden smile or a small frown, depending on the size of the mistake and the social faux pas that I've made.

Faux pas is probably best translated as misstep, although in English we tend to use mistake.

In any case, the term begins again tomorrow and the students have been returning in dribs and drabs, a phrase of uncertain origin which may have roots in Irish prostitution. We've also got some new students who hail from Russia and are unsettlingly good looking. The sort of good looking that makes you seriously consider giving up your resolutions and committing death by chocolate. 85% cocoa solids, if it comes to that. I want my end to be like my life. Bitter, but somehow moreish.

That sounds morbid, but I assure you it's not.

So my tasks for the year have started to accumulate already; I have around 150 pages of raw data to turn into graphs which is fantastic because, well, give me data and Excel and tell me to make graphs and I am as happy as Larry. Larry was probably an Australian boxer who never lost a fight and took away a purse of £1,000 on his last fight - which in today's money would be about £399,000. That's enough to make anyone happy.

However, I also have to overcome the obstacle of bad French handwriting. There are two parts to this. The first part is the French; they form letters in a very different way to English writers, but it's relatively easy to overcome - one simply has to learn the pattern. So far so good.

If this oddity is combined with handwriting that would puzzle a doctor, however, there is literally nothing I can do save stare at the scribbled mess and wonder bitterly if a court would accept this as evidence that the student's death was entirely understandable. There is nothing more frustrating than bad handwriting coupled with the writer's assumption that the reader will know what they are saying. And the worst thing about this is that I know that someone dear to me will read this and laugh, because my handwriting is akin to a drunken spider with inky legs.

In any case, my challenge is set, and I'm excited by it. Huge amounts of data excite me, because they offer huge amounts of possibility. So much information can be gleaned from it.

My other challenge is equally exciting, but in quite the opposite direction - I have been asked to write a small email greetings card, and to write a poem within. One of my colleagues has made a sweet little animation, so all I need do is a tiny little four line poem. She's left the rhyming scheme and the meter up to me.

I have never been so paralysed by my lack of vocabulary. Not in all my born days. I was suddenly rendered utterly incapable of counting syllables, of matching sounds. I look into my English vocabulary and words practically fountain out. I look into my French vocabulary and it looks a little bit like the bag of letters at the end of a Scrabble game.

However; my deadline is the end of the week, and as soon as I have finished writing this I shall be cracking on with trying to rhyme oiseau (bird) with absolutely any word I can. 

While I suffer, I should be intrigued if anyone knows why heroin, a terrifically nasty and addictive drug, sounds the same as heroine, which is like a hero but more womanly. Or, if you're a comic book artist, with a breast to waist ratio that would make Barbie uneasy. If you know, comment below.

Making mistakes

Last night and today were not the pinnacle of my stay here in France. It started well; a drink with my old friend Rachael and a very long chat about everything we've done and planned to do. It's great to have a friend with whom one can pick up a conversation after years of not seeing one another. She convinced me that being in Paris meant I simply had to go out and enjoy myself.

I gave in. She is a good friend and was very insistent, so I hurried home, dumped various bags in my room, noted that I had nothing in my fridge and would need to get something the next day (more on that cunning plan later) and hurried back out. I strolled down to the station in good spirits, wandered through the open barriers - public transport was free in the capital on NYE - and was soon in the limits of Paris.

It was not until today, when I read up on French NYE traditions that I discovered that the majority of people stay in, have a large and decadent meal with friends, and go to bed in the wee small hours. The only people who go out are the people who like to celebrate in the English mode; that is, getting absolutely drunk out of one's tree and then starting fights.

I had decided to head towards the Eiffel Tower, presuming that it would be a little crowded but otherwise accessible. Both of these assumptions were wrong. Simply getting on a train required the vigorous use of elbows and the umbrella I had with me. The rest of my fellow passengers then very carefully said nothing as a group of young people lit up a couple of joints and smoked out the entire carriage.

The cheerful manner in which the French ignore regulations has been mentioned in this blog before, and in general I find it amusing and quite charming. However, when two or three of your fellow travelers ask you to desist, and when the third is actually cradling a child, then it is my opinion that you ought to - if not because it is illegal, then because you have been politely asked. Instead, there were torrents of abuse and lit joints waved. Again, small child being cradled at this time. Utterly incredible.

Getting out at Trocadero was hell for me; I am not happy in extremely enclosed spaces and I do not like the sensation of being forced along anywhere, especially when the crush is so great that breathing becomes difficult. The press of people was suffocating and the stink of other's fear was sharp, and on the faces of my neighbours I saw grim determination, I saw fear, and I saw anger as men tried to stop their wives or girlfriends being crushed.

The Champs de Mars was slightly better for being in the open air. The "light show" from the tower was not even worthy of Blackpool and it was with a heavy heart that I turned my feet towards home. The crush to get back was worse still, and fights started on carriages with barely enough room to breathe. Imagine, a babe still in its mother's arms, father and a friend trying to form a barrier around them, and fists flying not inches away. The entire journey was the most fraught, the most claustrophobic, the most awful journey by public transport I have ever had the misfortune to take.

Paris, je t'aime, but if I come back for NYE ever again I'm getting some friends together, having a massive dinner, and essentially trying to forget this ridiculous, ugly, wasted evening of my life.

Oh. And all the shops are closed today.

The moral of the story is - no matter how expensive the tickets, no matter how convincing your friends are, spend NYE with people you love. Especially when they'll make you a fry up the next day.

The 48 Laws of Power

There is a curious pleasure to writing on a train; the tapping of the keys providing a counterpoint to the rhythm of the train as it slips through the evening’s darkness. The rain, too, has got in on the act, and it is performing a staccato percussion on the windows.

All along the train the melodic syllables of French trip from tongues and lips. Here and there I understand a smattering, but most passes like the trains on the other tracks – full of promise and light but gone so quickly that only a glimpse can be experienced. A small light in the darkness, and then the rain and the dark and the rushing silence again.

I am almost finished with a book called The 48 Laws of Power, which is equal parts sound advice and an overly-long prayer by the author for a time when stabbing someone in the back had a more literal meaning.

It’s also not survived the transition to e-book very well; words appear entirely out of position, the font suddenly spikes in size or changes type altogether, and asides appear inside, breaking up the text and one’s train of thought.

In short, then, a nice idea, but annoyingly it is most certainly a book that one ought to own in physical form, if at all. The author talks endlessly of courts, masters, kings, queens and courtesans, trying desperately to make them analogous to the situations one finds oneself in at work. Sometimes he manages, but for the most part it is an awkward stretch.

