Parisian mason of the porcelain bowl

We went to Paris for the (long) weekend. In her ongoing culinary sacrifice, the lovely selected a vegetarian restaurant in the carnivore's capital. Sadly it was shut. After making the schlep over to the area we chose somewhere near - in front of a pretty building. It was recommended to us by the I heart NY t-shirt wearing Parisian woman out the front (the horror, she said, "you can't smoke inside, but it is a great brasserie, the best in the area"). We sat in the smoking section. Our table for two was by the window and joined to another occupied table.

And that, is how we met Alan.

Alan was a charming Frenchman in, to quote Sinatra, the autumn of his years. A wealthy financier he represented everything about old world France that was alluring, and a dose of those which area antiquated. He lives in Bordeaux, but came to the city to dine with his friend. And see his girlfriend (in that order). Alan's guest, Name Forgotten, had come from Hong Kong for the dinner.

It was a great night. They entertained us, talked politics, global affairs, France in the modern world and their lives. One of those nights you have when travelling where a chance meeting of locals makes you feel like you got know, just a little bit, of the people and city.

Talking with Aland and Name Forgotten (NF) was an exercise in the fine line between comfortable (with oneself) and keen (to impress others). Alan, most assuredly the former, was polite, amusing and aristocratic. NF idolised Alan, but was trite, annoying and phlegmatic.

It was painful to watch someone so keen to emulate fall so short, so clumsily. It made me realise that if you really want to ingratiate yourself, let them finish their point, and then agree. If you give your unrequested opinion, the absolute best case is you are right. But the strong odds that you are wrong far outweigh the very marginal gain from being right first (rather than through agreement). This little law is especially true if your idol starts a sentence with "I'm not racist, but ..."

Mind you, Alan's point, when he says it at least, seeemed to make a measure of unexpected sense at the time. At the time.

They recommended the oysters (Alan: the number five; NF: the number four - we got half a dozen of each. They were great, but Alan's selection was exceptional). They ordered for both of us (on Alan's recommendation the lovely had perfectly cooked deep sea fish; NF ordered for me what turned out to be macaroni and frommage - when the French serve justice to vegetarians it would seem to be a dish best served bland).

Alan ordered a Rose champagne ("the finest champagne in France" Alan tautologically declared to admiring foreigners) and gave us a taste - it was exquisite. They ordered a spirit to finish; "made by monks, a hundred or more herbs .... it is French." It was, to our surprise, Chartreuse. Green chartreuse served in a tumbler resting on a gigantic silver platter of ice. Our enchantment resulted in Alan discretely ordering 2 glasses as our finisher, to be put on his bill.

The low light arrived with ironically sobering clarity. As the chartreuse wound its way through NF's blood system to his head, he was to be taken aback. Actually he was to be taken a-spew. His dash to the toilette, with as much haste as a jet-lagged Frenchman can muster, allowed us to find out why they were having dinner.

Alan is a Freemason.

The first time I heard someone say "I am a Freemason" was in Paris. It was said by a man who was "the head Freemason in France" (a fun game is to try and guess what absurd title he might have 'overlord of the intolerance smock' perhaps). NF was, for want of a better word, his protege (that's French, by the way). NF was battling to find a 'lodge' in Hong Kong, hence the dinner to discuss. Alan had used connections in an attempt to introduce him to the HK massive, to no avail.

And then NF returned. And then they left.

As we drank our stunning smooth and complex Chartreuse on ice 60-something Alan walked off to see his 30-something girlfriend, and 30-something NF stumbled off to see his something-star hotel porcelain bowl. And there was justice. French-style.

The common cold wasn't on the list of illnesses

I have a cough/cold thing. You will be pleased to know it has moved from that phase where you just feel unwell (and there are few symptoms that would differentiate it from a hang-over) to the rather satisfying phase where you are coughing with 'a phlegm rattle' in your throat.

I can't just blame the inconsistent weather for my illness. I must admit that Sandra lulled me into a sense of security with her sunny bursts and spring blossom days (before turning to rain and clouds and bleh). But I really blame the city. If New York is the ''city so nice they named it twice," then London is "the centre of influenza." London is a heady brew of millions of people crammed into underground trains and walkways - coughing into their hands (that are then wiped onto handrails) and ill-ventilated air-space. Oh, it's pleasant.

