HEYWOOD INDUSTRIES

A week in to my Bachelor of Communication degree and, for the life of me, I can’t remember a more confusing week.

Following some teething problems with logging in to the university system that were sorted with a phonecall to Queensland, I gained access and started to have a look around. 

Everything is fairly straightforward, it must be said. But the first issue that I noticed is one of consistency. While one of my subjects is wholly online and has a clear course outline, the other is a mix of online and printed material, and no real structure to speak of. So, straightforward, but straightforward in different directions.

The only thing I’m really sure of is that my first two assignments are due in less than thirty days. 

All the lecturers have pointed out that it takes a week or two to get one’s head around online learning, which is some comfort. I just hope that this can happen simultaneously with me getting my head around returning to study.

The other thing I’m going to have to come to grips with - and quickly - is the amount of changes that my writing style will need to accomodate. Ten years of writing for the music press has given me, for want of a better term, a “style”. And it seems that this style - or, possibly more accurately, this lack of style - of mine is the opposite of how I will now be expected to write, if everything I’ve read so far is accurate. And I’m of a mind to believe that it is.

So, no more rambling, three-hundred word paragraphs. No more messing up my active and passive voice. And nothing more descriptive than “he/she says/said”. Amongst others. And that’s just for my news and politics course.

I’ve also got to master the whole “academic” style of writing for Developing Research & Analytical Skills. References. Bibliographies. All that kind of stuff. And clear, concise writing. 

I’ve got my work cut out for me.

While I’m still a graphic designer - albeit an unemployed graphic designer at the moment - lately I’ve been thinking about doing something different. Not necessarily a career change, but something that may, down the line, possibly facilitate a career change, if I feel the need. At the very least, I’ve been feeling like doing something with my brain. A new challenge. Adding another string to my bow, as it were. 

I’d been toying with the idea of more study for a while, although initially my thinking was leaning towards anthropology or something of that ilk. 

But then, slowly, a few things made me change my mind. Over the past year or so, I’ve quite enjoyed the writing I’ve been doing. Apart from the travel diary - yes, the unfinished travel diary that I must crack on with - I’ve been working on a couple of other things, including a long piece on Manila.

Then there was an ad for mid-term university enrollment that I spotted in a newspaper.

And there were three pieces of writing: the first I’ve already blogged about; the second, a New York Times piece about an unauthorised iPhone repair shop (while the latter may not sound all that fascinating, something about that first paragraph really grabbed me). The third thing - which came as the deadline to enrol approached, and finally made my mind up for me - was a truly abhorrent column in one of the big Melbourne papers. I can’t remember which paper, or when, but it was a column in a tech section about a computer game. Or maybe some sort of gadget. Either way, it is one of worst things I have ever read in a newspaper. Sadly, I can’t go and retrieve said column as it is now buried deep in the compost bin, finally contributing something to the world. 

So thank you, newspaper columnist. As of today, I’m officially a university student. A university student studying for a Bachelor of Communication, majoring in journalism. I now have the beginnings of a student loan debt thanks to your largely incompetent ramblings.

While I’ve been a writer - of sorts - for the best part of the past ten years, with quite a number of album reviews and interviews for the music press to my name, I feel like I’ve reached the limits of my abilities, and now I want to progress further. I want my writing to improve, I want to branch out and tackle other areas of journalism and, most importantly, I want to be inspired and challenged.

And also, if I do decide on this as a career change, I have ambitions. I want to grace the pages of The Guardian and the New York Times. I want to report from some far-flung place or interview someone who is doing something truly interesting. I want to research and write books and I want those books to populate bookshelves and be loved the way I love the contents of my bookshelves. I want to contribute something that informs people and makes people think. And maybe, like those pieces mentioned above, inspires someone to do something, like they did to me.

That’s not too much to ask, is it?

It’s my last Monday in London, so after booking a train ticket, I spend way too much time in the cafeteria trying to decide what to see and what to miss over the next few days and end up “enjoying” a breakfast of cold eggs, bacon, toast and tea. The breakfast at LSE is perfunctory at best when piping hot; when cold it’s downright mouth-torture. But at least it’s free.  I wander up to the tube and make my way to the bomb-site that is Tottenham Court Road with no particular place in mind for all my deliberating, but I figure I’ll find something.

After wasting time in a bookshop trying to find the new Paul Raymond biography - it’s in the “business biography” section, which seems an odd place to put it, and by the time I find it I’m annoyed about their stupid cataloguing system and decide to punish them by not buying it - I find a shop called Fopp. Damian had told me that Fopp was a cheap CD shop, and I’m always one for a cheap CD. Sadly, though, it becomes obvious pretty soon that a) Fopp is an offshoot of HMV, and b) Fopp is no cheaper than HMV. 

My wander continues westwards, because I realise there’s somewhere I want to visit. It’s the camera-nerd inside me, dragging me in the direction of the holiest of sites this side of Solms in German: the London Leica Store.

After the usual lunch - I’m beginning to wonder if that Pret apple juice is spiked with something highly addictive - and the usual bout of getting slightly lost for a little while, I find where I’m looking for.

My pace quickens as I see the familiar red dot logo, I get to the door, reach out and find that it’s locked. I compare the opening times on the window to the time on my phone. Yes, I’m there during opening times. There seem to be people looking at things inside. I try the door again as maybe I pushed when I should have pulled, or vice versa. No. And then, just as the mildly amused staff member comes to the door, I notice the buzzer I have to press. 

Once inside, I wander about quietly and try not to drool on the display cases. The gear on display is stunning, and, not surprisingly so are the prices. I try to keep a mental tally of the combined worth of everything I look at; I lose track around item number six, at which point I’m already well over AU$30,000. 

Aforementioned staff member lets me drool for a little while, then comes over and asks if I’d like any help. “Sure,” I want to say, “Help me out by lending me a few thousand quid.” Instead, I ask her if I can have a look at a Leica MP. 

I was expecting her to go through a complicated security routine, and to be handed a pair of white cotton gloves, but she simply opened the display case, grabbed the camera and handed it to me like it was a camera worth many thousands of pounds less. 

The camera itself is a thing of beauty. Small, weighty and solid. And oh so beautiful. I cradled it, I looked through its wonderful viewfinder, I fired the shutter and wound it on. For someone who relies on cameras from the ‘70s and earlier, it was like a whole new world. But sadly, one that I was only briefly visiting. Because, at £3,300, it was roughly the same price as the whole trip to London and Paris. 

And this trip to London was the reason I wasn’t at home in Australia holding my own MP in my hands. I’d actually decided at the start of the year that I would treat myself to a nice yet horrendously expensive camera for my 35th birthday and, about a week or so before the date I was planning to put in my order, I got the email announcing the wedding. I figured the camera could wait; weddings only (usually) happen once and instead of a camera, my 35th birthday present to me would be a holiday in London. 

But at least I got to hold one of those fantastic little machines for a few minutes. 

And then I left with the one thing I could afford. The price list. 

From there, I wandered down Berkeley Street to Piccadilly and along to Burlington Arcade, which was like an arcade full of Leica shops. In that there were a lot of shops full of things I had no chance of affording, not that they were full of cameras.

After a wander around Waterstones, something reminds me of a photography exhibition I was meaning to visit, so I head to the Atlas Gallery off Baker St (cue bad saxophone impression.) Sadly, because I’d left a notebook back at home in Australia, I’d missed the exhibition - photographs of the Rolling Stones recording Exile in France - but the lovely lass behind the counter was kind enough to let me browse through their copy of the book the exhibition was based on. It was fascinating, and I was kicking myself for having missed it, so I enquired to the price of the book. Turns out, it was a very limited edition and they go for over £1,000 on ebay. Immediately, my mind turned to everything I touched that day and I couldn’t enjoy the book without imagining that I was irreversibly damaging its precious pages. So I had a cursory flick through the rest of the book and was on my way.

The rest of the day was less than interesting. After a visit to London Bridge to pick up my train tickets, I made my way back through the rain to LSE, had a quick nap, grabbed a burrito and a beer for dinner then retired to my rooms for a cup of tea, a spot of reading and an early night.

Damian’s train back to Manchester leaves at 11.30am, so we meet up at Euston at 10am. Our stomachs influence our decision, so we grab some breakfast at a Ed’s Easy Diner, a ‘50s Americana-style diner that is heavy on the kitsch - neon, booths, jukeboxes - and slightly light on good food. Really, it’s just what you’d expect from a themed restaurant at a train station. Decent, but nothing amazing. 

After eating, we wander around Euston for a bit. I’d like to think that it is because it’s early-ish on a Sunday morning and we’re both feeling a little worse for wear, but Euston is totally unispiring. So we pop back to the station, grab another coffee, Damian grabs a newspaper for the trip and then it’s time for him to go.

I make my way back to Angel, grab myself a newspaper, head back to the LSE and, after making a cup of tea, promptly fall asleep. 

I wake up to find myself wearing my newspaper as a blanket, so after a thorough check to make sure the ink hasn’t transferred to any exposed skin - I’m not sporting a backwards headline across my forehead, thankfully - I head out for something to eat. 

After wandering about for a bit, I decide on another visit to S&M. Because, well, there aren’t enough opportunities for sausages and mash back home, so I’m getting my fill while I’m here. 

The contrast between S&M and Ed’s Easy Diner couldn’t be more obvious; faux-vintage Americana can’t compete against real British vintage. And, while sitting there, a thought strikes me: if this cafe is 80-odd years old, and George Orwell lived up the road 60-odd years ago, there’s a chance that he could have paid a visit to this very cafe. While I’m pondering that fact, two patrons walk in. The first, a guy my age, orders sausages and mash and a mug of tea in a thick Cockney accent. The second, a few minutes behind the first, could have stepped out of a photograph of a ‘60s grocery store - a long smock coat and a flat cap. He orders sausages and mushy peas.

Brilliant.

After my dinner, I take my time strolling back to the LSE. Damian and I had tended to spend a lot of time together when he was in Australia and, much like when he left Australia to come back to the UK, I feel like I’m at a bit of a loose end. I wander past a cheap bookstore that I’d noticed, but - amazingly - not ventured in to. While most of the stock was standard cheap bookshop fare, they had a book I’d been thinking about for quite a while - Ad Infinitum: A Biography Of Latin And The World It Created by Nicholas Ostler - so I parted with £3 and it was mine. Given I’d slept a considerable portion of the day, I needed something to fill in a few hours before I got sleepy, so, with a new book to keep me company, I made my way back to the LSE for a cup of tea or two and some reading.

Upon waking rather late - c’mon, we were out until 5am last night, and we (especially me) aren’t getting any younger - I turned on the taps to be greeted with that familiar whooshing sound of H2O minus the H and one of the Os. After a quick exchange of text messages, I steel myself for the uncomfortable unwashed tube trip across town to where Damian’s staying. His branch of the LSE accommodation, unlike mine, has water. And his room, unlike mine, has an en-suite bathroom rather than my shared ablutionary facilities. It’s an ensuite that could almost fit in to the space occupied by the average airplane toilet, but at this point I smell like a beggar, so I’m not being choosy.