I realised as I packed this morning that I had completely overpacked. I had brought at least three weeks worth of shirts when I really needed just one – one week, not one shirt. I’m not a savage. In addition I have gained, as you’ll have previously read, another four shirts and an additional suit and they have been shoehorned violently in. I fear opening this suitcase will ping a zip into my eye and leave me roguishly (rather than classically) handsome.

In any case, I am hoping to meet a friend in Paris – Rachael, a girl I knew from a long, long time ago. She has been in Japan recently – what a glorious, jet-setting group of friends I have! – and has only recently returned to Western shores, with a new haircut and a desire to speak French once more. If I am very lucky, I shall happen upon her and we shall have coffee and talk of many things. Only if I am lucky; neither of us seem to have working phones at the moment.

But with the train rushing, and the dark comforting, and a small child sitting opposite who keeps laughing at my odd nose – I have a feeling of great contentment, and a sense that good things are just around the corner.

Happy New Year. May it bring you everything you deserve.

Last night in England

The evening draws in on my last night in England for quite some time. Quite some time here only means about 11 days, but since I'm only back for two days I feel it doesn't really count.

It's been a very lazy Sunday here, as I'm sure it has been across the country. I'm writing a little early because tonight I will be breaking with tradition and seating myself squarely in front of the television, along with my family, for Channel 4's Big Fat Quiz of the Year, an established tradition. I'm particularly looking forward to how Jimmy avoids - or doesn't - the worrying rash of tax dodgers like Amazon, Starbucks, and Jimmy himself.

Tomorrow night I shall be back in France, and most likely seeking something cheap/free to do to celebrate the New Year. I'm not a huge fan of New Year's resolutions; I confess that freely. If one wants to change, one does - an arbitrary line should make no difference. Despite this, I've noticed that I get a sudden influx of new students at the beginning of every month. These arbitrary lines do seem to matter.

However, if you are making resolutions this year, try to remember a couple of things.

Firstly: it will take longer than you might think. 66 days is the outside estimate of the time it takes to form a good habit. That's over two months of doing the same thing, every day. I've been writing this blog for about 30 days now, and it's become a little bit easier. But not a lot.

Secondly: don't leap straight in. Go little by little, and form a chain - an idea explained all over the internet, with an especially good one here. Inch by inch and everything is a cinch; it sounds trite, but it's absolutely true - do a little every day, and you will find yourself at your target before long.

Unless you are a short-distance runner, in which case inch by inch is no good at all.

I'm intrigued by the fact that over the past two days, I managed to score 200 views for talking about a tie and a suit that I bought. I'm quite excited by that, because if ever there was a chap who enjoyed talking about suits, ties, and sartorial things, then that chap is me.

In any case; however you found me, welcome.

Fate drops hints like I drop plates. Rarely, but with gusto.

This morning seemed to start badly; I was hoping to see an old friend named Alexandra for the last time before I return to France, but unfortunately she cancelled on me at the last minute. I decided to head in to town anyway but was half an hour late for my train - it had taken me longer to unpick the stitching on my new suit than I thought it would. In any case, I arrived at about 10.15 and strolled gently up the hill, pausing at a small coffee shop on the way and considering bestowing my custom upon them.

I had decided to sit, drink a coffee, and read a couple of new books recommended to me by my friends the Crouches. I decided to eschew this particular establishment in favour of the old fallback, Nero's, and as I arrived so did Alexandra, from the opposite direction.

The circumstances that had led to her cancelling on me had since been rectified, and she now had 45 minutes to spare - we could have our coffee after all. It is odd, however, that had I not come into town anyway, had I not paused at the earlier coffee shop, I would have missed her entirely. I had no phone on me; she could not have contacted me. It is peculiar that circumstances conspired in such a way.

Just to ensure that the message was clear, I met up with another old school friend immediately after bidding goodbye to Alexandra. Her name is also Alexandra.

I do not believe in the inherently flawed notion of Fate, and the odds of my meeting an old school friend who is employed close to where she lives are actually very likely. It is only from inside the system that it appears random and therefore astonishing when I meet, par hasard, two old schoolfriends of equal beauty and charm called Alexandra.

All on a day when I'm wearing a new charcoal three-piece suit and looking absolutely topping.

It would be nice to believe in Fate, because then I could say with reasonable enthusiasm that it is clear that my next relationship will be with someone called Alexandra, because beautiful and charming Alexandras keep dropping into my life. Believing that would ensure I remain on the lookout for Alexandras, even Alexandras who aren't as charming or as beautiful as my good friends, and from there the prophecy becomes self-fulfilling.

Luckily I have no truck with such things, and so my next relationship could be a Mary, a Kate, or a Paula.

Or an Alexandra. Just because I don't believe in omens, it doesn't make them untrue...

Suited and booted

Firstly, I'm going to write about something I didn't write about last night because, quite frankly, I find it all a bit embarrassing. Last night as I came back from the Crouch household, full of soup and cheese and companionship, I encountered at Orpington station a young lady who seemed the worse for a drink and in the company of two officers of the Transport Police. They had managed to wring from her that she was getting off at Tonbridge, and since it is on my way I volunteered myself to them and promised that I would ensure that the girl - Cassidy - would get off at Tonbridge, as they were understandably a little worried that she was going to pass out on the train and find herself in Hastings.

For this small act of kindness, we were allowed to sit in First Class, and Cassidy rambled at length about her family, her studies, what she hoped to do with her life - and before long we had arrived at Tonbridge. We disembarked, I handed her to her mother, who seemed equal parts suspicious and grateful, and then I caught a train five minutes later which brought me home. Entirely unremarkable, but having mentioned this to my mother, she mentioned that this girl was probably known to my sister. It is constantly startling how small the world is.

Today has been an absolutely brilliant day; I confess this at the beginning because some of the feedback I have received have used words like "negative" and "ranty", and so I am laying my cards upon the cliché and saying that this could well be a cheerful and positive blog.

The reason for this is because I went suit shopping with my parents, and am now better off to the score of a gorgeous charcoal three-piece suit, four shirts and three ties. And one of the ties is a white paisley pattern. They look absolutely spiffing. We also bought my dad a new suit, which was brilliant, and both suits came from Suit Direct at Ashford Designer Outlet. We were served by a guy called Jack, who was fantastic and also liked my new tie knot. He mentioned that it looked "different" to his boss, who loudly pooh-poohed him, and since the guy was absolutely right I strolled over and showed my lovely knot off. There was universal bewilderment and an apology was rightly offered to Jack. They are all, apparently, resolved to working out how to do it, as is Francis, and I promised a video demonstration.

So here it is.

