Et alors?

That'll teach me to take a few days off. I've been working my fat Irish arse off both before and after, and if it weren't for the Murphy's, I'd be bitter.

Still, fun was had. But not necessarily by L, who completed the Etape Du Tour last week in a respectable, but personally wrecking, nine hours. That's nine hours of continuous on-road pedaling, in over 30 degrees of French summer heat, the last bit up the terrible, vertical moonscape of Mont Ventoux. Nine thousand souls began the Etape; fewer than seven thousand finished, and among them were many who left several layers of skin embedded in the grit of the roads, having fallen, or who completed the Ventoux having decorated the ditches with a litre of freshly thrown-up Gatorade. L feels that eventually the rosy glow of nostalgia will enable him to look back on the experience as a positive one, but that stage has yet to come.When, on Saturday, we sat in a Paris bar and watched the TV coverage of the professionals sweeping up Mont Ventoux, after a mere four hours, he put his head in his hands and groaned. He was clearly having a flashback.

As for me, I stayed home and worked diligently and unresentfully while he completed his act of middle-aged folly; I had a Tough Gig last Wednesday which I very much wanted to do but was nervous about, and it took a lot of preparation. It went fine, and as I sat on the train on my way home I suddenly remembered that I had five full days of leisure ahead of me. I'd more or less forgotten.

So, to Paris. Back to the Hotel Atlantis in St Germain; a small, friendly, family-run place within easy walking distance of the Luxembourg Gardens, and adjacent to a warren of streets lined with bars and restaurants. And it was here that we made a bad choice, and opted for a meal which stayed in my stomach for under twenty minutes before being efficiently, orally, ejected back at the hotel after a short but very determined sprint from me. I have always disputed the idea that Paris, or France in general, does great food. I've had more congealed, acrid sauces, dubiously aromatic fish, and salads from jars in France than anywhere I've ever visited. So while I was disappointed to have our first night spoiled, I was also philosophical, which is I suppose a nicely Parisienne reaction. I'm getting there, I really am. Soon I'll be able to do the shrug.

I was full of beans, though empty of stomach, on Saturday, which was handy as our plan was to walk the length and breadth of the city. Specifically, over to the Marais to the Musee Carnivalet, which was bloody brilliant. Marais itself is the Jewish quarter, most of the buildings three hundred or more years old, and beautifully preserved, with a relaxed, easy feel. We had lunch at the rightly popular Chez Marianne, a cosy, informal Middle Eastern place serving huge portions of good, simple food at un-Parisian (ie, reasonable) prices. Their take-away felafels are apparently legendary, and while we were there the queue of eager customers outside never ceased to stretch around the block. Definitely recommended, particularly while sterling is so weak against the Euro and every cent counts.

I was hugely appreciative of my vast lunch, as covering the Musee Carnivalet was no mean feat, and only a fool would try it on an empty stomach. A kind of Museum of Parisian Life, it's like a vast John Soanes, in the sense of housing a madly eclectic and quite eccentric collection of everyday, and not so everyday, ephemera. I could never do the place justice in a single post, but among my favourite things were the bafflling collection of sixteenth-century traders' signs, featuring the milkman who distinguished himself by a proudly displayed metal replica of the cricket-ball sized cyst on his thumb. Imagine. "Ooh, lovely fresh milk, Sylvie. I know that taste. Must be from the bloke with the grotesquely deformed hand." And of course, there's Napoleon's toothbrush. Napoleon's toothbrush! What more could you want? Naturally it's gold, as is his little spit-dish with the giant 'N' embossed on the bottom. Just in case he ever forgot who he was.

So in three trips to Paris we've managed to find a wonderful, bonkers museum three times. First the deserted treasure trove at the old Bibliotheque Nationale (Charlemagne's chess set!), then the Musee de l'histoire de la Medecine (Louis XIV's kidney-stone Lancet!), and now this. Can it deliver four, I wonder? Well, I'll be going back to find out.