While I’m getting ready, Damian recounts his trip home last night. He got the bus okay, the short walk from the bus stop to his LSE was fine, he got to the front door and… Was accosted by some homeless Mexicans who wanted a chat and, after a while, invited him to breakfast. Damian politely declined, pointing out that there aren’t that many breakfast options available at 6am on a Sunday morning and scuttled inside to bed. 

Anyway, after I showered and prettied myself off, we set out on today’s adventures. One of the things I’d wanted to see was Battersea Power Station - yep, that’s the sort of exciting things I go for - because it’s an impressive-looking building and, by all accounts, close to collapse. Lucky for me, Damian was cool with paying a visit as well as he’d not seen it either. Even though last night he told anyone who asked that we were going to visit Battersea Dog’s Home. Mainly, I think, to see the confused looks on their faces. Of which there were many. 

We caught the tube to Pimlico and made our way to Vauxhall Bridge before heading in what we thought was the right direction. But strangely, we couldn’t see the building and its distinct chimney stacks so we were, essentially wandering in that direction hoping we were going the right way. Just when I was ready to declare that we’d obviously gone the wrong way, there it was. While I proceeded to take shots ever few hundred metres - mainly, when a break in the trees along the bank of the Thames allowed it - Damian pretended to not be bored of all the stopping and photographing. At Chelsea Bridge we considered crossing over to get a closer look before realising neither of us could be bothered, so we set off in the other direction, up Chelsea Bridge Road towards Sloane Square and the posh part of town. 

Plenty of posh jokes were being made as we got to Sloane Square tube station. The joke was very, very nearly on me as I didn’t realise I was crossing a road and nearly got collected by a posh fellow in a posh BMW.

From there, we hopped on a tube back to Embankment, walked up to the strand and got coffees in quite possibly the most ridiculous glasses known to man. I should have taken a photo, but they were almost the length of my forearm and, with the handle way down near the bottom, drinking from them was quite a precarious exercise. To add insult - literally - to the chance of injury, the waiter who served us was one of the biggest arses I’ve ever had the pleasure of dealing with. Another thing I should have taken a photograph of was Chumley, the cartoon ginger dandy who stopped nearby while we drank our coffees from ridiculous glasses. You couldn’t make this guy up if you tried: a big ginger fringe, big Alfred E Neuman-style freckles, dressed in a vivid aqua outfit - with matching nail-polish - bright red shoes and a bright orange watch. It was a primary colour explosion and I’m not sure my eyeballs will ever recover. But sadly, I didn’t have any colour film loaded in my cameras and black and white wouldn’t have done him justice.

After our coffee, we headed back to our respective LSEs for a nap and a freshen-up before meeting up at Angel tube for a night out with Damian’s former workmates Pratesh and Joyce, who, despite having a stereotypical British name, is actually Brazilian.

We set off along Upper Street, looking for somewhere to start our evening, before being confronted by two young ladies heading towards us wearing… Well, not much at all. Lingerie. Underwear. In public. I cracked the obvious joke - “Let’s go where they’re going.” - just as we spotted the appealingly-named Slug & Lettuce, which is apparently one of a chain (80, all over the UK, according to their website) of British gastro-pubs, so we decided to pop in there for a quick pre-dinner pint. And landed smack in the middle of a large group of young ladies dressed in… Well, I’m sure you can work out the rest.

Turns out that our two intrepid, lingerie-clad ladies were venturing out from the base they had set up in the Slug. Quickly - once they opened their mouths - it became obvious that this bunch were from Essex, and the one in the veil gave away the fact that this was a hen’s night. 

After our pints, and with the accents of the lingerie set grating our ears, we headed off in search of food. Which turned out to be the curry place directly opposite.

The first disappointment I encountered while perusing the Masala Zone menu was the noticeable omission of what is, apparently, the British national dish, Chicken Tikka Masala. Not that I was going to actually order the dish, mind. But I thought it was a bit of an oversight on their behalf. 

It wouldn’t be the first time that evening that I, or Damian, Pratesh or Joyce for that matter, questioned our choice of dining establishment. Within seconds of being seated, a waiter was at our table, mumbling something totally unintelligible. After the third attempt, we realised that he wanted to take our drink orders. If that wasn’t awkward enough, because we had just sat down, none of us had even glanced at the menu, so mister mumbles stood there, glaring, while we consulted the drinks list. Luckily, we weren’t given much of a choice  so decision-making was quick and relatively painless. 

The drinks arrive, and so does the next course of unnecessarily awkward ordering. A different waitress this time, but still as confusing. We discover - after asking the same question three times - that the kitchen can’t - or won’t - make our curries hotter. And there’s a moment of unadulterated, Three Stooges-esque hilarity surrounding the subject of rice. The menu says all dishes are served with rice, so we assume we don’t have to order it. Once we’ve ordered, though, the waitress asks, “You don’t want rice?” We mention what it says on the menu. “Yes, they come with rice,” she informs us, with a look that suggests she thinks we’re absolute morons. And then turns on her heel and is off. 

We think we just ordered rice, but we’re not entirely sure.

After a couple of minutes of “What the hell is going on here?” conversation, I head out for a cigarette. The hens are still clucking away across the road, and I stand there and consider a fact I learned a couple of days ago: Screen On The Green - the cinema where I saw Scott Pilgrim Vs The World with Matt and Katy before I left for Paris - was the venue for the first-ever Clash gig. 

Back inside, I’m confronted by a sight I didn’t expect: our food has arrived. This may be seen as a sign of excellent service by some people; we, however, immediately start voicing concerns - the combination of not being able to make our curries spicier and the incredible rapidness with which they arrived to our table has us wondering if we’ve just been served food fresh from the microwave. 

The waitress pops back to see if everything’s okay - we don’t raise our concerns with her - and Joyce, innocently and pleasantly, asks for a knife

“What for?” is the reply.

Joyce’s face changes to the sort you see on someone who is suddenly very, very unimpressed, and the flatness in her voice backs that up.

“To cut something.”

The waitress, seemingly satisfied with that explanation, heads off to grab a knife, while we share looks of wide-eyed astonishment before dissolving in to howls of surprised laughter that end abruptly, like teenagers keeping something from their parents, when the waitress returns with the knife.

The rest of the meal runs without a hitch, assisted by the fact that the wait staff don’t return to our table. Microwaved or not - we’re guessing probably not - the food is quite good, and the beer is good, the conversation is good and the fact we’re not confronted with the wait staff is good. Also, we’re delighted to see that we’re not the only one getting strange treatment from the staff. While we’re eating, a rather large fellow walks in with a few others. And despite there being free tables and booths throughout the restaurant, the staff decide to perch this group at a bench with seating that looks like something from the kid’s section at Ikea. We shouldn’t be amused by the large fellow on the tiny stool, but we are. 

At the end of the meal, we’re presented with the bill and a customer comment card, which we immediately start collaborating on, and I - as holder of the pencil - collate everyone’s responses and leave some rather sarcastic comments of my own.

Once paid up and out of there, we wander back down Upper Street to look for somewhere for a post-dinner drink. We settle upon a pub called the Steam Passage - that sounds vaguely rude to me, but I keep that observation to myself - that we’d heard about as Sam from last night works there. After the shock of the price of the pints - at over £4, the most expensive I’ve encountered in London so far - we settle down at a table and it strikes me. The Steam Passage is a British theme-pub like you’d find all over the world. Why on earth you’d actually need a British theme-pub in London - of all places - is beyond me. But it is, and it’s part of some chain of pubs and have annoying telly screens dotted around the British-themed walls alternating between music videos and ads for the boring-looking stock-standard pub fare they serve and it’s noisy and a bit shabby and it’s all a bit sad, really. I’m not sure how incompetent you need to be to fuck up the job of creating a British-themed pub in Britain, but someone has managed to do it comprehensively. 

After our first round, Pratesh and Joyce decide to call it a night and we decide to find somewhere else. Anywhere else. And end up at my new favourite boozer, The Wilmington Arms. 

Over a pint or two, the rubbish-talking continues, in stark contrast to the table of three nearby who hardly say a word the whole time we’re there, thoroughly engrossed in their game of Pictionary. I pop outside to have a cigarette and chat to the bouncers about signage and the kid down near the fried chicken shop who is clearly drunk for the first time. And then we decide to forgo a third pint as we’re starting to struggle after our big night last night. So, knackered, we both head back to our respective beds.

From now on, if nothing worth mentioning happens between getting out of bed and walking out the door, let’s just assume that I got out of bed at some point, had a shower and all that stuff, had breakfast, maybe checked emails and did a bit of writing and then headed off for my day’s adventures. Okay? Good.

Day two with Damian started slowly. We met up at Camden Town tube for a bit of a wander about. I’d been recently, but I wanted to see Camden again without a billion tourists and Damian had never been to Camden before.

So I’m standing there, outside the tube station, assuming that I’ve beaten him there - historically, Damian’s not been the most on time person in the world, and I figure nothing’s changed - watching the exit and the regular parade of freaks. After about ten minutes or so, I glance to my left and there he is, leaning against a pole, all casual-like and grinning like the proverbial Cheshire. Damian has this amazing ability to just appear out of nowhere. He should work for MI5. So off we stroll, taking bets on how long we can go before encountering Chuggers - a term Damian introduced me to yesterday, a portmanteau of charity and mugger - but they all seem to be wanting a minute of people’s time in other places today. Camden on a Friday, thankfully, doesn’t contain a billion tourists. More like a few million, which is a nice change. We wander all the way down to Chalk Farm Road and then back through one of the markets where I proceed to get us totally lost looking for the slightly belligerent French hipster selling bootleg band tshirts. When we finally get there, he’s smoking a cigarette - not a Gitane, I notice - inside the market. I’m just about to buy a couple of tshirts when some normal looking bloke type comes up, flips open his wallet to show a badge and gestures to the Frenchman to come with him. “Oh, great,” I think, assuming that this guy is some kind of undercover copyright cop busting the dude for selling rip-off tees, but it just turns out that he’s a council employee hassling Frenchy for smoking inside. Frenchy’s turning on the charm, chuckling and going on about how he just popped back inside to serve me, but the council guy’s having nothing of it. So, begrudgingly, he stomps out his smoke and returns to his stall, keeping an eye on the council guy. A minute or two after he disappears in to another part of the market, there’s a fag dangling from his lip. 

After wandering through the rest of the tourist-trap crap in the market - including a poster* that makes us stop and wonder just who would actually buy it and actually put it up on their wall - we start back towards the tube but are sidetracked by our stomachs. A quick Pret pit-stop followed by Damian spending way too long in a queue to buy a punnet of below-par raspberries and we go to find somewhere to sit. At the end of Inverness Street, we pass The Good Mixer, which reminds Damian that he has been to Camden before. With two mutual friends, no less. So as he fills me in on the details - one of these mutual friends is an idiot, the other lovely but rather serious, so it was an interesting experience for him - we head towards Regent’s Park.