I should point out that this knot works best with a thinner tie; not narrower, but thinner. Avoid stripes as well; they tend to go in all sorts of weird directions and before you know it you're wearing something around your neck which would give Escher a migraine. Otherwise, as I said, have fun with it, and if you wear it in your office or out and about do let me know, because I'd love to get feedback.

That's how my day went; it started with coffee and a chat with an old friend again (I arrived dressed normally, she dressed ready for the gym. She was going straight to the gym after seeing me, but I should love to know what anyone watching thought.) and ended with new clothes and an explanation of my aesthetically pleasing necktie knot. And there was fried fish in between.

How could there be ranty or negative after that?

Dinner with the Crouches

A bog post that is hideously late and written just a smidgeon drunk. Business as usual then.

Today was a terribly slow day until I remembered that I had a standing invitation to dinner with some excellent friends of mine. I hope they won't mind if I drop their name, but dinner was so marvelous, the coffee so excellent and the cheese so cheesy that I can only hope they forgive me.

The Crouches, a family that I have known for around six years now, are absolutely delightful people. They are, every one of them, exactly the sort of people you want at your dinner party, regardless of time, location, or in fact dinner - they are faultless guests and peerless hosts.

I took a bottle of champagne to dinner with me and walked from the station to their house, despite the proffered offer. A mere six months ago I would have seized that offer greedily, but a combination of a gorgeous night - have you seen the moon! - and the unsettling little Buddha-belly I've developed over the Christmas season encouraged me to walk the mile or so to their house. It is a sweet little three storey house and suits its occupants perfectly.

This evening I was wearing a novel little necktie knot, the method of which Francis - the man of the house - has asked that I show him. I shall try to do a video tomorrow showing how to do it, making this blog truly multimedia. It will also be exclusive to this blog, if I can make it so, because I think if you're kind enough to read my little blog I should like to give you a first look at anything I do.

In any case, Sheila - Francis' wife - whipped up a "bold" minestrone and we retired for fizz, awaiting the return of Lydia. I should explain at this point, since I have been quite honest in this blog, that Lydia and I once stepped out together, a very, very long time ago. We were younger and far more foolish, and while I am yet to break these habits,  she has got herself settled with an extremely sensible and intelligent young man, whose father was my old English master. A small world, but a lovely chap.

Dinner was splendid, the wine was delicious and apparently endless, and the cheese smelt like feet and France. A deep breath was all it took to transport me back. Two was enough to put me on my back. We finished with coffee and, as always, I left with a list of books in my pocket, all of which had been cheerfully commended to me as the best thing since sliced pineapple.

If you don't think sliced pineapple is all that, try eating a pineapple like you'd eat an apple.

I would like to point out that she is  not entirely out of these habits; she is rather keen (at the moment) on jetting off to faraway places and experiencing new things which is quite unfair, because all I get out of it is the old emotion of jealousy. And really, aren't everyone's experiences directed at improving my life?

In any case; she is charming and beautiful and quite happy to tell one that one is uncouth, even if all one is doing is tapping the table with one's nails. In any case, she will go far, even if she is doing a philosophy degree (jobs for philosophers have been thin on the ground in the UK since the recent closure of the big philosophy factory in Dulwich).

There is also a younger sister, but I confess I have not seen her in at least two years now. She may be as charming as her mother, as beautiful as her sister, or as funny as her father. Or she may have three ears. I have not the first idea.

I rather hope all four, because imagine what a conversation starter that would be. And with those qualities, a start is all she would need to carry the night.

I know it's unlikely. But wouldn't it be great?

Boxing Day!

There are a lot of ideas about the roots of the name of this festival. In the Roman Catholic calendar, it is the feast of St Stephen - that day when King Wenceslas (the Good) first looked out. In my house, it is the day when out family descends, en masse, to our humble abode. It is an absolutely joyful day of drink, family, and gay dogs.

Other people's Christmases may vary, but this year my boxing day was merely the backdrop to an absolutely beautiful canine retelling of Brokeback Mountain. Brokebark Mountain? Perhaps. In any event, it seems that the Jack Russel that my cousin brought down has been forced to face the side within him that was always desperate to come out (of the closet) and it turns out that Ozzy, this dog, is a terrific flirt. Every time my dog seemed not to be paying attention to him, there he was, and the minute my dog paid him attention he bounced away. Adorable.

What else? A new wallet from an aunt which will house my French cards and cash and looks terribly smart, a second meeting with my cousin's fiancée (who seems unsure over who has been invited, which has made me a trifle nervous about who exactly is organising this wedding) and an introduction to a possible wedding photographer - her name is Helen England, and she's fantastic, her website is over here.

The day didn't start well. Ozzy was still fighting his inner gay, and tried to attack my poor dog. I should explain, at this point, that my dog is the Sir Ian McKellan of dogs. Gay, but also fantastically sweet and full of energy, despite his age. He brushed off the more aggressive dog, and then apparently gently brought him out over the course of the evening.

I seem to be focussing a little too much on the gay dogs, but almost every blog on the interweb will be going on about Christmas and the dangers of drinking too much, saying rude things to your nan and the other things that happen at Christmas. I feel this makes my blog slightly more unique. Jonathan Kerr, bringing gay dogs to the Internet since 2012.

A dubious claim to fame at best.

I've got some cash from relatives too, which is really interesting, because I pretty much live in France now. Sterling is essentially pecunia non gratis in France, but not to worry - I can pop it in a jolly old bank account and accrue masses of interest. This time next year, Rodney, we'll be millionaires.

So we're about to retire for port and cheese; everything that passes my lips for the next couple of hours will have been matured for between 3 months and 25 years.

Chin chin.

I should note, as a post script, that I have a wonderful family. Especially my cousin Agnetha, who I love the most.

Unless another cousin of mine is reading, and then obviously I love them the most.

Christmas Day!

I've just got home from Christmas Day celebrations with my family and tuned into new Dr Who. I'm currently writing this from underneath my bed where I am trying to recover from the shock of the revamped opening credits and score, because they are clearly the worst thing to have happened to Who since the last time it did, whenever that was.

As I recover, I shall recount my day to soothe the awfulness of it all. My day started at 8, when I awoke and padded downstairs for a coffee and a sneaky peak at the goodies Santa had left. A bag bulged promisingly, and I settled myself in front of the television. I promptly got out a book, because early morning television opens up whole new vistas of awfulness, and five minutes of Horton Hears A Who was sufficient to convince me that the Jim Carrey I grew up with and loved has finally gone the way of Candy's dog.