And Sunday was given to the last stage of the Tour. A morning walk in the Botanic Gardens, a picnic, bought on Saturday night in the great food hall at Bon Marche, a couple of chairs overlooking the road at the side of the Tuilleries Gardens, Paul du Noyer's excellent book to read while we waited, and some good warm sunshine. We sat happily for two hours before hearing the hum of the helicopter overhead, indicating that the Peleton was close by. Seven laps, over in a flash of course, then a sprint up to the large screen to see Mark Cavendish bomb his way to glory along the last stretch of the Champs Elysee. How we cheered. How I don't understand why I get this involved in one sport and no others, especially as I don't even own a bike myself. But I do and I did, and though this year's Tour was disappointingly low on quality racing (Schleck Brothers apart, bless 'em), it was still great and Sunday was a wonderful day.

And now, back to reality. Is the summer really over? Please, no.

"This is the GPO, Madam..."

I had the house to myself for the weekend, while L made his way (growing progressively more terrified as he did so) towards the start of the Etape in France. He's setting off round about now..

A girlfriend had been due to come and stay, but on Thursday she got Swine Flu and had to cancel. I thought about casting around for something else to do, but then I decided to do nothing, and just stay at home and enjoy it. I had the best time, eating food, watching films, filling two huge bags for the charity shop, and not once did I think about passing the time by making, say, a prank phone call.

In days gone by, being left Home Alone provided an immediate and rarely-resisted opportunity to get a friend or two round, and 'get on the phone'. Although the phone was no longer a novelty, calls were relatively expensive and were strictly rationed in most houses (a source of unbearable frustration to the average teenage girl, who despite having waved goodbye to her best friend on the bus at 4.15, will still deem it essential that she phone said friend at 6.15, for further analysis of the day's doings (plus any bit of catch-up regarding what Mike Holloway might have been wearing on 'Pauline's Quirkes'). And even then, there was always the issue of pesky parents listening in. I would make my calls from our hall in the shape of a turtle, hunched over the receiver, with one ear open for the tell-tale 'click' of the kitchen door which meant my mother's infallible radar was 'on'.

When family was out, the freedom to phone each other, to phone 'boys', and to phone random strangers selected from the directory, was a prime source of amusement, particularly if we'd each had three swigs of brandy from Dad's drinks cupboard ("God, I'm really drunk!"). Generally, M would do the 'boys' ("Is Craig there please? No? Well, would you tell him he's a wanker, please? Thanks, Mrs Harrington!"). Being a bit of a mimic, and able to 'do accents' meant that I was always nominated to 'do' the 'random strangers'.

There were some rules of honour - we'd never target Asian names, and if an elderly-sounding person answered, we would hang up - but generally, it was open season. "Hello, Madam, this is the GPO. We're needing to test your phone line. Would you mind singing the first line of 'God Save the Queen'? Oh yes, that's coming through very nicely. Do you think you could put the receiver on the table and try it from five feet away?(seconds pass, and appalling version of the national anthem is heard in the distance)...yes that was quite good but I think there's a problem with the range...would you mind trying that from the bend of your stairs?(unfortunate stooge mounts stairs and warbles...returns to sound of teenage shrieking...slams down phone.).

There were quite a few variations on that one, and people almost always went for it, but the most bizarre of all was the time I passed myself off as Dave Cash from Capital Radio. Capital was enormously popular back then, being London's first commercial music station, and getting a request read out on air was no small thing. Dave Cash was a Canadian DJ with a growly, basso profundo voice rich with late nights and packs of Capstan Full Strength. I was a squeaky fifteen-year old girl with an Essex/Cork crossover accent, who had just learned to inhale a Consulate without vomiting. And yet I phoned a woman whose husband I knew vaguely, and chatted to her on the phone for five minutes in the persona of Cash, flirting and delighting her with promises of the on-air discourse that would be hers 'just after we get to the top of the hour'. My friends were rolling on the floor in tears around me as I uttered the line,"Three Times a Lady? Like your style!", and 'prepared' to line up the record on my imaginary decks.