We manage to miss an entrance and take the long way to find the next entrance by being thoroughly distracted by the sight of a woman with quite possibly the skinniest legs we have ever seen. Combined with big white trainers on her feet and a rather large backpack, it appears she is defying at least two fundamental rules of physics. 

Sadly, Regent’s Park doesn’t contain any “Keep Off The Grass” signs, and I’m resigned to never actually seeing one. So we find a park bench, enjoy our sandwiches and are totally unimpressed with Damian’s raspberries. We wander through Regent’s Park and discover that we ate lunch down the boring end as we get closer to Marylebone Road.

Once there, we head towards Baker St, simultaneously doing our own tuneless renditions of the sax line from Gerry Rafferty’s hit. Well, actually, credit where credit’s due, Damian’s version was much, much better than mine.

As £28 each to get in to Madam Tussaud’s didn’t appeal, we wandered down Baker St to Oxford Street and along to the Getty Images Gallery on Eastcastle Street for the Love From London: A City Of Stars exhibition (from the press release, an “exhibition of photographs featuring stars from the golden age of cinema in one of the world’s most popular and recognisable cities.”) The images were surprisingly awesome - the photography-snob in me much prefers Magnum - and the prints - proper, silver prints - at not much more than £250, surprisingly cheap. A couple of great shots - Franco Zeffirelli walking through Covent Garden in 1964 and Brigitte Bardot on the tube in 1955 - had me seriously considering doing some damage to the credit card, but I resisted. 

By this point, we’d done a bit of walking so after a coffee, we went to our respective accomodation for a quick nap before a big night.

My night started with a confusing walk around a confusing place: the brutalist concrete towers of the Barbican Estate. If I ever film a version of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four - slim, I know, but never say never - then I’ve found the setting for it. Once I finally found the Barbican Centre, it was another trial to actually find where I needed to go to get my ticket. When I did, I was served by possibly the most easily excitable woman on the planet. She was utterly, utterly fascinated by the credit card I used to book the ticket and even more so when I told her it was Australian. Taking the chance that I might actually give her an aneurysm, I then showed her my other credit card that has curved edges. Luckily, I didn’t manage to kill her, but she was even more excited to see that card. After a quick issue with the fact that I lost the card I originally booked the ticket on - turns out to mean more excitement for her as she got to see not only two Australian credit cards but an Australian driver’s licence as well - I had my ticket, so I grabbed a bottle of water and made my way to my seat.

Once again, I appeared to be the only person there on their own, as a few minutes after I found my seat, couples filled the two seats either side of me. The couple to my right sat quietly, but the couple to my left immediately started bickering. He’d organised to go eat with friends between finishing work and heading to the gig but failed to tell her - who was working late - where they were eating. She wasn’t too fussed, but he got all antsy about it for some reason and kept banging on about going and getting her a sandwich until the house lights dimmed for the support act, Willy Mason. Not bad. Kind of like Bill Callahan, but not such a deep voice. Solo, with an acoustic guitar. Made a decent attempt at doing his own backing vocals, too.

After popping out for a cigarette during the break, I returned to be greeted with the next issue in the relationship of the couple to my left. She works in something I gathered to be law-related, and he thinks that she should leave the commercial world and move back to academia. She, however, is of the opinion that she can’t afford to do that, especially considering he has stated that he isn’t prepared to help support her financially if she does. Just as the argument got interesting - as she began a sentence with “I mean, we’re meant to be married soon but you won’t even support me then, will you?” - the house lights went down and it was time for the main event, the wonderful yet chalk-and-cheese pairing of Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan.   

Also a bit chalk and cheese was the choice of venue. While acoustically brilliant, there was something odd about the dark country style of Campbell and Lanegan in somewhere as brutal and serious as The Barbican. 

Regardless, Campbell and Lanegan - along with their crack backing band - were magnificent. Campbell’s coquettish, as you’d expect - and hopefully she’s learned that thigh-high stockings and cellos don’t mix - and Lanegan’s brooding. As you’d expect. The set covers all three albums, but it’s the songs from the first album that I’m most looking forward to and, like they read my mind, they do the songs from that album that, while not probably the obvious choices, are the ones I wanted to hear. 

Even though the gig is close to two hours long, it’s all over way too soon and I’m off to meet Damian for beers and another gig just near where I’m staying. We meet at Angel tube and find the place, only to discover that the band - Australians Philadelphia Grand Jury, who I haven’t seen since I lived in Sydney - started about the time I was leaving The Barbican. The woman on the door was about to take our money until I asked her how long they had left to play. She glanced from her magazine to her watch and grunted “Last song.” So instantly we had another £6 for beer, which was handy.

Beers in hand, we take a while to settle in to a spot given that the pub - The Lexington Arms - is pretty packed when we get there and just gets more packed as upstairs empties out after the gig. But soon we’ve secured a spot leaning on a piano and are casting a sarcastic eye across the crowd, making up nicknames and generally talking our usual brand of rubbish.

Before long, however, things take their usual turn and we’re talking to random - and more than likely strange - strangers. First up is, not surprisingly, an Australian. Well, a bunch, but we start talking to just one of them, a girl from Melbourne who Damian thinks looks like Daryl Hannah (or Laura Branigan, I can’t remember) who is there with an annoying bunch of guys from Sydney. So we chat for a while and, as usually happens, Damian and I start finishing each others’ sentences and setting up jokes for each other. I’m not sure if others find it as amusing as we clearly do. Slowly people drifted in and out of our little circle and I manage to start another one outside when I went outside for a cigarette that included a particularly miserable Australian and an exceedingly cute girl called Nicky and her friend - yet another Australian - who looked like an exaggerated Kate Moss.

Back inside, we managed to start chatting with someone who wasn’t - or wasn’t there with an - Australian. Sam and her odd friend Matt who, to me, resembled Nigel from The Young Ones, but with a big curly mess on the top of his head. After what seemed like ages, Matt disappeared and then the bell was ringing and it was 4am and time to go home. Sam disappeared as well and, standing outside, we bumped in to Nicky and the Kate Moss doppelganger. Initial plans were to go find somewhere else to continue the shenanigans, but Fake Moss was having footwear issues, so up near Angel tube we said our goodbyes and headed off. Damian and I headed back towards mine as there was a 24-hour bus that went in his direction that stopped just near my front door.

* Okay, I’ve tried searching the internet, but to no avail. So okay, on this poster there are probably 20 or 24 top-down shots of the same toilet cubicle arranged in a grid. And in each one, something different is happening. A few instances of sex, people sitting there doing their business, that sort of thing. What I want to know is this: who actually sees a poster like this and thinks “Yes! This is exactly what my walls need!”?

• Cockney #1: "I thought you said you put yer tongue in 'er."
• Cockney #2: "Well, yeah, I put me tongue down 'er throat..."

Up early today as I’ve got a visitor coming down: my mate Damian who I haven’t seen since he left Australia and returned to the UK in December 2005. So I’m a little excited. Said excitement is forgotten about within a couple of minutes after getting out of bed when I discover that turning on the taps makes a whooshing sound and that’s it. I grumble downstairs where the front desk assure me that the water will be back on within the hour. I decide to wait out the hour by reading, then give it another half an hour to be sure. Still nothing. By 1pm Damian’s an hour away and I’m still a fusty mess. So I go fill up the kettle - strangely, the cold tap in the kitchen still works - and take it back to the sink in my room. I rinse my hair, have a shave and brush my teeth and still feel totally feral afterwards. When I leave to go meet Damian, I walk by the toilets and hear a noise. I open the door a crack and, yes, there’s someone using the shower. Great timing. 

I meet Damian at Charing Cross and straight away it’s just like old times. We go get a coffee, then head off on a bit of a wander that takes us past Buckingham Palace, through Hyde Park then up Oxford Street. It all passes by in a bit of a blur, really, as we’ve got five years of catching up to do. At Oxford Circus the talk turns to food, and I mention Mother’s Mash. Damian’s up for it, so off we go. This time I have the steak and ale pie and mash and again, it’s awesome. From there we wander about looking for a pub that’s not full of city types. The first pub we end up in is okay, but after spotting Seasick Steve in the street and chatting to some cockney lad for a bit, we decide to find another, less packed pub. We doubt the Groucho Club will let us in, so we end up in a little boozer called the Coach And Horses. There’s plenty of seating inside and out and it’s not packed with wankers, which suits us just fine.

We’ve hardly made a start on our pints when it’s made abundantly clear that this is going to be a night out like every other night out Damian and I have. Namely one that involves quite a number of random characters. First up there’s Tommy Wee Jones, so called because he’s rather small but a dead ringer for Tommy Lee Jones. We’re nothing if not creative when nicknaming strangers. He claims at various points over the evening to be Israeli, French and another nationality that escapes me right now. He seems slightly unhinged or incredibly pissed. Hard to tell.

Our table outside has a spare seat, and all the other tables have filled, so an older guy asks if he can sit there. Sure, we tell him, as long as he can put up with listening to all the rubbish we’ll be going on with. So for a while he sits there quietly enjoying his drink, and once he’s on his second, he starts chatting. He turns out to be a bit of a mysterious type. We never get his name, but we find out that he’s a journalist, so forever after he’s known as Mystery Journalist. He’s alright. Interesting, if a bit odd. Looks around a lot, like he’s forever waiting for someone. Or on the run. After a few more drinks he’s off and we stay until closing time. 

Up early and at Waterloo station by 9am. It’s a seething mass of commuters, and like a salmon heading upstream, I’m going against the flow. Today is Family Obligation Day, and I’m off to Cowplain - which is down near Portsmouth somewhere - to see my great aunt Sheila. With coffee and The Guardian in hand, I board the train which, once again, leaves on time. The suburbs of London swish by, and after a minute or two I realise that they all look the same from the train so I open up my paper ans get that out of the way before the scenery starts. 

When it does start, it’s like another world in comparison to the view out of the Eurostar window. Surrey is lush and green on an almost tropical scale compared with the more sparse countryside to the east of London. And so, for an hour and a bit, I’m treated to country estates, golf courses, forests, fields and little British towns. It’s lovely. Because it’s a limited stop service, we don’t stop at Godalming station, which is a shame as that’s where my mum grew up and so it would be nice to get a longer glimpse, but that’s just how these things go.

Pretty soon I’m in Petersfield - another quaint little village - where I’m collected by my aunt and second cousin Caroline. Back to theirs, and by 11am, I’m in to my first beer of the day. Normally I wait until at least lunchtime, but Caroline and her husband Michael run a microbrewery, Havant Brewery, out of their garage, and they gave me a sample of their award-winning (Hampshire beer of the year 1009/2010) real ales. And while I’m not an expert on those warm, flat British ales, their beers are pretty damn good. After some family-type catching up that I won’t bore you with and meeting my third cousin and his new fiancee, we head off to the pub for lunch. Not coincidentally, it’s one of the places that sells Caroline and Michael’s beers and, because they sell it as fast as they make it, the best place for me to try a whole pint of their wares. The Bird In Hand is about as British as you can get. A Tudor-style building on a small, country road, the sort of thing you’d expect to see in something like Midsomer Murders. I go for a pint of Havant Finished (see what they did there?) and the duck and spicy sausage pie which was both as brilliant and as strange as it sounds. After there it’s back to theirs to meet another third cousin and sit on the couch moaning about how we all ate too much. 