Before long, I was joined by my parents and finally my sisters. Nobody in my family has ever really been a morning person, and that distaste of hours that finish in -AM has clearly only grown in my absence. However, we got down to tearing open paper and tugging at sellotape with first joy, and then frustration, and finally desperation as we tried to use teeth, scissors, and at one point a tin opener to get into our gifts. No luck. My mother wraps presents as though she is not wrapping presents, but in fact binding a lesser demon. I suspect the reason nobody's seen Cthulu is because my mother sent him a gift, and he's still trying to get into it. He's persistent.

With gifts given and received - "What I got" is a game that has been played all day on Facebook, and quite frankly it's bored me to tears, so if you're interested in what I got then ask - we got dressed and made ready to head out into Christmas Day.

So that took me all of half an hour, and gave me an hour with which to amuse myself. I watched the first episode of Beauty and the Beast, which was quite frankly abysmal, and ironed shirts. I grow a little more like Jeeves and Wooster every day; I am still quite unforgivably posh, but I am mastering the art of "Indeed," "Very good," and "Of course." I am yet to fully grasp the intricacies of "Are you quite sure?"; it tends to come out more sarcastic than intended. But we live and learn.

One of the things I learnt today, for example, was that even amongst the morally bankrupt and the unrepentantly bigoted there is a spark of creativity; apparently "If it's not all white, it's not all right," which is a charming thing to say and has a masterful cadence while maintaining the repugnancy of white supremacy. I must note that the speaker controlled themselves masterfully, as they chose to speak this choice phrase before my cousin's very brown, Thai fiancée came in. It's the little touches.

I shan't bore anyone reading this with the intricacies of my family; I am quite sure there are similar pockets of your family with whom you do not speak, perhaps because of a difference of politics, of opinion on rights, or even religion. There may be some overlap, in which case, bingo! There are no prizes.

The only other thing of note is that I set a pan full of brandy on fire and poured it over a christmas cake, much to the consternation of our youngest family member, and my parents outed my dog, which I strongly oppose on ideological grounds and that it should be up to him to come out whenever he wants.

I'm back to Dr Who, where I'm pretty sure a mere 8 minutes in we've had a gay, cross-species wedded couple. I look forward to seeing how well that goes down over on BBC America. I am sure reaction will be 100% positive.

In any case, it looks good so far.

Nativity!

Although this is just a silly blog hosted alongside a million others, I'm still dedicating it to my brother Jamie, who's out in Hong Kong. We miss you.

I got back into the swing of my time at home by walking the dog at 9 this morning. It's clear the chubby wee monster knows that when I'm at home it's walkies every morning because the moment I rocked downstairs in joggers he bounced off all four walls and did a jig on the ceiling. Quite a restrained one, though. He is royalty, after all.

My plan was to take him at a gentle jog up to some nice local woods where I could let him off the leash and stroll about the fields like a man of leisure while he tore about like the over-excited ball of energy he is. Rusty's plan, however, was to drag me there as quickly as possible, by any means possible, and to then tear about like an over-excited ball of energy while his young master did whatever it is humans do to amuse themselves.

The limitless energy of my dog - of many dogs - is amazing, and other people have written extensively about the fantastic natures of dogs in more creative ways than I could. A webcomic creator called Matt Inman wrote a great comic about dogs, and I'd recommend you read it right now. I myself could wax lyric about my dog and his oddities (he is apparently unable to fathom why I go around puddles, and walked through the same one three times with a happy doggy smile to show me that water is nothing to be scared of) but I shall try to be brief, because I am planning on going to bed early, so that I can wake up tomorrow nice and early. Essentially because I am (still) a child.

So the only other thing to say today is that I suspect our tree has gotten bigger again, my poor sister is laid out with an absolutely appalling case of tonsillitis, and I watched Nativity! on ITV and found it absolutely smashing. Heartwarming and special, as one feels Christmas television ought to be, and Martin Freeman once again trying to help a bunch of short people.

He seems to have been unfortunately typecast after Sherlock, which better get back on our screens really, really soon.

But I digress. Christmas is almost upon us, and whatever you believe, wherever you are, I hope your day is filled with family, your belly with food, and your home with laughter.

Merry Christmas to you all.

In which our hero rediscovers television

Today started interestingly. Apparently I'm a deep sleeper. My father came in and had to wake me up to turn my alarm off, which is a little unsettling. I feel like I ought to be a little sharper on the uptake. A four minute warning would be a thirty second warning for me, and with that sort of timespan there wouldn't even be much point in getting out of bed. I will die as I have always wished to die. In bed.

In any case, I got up in good time to meet an old friend for a coffee at ten. Ten came. Ten passed.

As did quarter past, half past, and forty five minutes past the hour. Neither hide nor hair could be seen of the individual in mind. Finally, at five minutes to the hour, I received a call. She would be there in ten minutes.

I hunted her down and we strolled back to the coffee shop. She has similar career interests to me, and it's very pleasant to be able to shoot the breeze and talk shop with someone else. She's also a lot of fun, and we've known each other long enough to have plenty to chat about. It was quite a delightful way to spend a morning, and I recommend to anyone reading - find a friend and chat about the old times for a couple of hours. Wallow in a bit of nostalgia.

I will say, though, my afternoon has been utterly wasted. The television has been on, but nothing worthwhile is on at the moment. On the other hand, I've read all the books I have and, having asked for several titles for Christmas, I'm wary of buying anything new for my kindle.

I'm hideously aware of how first world my problems are.

The road flows like a river

Which at the moment, in the UK, is not a metaphor. On the way home today we passed two canoeists and a frigate. Still, I am now warmly ensconced in the jolly old bosom of the family home, replete with Christmas tree that is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

I shall try to give some idea of its magnitude. In Little Shop of Horrors, Audrey II starts tiny and grows until he takes up an entire corner of the room.

The Christmas tree from which I am cowering would eat Audrey II and still have room for Audrey III. I'm stunned there are still presents under the tree. Perhaps the tree is only carnivorous. Perhaps it is cannibalistic. I fear discovering it making its insidious, arboreal way into my room in the dead of night, departing silently and leaving only a pile of needles that are incredibly hard to pick up.

So: yesterday I finished off the last of the food in my fridge, and knocked together a carbonara. The recipe is quite simple; 25g parmesan, 25g pecorino, 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk all combined with a very decent helping of pepper. Like seriously decent, it's called carbonara, so let's see plenty of black pepper in there. You can use the egg white to make almost any cocktail better, binding the ingredients and giving a thicker, creamer finish and a lovely foam. Start cooking some pasta, up to you how much and what kind. While that's happening, fry off about 75g of bacon - I use lardons, because they have some nice fatty bits that render down really well - with a glove of garlic. Get rid of the garlic with a slotted spoon. Mix the egg-cheese-pepper mixture together gently. Drain the pasta, chuck it over the bacon, get it coated in grease, and then throw on mixture. Stir it around, coating the pasta in that tasty goodness. Chuck it all in a dish. Eat it. Crush your enemies. Don't forget to wash up.