Of course, the top of the hour came and went, and the 'switchboard' at Capital Radio never called her back as she'd been promised. I sometimes wonder how long she sat waiting, before ringing her husband at work to find out if he'd really arranged for Dave Cash to ring her. I feel a little guilty, but at the same time quite impressed with my powers of mimicry.

Having an unusual last name and being listed in the phone book did of course mean that karma took its course and I got plenty back over the years, so it's all levelled out, and we never did anything really mean (though M's 'your son's got me pregnant!' calls to one or two of the 'boys' Mums might well have caused the odd problem.). It does make me feel, though, that the next time I'm tutting at some youth or other, I should examine my own back yard a bit more closely. There was one years later when I was old enough to know better that still haunts me a little - but maybe that's one for another post. People have long memories, and you never know who's reading (about five people, but still.). Don't play with the phone, kids.

Demons in my Leotard

In the gym, getting changed. Two women who seem to know each other vaguely are chatting nearby about back pain. "I had a prolapsed disc," says one, "but I'm almost pain-free now, and I really think the Yoga has helped more than anything. You should come along to the Hatha class on a Wednesday, it's brilliant - and you feel so chilled out afterwards."

The second woman frowns deeply. "I wouldn't be inclined to try Yoga at all," she says."It might do your back good, but all that relaxation stuff puts me right off. Our vicar says that if you empty your mind like they tell you in Yoga, the Devil can get in there. It's dangerous stuff."

The first woman nods very slowly and takes a step back. "Ummm," she says, "Maybe Pilates would be a better bet for you."

So there you have it - in village halls and exercise studios up and down the country, women getting into their 'Downward Dog' pose are putting themselves at real and constant risk of demonic possession. I can just imagine it.."yes, Pamela, it's very good that you can rotate your head on your neck like that, but I think you'll find that the Cobra position just requires you to lie flat on the floor..."

So far, so good...

Is everybody having a good Tour de France so far? I'm having a lovely time. In a couple of weeks, I'll be having an even better one as I'll be in Paris for the finish, but for now I'm more than happy with how things are shaping up. Best moments do far have included the look on Lance Arrmstrong's skull of a face, after the splendid and dignified Contador put him back in his place on Friday's stage.

There was always the potential for trouble, having the pair of them riding for the same team. Although Contador is nominally team leader, and should therefore command the support and respect of his boys, Armstrong is no team player and has undermined Contador from the outset. On Friday, Contador evened things up a bit with a superb ride which ensured Armstrong would not be in yellow that night, and in the post-race interviews Armstrong appeared to be eating his own face from the inside, such were the furious muscular contortions of his jaw. The last time I saw someone in such a state of barely suppressed rage, it was, well, me a couple of weeks ago. It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out over the next couple of weeks. If Contador was found dead in his hotel room with a whole shower curtain shoved down his throat, I shouldn't be at all surprised. Let's hope not though.

On a less sinister note, it's also been grand to see Bradley Wiggins having such a magnificent ride. He' s crossed over from track to road with amazing ease and grace, and to see him more than holding his own with the world's top climbers has been wonderful. Everyone my age must have at least one mate who looks a bit like Bradley Wiggins - a personable, amiable, grounded bloke who loves his bikes and likes his music. And he's good in interviews, engaging and interesting, so unlike David Millar's monotone whine ( Millar catchprase: "It was horrible..."). You've got to wish him well, and I hope to be cheering him home in Paris.

The ITV 4 coverage has been spot-on as usual; stunning photography (I was thrilled to see some great shots of the Pic du Midi observatory, where I shall be spending a night in September), powder-dry wit and some nice shirts from Gary Imlach, and the usual strangulation of the English language from Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggett (Phil, who looks strangely altered this year - surely not a chin tuck?- has delivered on laughs with his favourite refrain "It's mano a mano out there...").

And of course I nearly died of joy when they played out with a British Sea Power track at the end of Friday's coverage. Great sweeping shots of my favourite place in the whole world, the mountains where I walk every year and the villages where I eat cakes, and all to the sound of my favourite local pop stars. And two more weeks to go (during which L will ride the Etape.). For someone who normally hates competitive sport, I'm in my element. Indulge me.