Before I know it, it’s time for me to head off so it’s back to Petersfield and the train back to London. It’s dark outside, so I finish off The Guardian. And that’s about it.

For the first time in I don’t know how long, I wake up feeling refreshed and not achey, which I put down to not picking up a bag of cameras since getting back from Paris. My morning follows pretty much the same routine as always - breakfast, email, tweeting, internet, writing - and then by 9:30, I decide that the worst of the tube-strike affected morning commute should be over and head out. I’ve got to go pick up my pre-booked tickets for tomorrow at Waterloo station, and I’m hoping like hell a tube line will get me there, but as it turns out, the bus that takes me to Matt and Katy’s in one direction will take me to Waterloo station in the other. And I also discover that because of the tube strike, everyone in London is running late for work. The bus is packed, but I manage to squeeze on. A few minutes in to the trip I overhear the bus driver talking with a dispatcher over the radio. And the dispatcher instructs the bus driver to change route. 

So I’m at another bus stop, checking out the map and wondering if I should just walk when another bus comes along and seriously puts the nail in to the coffin of any shred of credibility Melbourne’s public transport system has. Half the tube lines are shut down, others are running limited services, the streets are teeming with cars and cabs and bicycles and most of the buses are near overflowing and being redirected, but still, despite all that, there was another bus along in less than two minutes. And ten or so minutes later, I’m where I need to be. 

After finally working out how to use the self-service ticket machine - long story short, I’m a bit of a buffoon - and being lured to Krispy Kreme for a coffee - the line was shorter than the other places - and a sickly-sweet donut that I instantly regret, I stand around for a bit wondering what to do. Going back to the hotel means doing laundry, so I check my map and discover that the Imperial War Museum is just around the corner. I’m not that interested in the museum, but I do want to see Churchill’s War Rooms. I don’t know where they are, but the IWM will sure be able to tell me. When I get there, I’m surprised to learn that entry is free to most of the IWM, and the brochure that I get about Churchill’s War Rooms tells me that entry is £15. So, suddenly, I’m not that interested in Churchill’s War Rooms, but I do want to wander about the IWM.

It’s a big place, but then, Britain has been involved in a lot of wars. The first room, kind of a main hall thing, is where all the big things are. Tanks on the floor and WWI and WWII fighter planes hanging from the roof, mainly. But also German V1 and V2 rockets, and a Little Boy casing. Not the actual Little Boy casing, obviously, because that was very quickly converted in to a fine mist and spread over Hiroshima back in ’46, but a spare one. Hopefully empty. Despite the name, I thought it would have been bigger. Much bigger. At three metres tall, it’s remarkably small, considering the damage it could do. Especially in comparison to the two-story tall V2 rocket nearby that would be hard pressed to destroy a suburb, never mind a whole city.

The museum itself starts at the start of WWI, thereby ignoring a good five hundred years or so of the Brits getting shooty with other countries. But hey, their call. If I was in charge I’d probably start the museum with something I can definitely blame on another country, too. So pretty much the whole basement area - and it’s a big basement area - is dedicated to the first and second world wars. A fascinating amount of artifacts are on display, and I come to the conclusion that, despite their despicable ideology, the British Union of Fascists had a great logo. And that all wars are horrible.

Post WWII history is sort of glossed over, too. Everything from 1946 to now takes up about as much space as what’s dedicated to the WWII campaigns in Turkey and South-East Asia.

There’s also a section called “The Secret War”, and I’m all for MI5 and all that shit, so I’m in there quick-smart. Overall, it was rather underwhelming, but I was delighted to find an Enigma machine. Partially for the fact that it saves me a day and a good £30 traveling to Bletchley Park to see the one up there, but mainly because I’ve read a lot about the thing. And I was a little amused to see that the one in the IWM is borrowed from a Dutch museum, considering the Brits captured at least one Enigma during the war and were able to work out how it worked and decode messages. Surely they had more hanging about. 

By this time, it was getting on for 3pm, and, wanting to avoid any repeats of this morning, I headed out to find a bus back to the hotel. Again, my fears were unfounded and I got back easily. And then realised I was hungry, so wandered up Angel way to grab something to eat. I was deciding between two different non-chain burger places and the two burrito places when something caught my eye: a sign that said S&M. Figuring it wasn’t a sex shop but a sausages and mash place that Matt had told me about earlier, I headed over and wasn’t disappointed. In more ways than one. Good sausages, good mash, good gravy and good tunes on the stereo.

Sitting there, enjoying myself, I looked about and thought to myself “They’ve really done a great job re-creating the old-style British cafe look in here.” Then I noticed the tiled entrance and a couple of other features, so, seizing on my chance to chat to the cute waitress, called her over and asked about the place. And apparently, when S&M moved in, they didn’t touch a thing. Original walls, floors, even tables and chairs. All over 70 years old. And all magnificent. 

After that, I had a nice, full-bellied stroll back to my hotel where I spent the rest of the night typing up more Paris notes. 

Again I wake up early, again I wake up feeling rubbish. But I’ve got things to do, so I head downstairs for breakfast, book a train ticket to go see my aunt on Wednesday, check for an email from my airline concerning my flight - no word, which is a concern - and get stuck in to more of these notes. After a while, the hospital-cafeteria ambiance of the place gets too much for me, and having a wi-fi connection is proving to be quite a distraction, so I head back upstairs to continue writing. And immediately get distracted by yesterday’s unread Observer. 

As I’m going out later, I decide on a nap. Which is foiled almost immediately by three masonry drills starting simultaneously. I lay there for a while, cursing the builders under my breath, then get ready and head off about 3. Doors for the Ricky Gervais show don’t open until 6:30, but there’s a tube strike planned to start at 5pm so I want to get there early to make sure I get there at all. After a burrito served by the chirpiest man on the planet, I hop on the tube and arrive at Hammersmith just after four. By 4:15 I’m sat in a cafe, trying to get on a weak wi-fi signal, which, I realise, is actually coming from the cafe across the road. So I read my Evening Standard - seems they’ve turned on floppy-haired muppet of a mayor Boris Johnston, after so enthusiastically supporting his campaign - and finish my coffee before wandering around for a bit.

Because that’s all I seem to do. Wander around for a bit. 

There’s not much to see in Hammersmith, really, so I pop in to HMV and browse for a bit, then slowly make my way to the Apollo to wait for the doors to open. When I get there, I’m relieved to find that I’m not the first person there and take a seat on a big stone block to wait. Soon, a blonde girl takes a seat two blocks to my left. Not long after that, a ludicrously-dressed girl with a pink suitcase takes the block between me and the other girl and starts texting on her fake-jewel encrusted mobile phone while painting her nails. A few minutes later, yet another girl - this one stunningly attractive wearing hot pink platform Doc Martens with a suicidal heel and, again, pulling a pink wheelie-suitcase - takes the block to my right and starts texting. Blonde girl is also texting. This goes on for a quite a while, as others turn up for Ricky Gervais, before the blonde girl stands up, walks over to hot-pink-heels girl and introduces herself. Then introduces herself to nail painting girl. At which point     hot-pink and the nail painter grab their suitcases and blonde leads them away.

There was definitely something dodgy going on.

The rest of the people arriving sporadically tell me two things: one, that I’m the only person there to see Ricky Gervais by myself, and two, that I’m probably one of the only single people there as well. 

As the clock nears 6:30, everyone starts hanging around the doors waiting for them to open. And then an Apollo staffer pops out and informs us all that doors don’t open until 7. The collective groan is cut short, however, when the doors open. Everyone piles in, then the collective groan goes up again as we reach another set of doors. That don’t open until 7. So everyone descends on the merch desk and totally overwhelms the one guy working there. But it helps pass the time at least and eventually, the doors open.

First up is a Canadian guy whose name I can’t remember. He’s pretty funny, but the girl to my left can’t stand him and as soon as he finishes sends a volley of texts about it. The couple to my right start chatting, and their accents make me interrupt them. Sure enough, I was right. They’re Australian. So we chat for the duration of the interval - they’re from Perth, moved here three months ago - and then it’s time for the main event. 

The house lights dim and out he comes, to The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again at ear-splitting volume. And for the next hour and a bit, he’s hilarious. Cheek-hurtingly hilarious. As he mentioned the possibility of a world tour, I won’t spoil the surprise, but if he comes to your town, go. Fantastic. 

After being surprised by a free souvenir programme on my way out, I made my way back to Hammersmith station to deal with the strike-affected tube. Thinking I’d be walking across town if I wanted to get home, as it turns out the difference between the everyday tube service was unnoticable, as the longest I had to wait was just under four minutes. Totally hassle free. 

Day 13 is, much like day 8, another rest day. I wake up sore and tired with massive blisters on my feet from all my walking. The plan is to pop out for some provisions and then head downstairs to where the internet is and write up my fifteen or so pages of notes from Paris. After a brief detour through a market near Angel tube that I wasn’t expecting to see, I arrive at Sainsbury’s to be met with an automatic door that won’t budge and a sign next to it advising that they open at 11am on Sundays. And it’s just before 10:30. So I find a cafe, grab an egg and bacon roll and a scorchingly hot coffee and go sit in a nearby park. As the clock nears 11, my egg and bacon roll is done and my coffee refuses to cool down, so I abandon just under half of it and head for the supermarket.

Back at the hotel with all my supplies, including that bastion of quality journalism, News Of The World. I grab the laptop and head to where the internet is. Annoyingly, I can get online with the iPhone, but not the laptop, and more annoyingly, there’s an email from my airline telling me my flight from KL to Australia is cancelled. So I head back to my room, compose an email to the airline and decide on a quick nap. One crappy Sunday tabloid later, I’m fast asleep. And incidentally, say what you will about the crapness of NOTW, at least they call the BNP “revolting.” That’s gotta be worth something.

Four hours later, I figure I should be able to get online, so I head back downstairs, but it’s still not happening. The slightly unhelpful people at the front desk are no help, but there is a flyer for the internet service I’m using on the front desk, and it has a freecall number on it for techsupport. 

But of course, there’s no payphone in the lobby - or in the building for that matter - and to make a phonecall from my room means I have to buy a phonecard. Calling from my mobile will mean international call rates for a free number, so I head to a nearby phonebooth. 

I think that the phonebooth had been used recently, but not for phonecalls. Despite the no-smoking signs, I puff away to mask the strong scent of urine and hope there aren’t smoke detectors in the booth. After being on hold for five minutes, I get an operator and then the line goes dead. So I call back, and this time get a wonderfully helpful operator who takes my mobile number so she can consult the network guys and call me back. No doubt helped by the fact I mentioned I was in a phonebooth that smelled like wee.

