WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS

WHEN I LEFT LIVERPOOL THIS MORNING, it was not so much with a heavy heart as with a heavy suitcase. I had wisely used the extra days’ delay caused by Iceland exploding and the subsequent non-existent baggage weight allowance to buy even more presents for my wife, two boys and the neurotic kitten that has now become part of our family. When one travels by plane, as many of my readers will know, one gives these cases to a kind lady at the airport, and (hopefully) does not see them again until reaching one’s destination. By train, I have been reminded today, it is a different kettle of fish.

IT SEEMS LIKE YEARS AGO that I was happy; sitting in a pleasant lounge in London. Since then I have travelled to Paris, upon which I feel like I have been subject to all the tribulations one hopes to avoid. We will now avoid clever prose in order to simply supply the facts.
Gare du Nord: 70 cents to use the toilet (exact change only) and the change machines were out of order. (En panne, as they say here, has become the word of the day.) This meant that desperate gentlemen were doing what I suspect a lot of Frenchmen really enjoy: holding their manhood in their hands and pissing against a wall in full view of everyone. No other nation could produce an artist like Duchamp.
Gare du Nord: as I was walking to the Metro station, half of the population of Algeria seemed to be stalking me to get a taxi with them to Spain. The howling and wailing and gnashing of teeth that followed my rejections reminded me of sunset in Cairo on a Friday. Lifts out of order; escalators idem.
Gare d’Austerlitz: this is not so much a railway station as a construction site. No lifts; no escalators. At six in the evening the hordes of homeless Parisians were already settling down for the night with their dogs, tinfoil and bottles of Pernod. Twice on the short walk to my (admittedly charming) noisy hotel I was propositioned by what seemed to be females – I’ll reserve judgement on the issue – for sex. I look like I have been through a mangle, I’m dragging a suitcase with a broken wheel across the chewing-gum-and-frites infested trottoirs, sweating like a pig: How can these people imagine that I want sex? With them. Paying for it. In Euros. It is a mystery beyond my imagination.

THE SMELL OF THE CONTINENT

MY TITLE PAYS ITS DUE respects to Mrs “Fanny” Trollope, wit and raconteuse of some standing, who gave the continent of Europe a good literary hiding before going on to do something similar for those foolhardy colonials who had opted to declare themselves independent of the Crown in 1776. Fanny, among other delicious tit-bits of wit and observation, pointed out that one of the most distressing aspects concerning English people visiting the mainland of Europe was its foul smell. I, of course, would never suggest that such a thing as a single foul smell for Europe existed.

AS I WRITE THIS, sitting in the café-bar of the magnificent St Pancras Station in London, about to depart for Paris on the Eurotrash train under the channel, I expect that the effect of the smell will be even more overwhelming than I remember it being when I was thirteen years old, sitting in the back seat of my parents’ car on a beautifully bright and clear Summer day waiting to board a hovercraft from Dover. That clarity on that day, in late July 1972, made it one of the rare occasions when one could see on the horizon a shimmering image of France, for me a land of mystery, charm and seduction. I imagined, as one might imagine a thirteen-year-old boy would imagine, a land full of fun.

OF COURSE NONE OF THIS WAS TRUE – when I was thirteen, at least. Nor do I expect it to be the case later on this evening, when I am booked into a grubby little hotel near Austerlitz railway station, from which I will be in touch later, with a report on the smells I encounter. As an Englishman I am often asked why my countrymen hate the French so much, and I suppose the answer might have to do with statements of mine in Sunday Mornings passim. But more particularly it is because France just does not do what it says on the tin. Or the Tin-Tin.

UNDER THE VOLCANO

MALCOLM LOWRY’S MAGNIFICENT novel, surely the most breathtaking work of fiction of the XX century and, in the opinion of many, the greatest novel in the English language, has perhaps not received the critical acclaim it deserves due to the character of its author and the personality of its leading character. Indeed, although there are a great many plays, novels, short stories and poems written by drunks, there are very few written by a drunkard from Liverpool about a drunkard from Liverpool.

IN THE NOVEL, Lowry’s character, Geoffrey Firmin, is trapped in an alcoholic deathward spiral due to his being desperately lost in a foreign country, cut off by circumstances from the wife he loves and unable to return to his happiness except for one passage, where he has a vision of a long journey “home”, spurred on by a horde of gruesome Scandinavian daemons riding above the clouds, “like Swedenborg’s angels”.

OF COURSE THIS IS ALL symbolic in the novel, and Firmin (and Lowry) had just been drinking too much in Quauhnahuac, Mexico, and had become a little jittery when they looked up at a volcano about to erupt at any moment, eventually leading to both author and character to lose hold on reality. Yet in “real” life I find myself abandoned here in my home city of Liverpool after my flight back to Portugal has been cancelled. And all of this due to ash coming out of some unpronounceable dung heap in Iceland which I have started to call Valhalla. I am now seeing visions of a long journey myself, but this time nearly three days on the sterilised cubicles and public toilets that the French and Spanish, respectively, call trains.