"Redefine Happiness...."

I was in the queue at a pharmacy counter earlier, when a fiftysomething man in an expensive-looking suit pitched up behind me. "Thirty two paracetemol, please," he said to the assistant. As she turned towards the shelf, he added "thirty two packets, that is," and rolled his eyes at me. "Decided to jack it all in?" I asked him. "Yeah, I think so," he said. "I'm going to bow out now while I'm still beautiful. Cross to the other side. How bad can it be? Actually, do you think you might be interested in a suicide pact?We could go together, it'd be like that song." I thought for a second. "What, 'Club Tropicana'?" I asked. "Yep, that's the one," he said. The woman who'd been serving me handed me my change, looking a bit strangely at me as she did so. "Alright then, why not," I said, putting my purse away and starting to head for the door. "Great, I'll send you the details," he said. "Cheerio."

I've absolutely no idea who he was, but I smiled all the way to the bus stop. If he turns up at my window tonight singing 'Don't Fear The Reaper', I'm going to have some explaining to do.

Engrenages...

It's DVD heaven in ISBW Heights. My last package from Amazon yielded a treasure trove of delights. which it is now my pleasure to share with you.

First up, ultra-cool cop series 'Spiral' ('Engrenages', in its original French, meaning gears, or cogs - an equally apposite title for this wheel-within-wheels, cleverly layered and paced drama.). The series was shown on BBC 4 a while back, where I caught a single episode and was immediately hooked (hence my purchase). It's been described as a 'French Wire', and it certainly shares the bleak, dark world view of its American predecessor, as well as it's naturalistic acting style and cast of flawed, three-dimensional characters. Overall though, its point of view remains more rooted in the world of the cops than the robbers; we get glimpses into the wretched lives of the bottom-feeders in Paris's criminal classes, but their lives are not explored in the depth that the Wire does so meticulously. In fact, I would forget the Wire comparisons, if you can, and watch it on its own merit. It's utterly French, and I've certainly needed the subtitles (which are generally good, though I feel I've missed a few subtleties here and there.). And brace yourself for one of the most unpleasant TV scenes ever in Episode 5, as a desperate drug mule finds an unspeakable way of dealing with his 'stash'. I'm already looking forward to getting my mitts on series 2. Though I'm wondering if France is really as racially divided as the series implies - to date, all the cops and lawyers are white, and virtually all the criminals are Eastern European or black Francophone African. I don't know enough to know whether this is realistic portrayal, or a significant oversight on the part of the writers. Anyone from France out there?

I'm far from alone in my devotion to '30-Rock', so will keep my praise brief. Just to say that feels like another 'Arrested Development' moment - stumbling on something that doesn't seem to have been cherished too much by TV commissioners, but which is comedy gold. Alec Baldwin is a revelation (the episode where his belligerent Irish family converge was scarily like a meeting of the ISBW clan), and there are some great supporting performances. Tina Fey manages to be perky and wisecracking without being annoying (though her voice seems to have dropped an octave for Series 2 - were there complaints?). If you haven't come across this yet, I'd advise an impulse purchase. You can give me a Chinese burn if you don't laugh.

And finally, a reprise from childhood. I was talking with a friend quite recently about children's drama, and things that stood out from back in the day, and I was terribly distressed that she didn't remember Seventies ITV classic 'The Feathered Serpent'. Set in a kind of Aztec-era South America, this was like 'I Claudius' for kids, and it certainly provided a springboard for the twelve-year old me to venture into more grown-up historical drama. The Feathered Serpent has proper actors, working from proper scripts - Patrick Troughton is amazing as the blood-lusting priest Nasca, his performance in no way 'watered down' for the kids' audience - and there's eye-candy for pimply boys and girls alike with the highly attractive romantic lead couple, Diane Keen and Brian Deacon (his leather skirt and breastplate combo worked wonders on most of the girls in my year.). It's always a risk going back to things after many years have passed, but this one certainly hasn't let me down. I'm hoping that my other purchase, 'Children of the Stones', will also have lasted the test of time.