Now, I had no garlic. Most people would ask their neighbours for some garlic, or possibly just miss it out.

I doused my lardons in Zubrowka, a Polish bison-grass vodka, and then set it on fire.

It was awesome.

If you flambé in wine, you get a reddy-orange flame, which is awesome. Vodka, by comparison, burns blue - bright blue - with a yellow edge. It gives one a massive rush, especially if one realises far too late that one has left the damnable spoon in the ban and consequently set fire to that as well. Puffs out very easily, though, so no problems. It also gives the bacon a lovely, light, almost woody, almost citrussy taste and goes incredibly well with everything else in the mix. Highly recommend what I discovered by accident.

This morning, however, did not go so well. Having left all of my presents at the flat, I found myself queueing for the Eurostar behind the most nightmarish, upper-class twit-of-the-year couple in the world. Oh, how they nattered in nasal towns about if he knew "Biffy" Jones who's a Westminster man, and if she knows Sheikh Al-Banier because he played cricket with him at Eton, don't you know, and before very long the temptation to unhinge my jaw and attempt to swallow them like a snake.

Bizarrely, it got worse, when they started talking about their internships. He is at the Assemblée Générale, because "Uncle David at the Ministry had a little word, you know" and she's at Vogue, because "Mummy knows the editor or something." Both agreed, however, that absolutely nobody gets a job through the normal methods.

To every entitled twatting toff who's ever got an internship or a job through family ties, not because they're qualified, but because Uncle David is at the Ministry or Mummy knows the editor or because your grandmother is the Queen - don't trumpet it. Especially not in France, because there is a long history of revolutions here against upper-class twits.

Still; it's easy to take a step back and laugh at them. Their lives sounded utterly dull, and their chatter as inane as its contents. I've learnt this year, in just three months, that it's really an excellent idea to take a step back when one's instinct is to explode. Or swallow people with your dislocated jaw.

On the other hand, when it comes to the NRA, just feel free to get absolutely furious.

I cannot, I can not believe that there are still people who think that making more guns available is a suitable strategy, that armed guards in schools is not madness, and that a press conference in which you announce such a bizarre position but refuse to take questions is going to do any good at all.

It's the start of a new era, people. The Mayans were right. We just read it wrong.

So far so good.

End of the world, blah blah blah.

The most boring of boring non-stories is the apocalypse-themed ones that the media keep foisting on us. For reasons utterly unknowable to me, several hundred people have gathered in a small village in the south of France because that region is going to be safe. Bugarach, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, has (or rather, had) 176 residents, no pollution, and lovely orchids. It is now ground zero for crazy people and journalists.

I don't understand.

All the same, it gives a little credence to my theory that stories are far, far more appealing than science. That just means that those in science need to find interesting stories to express their scientific truths, because scientific truths are generally quite boring. This is a great shame - I love science, but it doesn't make for good stories. There are very rarely resolutions, which is why one should be very suspicious of any story in a certain newspaper that says "so-and-so can cure cancer, says Science."

Not that I'm thinking of any Daily Mail particular newspaper. 

Anyway, I should be talking about my year abroad. Today has been a very slow day; I looked over an application for sponsorship that some students had put together and was blown away by the level of English (good) and the level of informality (bad). I've noticed that students here have taken to informal conversation like a cliché to water; and although that means that conversation flows beautifully it also means that they write to banks and companies saying "sponsorship is now up for grabs!"

Perhaps I'm being a bit strict, but one doesn't write to a bank manager talking about things being up for grabs. Or perhaps one does; perhaps the end of the world has come and all that's changed is the death of English. I hope not. Zombies I can deal with, meteors, explosions, viral elephantitis, but please let's keep speaking good English. In any case, I've been added to the committee that's trying to organise sponsorship, and that will be an exciting project to start next year.

I packed everything last night; I will be wearing only suits or joggers at home. Joggers for dog jogging - I cannot wait to see my dog again, though I'm sure he's gotten awfully chubby - and suits for literally everything else. Packing was made a mite difficult by the way half of the available space was filled with champagne. I'm in France, as if I wasn't going to bring back a lot of champagne. Three bottles of rosé champagne and three bottles of brut. Over 9 days. This will be exciting. 

In any case, this time tomorrow I shall be back in England with a bag packed with dress shirts and champagne, blinking owlishly in the British sunshine. I can't wait.

Instagram

By now everyone in the Western hemisphere is probably sick of two stories: first, the supposed end of the world which, despite being quashed by everyone who's had even the most fleeting of contacts with scientific though, still has hundreds of proponents.

I'm not going to go into why the world isn't going to end - it's been done before by people with a greater handle on science than me - but I will say that if it does, it's been an absolute pleasure knowing each and every one of you. And I'm gutted that I turned down that credit card I was offered.

The other story is Instagram, and their stupidity in trying to grab away their users' content in such a brazen fashion. On a social network, where everyone shares images, to imagine that your ToS would stay subtly hidden for any more than five minutes is laughably naive. The fact that it was done in a fairly underhand way has simply worsened the effect.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. It's as true now as it has ever been, and the fact remains that if you are using a free service then somewhere along the line you're going to pay for it. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn - they all sell your information to advertisers. If you're being given something for free, consider that perhaps you are the product.

The problem Instagram also faces is that there are an awful lot of competitors snapping at its heels. A social network which is mostly mobile and based around taking pictures is fairly easy to replicate, more so now than ever. Facebook, which has had a long time to entrench itself in the market, is almost unassailable - even if Google+'s claims that it has 400 million users is true, it simply doesn't measure up to the 1 billion that Facebook passed in late September this year.

However, Instagram have at least responded smartly. They wrote a blog explaining what was going on and have stated that they will revert to the old ToS on January 19. The response is strong, well set out and clear - with a lovely little compliment at the end to soften the anger of these online campaigners. It's a beautiful piece of writing, and should hopefully smooth the feathers of certain users.

Looking ahead, though, it would still have been better to have not done it in the first place. Your users need to trust you, and things like this - no matter how quickly and how well they are managed - chip away at that trust. Winning it back is going to be an uphill struggle.

You know you're in trouble when your nose runs and your feet smell

I am leaking brain lubricant.