So I scuttle back to the hotel, set up in the area where the internet should be and wait. Before long, an American girl who has just arrived in the UK comes up to me and asks about the same internet service provider that I’m having trouble with. I’m about to respond when the phone rings. After going through a few details, it turns out that where I’m staying is in charge of this hotspot, rather than the service provider, so it will be up to their tech guys to sort out the problem. And given that it’s a Sunday, nothing can be done until tomorrow. But there is a hotspot at a Starbucks around the corner.

So that’s where me and Alyssa - the girl from Philadelphia - go. Starbucks is closed, but we can still get a signal, so while passers-by look on with bemusement, she facebooks and emails, I tweet, blog and email and before we realise it, it’s 8:30 and both of our arses are numb from sitting on the pavement. And I realise that it’s 8:30 and I still haven’t had dinner. So, after dumping my stuff in my room, I head back towards the shops ‘round Angel tube with £5.87 jingling in my pocket. If my flight is going to be pushed back a day - which I assume it is - I’ll need to conserve my cash a little, so I gathered up all the change I could find before I left, and that’s all I came up with.

And, sadly, the only thing substantial that one can get for under £5.87 - £5.69, to be precise - at 9pm on a Sunday is Burger King. So that’s what I did. And trekked back to my room to eat my horrendous burger and horrendous fries and try to make a dent in all those Paris notes. By 11pm I’m having trouble stringing sentences together, so after all of two and a half pages of notes it’s lights out time.

Paris Gare du Nord to London Kings Cross-St Pancras

9:28pm: We left - again, right on time - 15 minutes ago and my iPod just ran out of batteries. I’m sat next to a guy who works for JP Morgan, reads interior design magazines and listens to trance music, if the contents of his fold-down table are anything to go by. We don’t, and never will have anything in common, ever. I’m keeping my earphones anyway in to block out noise and avoid conversation. My neighbour keeps to himself, but I can overhear a posh-sounding girl a few rows back who won’t shut up and the guy behind me who sounds kind of like Michael Caine trying to chat up the Russian girl next to him. It’s dark outside, so the only view is the occasional street light. I want to sleep but I can’t get comfortable. I want a shower. I want a cup of tea. I want to go to bed. I can’t do any of those things, so I stare out the window at the streetlights and think about Paris and how happy I am to be heading back to London.

In what’s becoming a bit of a theme, I wake up - an hour before my alarm, annoyingly - feeling rather seedy. After laying about for a bit, I get myself as presentable as possible and go looking for cigarettes. My usual shop just up the street is closed, so I wander about for a bit. Spotting a supermarket, I head in and am confused by there not being an obvious cigarette counter. I ask the checkout girl who looks at me like I’m insane and tells me that only cigarette shops sell cigarettes. I feel like pointing out that where I’m from, so do supermarkets, but I also feel like my head’s been sat on by a bear, so I don’t. I wander about a bit more, get fed up at the lack of cigarette shops and head back to the hotel. Of course, by this time, the shop just up the street is open so I’m able to get my fix. After breakfast next to some annoying Canadians banging on about facebook, I head upstairs to pack. After procrastinating as long as possible, I’m all done and check out just before 11am. 

I’m standing outside the hotel, smoking a cigarette and wondering where I should go when I remember that I haven’t taken a photo of number 6, Rue du Pot de Fer. This throws a spanner in my works, as I was going to head to Gare du Nord, put my bag in a locker and then head off from there. Trekking all that way to then head back to just around the corner from my hotel is a waste of time, so I leave my bag with the girl behind the desk and head off to get the photos. To get there quicker, I take the Metro a whole two stops, and, that done, decide to walk back. Halfway down Rue Mouffetard, I stumble across what appears to be a fashion shoot, and the photographer’s shooting large format. I stand around and watch for a bit, full of film-size envy as he’s shooting much larger negatives than me. Size doesn’t matter though, does it ladies? At the end of Rue Mouffetard, there’s a little produce market that I wander around for a bit, before noticing a guy with an easel, painting the scene. Couldn’t get much more French if you tried. Well, that’s what the optimist in me says. The pessimist assumes that the whole scene - market, painter, everything - is just for the benefit of tourists. I half expect a horde of guys selling trinkets to pop up from out of nowhere at any point. 

After collecting my backpack and a horrendously over-priced coffee, I head to Gare du Nord to drop off my bags. I don’t actually realise I’ve found the luggage lockers at first, because of the intense level of security. The locker area is housed in a cage, and to get in there you have to go through a metal detector and have your bags x-rayed. The baggage area is supervised by a thoroughly unpleasant chap who seems to do nothing more than yell and shout at people if they stand in the one place for too long. Like standing in front of one of the lockers, reading the instructions, for example. Or standing in front of the money-changing machines. To give another example. 

Once my luggage is safe and I’ve had my fair share of being shouted at, I grab the Metro to Cité because I figure if I’ve come all this way, I should see Notré Dame. Just out of the Metro, I’m composing a shot of some other building when a guy walks past with some sort of sling contraption containing a big fat grey cat. I realise I have to get a shot of this, so I start following him in the hope that I can get in front of him before he does something selfish like disappear in to a building. Then he disappears in to a café. I briefly consider following him in, then realise that he’s not staying, just buying something. So I pre-focus my shot and get the exposure right so just as he emerges from the café, I can raise my camera and get the shot. He finishes his transaction, heads towards the door, I raise my camera and… he stops, just inside the door, to talk to a waiter. I decide to take the shot anyway, just as he looks up and sees me. I smile, but he doesn’t. He does the side-to-side finger wag thing, then gestures for me to come over to him. Before I get a chance to speak, he’s off, haranguing me in raid-fire French. The only word I pick up is “police”. He pauses, I apologise for not speaking French. After a second burst, I ask him if he speaks English, because I want to point out that he’s in a public place, which makes him fair game to any photographer. What’s more, he’s in a public place that’s full of tourists, all toting cameras and he’s got A BIG FAT CAT IN A SLING! But sadly, when he realises I’m not getting what he’s saying, he dismisses me with the most Gallic shrug I’ve yet to encounter.

The area around Notré Dame is packed - surprise, surprise - so I cross the river to get some photos of the cathedral from across the Seine. And here, I encounter all the second-hand booksellers and whatnot, selling the usual touristy crap and a heap more. I come across a guy selling vintage (and reproduction) artworks. For a while, I consider a vintage anatomy print. I stare at it for a while, convert the € into AU$ and then decide against a vintage anatomy print. Especially as it appears, upon closer inspection, to be a page sliced from a book. 

So I trundle along, past all the booksellers and whatnot, and take photos of the cathedral and some bridges and stuff. Manage to get more photos of people without pissing anyone off. The sun’s beating down and I’m starting to get thirsty, and I realise that Paris doesn’t really have 7-11-style convenience stores. A €1 bottle of luke-warm water from some guy on the street doesn’t really appeal, so I cross the river and manage to find myself in the Louvré. The Cour Carée is breathtaking, then I make my way through to the Cour Napoleon, which contains that big glass pyramid thing. Sorry, the Grande Pyramide. All around the pyramid are stone blocks which seem to serve no purpose other than for people to stand on them and pretend that they’re holding the pyramid/leaning against the pyramid/humping the pyramid/whatever while their friends take photos of them. So I take photos of them. Taken out of context, they just look like knobs standing on blocks of stone pulling strange poses. That gets tiring pretty quickly, so I wander about, briefly consider visiting the Louvré, see the queue and change my mind, then see something that warms my heart. The open end of the square is all but closed off with metal barricades and patrolled by soldiers toting automatic assault rifles with only a small opening to get through. On the other side of the barricades? The usual shifty bastards and their crappy, crappy souvenirs. 

I’m so relieved by the sight of this that it takes me a minute to realise that just behind the souvenir sellers, across a bit of a roundabout, is another Paris landmark that I had failed to notice - the Arc de Triomphe. I take a quick photograph and head off in search of somewhere selling liquids. A newsstand is nearby, so I pop in there, grab a coke and, with my first mouthful, realise I’ve just spent €2.50 on a lukewarm coke.

After a bit more wandering, I come across Les Halles, possibly one of the ugliest buildings I have ever seen. But I head anyway inside anyway, just happy to get out of the blazing sun. It’s a seething mass of humanity in there, and thoroughly annoying, and I’m annoyed about my lukewarm coke and I’m hot and bothered so I decide to lash out and do the most un-French thing possible. So I go to McDonalds and get two cheeseburgers and some fries. While eating, I look at my receipt and realise I still have five hours to kill until my train. 

At this point, I’m regretting two things: last night’s booze, and booking the last train out of Paris. When I finally work out how to get out of Les Halles, I wander aimlessly, stopping to smoke a cigarette whenever I find a spot to sit. I wander past the Pompidou before stumbling across a church, Église St Merri, that looks cool - temperature-wise, that is - so pop in for a sit down. After about 20 minutes, my inner atheist would rather be outside. Just down the street is a shop that looks rather popular and isn’t full of crappy Paris souvenirs, so I pop in. It takes me a moment, but I realise that I’ve wandered in to a brightly-lit, trendy-looking sex shop. It’s the dildos that give it away. It’s full of happy couples and, really, the only use I can think of for a dildo right now is to ward off any pickpockets that might trouble me, so I get out of there. I probably should have noticed what the shop was earlier, considering the window display also consists of nothing but dildos, but I couldn’t actually see the window displays on the way in for all the women who were standing in front of them, earnestly considering the dildos in the way one might try to decide between two coffee machines. Another square, another sit down. No seats this time, so I lean against the base of a lamp post, which is good for about half an hour before suddenly becoming unbearably uncomfortable. An unbearable uncomfortableness that I tolerate for at least another half an hour, because I can’t be bothered moving. 

Eventually I get up, and, heading back in the direction of Les Halles - I’m keeping to this area as it’s not far to the station from here - I stumble upon yet another little square and spot a Starbucks. And then, thankfully, notice a little cafe opposite and head there. I order a coffee and water and try to make friends with the owner/waiter’s French bulldog, but he doesn’t want anything to do with the sweaty Australian, so I slump in to a seat and wonder how long I can sit here with one coffee. As the waiter delivers orders to tables, the dog follows him obediently, then returns and sits patiently at the door when he’s inside. After about ten minutes, I’m paying attention to something else - chances are I’m checking out a Frenchwoman, truth be told - and my right arm is dangling over the arm of the chair, when suddlenly I feel something damp and fleshy run across my hand. I look down, and there’s the little dog, sitting there staring up at me. He gives my hand another lick for good measure, then nuzzles against my hand for a pat. This goes on for a good five minutes or so, and then for the rest of the time I’m there - i must have made that coffee last a good hour, at least - he alternates between following the waiter about and coming over to hang out with me and get a pat. It brightens my mood considerably, so I tip generously and begin to slowly make my way up to Gare du Nord.

Along Boulevarde des Sebastopol, there’s a line of at least a dozen Police vans as, apparently, there’s a protest about something in the area. I’ve seen a couple of clusters of protesters about so far, but nothing that would require such a presence. A few minutes later, the vans hurtle past me, sirens blazing, then disappear. A few minutes after that, they hurtle past in another direction. Either they’re taking the protesters away, or, more likely, they can’t find the protest either. 

