Enjoy Your Trip?

Ooh la la, Monsieur. Yes, I have been for a jolly jape to Paris – always a good tonic when the spirits are low (as mine have been in recent weeks). It couldn't have been better timed too – for as well as the deadened mood that I had previously been enduring, last week was one hell of a crazy merry-go-round of events, that's for sure. As part of Broadway's ScreenLit festival, there were all sorts of screenings, talks, panels and readings to attend, and that's before you start on the various parties and drinks receptions that inevitably clamour for one's attention as well. So, all week I seemed to be dashing from pillar to post meeting some fascinating people from film, theatre and television (one of whom was the fabulous Dave Spikey of 'Phoenix Nights' fame – an absolute gem of a bloke). But it was all quite exhausting.

On the night before I left for my trip, it was the grand closing party where (and I've said this before, I know) the glitterati surged into the Broadway like the massing herds of wildebeest gathering at the watering hole. Unfortunately, I was scheduled to get up at 4:00 a.m. the following morning to get to the airport, so I couldn't stay too late, but it was a great party nonetheless. Imagine my surprise then, when after a few hours of snatched sleep I ventured out into the deserted street at 5:00 a.m. to get my bus for the airport, only to discover a straggle of late revellers just making their way home from the aforesaid Broadway bash! That must have been one hell of a paarteh!

And so to Paris. Never before have I felt in such need of a total break from the fleshpots of Hockley, not least because my recent 'matters of the heart' had somehow drained my emotions of all joie de vivre. As my plane took off, I felt the oppressive load of the previous few weeks simply dissolve from my shoulders and so I (metaphorically) kicked off my shoes, sprawled back into my (metaphoric) seat of insouciance, and relaxed. What a lovely time I had too – cosseted and cared for by my daughter Sophie and her boyfriend, I felt like someone in convalescence. We visited a fascinating exhibition on 'Crime & Punishment' which included a real guillotine – I'd never seen one close up before – and the original of David's painting 'The Death of Marat' (copies of which hung on almost every student's bedroom wall – including mine - in the 1970s), and some intriguing instruments of torture that quite frankly would be more at home in a fetish club in Birmingham (not that I've ever visited one, of course).

We had a delightful lunch with Sophie's charming in-laws; played pétanque in the park whilst drinking copious amounts of the obligatory pastis; watched the French equivalent of the FA Cup Final on TV (Paris St Germain won, appropriately enough). We flâned our way through the Marais district to observe the men kissing in the streets (so that's why they call it 'Gay Paree'); and we ate fried duck in the May Day gala on the banks of the River Seine. There was no sightseeing, no tourism, no photographs (well, I did have one of me taken in front of Serge Gainsborough's house), just a lovely, lovely, relaxing time.

"I want to take a stroll
down the Champs-Élysées,
Do some window shopping
in the Rue de la Paix.
That's for me:
Bonjour, Paris!"

And so, back to the salt mines tomorrow....