WhatNext

Recently my heart was broken, and my soul destroyed! When I put the phone down, I felt my world crumble and my life-plan (well at least Saturday and Sunday morning plan) deteriorate to dust. I sat in dispair in the lounge, on this purposeless sofa in this purposeles room, and shared the sad news with my flatmates. "Jeff is coming to get his TV." My words crashed to the laminate floor like a rock, tied to an anvil, tied to Chris Farley. The LG 42" Plasma Megagigantatron which is such a big part of our lives, our lounge, our dining area and even a little part of our kitchen, was about to be extracted from our happy home. And we'd be expected to smile unaffectedly like the woman in wax-strip infomercials.

About a year ago, Jeff had parted with a lot of hard earned Royal British Pounds (think Dr Evil ransom demands) for this entertainment monstrosity, and when he left our flat to move closer to the Thames we thought that his long hours, frequent rowing regattas, and the sheer logistics of moving this beast across town would ensure that it stayed in its orignal resting place.

But the day came and, despite new locks, no-ones-home darkness, and two Tescos shelves worth of Dyroach gas bombs, it went. Our substitute (which we found long-forgotten in the cave of memories and stuff for charity beneath the stairs) was a 12" four-pixel nightlight. Dwarfed by the TV-stand, the pot plant and the little person who came to visit, it mocked us analoguely from the corner of the room. It comes with one of those annoying remotes where one has to push P+ or P- to wake it from Standby (instead of industry standard Standby toggle button) and therefore if one hits P+ or P- more than once, the channel jumps from AV to the snow channels before the picture is even on screen. However, its best feature, surprisingly undocumented, is that one never knows what polymorph the SkyTV menu bar will be contorted into each time it is summoned.

For the sake of my eyes, and to ease the confusion over what to aim our furniture at, on payday this week, Google and I scoured the internet, costing retailers a fortune in pay-per-click ad fees. Miraculously Acer has entered the LCD TV market with a high-spec bargain beast, HD Ready (though the house budget isn't), HDMI X2 (that must be like three times HDMI 1 or some inconceivable factor - I'm not a mathmagician) and more entertainment ports than Jenna Jameson.

Excuse the length of my this post and my unadulterated excitement over a TV, but this is one of my biggest purchases ever, and the most I've ever spent on anything online. Okay second-most, I bought JP a Petra Nemcova lookalike mail-order wife from Latvia last year, but that was a waste of cash - I've learnt my lesson and will never select the economical ShipSaver Standard option again.

Click. click. Ding Dong.

"Whats that coming [into my lounge]? Is that a monster?!"

Oh yes it is.

I'm not happy that I'm a social smoker. It doesn't get me into any inner-circle conversations at the office, I have to do a load of washing evertime I wake up hang over, and I go through Febreze like um.. cigarettes. But I do enjoy the occassional cigarette with the occassional pint. But dammit if I lived in Paris, I'd be a cancer patient by 26.

Oh your god, French chicks make smoking sexy!

Pulling on long thin cigarettes, strong features and perfect skin, carefully plucked eyebrows hidden behind large sunglasses. Tight jeans, knee-high leather boots, striped jerseys and black coats. Weightless, despite three healthy meals a day, they sit and chain-smoke all afternoon. Empty red wine glasses on the table go unfilled.

In Paris, one pays more for a drink if one sits down, than if one enjoys it at the bar; one is not allowed to order a snack at lunch time - two courses or you sit on the floor; and I think the entire service industry suffers from aquaphobia, because if you order tap water, garcon's eyes turn to fire.

So the sneaky locals, a stagnant economy has given them a thick skin, order a single round and sit and talk until dinner or until they have sucked enough nicotine to continue shopping.

[POST DISCONTINUED...]

Okay...Um...I have to stop this post here. I googled "french girls smoking" hoping for an interesting link to drive this post home, and with googlespeed, several million fetish sites popped up. This is going to be tricky to explain to my flatmate network nazi who is master and commander of our digs broadband. Especially since he announced yesterday on my return to London that a French girl would be taking over his room for a month while he takes some leave.

Urgh, I hope she doen't smoke. Enough secondary smoke drifts through our lounge from JP's (current flatmate) habit.

