Paris in the spring: a barely coherent anecdotal diary

So, I came back from Paris last Sunday. What to say about the city? Glamorous, seductive, fascinating, exotic? Probably only to me, who very rarely ventures from these shores. But the fact that the reason for my visit was a conference on travel and cultural difference provides me with an excuse to write about the experience, one too convenient to ignore…

Wednesday 29th March

* Early afternoon, and my first sensation of genuine culture shock – and I’ve not actually made it out of London yet. £3.10 a pint! And, even more alarmingly, £3 for a single Tube journey in Zone 1 – when did that happen?!

* The departure lounge for the Eurostar is what us academics pretentiously refer to as a “liminal space”. Pass through the French border control and yet you’re still in England, despite feeling like you’ve entered a foreign environment. What’s the etiquette? Do we sit with an overpriced coffee and wait to be called before boarding the train? Are all these bilingual signs here just to help a Cardiff resident like me feel at home?

* The Eurostar seats have headrests with wings – a very good idea, in that they prevent you from slumping and dribbling upon the shoulder of your neighbour if you happen to fall asleep…

* "Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to enter the Channel Tunnel. The crossing will take around twenty minutes. The time in France is…”. Synchronise your watches – we’re going in…

* ... and, as if by magic, we’re in France! Gently undulating fields, low houses, small churches and the occasional war graveyard, the dazzlingly white stones impeccably regimented.

* I step off the train, disorientated, and promptly swing my oversize bag into the face of a small French child. His mother lets out an exclamation which I translate to be a mixture of surprise and disgust. I mumble a confused and classically English “Sorry”, before realising I appear to have turned into Hugh Grant (minus the mid-nineties centre parting, of course).

* According to the detailed and colour-coded map in Paris Gare du Nord, the street on which my hotel claims to be situated doesn’t exist. And the Tourist Information office is closed. Oh dear. I try to explain the problem to the sympathetic man in the Foreign Exchange booth, but soon discover that my French is so rusty as to warrant a long whistle and a shake of the head from a garage mechanic.

* The hotel having been located successfully (the map seemed to have some kind of strange hotel-related Bermuda Triangle thing going on), I unlock the door to my room. Luxurious it is not. The walls are vomit orange, the carpet granny-esque and suitably dark-coloured to disguise any spillages of French plonk. Next to the small table is a plastic garden chair. A fully-fledged wardrobe would evidently have been a step too far. The smell of smoke lingers like, well, a bad smell. It'll do the job, though.

* It’s the little differences that matter: the fact that over here the directory enquiries number advertised by men with comedy hair and moustaches wearing running vests and shorts is 118 218; the fact that over here the magazine we know as Nuts features the same heady brew of females, footy and fast cars, but is instead called Guts.

* There’s an imported Jerry Bruckheimer series on TV, dubbed (badly) into French. Is it any wonder they get uppity about American cultural imperialism when this is what they have to put up with?

Thursday 30th March

* Rush hour on the underground is no different here than it is in London: sweaty, dirty, everyone silent and avoiding the looks of others by scrutinising every last article in the free Metro paper before barging their way off.

* I’m asked for directions. Do I look French?! (Not that there’s anything wrong with looking French, that is. If there is such a thing as a French look.) In my experience it is usually essential to know where you are to be able to tell someone else how to get from there to where they want to be. Hence I am frustratingly useless. Which makes a change, I can tell you.

* I really am trying, honest – and by that I don’t mean speaking English slower and louder than normal. It’s just that every time I make an attempt to communicate in French, people listen patiently before replying in English.

* Lunchtime, and il pleut les chats et les chiens. In recent weeks Cardiff must have been in danger of flooding, so severe has been the rainfall, so the elements are evidently doing their utmost to prevent any twinges of homesickness.

* You’ve got to love academic conferences. The last panel of the day features papers on the seaside, Captain Scott and jiu-jitsu. Elasticity of mind is a pre-requisite.

* Double decker subway trains! Wow! And the journey home is enlivened further by the sight of some riot police who, clad all in black and wearing enormous shinpads, look like evil cricketers. They’re only armed with brutal-looking truncheons, but at Gare du Nord there are machine guns on open view. Unrest is in the air all right.

* Danger of being mistaken for a protestor aside, I reflect that I’m starting to feel remarkably comfortable and at home after less than a day in Paris. Though the fact that I then realise I’m walking in the cycle lane directly in the path of an onrushing bike might suggest otherwise.

* After a meal out, I’m back at Gare du Nord – and someone else asks me for directions. I respond in French, and receive English back...

Friday 31st March

* Passing through the Underground tunnels, I’m impressed by the dedication and fearlessness of French graffiti artists. Beneath every wall-mounted light there seems to be an array of sprayed tags - cave paintings for the 21st century.

* So this is what it was all for: my paper seems to have been well-received. One of the more senior academics in attendance approaches the desk to introduce himself in soft but accented American English. As he shakes my hand warmly, I can’t help but think of ‘This Is Spinal Tap’: “Hi, Artie Fufkin, Polymer Records…”

* I seem to recall that theories of crowd psychology suggest individuals’ natural characteristics are magnified and intensified when they congregate. Which would explain why academics form the most impractical and bumbling group imaginable when they coagulate. And why we spend the best part of five minutes stood on the wrong train platform on the way back from lunch.