Exactly like that, but on a sort of continuous flow. Quite vile. On the other hand, my voice has dropped a good octave and has turned into a 20-a-day, sexy, roguish sort of tone. Clouds and their silver linings. Aches are gone, cough is almost gone. Just a little hoarse now. And, as previously stated, leaky.

I have started packing, a phrase which here means "I've thrown everything in a suitcase and sat on it. It hasn't helped that I ordered six bottles of rather good champagne and then completely forgot about it until it got delivered today, although it was rather a delicious surprise. I'm just not sure how I'm going to get them back home. I certainly don't plan on drinking them all in one go.

I say, I've just had a thought. I was talking about champagne only yesterday. How peculiar. It seems that my subconscious has a better memory than I do. I hope it remembers my pin code, because I certainly don't.

A minor detail, though. I shall shortly get back on with packing - any recommendations on how exactly to fit six bottles into my relatively small suitcase would be most welcome - and then perhaps do something with the meager ingredients left in my fridge and cupboards. I was invited to dinner, but considering my distinct lack of voice I suspect I would be poor company. And I can't stand being poor company, it's a terrible thing to inflict on one's friends.

My sister has cooked a gigantic meal for her friends - and gigantic here is not an overstatement; look at the size of the animal that she's essentially clothed in bacon :

That is, to me, what little pigs want to be when they're grown up. She also made the crackers you can see there herself and is probably going to work shortly afterwards. 

My sister is clearly some sort of meta-human from a parallel dimension. I mean that's ridiculous. To have an entire Christmas lunch ready and then go to work? I could barely move after that much food. My entire plan for Christmas Day is get up - install myself in a chair - eat until I can be rolled around like a beach ball. At some point I might go and play darts with the other chaps in my family, because that's what we chaps do, but just...

Massive kudos to my sister.

I have about two hours of work to do tomorrow, and then I'm essentially free. Hopefully nothing more will be sprung on me, but I doubt it - colleagues are leaving left and right, all eagerly heading to their homes and their families. I can't wait to make that journey.

I just need to work out how to fit the champers in.

Postscript - I acquired some tickets to Disney for some friends and they came with free infant tickets. If you have an under-17 brother/sister/niece/nephew/cousin you'd like to take, then I should be happy to dole out the tickets. Worms, birds, you know the drill.

In which our hero discovers that things get worse before they get better

Oh lord. It's got even worse. I woke up around ten times last night, alternately freezing cold and sweatingly hot, and finally at 6 this morning tried to get up and failed. My muscles ache, my nose is stuffed and my head is aching as though I drank four bottles of champagne. As I didn't, it seems really quite unfair that I'm suffering the hangover from hell. If I'm not better by tonight I propose getting rascally drunk; if I am going to feel rotten in the morning I might as well deserve it.

So today has been spent drinking litres of water, nibbling on a baguette - and I mean nibbling, I can normally wolf them down in minutes and this one has lasted me an hour - and trying to avoid bright lights. I'm typing on a laptop with the lights turned all the way down and with the curtains drawn. In short, I am an unwell and unhappy bunny.

I also can't find good leek and potato soup. I'm tempted to try to make my own, even though I'm going home on Saturday. I'm going home on Saturday! I've already been asked to bring back a tin of golden syrup.

I'm going to curl up again. If you hear nothing from me tomorrow, I have died. Somebody else must send over a tin of golden syrup.

And he will come on a pale horse, and his name will be Jonathan

I am feeling fifty shades of disgusting today. Sore lungs from coughing all day, headache, painful joints, and a sort of throbbing pain around the lower back. I have no truck with hypochrondia, so it's clear that I have Spanish Flu and I will die. Since everyone else is going on Friday too I'm not as bothered as I might be, but all the same it's a bit galling.

Today has consequently been a drudge of a day, dragging my corpse around by sheer force of will and holding it together with orange juice and croissants. It is the very glue of my being.

However, I had a couple of interesting blog posts to read which kept my spirits up as my body flagged. Kate, an old acquaintance from university, writes a lot about television. I try to live vicariously through her blog, because television is something I am sorely lacking here and the speed of internet is so bad that buffering a show may take longer than the length of the show itself.

The other blog I read this morning was by Alexandra, an acquaintance from long ago. If I say how long it makes me feel old, so let us say we have known each for some time. In any case, her blog is an interesting read, dealing with the ongoing struggle that being a girl is.

I'll just leave this here and tiptoe away then.

A comic there by potentially my favourite comic artist of all time, Bill Watterhouse. I'd really recommend getting his collections; you can pick them up from most bookstores and sometimes even charity shops.

In any case, it's just before nine but I'm crawling into bed and aching for a bit. If you need me, try me tomorrow.

Winding slowly down

It's been a peculiar sort of day. The end is so close I can practically taste it; all over the school people are winding down, bringing back books/tests/things they'd borrowed and not told me. On top of this, I'm trying to sort through all the books in my little mediatheque library and sort the utterly awful from the merely bad. Digging through and finding little diamonds of the 90s is unsettling; a book by young Delia Smith, for example, in which she is free of worry lines and the little wrinkles one gets when one gets drunk and shouts at football matches. Other gems are books about famous footballers, fronted by Michael Owen, another expounding the incredible technological breakthrough that is the Morris Minor...poor misshapen things.

My last class tonight was peculiar, to say the least - we played French trivial pursuit, and my students tried their best to translate the questions and the answers. It started slowly, but before long they were leaping in and out of their seats, making noises that they hoped were approximately similar to words, and desperately trying to get the answer before anyone else. Magnificent. We also went through zodiac signs, just because, and face cards, because that was one of the questions. It's interesting to note that where the republican (and some might say sexist) French see a lady of noble birth next to a king they just think "Lady," while we think "Queen."

They also call the Jack "le valet," which to my mind is a damn sight simpler. A little research tells me why we have Js instead of Vs, but I like Vs. Not as much as this guy :

But, you know. They're better than Js.

My other student - my private student - had something of a cop out lesson, in that we played board games as well, but it was good practice and I feel like we did a lot of vocabulary expanding, even if I was not as strict with tenses as I should have been. We also played a game called Abalone, which if anyone else knows about I do wish they'd told me. Originally French but formed from the Greek ab and the English alone, and terribly good fun. Simpler even then chess, but similarly strategy-based. It's marvelous fun and I'd love to get it for Christmas, along with other board games. I have discovered that I rather like board games. But in all seriousness, if you don't know about Abalone, I'd recommend having a little go. Find someone with a set and bother them.

In fact, after Christmas, bother me. I shall be itching to play someone.

Le déjeuner en France

This morning I was woken by a call. One day, when I have a high powered job and responsibilities up to the eyeballs, that call will come at 3am and be an urgent call for help that only I can provide.

