April 27 - Paris

Before you start this, consider the medium via which you are viewing it. If you are trying to read it on a phone, you may find it difficult. The text will be tiny and the photos difficult to view. I am writing this on a 22” screen. It is designed to be printed off on A4 paper and read away from a computer, with a tea or a coffee - and time to spare. If you’re in a hurry, don’t bother trying to read this on the go. It will be a waste of your time. You’ll miss things.

We shouldn’t stand still, should we? By this, I mean in our approach to life. In the 80s, management guru Peter Drucker was asked who, as CEO of a large company, he would select for promotion to senior management. He replied that he’d choose the manager that made mistakes. His thinking was to favour the manager trying new things as opposed to managers that stuck to what was tried and tested - and therefore safe and stagnant. As the Japanese taught us then, competitors will be changing, adapting, innovating. Standing still is not an option. Try new things. Embrace what works. Discard what doesn’t. Improvement comes at a cost.

With that in mind, these letters are moving to a more graphic, photo-journalistic style. In short, more pics to illustrate the words. Not just photos, perhaps cartoons too. The idea being to add depth to the words. For those of you who knew me in Portugal, this is adopting the approach I used for the Lisbon Casuals’ newsletters. The Lisbon Casuals was - and probably still is, a sport club of about 200 people, primarily ex-pats, with a few Portuguese. There were MDs of large organisations, people running their own businesses, British Council and British Embassy staff, as well as teachers, gardeners and farmers; an eclectic bunch with sport as a common love. I wrote the newsletters for a year. It was a fun time that is about to be revived with a new slant in the format of these letters.

While these letters purport to be about ‘Life in Lincs’, in reviewing them, I see that they are much more. Most of my life is pretty much as yours. Day-to-day stuff: shopping, ironing, tidying the house, gardening, cooking, going to the docs, watching TV, the bland everyday things that are unavoidable; the way our days drift by. But, there is always more, the extra bits - the sugar that clings to the side of your mouth when eating a jam doughnut, giving you more than the simple pleasure from demolishing the doughnut but also the hidden hits of sugar echoes. For instance, April and May were full to overflowing; little of it in Lincs. This letter is about that sugar. It focuses on Easter in Paris. The other things that have happened - and there have been many, will be covered in more letters soon to follow. For now - Paris.

I went to Paris at Easter with two of the Young Cousins. These are the children of my cousins who now live in Oz. 60 years ago, my cousins and I  played together as children in India. Then, Mum & Dad brought my sister and me to England in ’54. Four of the other 20 or so cousins settled in Oz once they were married.

Desirée is my cousin Lorraine’s middle child and for her 40^th birthday, husband Rob as any loving husband would, took her on a 7 week world tour. They asked my sister and me to join them for a long weekend in Paris. Mimi couldn’t get the time off but I went. We were joined by Des’s friend from Oz, Chantal who now lives in London.

The time in Paris flew by. It was four days of wandering about, soaking in the atmosphere, shouting “Haw Hee Haw!” at passers-by, which they surely found most amusing. As usual, I took photos - 700. You can pretty much bet the farm that a glut of photos will result from any trip - 350 from the Lake District in Nov 2012, 300 from York - March 2013, 150 from a day in Christchurch last weekend… You get the picture (K-tissh, Boom! I’m here all week). As far as I’m concerned, you can’t have too many photos. Once you’ve got the camera and the memory card, digital photos cost nothing. Surely it is better to take spare shots that to fret about the shoulda woulda coulda moments that got away? Realistically, with all of these pics, after an initial glance and perhaps some editing in Photoshop, a few will go to Flickr, my newest fad, while most will sit on this hard drive, ignored and abandoned - probably for evermore.

Flickr is a web site that hosts photo collections. Sign up and you get one terabyte of space to show your photos for free. With a bit of online form-filling in Settings - Flickr creates a URL so that anyone can view your photos. My URL is  https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjjda Membership is only necessary if you want to display photos. Visitors can look at the site without charge. I recommend it. There are some talented photographers there. You’ll be spoiled.

At this stage can I mention that I have no idea why this white background has appeared. If anyone can tell me, I'd be most grateful. It disappears later on. Again, no idea why.

Those of you with whom I have shared spiritual discussions will know that I have great faith in the cunning of the Universe. It puts things right by means that I can only wonder at in retrospect.

Back to Paris - late on the Thurs that we arrived, we called in at a shop that sold river tours. Unfortunately, due to today’s careless reliance on technology, their computer was down. Having no manual backup routines they were not able to sell us four river trips; nor any to the other customers also waiting. Slipshod planning - common in businesses with little or no idea of Internal Control.

No great loss. We strolled down to the river where there were several big boats, all with ticket offices. We approached one that beckoned as it bobbed seductively. It was 7:45 in the evening.

“When does the next boat leave?”                “8:00.” 

“Can we have four ticket please?”                “No. It’s sold out.” 