ALL OF THIS COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED if the authorities responsible had listened to some of my patented ideas about how to deal with such a crisis. My idea that all airplanes that fly above 20,000 feet should have a giant fan attached to them would clearly have solved this problem, as would the idea of a giant fan on a very long pole that could be held up at times of danger from rogue volcanic ash.

MY SKETCH ABOVE ALSO INCLUDES another idea of mine, to avoid lightning striking aircraft: they could all be fitted with a long metallic rope that would be in touch with the ground at all times, thus “earthing” them without “grounding” them. I suspect, however, that these ideas will be scoffed at, just as happened with my idea for a giant airplane-shaped blanket to be used in the case of fires on board. And I will probably not even bother registering my idea of a giant cork that one could put into the opening of the volcano in Iceland and keep it quiet. Or the massive fire extinguisher.

SCOTLAND THE BRAVE

BY ALL ACCOUNTS, THE FIRST and self-proclaimed King of Great Britain, Charles James Stuart, was not exactly a bundle of fun, although one has to admit that he occasionally came up with one-line quips that could be seen as amusing in the right light. The most famous of these, of course, was “Cutte off his balls and swingge him from a tree”, spoken in King’s Lynn when the locals brought a cut-purse they had caught to his inn to ask him what they should do with him. This was in 1603, and it is remarkable in the fact that it is the first recorded example of “the people” telling a ruling and reigning monarch that they would not obey him. (The cut-purse was pilloried for a week in the stocks, and kept his balls, as far as one knows.)


HISTORY, HOWEVER, HAS NOT MADE MUCH MENTION of a couple of other ho-ho-jesty comments James made, and this is probably due to the fact that he was such a boring, dismal wet blanket. No other king of England has ever gone to such lengths to abolish buggery, calling it one of those “horrible crimes which ye are bound in conscience never to forgive” or to ban smoking, which he described as a “branch of drunkenness” and the “root of all sins”. Strange then, that when introduced to a young lady of sixteen who was fluent in Greek, Latin and Hebrew and had been “groomed”, as they say nowadays, to be his mistress, his only question was (I am cleaning this up a little bit) “These are rare attainments for a damsel, but does she shag?”

BUT THE SMARTEST OBSERVATION MADE BY THE GOOD STUART had to do with eating oysters. He reportedly stated, “He was a bold man who first swallowed an oyster”. One wonders whether our Scots of today will have such cleverness. This is because the elections in 2010 will see the renewed bitterness over constitutional issues between England and Scotland that have remained unresolved for three hundred years, unless the Labour party can manage to make a deal with the Plaid Cymru MPs or with those unpronounceable chaps from Northern Ireland. And so much of this will have to do with fisheries that a Conservative victory may mean independence for Scotland So, ironically, it will most likely be Scotland that holds the knife to Gordon Brown’s breast. Now our politicians will be indulging in “live” debates on television, and therefore I am presenting (above) a photograph of the bags under the eyes of the leaders of all three major parties after a grueling political campaign. Consider this a public service.

IT’S ENGLAND, SIR, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT

MY WIFE REGULARLY TAKES AFTERNOON TEA with her friend Jocelyn, an American society lady who is taking advantage of her university professor husband’s placement in Lisbon teaching Portuguese people how to run an economy by making this city her base for jolly trips throughout Europe gaining knowledge and cultural experience about its quaint buildings, faded paintings, chipped statues, collapsing churches, stodgy food, dirty toilets, tiny beds and sometimes curious behaviour. My wife recently told her that we (the Pleasants) would be taking a brief Holy Week break on the south coast of England, stopping at Brighton and then at Bognor Regis, and possibly spending some time at Butlins, a holiday company unknown in the USA. Upon their parting after their latest session of tea and English muffins, Jocelyn wished, “I hope you and David enjoy Butt-land.”

IN SPEECH, IT IS DIFFICULT TO SEPARATE the buts from the butts, yet I would imagine that demure Jocelyn, who has a sense of humour that should not be sneezed at (“I have a friend who is French, but she doesn’t smell”), was taking a little swipe at holiday camps for children in general. If she wasn’t, then she should have been.

“BUTTLAND” IS INDEED an intriguing concept. As soon as I heard the expression I set about imagining the places to which the title might be effectively applied. Coming immediately to mind, although I am not sure why, was a nightclub in San Francisco, California. Or perhaps a muddy camping site on a hillside reserved only for serious smokers. Then again, one could be cruel and imagine it to be some kind of health resort for those who have eaten nothing but hamburgers for most of their lives.