This time, however, it was at 8am and was an invitation to lunch.

I confess I didn't actually answer it. My voice, unlike Apple computers, is not ready to go from sleep. It takes a little while to get back to its smooth, British tones, and so I blearily flicked it to answerphone and staggered to the shower. The weekends are my favourite days of the week because, even though I have to get up early, nobody else does. So they don't. So there's hot water a-plenty.

I stepped from the shower just about ready to face the day and the lesson ahead with my student - the final one - when the phone rang again. This time my student presenting his apologies and letting me know that he had a match this morning, and that the lesson was unfortunately cancelled.

Once I'd run out of things to throw I slipped back between my sheets and caught three more hours of lovely sleep. Sleep is very much like money. When one has a lot, one hardly notices it. When one has only a little, each measure is precious. Those three hours were golden.

 And so to lunch I went. My host, Colette, is a charming lady who is working on her English for the sake of her (mostly American) clientele. Her husband is really nice, and has a very dry, very wicked sense of humour. He towers over his wife (and of course me) and smokes Camels. I thought this was going to be the entirety of our little lunch party; people with whom I am familiar and whose accents are known to me.

Coming up the stairs to their apartment, I was slightly unsettled to see the table set for six. Either we were going to switch seats halfway through lunch -  a tradition I was unaware of but was already formulating as a possible basis for the children's game musical chairs - or there were more guests coming.

- En fait, nous avons invité nos voisins. she said to me. Wonderful. Things were suddenly more interesting; the neighbours could be from anywhere and could have accents broader than the Champs d'Elysées. As it happens, they were a charming couple, she from the Netherlands and he from Alsace region, along with their daughter, who got over her initial shyness of me with the first mistake I made. And I made plenty, but somehow having your French corrected by a tiny and precocious infant makes the mistakes not seem so bad. Besides, this little terror of a teacher corrected her mother as well, who rolled sympathetic eyes at me when she insisted

- Mais Maman, tu veux dire... Children. Love them or hate them, you have to know how to deal with them, and for this I thank my mother. The years she has spent looking after other people's children has taught me two things; one, if you tell a child not to do something they will try to do it, and two, children and those with young hearts love magic tricks.

So we ate dinner, and we chatted a lot, and I managed - with the aid of Colette - to convince Emilie, the neighbour, that the haggis is in fact a real creature whose legs are shorter on one side that on the other. She held it far longer than I did, waxing on about the creature's relation to a similar animal that lived in the alps. We agreed, Colette and I, that it was well-known that the only way to catch one was to whistle at it. As soon as it heard it would try to run to you but, because of its physiology, will immediately fall over. It can then be captured at your leisure.

We finally both lost it when she asked, bemused,

- Est-il dans la famille marmotte ? and at the point we had to stop, with tears streaming down our faces and puzzlement reigning supreme. With dinner almost over, Hugh - Colette's husband - bought some fruit over.

Now some of my friends may have noticed this, but when I'm nervous I do a really silly trick. It's just a little sleight of hand; I learnt it when I was younger, but it seems to now be ingrained as something I do when my hands aren't doing anything. I was doing it with an orange, and noticed tiny Marie-Anna staring, so I stopped. It's an absurd thing to do.

She didn't think so. In fact, she insisted that I do it again, this time slowly, this time with my hands out to my sides, and finally with my sleeves rolled up. In a worrying glimpse into the future, should I have a daughter, I acquiesced to every demand this infant made of me until her mother hushed her. She looked terrifically stormy for a moment, and since I'm a sucker, I said

- Je parie que tu ne peux pas rester silent pour cinq minutes. Mais si tu peux, je te montrerais un petit tour de magie avec des cartes. As-tu compris? she just nodded. Smart kid. Worryingly so. In any case, that gave the adults five minutes to talk, and the neighbours quizzed me about my studies, what I was doing, what I did at work. The conversation flowed nicely and before long Marie-Anna was wildly (but silently) gesticulating at an imaginary watch. I congratulated her on her win, and she ran off to get some cards. It was interesting to note that at the same time, the adults all leant just a little bit forward - not enough to seem eager, but not so far away that they'd miss anything.

I did my favourite trick to start with; it's a simple switch where the action happens long before the action seems to happen, and then let Marie-Anna take over. She had a sweet little trick that she was clearly quite proud of, so I decided to let her be the star. After all, true recognition is better when people know you're pulling the strings but can't work out how, and the easiest way to do that is to let someone else perform the trick. So we did Four Kings, and for added drama I did it with my eyes closed and simply gave her instructions in French.

I confess, that meant I had to rely on my French to make a trick work, and the trick only works if the instructions are flawless.

It worked. We gave Marie-Anna a round of applause and she glowed to the tips of her ears. Nobody asked how I'd done it because I obviously couldn't have done anything. It was magic. And magic is still cool.

Alas; the trick was the last thing to be done, and it was time to pull on coats, shake hands and kiss cheeks. Marie-Anna's shyness seemed to come back in a sudden wave, and she had to be given a gentle push by her mother to give me the kisses that are necessary socially. I can't say I didn't find this a little bizarre, but I didn't want to cause offense to the nice people I'd just met, so I lent down and we kissed cheeks. It seems odd, but what's odd for me was clearly normal for my new friends. So when in Rome.

Last lesson with Colette tomorrow, so we'll do something quite fun I think. Five more days at work, and then home!

The tripartite nature of bad luck.

Firstly: this is a giganto-blog, and by all means dip in and out. I broken it up with pictures to make for snack-sized morsels of writings, but if you feel like going at it American style, by all means tuck in and get it all over your face.



An enormously long day which, at 3am, has still not finished. This might be seen as evidence that I am suffering for some sin that I have committed or some serious karmic backlash.

Despite the path of my life being strewn with cowpats from the devil's own satanic herd, and the excited and impassioned speech of 8 drunken Venezuelans that is providing the soundtrack to this blog, it's been a delightful day. Warmer than expected, a solid dose of excellent food, and I got to crack out my camera and take touristy pictures of the Eiffel Tower.

I'd like to pretend I did it ironically, but in fact I really like the Eiffel Tower, not least because it's been used in a con trick by a man named Victor Lustig, who - long story short - sold it to an enterprising American who planned to turn a profit on the Iron Lady by scrapping it. He did this not once, but twice.

To sell the Eiffel Tower once would be a trick of wondrous proportions. To sell it twice, the same method, to the same nationality, is worthy of note in every book of morals under a warning about avarice. What a marvelous man. What a wonderful trick.