 “When is the next boat?”                             “8:30.”

“Is there space on that?”                              “Loads.”

So we went on the 8:30 boat. As we were about to discover, our good fortune was to rely on two happy accidents; firstly, that we missed out on tickets at the shop we had tried earlier and then, that the 8:00 p.m. boat was full. The Universe was looking after us, as you will see.

As the evening chilled slightly, sitting on the open upper deck, we set off at a gentle chugg at 8:30 cossetted by our guide with fascinating facts on the bridges, history and buildings of the Seine’s districts through which we were passing. Did you know, the more arches a bridge has, the older it is? As the engineers got better at bridge building, they needed less arches. (You’re welcome.)

After 10 minutes or so, we turned and headed back along the other bank. The Eiffel Tower appeared on the horizon. Dusk was falling and the tower lit up. An impressive sight by any standards - a soft, yet powerful glow against a backdrop of a darkening sky; a sight to inspire poetry in the coldest of souls.

 Then, to our surprise, at 21:00, it started to twinkle. How about that? 20,000 white bulbs twinkling on and off gave us a fabulous display for the next five minutes! Apparently, this happens on the hour, every hour after dusk. I have a ten second video of it but it’s too big to send by email (53 Mb). If I can find out how to compress it enough to attach to a mail, it will be circulated. Had we got the 8:00 p.m. boat, we’d have been too early for the show. It would have been too light.

The next day unveiled a wonderful old café near our hotel - Maxim, in the Latin Quarter.  Note the hotel’s name - “Maxim”. That comes up again. I describe the café as ‘wonderful’ as it was choc-a-bloc with memorabilia from the 50s, a step through a portal into yesteryear.

In my eagerness to tell this pointless story, I’ve jumped ahead so let’s wind back to the start of the day.  In our opening explorations, we found a small orchestra busking on the tube,

a model shoot of a scruffy, bandy bloke with great hair who thought he was Wolverine

and a gorgeous woman with disturbingly mad eyes that warned “Don’t make me angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry.”

On the Champs Elysées, Lamborghinis were offered for a test drive,

and finally, rather surprisingly, there was a bridge with locks attached to the safety fence.

This is a tradition of which I was previously unaware. For people of a romantic disposition, you and the person of your dreams get a small padlock, write your initials on it in blood (or a felt tip pen if you are less than sure about the blood thing), lock it to the fence then throw the keys into the Seine, declaring your love for eternity. As actions speak louder than words, this seems a bit close to a hidden contract but I can see how a tender moment can lead to a heady rush catching the unwary victim off-guard. The previously-mentioned boat ride followed all of this. That was Day 1, brimful of memories.

The next day found us taking an early stroll around a street market near the hotel. Shops were raising their shutters and stalls were just setting up. Civilised people were shaking hands as is the French way as the shy start grew into a steady bustle. The photos that follow, are just a few from this scene. The middle photo is of a cheese shop next to a wine shop. In France! What are the chances? One-stop shopping.

It was another day of fine weather and after the street market and a fair amount of time in a chocolate shop, we took off for Montmartre. As the previous day, this stroll was full of surprises; another model shoot,

a chap playing a harp,

then, just around the corner, a rock band on the steps at the side of the church,

and of course, the church itself - spectacular in its own right.

The band was a trio called Les Presteej. Good singers, they harmonised well and made a melodious if somewhat disrespectful sound on the steps at the side of the church. I got one of their CDs. While I liked their music, I was in France and hadn’t thought it through. The CD is  in French. Nice sound but I can’t understand a word. As they say in Spalding - C’est la vie.

Montmartre is known for its street artists. You may know that Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec plied his trade there and it crossed my mind that it might be memorable to have a portrait done by one of the current up-and-coming hopefuls. I found No. 2 Maxim - also our hotel’s name, remember? On seeing his caricature of a previous sitter, I went for it and sat for around 15-20 minutes. As you sit there trying to be as still as poss., it crosses your mind that this might turn out to be a disaster. However, passers-by gave me encouragement in that they looked over his shoulder at the work-in-process, smiled and gave me the thumbs up, international sign language for “He saw you coming.”

It was a kind interpretation in that it made me look like a 20 year-old ladyboy with a Brad Pitt jawline that has never been an attribute. When I was 20, Mary and Lesley Daniels, two of the most beautiful girls I have known, were talking about me at their house, in front of me as if I wasn’t there. They concluded I was ‘pretty rather than handsome’. So, 45 year on, haven’t lost it then? This is the artist - No. 2 Maxim, the portrait and the sitter. As for its accuracy, on my return from Paris, I showed it to my sister without any explanation and she said “Who’s that then?” I put it down to the fact that she hasn’t seen me in the hat.

That was Paris, I hope you’ve enjoyed the greater use of pictures to show you what I experienced. There is still a lot to tell about the last couple of months so more Letters should be expected. With the current fad for Selfies, I sign-off with a pic.