THUS WHEN WE ARRIVED IN BRIGHTON, for the first leg of our little break, I was determined to see where the “butt” (or indeed “but”) might lie. Only someone as radically perverse as myself could divide a week’s holiday between the Metropole Hotel in Brighton, once considered the best and most exclusive in Europe, with Butlins in Bognor, the butt of more jokes by stand-up comedians than Blackpool, Skegness, Barry Island, Margate and the Isle of Wight put together. The contrast should have been enormous; but, whether it is a credit to our governments over the last thirty years or something for which they should be ashamed, I saw little difference between the two.

OUR STAY IN THE METROPOLE was grim. I did not expect an orchestra in the lobby, as used to be the case, nor dinner without a written menu; but I did expect a family room with curtains that closed, a toilet system that did not sound like someone was being strangled every time it was flushed, a TV that worked, air conditioning that did not try to turn the room into a vacuum, a kettle in which one could see steel inside rather than stalagmites of calcium, and 100-watt light bulbs (so we could see our way around). The suspicious brown liquid seeping out of the mini-bar during the night and the hole that had been kicked out of the bottom-left corner of the door to the corridor were bonuses we only noticed later – the latter when I was trying to kick my way out of the room when the lock had jammed, causing mild panic attacks in my better half. The staff members were all very pleasant, but I still may cancel my Hilton Honors card, depending on how they deal with my complaints.

FOREMOST AMONG MY ADMITTEDLY SNOBBISH complaints is the fact that I was probably the only male person in the whole hotel – other than staff – who was wearing shoes, a jacket (with buttons) and a shirt (with a collar, with buttons). Almost all the other men looked like they were about to indulge in the evil, vile habit of jogging, or had been jogging, or were in fact jogging now. And were advertising sportswear. Even at dinner.

ON THE OTHER HAND, the butt of all humour, Butlins, was exceptional. Admittedly we had taken the risk of this endeavour because it would have been difficult to find a funfair open at this time of year and because Pleasant the Youngest needs the occasional thrill, which are more than difficult to find in Portugal. The apartments are exceptional, and are probably better than the “flats” owned by many people who come to Butlins. The entertainment for children is beyond criticism, and, as in the Metropole, all the staff members were excellent, and their control of the English language was perhaps better.

THE UPSHOT OF ALL THIS is that if we took someone from another planet and brought them to these two places they would be hard put to decide which of these two places was supposedly for “toffs” and which was the comedian’s delight. Indeed, I am doubly impressed by Butlins in the sense that I did not see the haggard, anorak-wearing, cigarette-smoking, lager-swilling characters for which it was once reputedly famous. The Metropole, however, seems to be doing its best to attract the “Kiss-me-Quick” population. While this is obviously excellent in the sense of highlighting social equality, it seems to me that British society since Margaret Thatcher got started out on ruining it could have set the median bar at something higher than making us all fit into the lower twenty percent on the scale. The nicest moment of the entire rain swept, icy blizzard-ridden week was a sign on a pub door on the seafront in Bognor Regis, which I would have photographed if I hadn’t had chilblains and chapped fingers: “If you want to come in you wear: SHIRTS, SHOES AND SHORTS. NO BUTS.”

HERE LIES LIES

MY OLD FRIEND DAVID BYRNE, former vocalist of the pop music ensemble The Talking Heads, and later best known for making obscure albums of song and music with flamboyant intellectuals and shoddy third world buskers and bongo players alike, has recently returned to good form with his new collection of songs, entitled Here Lies Love, celebrating the life of Imelda Marcos, the deeply misunderstood wife of the brutal dictator who governed the Philippines for some considerable time. Even more than Sunday Morning itself, this is the true spirit of bringing our leaders within reach.

DAVID, WHO BECAME FASCINATED BY IMELDA’S love for disco music and disco dancehall mirrored balls, has unfortunately been criticized for apparently “validating” Imelda’s life by writing music about it; yet his soft-spoken mention of Lloyd-Webber’s Evita, on his appearance on the BBC morning show recently has not led to anyone attacking our plump, pouting, gorgeous Lord. Nor did his protests about juvenile criticism of his most controversial songs during the Talking Heads period make much difference.

THUS DAVID, A SCOT BY BIRTH, might perhaps be interested in writing a similar opus about the lives of fellow Scots who have achieved some recognition of late and are practically of his own age. Byrne was born in Dumbarton, and was then whisked off to Canada, still a bairn, and then later to the USA, by his far-seeing parents. How different things might have been if such parents had been those of Tony Blair or Gordon Brown.

SHOULD DAVID BYRNE WISH TO CONSIDER the idea of an album of songs or musical compositions to celebrate the lives of these Right Honourable leaders, I feel I may be of help to him in his research right now. For Gordon Brown I can clearly see a Rumba in my mind, a Rig, perhaps, or even a Military Two Step (backwards); for Blair, a medley of Souza marches, some Arabesque entertainment pieces and then a full blown Apocalypso, all maracas shaking.