I get to the station at 6:30, only to discover that I can’t check in until 8:15, an hour before departure. After popping out for a cigarette, I’m back inside looking for somewhere to sit when I glance at the board again and suddenly, check-in for my train is open. I can’t retrieve my bags fast enough. Or get through customs fast enough. Or security. I find the departure lounge, get myself a seat, a cup of tea (possibly the worst I’ve ever tasted) and  copy of the International Herald Tribune and I’m happy. The train before mine starts boarding just after I get there, and I wrack my brains thinking of ways I could possibly stow away. 

Soon enough, though - and, conveniently, just as I finish the IHT - it’s time for my train to leave. I stand up, grab my bags and check my pocket to make sure it still contains my wallet. It does.

I wake up feeling slightly worse for wear after last night’s indulgences and, after attempting to make myself human, head downstairs for breakfast. But because I’m a little later than usual, the breakfast area is packed to the gills and I don’t have the dexterity to deal with my croissant standing up, or the will to squeeze in to the one remaining seat and attempt any kind of small-talk. So after a quick coffee, I head out in to the bright Paris sunshine and decide to get something near the Metro stop I’m heading towards.

At Place d’Italie, I have three choices - either side is a tourist-trap cafe offering coffee, a croissant and a slice of bread for at least €7, or a hole-in-the-wall operation in the middle offering a croissant and coffee for €2. I, obviously, opt for the latter and go in, unleashing my first “Je parle un peu Francais” of the day, but this time, feeling adventurous, I order my breakfast in French. The woman behind the counter smiles, and in (heavily accented) English, tells me “Zee, your French eesn’t zo bad.” I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to do that thing when you write English like a Frenchperson speaks it, but there you go.

Because I was brain-addled by a mild hangover and speaking two sentences of French within not very long of getting out of bed, I walk out without grabbing any sugar for my coffee. I’m halfway to the spot near the Metro entrance where I’ve decided to eat when I remember. I turn around, then decide to taste my coffee to see if I really need to go back for the sugar.

It’s a hot chocolate. 

So much for my ordering skills, then. Still, it’s a good hot chocolate, and it doesn’t need sugar, so I consider it a breakfast surprise of sorts and plonk myself down. 

With croissant flakes making my tshirt look like the latest postmodern fashion statement, I head in to the Metro station to scoot across town to Abbesses and check out Montmartre. Abbesses station was clearly constructed in a style called “dig a fucking deep hole and then dig it deeper and make people use a ridiculously huge spiral staircase to get out of it.” A style that, thankfully, didn’t catch on anywhere else in the world that I’ve come across, ever. But at least it fits in with the style of the surrounding area; there are massive staircases everywhere.

After leaving the crowd of tourists gasping for air at the top of Abbesses station, I start my stroll. Pretty soon I come across a place I recognise from that movie Amelie. It looks nothing like how it did in the movie - it’s a taco place or something now - but I take a photo anyway, then try to remember how it looked in the movie. All is going well until the bit where Robert De Niro comes down the stairs at the side and I realise I’ve got the movie all wrong and it was Ronin, not Amelie. In my defence, it’s easy to mix up a high-octane thriller and a twee movie about a girl when you’ve just walked up a spiral staircase as long as I have. 

Up the stairs - because I have no other choice but to go back the way I came - to the right of the bar - that was in Ronin, remember - and I see something that looks interesting from a distance, but when I get there, it’s a French version of one of those places where kids make plaster moulds of butterflies and shit and then do a shit job of painting them. I’ve been out and about for an hour at most and already I’m getting irritated, so I head down the road to my right as it’s on a slight downhill slope and I don’t care any more. And then I get to another set of stairs. I look up, consult my map and realise that I’m at the bottom of the Sacre Couer, so, begrudgingly, I drag myself up. Making my way around to the front of the cathedral, I notice another set of stairs made famous by some photographer whose name escapes me - google “Montmartre, stairs, black and white” and that’ll be it - but there’s something about it that’s different apart from the fact that the trees are probably fifty years older and it’s daytime and the shot was taken at night. I stand there, wheezing, trying to work out what it is and then it hits me. It’s the cable-car contraption to the left of the stairs, dragging not-sweaty, not-puffing, not-pissed-off tourists up the hill.

Sacre Couer is beautiful, and the multi-level gardens in front are beautiful, and the view back over Paris is beautiful, but once again there is a small army of shady-looking fuckers trying to sell me crap or tie things around my wrist - by now, I have really perfected my forceful “no”, because simply ignoring them isn’t an option - and shady looking fuckers just hanging about, so I snap a few shots and check my pocket to make sure it still contains my wallet. It does. So I get the hell out of there. 

As I wind my way through a street full of shops peddling the same crappy souvenirs, it hits me: Paris doesn’t need Eurodisney, it’s a themepark in itself now, which is a terrible, terrible shame. And probably not helped by the fact that before I came here, my knowledge of Paris consisted solely of photographs at least fifty years old, but that’s another rant for another time. Somehow I end up near the rear of Gare du Nord, which isn’t where I was aiming for, but it was close.

What I was aiming for was Le Petit Canard, a restaurant that recently featured recently in Heston Blumenthal’s telly show where he does big production-number dinners for people. The episode in question, where he created real versions of things from Charlie And The Chocolate Factory like the lickable wallpaper (Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker once suggested his earlier series Heston Blumenthal: In Search Of Perfection should have been called Mister Impossible’s Smartarse Kitchen) included a scene where he went to Le Petit Canard to try proper Duck a’ L’orange and compare it to the bastardised version so popular in Britain in the 1970s. It looked awesome, so I had to fit it in my schedule. Luckily, I’d remembered the name of the place and looked up the address on the internet earlier. And, with a quick squiz at a map near a Metro station, found that I was in the vicinity and headed off. I even managed to step in dog shit along the way. No trip to Paris is complete without that happening, because, as impractical as it is in a city like Paris, they love dogs. Even last night, in the fancy little restaurant I was in, the second bunch of people that came in after me brought their dog - a little French bulldog, of course - and no-one batted an eyelid. 

But anyway, I find the restaurant and stand outside, light a gitanes and ever-so-casually dangle my shit-encrusted shoe in the dribble of water running down the gutter in the hope of not going in to the restaurant smelling like… like I’ve got Parisian pooch poop on my shoe. Doesn’t matter anyway, because I as I enter, past the non-smoking sticker in clear view on the door, the owner/waiter/whoever quickly fumbles around to extinguish the sneaky cigarette he was having inside. Way I figure it, when it comes to smelling as we shouldn’t, we’re even. It’s just gone 12, and because I’m eternally Mister Early-Pants, there’s no-one else in the joint. I pick a table close to the back and half-heartedly peruse the menu because I know what I’m there for. And, feeling extravagant, I go for an entree as well.

The entree comes out, I take a bite and… holy fuck. I’ve had escargot back in Australia a couple of times and they’re always these chewy little unidentifiable blobs that really only taste of the garlic and butter they’re slathered in. Escargot in Paris, on the other hand, actually look like snails. And actually taste like something. Namely dirt. Well, that’s probably not the most appetising way of putting it. Imagine digging a hole, and while you’re doing it, it starts to rain a bit, and when the dirt gets wet you smell an earthy smell. Got it? Okay, while you’re digging your hole, your next-door neighbour starts heating a pot full of butter and garlic on the stove, and as the rain starts, the wind changes and blows the smell over to where you’re toiling away. And just as that happens, Heston Blumenthal pops in for a visit - bloody Blumenthal always pops in at the most inappropriate times - and happens to sniff the air. A flash of inspiration strikes, he produces a a big crazy-scientist flask from his (comically large) back pocket and, with a big theatrical swoop, bottles some of the dirt, butter and garlic scented air. Heston grabs you by the hand and, despite your protest that you really urgently need to dig that damn hole, rain or not, whisks you back to his kitchen where, with machinery that would be better utilised in a research laboratory curing cancer, magics the air from that flask in to something like a long, slimy oyster. That looks like a snail. Without its shell. That’s been cooked. Got it? Yeah, it was just like that.

After the initial shock of just how different they were wore off, I quite got in to the slimy little buggers. And after my plate, covered in a film of garlicky butter, was whisked away, it was time for the main course, the piece de resistance, Canard a L’orange. To say that it was nothing like I expected is to put it mildly. For one, I was expecting it to taste more of, well, oranges. The heavily-herbed sauce did have a bit of a tang to it, but in my mind, stupid as it may sound, I was expecting something a bit more like duck covered in marmalade. Thankfully, it wasn’t like duck covered in marmalade, as that would be fucking horrible. This was I’ll-never-cook-anything-like-this-myself-in-my-entire-life delicious. The duck fell from the bone, the sauce was heady and strong and aromatic and the fried potatoes were as fresh as if they’d just walked in off the street. Which was because they had, pretty much. While I was enjoying my escargot, one of the kitchen staff popped out for a minute and came back with a big bag of fresh potatoes. When my plate contained nothing more than a couple of duck bones and some slices of orange - I never know if a garnish should be eaten - I had a bit of a chat with the owner/waiter/sneaky smoker. Told him I was from Australia. First thing he asked me was if I’d seen the Heston Blumenthal show. Apparently, he’d had an influx of Australians in the few weeks since the show aired in Australia. 

Feeling stuffed full of awesome - and kind of like the woman that swallowed the spider, because I’m pretty sure a duck would eat a snail given half a chance - I reach in to my bag for my notebook and map and… They’re not in there. Stifling a freakout - not another lost notebook! - I mentally re-trace my steps. When was the last time I looked at my map? When I found the way to the restaurant? No, that was an outdoor map. When was it? All I can think of is earlier that morning when I looked up the address of the restaurant. But surely I had looked at it since then? I must have. I fumble my money out of my pocket and head outside to calm my nerves with a cigarette and think things through. I figure it must still be at the hotel room, but it’s playing on my mind so while my intentions were to wander about a bit more, as soon as I reach the next Metro stop, I check the map, work out that if I head due south, the next station I come to is on my line, take a wild guess at which way south is and head in that direction. Amazingly, my guess pays off and I’m on the Metro back to the hotel. I sneak up to my room in clear violation of the no-access-between-11am-and-4pm rule, open the door and… there it is. Breathe a sigh of relief and head back downstairs to get a cold drink and chill out for a bit. Amazingly, the radio station that’s always on downstairs is playing some decent tunes, so I sit there for a bit, consult the guidebook and, as 4pm approaches, head back upstairs for a nap and a shower. 

Once refreshed, I grab a baguette and head in the direction of a couple of bars listed in the guidebook that, handily, are directly opposite each other. The first, Le Crocodile, only does €6 cocktails, despite beer being on the menu, so I head over to Le Pantalon across the street, grab a spot at the zinc-topped bar and treat myself to a few French beers. It’s a nice enough place - much like Sputnik, I realise, both are very reminiscent of the sort of places I go to back home - but the people aren’t as chatty so I decide to be sensible and head back to the hotel and get an early night as it’s my last day in Paris tomorrow and I’m going to be doing a lot of walking. 