So I took a day off to get better. When I got back to work I needed to fill out my time sheet. Fine. It had a section about why I was sick "please choose the illness from the attached list". Sure. .... Guess how many possible illnesses there were ...Go on ... think of a reasonable number. I thought 15. How many (did you guess)? Not many? If any? .... six hundred and fifteen - from Abdominal Hernia (as opposed to Abdominal Operation, Abdominal Pain or Acne) to Whooping Cough (not Warts or Vertigo ... there are different types of vomiting for god's sake). There are literally 13 varieties of cancer - and this excludes the 14th catch-all "Cancer" which is on there as well. Don't you think that maybe "Assault" might be a bit vague (to me it implies you were unable to come to work due to the fact you were assaulting; otherwise you would be suffering from at least one of "Arm Injury," "Bruising," "Head Injury" etc).

Even if it was the reason you weren't at work yesterday, is anyone actually going to remember to put down Amnesia?

Do they really need to know if someone had an Abortion? Do I need to admit I suffer Alcoholism? These are rhetorical questions, don't answer that last one. Why is Affective Psychosis on the list, but I can't have "effective psychosis"? For the love of god what is Anal Fistula (and before you look it up think about whether you want that on your Google-search record). These are only a portion of the A-section (AIDS, by the way, is on the list).

I chose "hormonal imbalance" and under symptoms wrote "general lack of balance." I love the fact that I might make a footnote in the annual report. ... Oh yeah, sticking it to the man.

Weather forecast: teething

There has been a lot written about the weather in Britain. Few of them in rhyme and (although i have the time, and rain pairs with pain), I won't write in prose because, frankly ... it's difficult and I am lazy.

Most people talk about how miserable the weather is. Some how inherently interesting weather here is, or how inherently boring. Lots have even written about how commented upon the weather is. None of these work for me. I think the weather here feels like having a small child around. Lets call her Sandra. Like all children, Sandra dominates your life - your mood and your tolerance for everything and everyone. Speaking as someone who is deliberately barren, I feel qualified to talk about this at (a slightly longer than your busy schedules will allow) length.

When Sandra is in a bad mood, Londoners is in a bad mood. They're tired, can't leave the house ("why don't you come over here ... Sandra's sick, we haven't slept and I'm now in a foul mood"). In the fleeting moments when Sandra isn't glum (when her tears [despite my parting-gift-from-work-umbrella] aren't soaking the bottom of my trousers; when she is actually exposing that beautiful hen's-teeth-rare smile), her parents, the collective metropolis, are ecstatic. Radio DJs play bouncy-happy music; people hold doors open for each other, everyone smiles, laughs and drinks outside on the street.

It's May. May is Spring. Instead of that adorably cute kid in those calenders (by Anna Whats-it), dressed as a sunflower, Sandra is teething. Sandra, to be honest, is a pain in the arse. Sandra is dominating, domineering, moody ... a little shite ... and I blame her for the cold I now have.

I'm looking forward to summer. Summer will be the equivalent of Sandra's first day at school. She'll make friends, be entertained and challenged - she'll grow into that happy cute kid on the sitcom with a catch-phrase (that will be adorably mispronounced) that will light up the "ahhhhhhwwww" sign in society's subconsciousness. All will be right in the world. I think this will last until November whereupon Sandra will be moody, melancholy and cold - Sandra will be, in weather-years, a teenager.

Since I've been writing, her tears have filled the streets. But now she is tired. The grey has left her cheeks. I have a few hours of dusk while she rests. I'm going to go out and play.

Hope this finds you well.

Hoff-a-holic

We interrupt these long posts with a short one:

If you were David Hasselhoff's kids and you were going to film him so you could later play the footage to him as part of an intervention that aimed to change his ways, wouldn't you do it for humanity, not sobriety?

I mean can't you just show him some of his acting?
You could then show the footage of him in Baywatch and say "Dad, don't do this. You are a bad actor, you are conveying sadness in these scene. And in the last scene, the timing of your punchline was waaaaay off"