But I've jumped ahead. My student and I finally completed his descriptive writing; he's come up with some excellent ideas and an analogy that's absolutely smashing. I don't know how much more I'll say about it, and I'm afraid we shan't hear much more from him for a little while. He's going off to Germany for the holidays - and so I shall be quite without funds for several weeks. On the other hand, I shall be having a lovely week of paid leave with my delightful family:

I'm seriously excited by this.

But not by the distance that separates us.

I headed into town at about quarter to one, catching the bus in, and didn't manage to make it to the Champs de Mars until 2. The traffic was a nightmare; short of tentacles and my old classmates critiquing this blog, it could not have been more horrible. I do not like cramped spaces, I do not like armpits in my face and I do not like the capricious system that the French metro uses to judge the length of time to keep the doors open. I'd like to say it's an inverse-proportional law, but that would imply some kind of...process. And it's not. It's just capricious. And nearly chopped off someone's hand. Capricious and vicious.

In any case, my friends and I managed to rendez-vous at the Champs de Mars - cue the touristy pics above - and then essentially strolled about. We had a wander over to St Michel Notre Dame, where there was a tiny little market which featured both corsets and garters - curious garb, considering the way Notre Dame loomed over us - and made our way to the Palais du Luxembourg, which eagle-eyed readers will remember I've visited a couple of times before. This time, we had come for the gardens, and made it just in time for a stern member of the gendarme to point sternly to a sign that told us that the gardens closed at half past four.

By the sheerest of coincidences, that was exactly the time. Bizarre. We retired to a nearby café, where a very stroppy waiter - where are these people found? - told me off for having cards. No gambling, no card games, not even an illustration of an exciting statistical principal. There was a cat behind the bar, however, because while gambling and magic is anathema to the French spirit having a cat in a drinks preparation area is absolutely a-okay. 

It's a shame, because this was otherwise a lovely little café, with delicious rillettes sandwiches and milkshakes. The staff are otherwise friendly and attentive, and the cat is quite sweet. It was marred only by a pompous and over-officious little tit behind the bar. 

From this café, we went to dinner at a place called Café Indiana, which is apparently a south-western American style restaurant. It's also sort of racist, apparently, but I can't for the life of me see why. There are portraits of Native Americans on the walls, and the symbol is the stereotype of a Native American :

But otherwise, I'm not really sure how it's racist. Perhaps a friendly American passing by this blog will post an explanation.

In any case, the food was delicious and hugely portioned; my friend Mary attacked a plate of ribs and wings with such gusto that I felt sure that she hadn't eaten in a week. No photos, but imagine, if you will, an otherwise sweet and cherubic face coated in barbecue sauce and smiles. Kate, who was sitting opposite, had the same meal but managed to keep her face quite spotless. I have no idea how.

For myself I had fajitas, which in Indiana are apparently served with rice as well as the normal bits and pieces. I didn't know, but now I do, I shall be adding it to all of my fajitas. Gives it a more solid feel. I couldn't face the whole thing - I probably shouldn't have had the gigantic rillettes sandwich previously mentioned - but Kate was kind enough to relieve me of my burden. Paula, who's also known as Lea, arrived at last - she protested that she was Hispanic, and therefore an hour behind us. She had the same as me, and as it arrived she looked at it, and at me, and pulled this face:

But she managed nonetheless, and did rather better than I did. We finished with desserts - caiprinha for me - and sorted out the bill. A curiosity, by the by, of this restaurant was that the food came with almost alarming alacrity. The bill may as well have come by post. At any rate, we settled up as Paula explained that in Spanish to eat and leave without paying is called "dead dogging." 

(In British English, dogging is generally frowned upon. Dead dogging more so. I did not tell her this. She is pure and lovely, despite her weakness for Belgian cake.)

At this point, things went a little bit Pete Tong.

Last week, these same friends of mine had made the same journey and, before taking the train, we were all convinced that we'd seen two trains that departed later on the departure board. Certain in our misapprehension, we dawdled in the restaurant, unwilling to face the rain. 

You will note the prefix "mis-"

We arrived at St Lazare in good time for the train that we expected to leave at ten to ten. As it happened, that train arrived at ten to ten, and then sat calmly in the station until twenty to nine the next morning. It seemed that my friends were stranded in Paris.

I can't say I know what the others thought in that moment, but I will conjecture that Kate was annoyed at herself more than anything. She and I are both slightly obsessive about checking things and arriving in good time, so to be undone by what she felt was a failing on her part to be her normal self was, I imagine, a little frustrating. Paula sprung immediately into action, calling friends she was staying with to see if room could be found. All of this with all four of us a little pregnant with food babies. It could have been the Christmas story all over again.

Mary asked for fifty cents to use the loos. The French may have invented sang-froid, but I believe Mary has perfected it. Within fifteen minutes she had expertly (aside from her first attempt to ring her father at his office on a Saturday) wrangled sufficient cash to stump up for a night in Paris. For my part, I recommended the Hotel Cosy, which is a stroll of about five minutes from Nation and absolutely brilliant. I stayed there last week, and the beds are wonderful, the rooms are - as one might expect - cosy as anything and the café next door serves an extremely decent breakfast. The floor is made of stripped wood and the walls are painted calming colours, and each room has its own little character. It cost the girls 55€ each, and that's for a room with a washbasin. A room with a shower and toilet was 70€. It's amazing value, especially when the girls payed 50€ for a room in a hostel that was not, by all accounts, too pleasant.

Kate flopped into bed like a human-shaped water balloon. She didn't look 100%, and so Mary and I headed downstairs into the little café next door for a drink and a chat. There's no doubt that Paris is having an effect on us; we made one drink each last about an hour and a half and talked about the desperation of creativity, the agony of editing and the half-expressed dreams of awards and recognition. It was terribly Parisian.

On the other hand, she was drinking a pina colada with a glowstick in it, so perhaps we've not achieved total assimilation yet. We also talked about the physics of magic in writing, and family, and influences. I am constantly surprised that our colonial cousins forbid drinking until the age of 21, but it would go some way to explaining the three wrong turnings Mary took between the café and the hotel, a distance of perhaps ten metres. She is a curious girl, simultaneously bubbly and spiky, and I always enjoy talking to her. Two snaps of her and I follow; in both, my face is slightly obscured. A shame, but life isn't all wine and roses. If you'd like to read what she has to say, she's got a blog too: http://marysabroadadventure.blogspot.fr/ 

In any event, we wound our merry way back to the hotel and I caught the last train back. One short slog later and finally, finally, I was home. To the sound of salsa. 

Gardens - Train - A party until 5am

I know that science doesn't accept anecdotal evidence, but I feel like this is sufficiently compelling.