At the front door of the hotel, I decide to go pay Sputnik one more visit. All but one of the staff working tonight are different, and the one from last night remembers me, and greets me like we’re old buddies from way back. One of the other bar staff - after I apologise for not being able to speak French - challenges me to order in French, so I do, and I get it right this time. Pretty soon I’m getting pints for half-pint prices, chatting with the bar staff and an old French barfly called Pierre who seems to know everybody and having a great old time. 

I always know I’m getting quite drunk when I move from beer to gin & tonic, and that’s what I do. And this time, it’s free. Which is a very good thing, and a very bad thing. So after my second freebie, I decide that now it’s the time to go home.  So I say my goodbyes, tip the bar staff all the change in my pockets and stumble back to the hotel.

I wake up with the bright Paris sunshine creeping through a gap in the curtains, feeling like I’ve been put through the wringer, but it’s nothing a cup of tea and a couple of Gitanes - how multicultural of me! - can’t fix. A quick shower and I head back down for the free coffee and croissants that are to power me through the day.

I grab a pack of Gauloises to keep me company and set off. Wandering in the vague direction of Montparnasse, I come across what looks like - and turns out to be - a prison. An actual, working prison, not some tourist site, if the security guards and security cameras are anything to go by. After taking a photo of a Spanish woman standing in front of a statue - she stopped me and asked me to, so I obliged - and randomly passing Simone De Beauvoir’s house, I’m walking along the edge of Cimetiere Montparnasse, looking for the entrance and not really paying any attention to anyone around me when I hear, in English, “I know you!”

“Crikey,” I think to myself, looking around for a familiar face. “Who have I bumped in to so far from home?”

But there’s only one person around who could have said anything. He’s few paces ahead of me, a slightly dusty-looking, middle-aged fellow who I have never seen in my entire life, but again he’s saying “I know you!” and reaching out to shake my hand.

Before I can say anything, he starts shaking my hand and pressing it to his forehead and telling me how he’s Sri Lankan and how he’s been in prison for the past three days and the police just let him out and told him to stay out of trouble and he can’t understand a word anybody says but he knew that he could speak to me and he’s happy just to be able to speak to someone in English. 

I’m a bit taken aback by all of this, which leaves me speechless. Not what he was looking for, really. But we chat for a bit and then he’s happy and he says his goodbyes and wanders off without asking me for money or cigarettes or anything. So I check my pocket to make sure it still contains my wallet. It does.  

Just inside the entrance to the cemetery is a map, so I go consult it to find Serge Gainsbourg’s gravesite. And, scanning the list of names, I’m struck by one that I didn’t expect to find: Brassai, one of my favourite photographers. Amongst others is Man Ray, who I decide to check out as well. I set off in the direction of Brassai and Gainsbourg, and it’s not long before I’m well and truly lost. So I head back to the map, snap a shot with the iPhone and set off again. Brassai’s a bit off the pathway, so he takes a bit to find. But I do stumble across Susan Sontag’s grave. I stand there for a second, mumble “On Photography was shit” and then head off. Childish? Definitely.

Brassai is, it turns out, just nearby. For a second, I wonder what he’d make of being buried near Sontag, then wish I’d brought something with me. All these famous people have graves covered in things that other people have left for them, but one of the greatest photographers to have lived only has a few flowers and the remnants of a candle. I briefly consider leaving a roll of film, then decide that the idea of leaving things is a bit crass, so I take a couple of photographs and head on to visit the king of having things left on your grave, Mr Gainsbourg.

His grave can be spotted a mile off as it’s absolutely covered in… stuff. Flowers, photographs, drawings of various merit, notes, cigarettes, lighters, guitar picks and Metro tickets. While the latter may seem odd, it is in reference to Gainsbourg’s early tune “Le Poinçonneur des Lilas”, which describes the day in the life of a Paris Métro ticket conductor. I stand there for a bit, snap a couple of shots, leave behind a cigarette and go on my way. Man Ray is next, but I can’t for the life of me find him, so after another random encounter - Sigumund and Simone’s grave - I make my way from the calm of the cemetary back to the bustling Montparnasse streets. 

Feeling the need for a coffee, I head to a back street in an attempt to avoid the tourist traps, which fails spectacularly. I take a table outside and wait to get served. And wait. Eventually, someone comes to see what bother I might want to cause them. I ask, in my terrible French, for a coffee and “un… uhhhh… ashtray?” She responds, in English, just to use the ground. €4 later, I have my coffee and I consult my map. I still need to get myself a Metro ticket so I head in the direction of Gare Montparnasse. Just before I get there, I’m distracted by Galeries Lafayette, a department store that I’ve read about. After about thirty seconds inside I’m wondering why people would write anything more than “Galeries Lafayette is just like any other department store in the world but the announcements over the PA system are in French.” I beat a hasty retreat and head for my original destination, only to be confronted by a long, long line for tickets. And I thought it was only the British who liked to queue for things. 

In the end it turns out to be a long but quickly moving queue and I’m served by a tubby, jolly-looking fellow. He’s about as un-Frenchman-like as you can get. But very ticket-seller. If that makes sense.

After navigating the ticket barriers that resemble torture devices and nearly losing my hand on the impatiently French doors of the Metro carriage, I set off on my first Metro journey to… the Eiffel Tower. Now, I don’t really care that much to see the tower. I’ve seen photos. It looks impressive. But I realise that if I don’t see the Eiffel Tower on my visit, every single person I speak to for the rest of forever will look at me like I’m two-headed when I tell them I went to Paris and didn’t go to the tower. So, I went to the tower. Happy now, everybody? Good.

The Tower is a magnificent structure, it must be said. And I am glad that I saw it. But the sheer touristy-ness of the place was incredibly annoying. Not so much all the other tourists, but just the massive number of dodgy fuckers selling the same cheap crappy souvenirs and following you about trying to get you to buy stuff. I had earlier considered €11 for a little statuette of the tower made of of baguettes, but I didn’t, so there was no way I was going for any of this crap. Snapped a few photos and headed off over Pont d’Léna to Avenue de New York to get away from it all. Half way across the bridge I saw something I figured to be a bit of an urban myth: someone running a three card monte scam. Well, three beer coaster monte, to be technical about it, but you get the idea. There was one other guy pretending to be a punter who was definitely in on, it and three or four sucker tourist types. I stood there and watched for a bit, and unless these people were supremely stupid - and I’m not for a second suggesting they may not have been - then they were in on the deal too. Because for the life of me I can’t understand how they had the money to drop as many €50 notes as I saw them lose. A casino, sure, stupid but understandable. Standing on a bridge with a guy using three empty cardboard boxes as his table? Yeah, good luck on not getting screwed.  

After strolling along Avenue de New York for a while, I came across a tunnel entrance that, at the top, sat a sculpture of a flame. No prizes for guessing that, yes, this was the spot where Diana died. So I headed back away from the sculpture to get a better look at the tunnel entrance and sat there for a while, hoping to snap a white Fiat entering the tunnel. Sadly, none decided to drive that way while I was there, so I snapped a shot for the hell of it and moved on to Place de la Concorde and Jardin de Tuileries. It was only when looking at a map now to check some spelling that I realised that I crossed the Champs-Elysées without realising it. Oh well. An overpriced coke later, an overheated me found a seat under a tree and sat there to catch my breath for a while. Managed to sit myself quite near to a crazy woman who talked to herself the whole time, which was nice. 

From there, I continued my wander. I knew I was in the general area of something I wanted to see, but was unsure of the actual address so decided to walk about until I found it. Which took all of about three minutes, as I walked pretty much directly to it. I was mere seconds away from asking directions when I looked to my left and saw Hotel Lotti, Orwell’s Hotel X. Which is now surrounded by upmarket restaurants and boutiques. I considered asking if I could go downstairs and look about, realised that they would never let me do that, snapped a couple of shots and moved on. Passing a fancy-looking bookstore, I enter for the aircon and leave with a cheap guidebook. Heading towards the nearest Metro station - that I somehow miss entirely, I end up at the Louvre stop. Finishing a cigarette, I’m approached by a Russian woman who doesn’t speak English, thrusting a guidebook at me and pointing at a street. Her map is no help whatsoever, so consulting mine I discover that she’s a block away from where she wants to be. And it would have been quicker to walk her there than go through the motions, mimes and pointing trying to overcome the language barrier to simply tell her “go straight ahead, first right.” After she heads off, I check my pocket to make sure it still contains my wallet. It does. 

From there, I hop on the Metro back to the hotel, jump in the shower, have myself a nap - complete with surreal dreams - and then have a flick through my new guidebook. The tummy’s rumbling a bit, so I search for restaurants in the area. L’Avant Goût strikes me as somewhere that sounds good, so I head out. It’s empty when I get there - it was a bit on the early side and I was early on purpose as I didn’t have a reservation - and I’m greeted by the co-owner and head chef, Christophe Beaufront who is extremely friendly and willing to accommodate me. As I’m on a budget, I resist the foie gras entree and go straight for a man, a wonderful onglet de veau -  I can resist one dish that raises the hackles of the big baby brigade, but rarely can I resist two -  accompanied by a delightful Cote du Rhone. 

 Feeling wonderfully satisfied, I wandered off in search of a bar that I had read about in my aborted attempt to resurrect my notebooks. Sputnik, on the increasingly hip Rue Butte aux Cailles. The place is comfortably busy, and after apologising for my terrible French, grab a beer and settle at a table to get down some notes about my day. Within a minute, a drunk middle-aged Frenchwoman comes up to me and starts talking at a million miles an hour. Without even bothering to apologise, I ask her if she speaks English. She doesn’t, so goes on to mime what she wants: point to me, make writing motion, point to her. So I think she wanted me to fit her in to what I was writing. So here it is. Shine on, you crazy Frenchwoman.

 Before long, a couple take the empty table opposite and, noticing me scribbling away, the girl says something to me in French. 

 This time - because she doesn’t seem nuts - I wheel out the usual. No prizes for guessing what that is.

 She introduces herself and asks me where I’m from. As soon as I tell her I’m Australian, she’s pretty much ignoring her friend - possibly a boyfriend, I’m not sure, and whose name, sadly, I have forgotten - and we’re gabbing away like we’ve known each other forever. She’s asking me questions about Australia and apologising for her English, which is light years ahead of my French. If I’m the big bang, she’s the industrial revolution. Ema wants to visit Australia and wants to know where is good - so I draw her a map - and wants to go on safari and see an animal she’s not sure of the English word for. So she adds it to my map.