* A genuinely French band is playing on the train. Well, at least I think they are genuine – the accordion is a major giveaway, though I’m suspicious about the lack of berets. None of us know whether the music is just for our benefit, and whether, if we were to offer them some change, they would be encouraged to go on playing rather than realising we wanted them to stop.

* Glasses of Leffe at a pavement table outside a bar followed by a marvellous conference dinner, and the gruelling afternoon spent in a stuffy conference room is soon forgotten.

* Protestors ahoy! Well, about four, clutching placards and rushing through the barriers at Chatelet Les Halles metro station. We resist getting swept up in the revolutionary fervour.

* There is a French version of ‘Newsnight Review’! The guests debate around a central circular table and are shot from all kinds of arty angles while the audience stands around the outside of the studio looking on. Think ‘Question Time’ meets ‘Top Gear’. Somehow I doubt you’ll hear Jeremy Clarkson mentioning Jacques Derrida in a review of the new Toyota Yaris any time soon, though.

Saturday 1st April

* I leave the hotel, walk past the drunks shouting their incomprehensible greetings and grab a quick espresso at the station. Amazing how quickly and easily you can adapt to a new routine. Just as I’m feeling settled, though, I notice the broken windows of the Western Union. All is not quite as calm as it seems.

* A superb buffet lunch to round off the conference – though my plate is filled only twice, quaffing the free-flowing red wine and champagne naturally being deemed more important.

* Back at the hotel, and more dubbed shite imported from America on the TV. Unsurprisingly ‘The Scott Brothers’ does nothing for the headache slowly gathering itself storm-like behind my eyes.

* 4.30pm. I have to be across the other side of Paris for 8.15pm. How much of the city can I see on foot en route?

* As struck me in Prague, the window displays of Parisian bookshops are dominated by plain-covered and thick works of critical theory. The French take pride in their intellectual culture and heritage – whereas we seem to be ashamed of ours (such as it is), not so much hiding it under a bushel as burying it beneath the brightly coloured masterpieces of such transcendent thinkers as Rowling, Elton and Keyes.

* Place de la Republique, then Place de la Bastille, where, rather than coming across any signs of last night’s clashes between protesters and authorities, I encounter a man dressed as a penis. He is stood in the shadow of an enormous inflatable penis. Some kind of performance art, I guess.

* Notre Dame. The grin on my face is indicative not of an appreciation of the building’s admittedly impressive architecture and stature, but of the fact that Newcastle have ended a sequence of defeats with a very good win.

* Is this the Palais de Justice? I’m not sure. Several tricolor flags are flying, though, and there’s a conspicuous police presence.

* At the present moment I know about twenty people in a city with over two million inhabitants. And here I am bumping into two of them on a street corner.

* The Pompidou Centre isn’t quite how I remember it, though its prolapsed design – supporting structure and escalators on the outside – is no less remarkable than it was years ago. In the gently sloping arena surrounding the building, artists sketch airbrushed portraits, a couple of Chinese blokes lead a straggle of studenty types in a rendition of ‘Stand By Me’ and a chap gets his puppet to play guitar along to The Pixies’ ‘There Goes My Mind’.

* The relative absence of big chain stores even in and around Rue de Rivoli and Forum Des Halles is striking. But it’s noticeable that Starbucks seem to be getting some kind of foothold in a country for which coffee holds a vital significance. A reminder that cultural imperialism and commercial imperialism are now inseparable.

* But even capitalism goes on the defensive sometimes. Signs in the window of the shuttered-up Samaritaine department store declare that it’s shut “for security reasons”. Another indication that Paris is currently a volatile place.

* Suddenly I can’t move for flower shops. The pavement narrows and I’m trapped amidst foliage. And then there are the pet shops: twelve hamsters to a small glass tank, three puppies sharing a cage barely big enough for one. Stepping back into the street and the cooling evening, the queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach doesn’t dissipate as quickly as I’d have liked.

* The Louvre. Fuck me that must take some dusting…

* This may be Paris, but there are still giddy wine-suffused girls waving and shouting from white stretched limousines. I’d wager they’re all wearing pink cowboy hats, too.

* The Champs Elysees – so this is where the chain store sheep are grazing. The stench of money is everywhere. I wander absent-mindedly into the Peugeot vanity “shop” and marvel at the fact that it sells next to nothing.

* I arrive at my 8.15 rendez-vous point near the Arc de Triomphe with barely a minute to spare. The fact that it’s the sort of swish restaurant I never frequent is underlined by the air of suspicion and distaste with which the maitre d’ eyes me through the window.

* Well, that was expensive (I managed to smuggle my way in amidst my more respectable companions) – but bloody gorgeous. Pain, soupe de poisson, maquereau avec citron vert et aubergine, fromage, sorbet, all washed down with liberal quantities of kir and French vin blanc et rouge and topped off with a strong café. I’m left feeling decadent – all that’s missing is a glass of absinthe and the recital of some Baudelaire poems.

* As if to prepare me for the experience of being back in Britain tomorrow, some thoughtful soul has deposited the contents of his or her stomach in a Jackson Pollock-esque splatter on the pavement near my hotel.

* * * * *

And so there you have it. The journey home on Sunday was without mishap (though I could have done without arriving into Cardiff at the exact moment that thousands of jubilant and full-of-themselves Swansea fans were leaving the Millennium Stadium). Apologies for the lack of effort in the gonzo journalism stakes – obviously I should have got myself involved in the protests / rioting, but I weighed it up and decided I was more concerned about keeping my skull intact. Dressing up as a penis didn’t appeal, either.