I almost didn't make it. Since I'm going through a routine bout of unemployment and an out-of-routine general disassociation from anything with meaning, I woke up late and hungover. Despite very efficient packing (one jumper plus whatever I fell asleep wearing should do it) and a sprint through Clapham Junction railway station which would have outclassed a slightly injured Ben Johnson (insert Family Guy-esque cut-away to the Olympic great with a barbed wrecking ball impaled in his torso), by the time I got to the Eurostar terminal at London Waterloo, Check-in had closed. Luckily at the Tickets/Billets desk sat the nicest Frenchman in the world (second perhaps to my Dad, but much nicer than me or Zinidine "Drop him like he's hot" Zidane). He took my useless ticket, shook his head and explained that since technically my train was still on the platform, though it was impossible for me to get to it through Check-in and Security in a minute and a half, he would put me on the next train. However, he insisted that I take the Non-remboursable, non-échangeable a little more seriously on the return trip. The train trip was incident free and I keeled over in the dehydrated foetal position in an unallocated pair of seats. As instructed, as we dipped beneath the channel, I diligently adjusted my watch by an hour, grateful for the shortened day and just before arrival I made my way to the bar coach for a cafè espresso, beaming a crusty smile at the only eye-candy aboard as I wobbled down the aisle.

I hopped off the train and strolled into Paris Gard du Nord Station, following the circled M's marking the way to the metro. Intending to avoid using up the little french I knew this early in the trip, I opted for the Billet machines rather than the counters and amazed myself with the ease with which I navigated through the available options and bought my Metro pass. I'm pretty sure now that Steve Jobbs stole the iPod navigation dial idea from these machines. I then realised a little queue had formed behind me by the time I was done which squelched my sense of acievement somewhat, but I was off.

I got off at the right stop, left the station through the right exit and wondered through the city past the seemingly infinite number of shops selling collectables (including original Dinky Toys TM in their fading pre-WWII packaging), bakeries and high-end fashion stores. Good shirts, shoes and sunglasses and a full belly replace real estate as status symbols. And collecting seems to replace decorating as a hobby. If you'll only ever be able to afford 85m-squared of me-space, then cram it full of clothes and old stuff!

I found my father's store and got straight to work on the changes to the carrolboyes website and then just kind of merged into the city. I can't really talk to the sales staff or most of my extended family and don't even bother trying to interpret what people on the street ask or shout at me. Except, a beggar round the corner from the store who, profiling me based on my Florida sweatshirt and seeing my backpack, shouted, "I'll have everything in there!" in perfect English.

I've been here two days now and am feeling a lot like Bill Murray in Japan (in Lost in Translation) except its unlikely that I'll bump into Scarlett Johanssen in the hotel lobby. I am however bumping into lots of other things - taking advantage of the few glasses of wine with every meal, while still trying to avoid the full-bloods noticing my relative intolerance.

I love this Paris and have some fantastic memories here, from bouncing around on a spring loaded horse in a public park, to busting my coxics as I hurtled myself onto what turned out to be a CONCRETE over-sized sofa at the Stromf Parc - It SMURFING hurt!!!, to a long walk from the eery Catacombes to the magnificent Louvre with Andrea, Adi and Alli. On this trip however, alone and absorbing everything, my mind is going off on massive tangents. Today, after lunch, I stood in front of the 13th-century Saint-Sulpice cathedral, opposite Yves Saint Lauren of course, and enjoyed the thinking of the Parisian government. One of the church's towers is undergoing a multi-million euro restoration project and the other, bomb scarred and sand-blasted but standing proud is being left as a symbol of resilience. While my next few days are going to be a little like Groundhog Day (believe me I tried to throw a third Bill Murray reference into this narrative - Ghostbusters perhaps), I'm doing well to get along in a city where no one understands me and I don't give a damn.

I appologise for some abysmal posts, I thought I could do some hilarious social commentry, but then I found myself corporately employed again and there is little funny in three permissable shades of gray. So I'll leave the hilarities to the proffessionals:

I thought the careless mispelling in the following part of a job advertisment was quite funny. This company might already struggle to atract professionals but the subliminal dis-advertising seals ther fate:

 To most people NCP means car parks. But today's NCP is a much more dive
 erse business. It is still proud to be the largest commercial car park
 operator in the UK, but now also offers a successful range of services
 & capabilities to the broader transport sector.