So there’s good news and bad news. The good is that a giraffe is a giraffe in French and English. The bad news that I have to break to her is that she’ll have to go to Africa, not Australia, to go on safari and see a giraffe. She seems okay with this and continues interrogating me about Australia and the English language. I tell her things about Australia, including the fact about koalas always being drunk that may or may not be true, but it’s a good story, and she made a note of it. Then we talk about her; she works as an au pair - another “I don’t know how to say this in English” instance that turned out okay - and her dad has just bought a house in Bordeaux, which is where she’s off to this coming Saturday. And then, totally out of the blue, offers me the use of her apartment over the weekend if I need it. Which is totally lovely, you must admit. But as I’m also leaving Saturday, there’s not much point. No point, to be precise. From there the conversation weaves all over the place as the beers flow freely. We swap email addresses and then Ema has to go to another bar to meet some other friends. Firefighters, apparently. So she heads off. Apologies to those who were hoping for some saucier details (you know who you are). I grab another beer, chat a little to the bar staff, and then embark on a slightly tipsy stumble home. 

The sunshine is streaming down upon me as I exit the grand facade of Gare du Nord station. I take a deep breath and look around, then light a cigarette. So this is Paris. I whip out my map to work out where I am. It’s small and discreet, but hey, I’m wearing a backpack so I’m going to look like a tourist regardless.

 Out of nowhere, a guy thrusts a magazine in to my hands.

“Oh, merci!” How lovely, I think to myself. A welcoming committee, of sorts. Given that I’ve arrived in the morning, I assume the magazine must be one of those free commuter papers.

He says something in French. I bust out the well-rehearsed and soon to be well-used “Je parle un peu Francais.” I speak very little French.

“Where do you need to go?” he asks. I’d just figured that out when he appeared, so I tell him I’m okay for directions. 

“The magazine,” he says. “For homeless.”

I look at the cover. €3,50. I’m just out of the station and haven’t had a chance to go to a cash machine yet. It looks tatty and well-used, and I try to spot a date but can’t see one. And, of course, it’s all in French. It’s fair to say that I’m more than reluctant to spend money I don’t have on something I can’t read.

“Oh, sorry,” I say, offering it back. “I have no money. I just got here.”

He ignores the magazine. “Okay, I take pounds.”

I know there’s a tenner in my wallet, but that’s all I have for when I get back, so he’s not getting it. 

“Sorry, no pounds.” 

He snatches the magazine back, turns on his heels, mutters something and storms off. I check my pocket to make sure it still contains my wallet. It does.

Welcome to Paris.

From Gare du Nord, it’s a short stroll to Boulevarde des Sebastopol, which heads straight down to the Seine, so that’s the way I decide to take. And instantly, everything is very French. People on bicycles. People on scooters. Renaults and Peugeots. Street after street of that distinctive architecture and those wonderful mansard roofs. Occasionally even a glimpse of the Eiffel tower. And it’s sunny and warm, with a slight breeze, and I’m glad that I chose to walk rather than take the Metro.

By the time I reach the Seine I’m cursing myself for not taking the Metro. But, according to my map, I’m over half-way to the hotel, so a bit more of a walk won’t kill me.

By the time I reach my hotel, I feel like I’m about to die. As it’s midday, the sun is pretty much directly above me and I’ve been walking for over an hour. I’m sweating like a pig and my shoulders are killing me. I collapse in to the hotel foyer and Dorian behind the desk looks at me like I just vomited in front of him. 

“Je parle un peu Francais.”

Turns out that Dorian is a lovely guy. He books me in and we chat about the state I’m in. I dump my backpack in the luggage area/breakfast area/seats and tables area and decide on what to do until I get my key at 4pm. And then, because it’s airconditioned, and there are seats, and there is free wireless, I slump in to a seat and decide to go nowhere and do nothing until I get my key. Well, nothing apart from check emails and twitter and do internet stuff. So I grab a pack of Gitanes and a fizzy apple drink and settle down. Occasionally Dorian and I pop out for a cigarette at the same time, and I discover that he went on a bit of a bender the night before and has only had two hours sleep, so we are sort of in the same place. I don’t know the French for it, but in English it’s “knackered.”

It’s taking forever to reach 4pm, so I decide to fish out the notebook with all the places I want to go and things I want to see and map out a bit of an itinerary for myself. I check my camera bag, then my backpack. Then both, again, a bit more frantically. It isn’t here. One more check of both bags before a quick burst of swearing. And then another cigarette, outside, with more swearing.

There are computers in the luggage/etc area, so I hop on one to see if I can’t find some of the addresses I had noted down. Which, I quickly realise, is pointless as I spent months skiving off work to plan all this and I’m not going to be able to do it all again in a few minutes. There’s nothing to do but sit and fume about it for the next couple of hours.

Mere nanoseconds after 4pm, I have my room key. The lift seems to be taking forever, so with the last of my strength, I bound up the stairs, fling open the door, strip off and jump in the shower. After a quick lie down, I’m up and dressed and ready to check out Paris. At least I remember one address - 6 Rue du Pot de Fer: the building George Orwell lived in and immortalised in Down And Out In Paris And London. And according to my map, it’s not very far away. So off I go. 

In 1930s Paris, Rue du Pot de Fer was not much more than a slum. Now, it’s in the middle of the very touristy Latin Quarter. Rue Mouffetard, off which Pot de Fer runs, is lined with shops and restaurants, the latter of which have bled up Pot de Fer. Along both sides are tourist-trap eateries offering the same fixed-price, stereotypical French food menus. A far cry from Orwell’s days of the dingy bar on the corner and scrounging a few centimes for a bit of bread and maybe a glass of vin ordinaire. Still, standing outside number six is goosebump-inducing. 

After a while of standing and staring at number 6 while waiters from the various restaurants stand and stare at the guy standing and staring at number 6, I decide to get some food. So I walk up and down Pot de Fer, comparing prices and menus. And then decide to get a €3 baguette from a place around the corner. After a bit more of a wander, including just stumbling across the Panthéon and the Sorbonne, I head back to the hotel. I’m in an increasing funk over the notebook so I get back to the hotel and watch gorgeous French women walk by and smoke too many Gitanes in an effort to improve my mood. It’s either that or find a bar and get very, very drunk. But before too long I realise my feet feel like they’re about to combust so I head upstairs for an early night.

London Kings Cross-St Pancras to Paris Gare du Nord

7:27am: At the exact time printed on my ticket, the train starts moving. I’m impressed. These things never usually leave on time.

7:29am: The train enters a tunnel. Guess I can put the camera away if this carries on.

7:33am: Sunlight! Actually, false alarm. A brief section of uncovered tunnel. Which I guess, technically, would be called a ditch. Also, nearly stabbed the girl in the seat next to me in the neck with my pencil. Accidentally, of course. Luckily, she’s trying to sleep so didn’t notice.

7:37am: Out of the tunnel. A bit annoyed I picked a seat on the north side of the train as I’ve got bright sunlight in my face. Another reason to put the camera away.

7:38am: A man and his daughter - nine or ten years old at the most - are sat behind me, chatting away happily about this and that. From what I can tell, mum and dad are separated, so this must be a father-daughter bonding weekend in Paris. Either that, or he’s abducted her. You can never be too sure with these things.

7:40am: Another tunnel. Still, we were just passing cement works and motorways, so in terms of a “view”, this is possibly an improvement.

7:44am: Slowing down to take on passengers at Ebbsfleet. Could have sworn I booked a non-stop service. Either way, no mention was made of stopping. As we were slowing, the the Brussels Eurostar - which departed a few minutes behind us - passed us at full speed. It’s hurtling along. 

7:47am: Influx of passengers causes chaos. Spot someone carrying, surprise surprise, a Steig Larsson book. And a very cute girl with a bow in her hair takes a seat a few rows up. 

7:48am: Moving again. 

7:49am: Another tunnel. Then sunlight. Might stop noting every single tunnel we go through.

7:54am: Now we’re really picking up speed. A friend of the girl next to me just came up and told her there’s a spare seat with her, so she’s gone off to sit there. Probably lucky, considering how cavalier my attitude is with this pencil. In seconds, I manage to fill her now-vacated spot with my stuff.

7:56am: Rolling green hills, the occasional road, glimpses of motorway. Crossed a river, too. No idea which river, though.

7:59am: Feel like a cup of tea. Decide to wait until we’re in the channel tunnel as I’m guessing there won’t be any view for a while.

8:01am: The woman across the aisle from me is reading a magazine article, and as far as I can tell, it’s about crisp packets. 

8:02am: A sandwich might be nice, too. I was up too early for breakfast at the LSE this morning. 

8:05am: Slowing down. According to a road sign I just caught a glimpse of, the channel tunnel is nearby

8:08am: The tunnel! 41 minutes from London, including the stop at Ebbsfleet.

8:12am: Standing in the snail’s pace queue in the cafe car. Pretty sure I just heard someone say “I don’t know how you stop the Asians from talking to their mates.” Will give the speaker the benefit of doubt as I don’t know what context that sentence is in, but I did notice that he is drinking beer before 9am. Don’t let that cloud your judgement, though. Just telling it how it is.

8:26am: Back in my seat with my goodies from the cafe. In the spirit of where I’m heading, I got a coffee and a pain au chocolat from Michel, the surly cafe dude who looks like a taller and less gaunt Steve Buscemi. In honour of where I’ve come from, I also got a Kit Kat. And there’s a little biscuit thing in my bag that Michel must have slipped in while I wasn’t looking.

8:28am: FRANCE! Impressed that I timed my visit to le café just right.

8:31am: Glance over, and feel momentary tinge of patriotism as crisp-packet-article woman has now moved on to Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap. The pessimist in me would say she’s probably Australian.

9:32am: Change clock to French time.

9:36am: After a brief stop in Calais - again, not informed of this - we’re moving again.

9:39am: I’M IN FUCKING FRANCE!

9:42am: JUST SAW MY FIRST FRENCH COW!

9:43am: Clearly, I’ve had too much caffiene and sugar.

9:54am: Rolling hills, quaint little French (obviously) village. And so on. Kind of like those repeating backgrounds in the Roadrunner cartoons. But more French.

9:54am: Get momentarily excited as suddenly there are more buildings, but it’s obviously just a larger city as we’re still over an hour away from Paris.

10:01am: More countryside. It’s like watching the Tour de France. Without the bikes. 

10:07am: Confuse myself by being able to read a sentence painted on the side of a building until I realise it’s in English. 

10:09am: More countryside.

10:14am: Man and daughter behind me are reading a magazine (or catalogue) together, picking outfits for each other. Some suggestions are met with contemplation, others with laughter (from him) and giggles (from her).

10:31am: Flick through Eurostar magazine between glimpses of French countryside. Highlight: a Peugot driving through a field.

10:34am: In the UK, announcements are made in (heavily-accented) English, then French. In France, it’s the other way around. Makes sense when you think about it.

10:37am: Look up and see the sky is criss-crossed with contrails from jet planes.

10:44am: Passing an airport I assume to be Charles de Gaulle. Getting close now.

10:46am: The suburbs of Paris!

10:47am: Feeling slightly silly about getting excited about suburbs.

10:52am: Graffiti along the train line in Paris is about as interesting as graffiti along a train line anywhere else in the world. Which is to say, not very.

10:57am: Bonjour, Paris!