God I love the DVD format.

Turd

I have a 'blockage', and I won't be able to get on with my life in comfort until I've unblocked it. If life were a certain sort of TV ad, I'd just nip off to the bog with a small sachet, then come back moments later smiling broadly and get down to the REAL business of discussing 'Sex and the City' with my Yummy Mummy mates. But life's not like that, not really.

Last Friday night, you see, I came as close as I've ever come to deliberately inflicting physical damage on another person. Maybe it was the news about Jacko, maybe it was the heat. Or maybe something about this 21-year old white middle class male that just jabbed all my buttons simultaneously. Anyway, I'm not proud of what I wanted to do to him, but in order for me to move on, I must confess, like the lapsed Catholic I am.

The 10.36pm train from London to Brighton is usually your last safe-ish bet for a peaceful ride home. Most of the drunks are still in the pubs, and it's still too early for the frosted-nostril clubbers to be getting to wherever they need to go. Generally, you get the luvvies from the theatres bitching about whoever they've had to 'dress', the odd dancer doing post-show stretches, and people like me trying to get home before it all goes Medieval Fayre at 11pm.

We got on the train, and there he was. Blond, thin, utterly self-regarding, and swearing loudly in a faux-cockney accent that Dick Van Dyke would have been ashamed of, he smirked as he caught my eye, and then deliberately placed both his feet on the seat next to him, pausing to empty a packet of McCoy's into his mouth. He swiveled his feet around on the seat, inspected the mark he'd left, and smirked at me again. I glared at him. His mate, a scrawny Mike Skinner type, sniggered and then patted the seat next to him. "Come and sit down next to me, darling," he offered. "I don't want to sit next to you," I replied, taking the seat across the aisle, next to L. Skinner suddenly realised we were together, and at a glare from L suddenly became very interested in his phone. Blond Boy continued to smirk and grind his feet over the seat.

An Australian man in his fifties got on, and loomed over Blond Boy. "Move your feet, mate, I want to sit down," he said. Blond Boy looked at him, calculated him as unlikely to pose a serious threat, and ignored him, tipping the McCoy's packet up to catch the last crumbs. Skinner emitted a snigger like a wet fart. The Australian man looked at me. "He's an ass," I said. "He IS an ass," agreed the Australian. He bent down to Blonde Boy. "You're an ass, a nobody, mate," he said, walking away with remarkable command. BB's smirk wavered very slightly at the word 'nobody', but he stretched out luxuriously and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

The train was about to move, and suddenly through the beeping doors leapt a fifty-something couple, he a sort of Mark Thatcher type, she a drunk Prunella Scales. In the manner of a woman very used to getting what she wants, Prunella tapped BB's feet cheerfully. "Budge up!" she said cheerfully, in cut-glass tones. "Need to park." BB did exactly as he was told. Her husband took his place opposite her. "Grand!" she continued, and turned to her new young friends. "He needs to sit down, not as young as he was, and of course tomorrow he's on duty at Buck House, aren't you darling?" Her voice carried on a breeze of booze down the carriage. "Really?" said Skinner.

"He in the army or something, then? That's cool."

Victoria to Haywards Heath is only a 40-minute ride, but this 40-minutes went on for millenia. Prunella regaled her audience fearlessly and frankly with tales of Larry's derring-do at Goose Green, his fine 'mopping up' in Kuwait after the first Gulf War ("the ragheads crawled out of holes praising our boys more than bloody Allah") and his due reward as a part-time member of Her Maj's personal guard. Larry sat and nodded a lot. And yet all was clearly not quite well between Larry and Pru, as there was a spiteful and vitriolic edge to many of her anecdotes; for every inch she portrayed his noble heroism, she also managed to simultaneously cast him as something of a hapless boob. It was a very clever, practiced piece of sly, passive-aggressive emasculation. And the boys loved it, especially BB. His Estuary English vanished, lapsing back into solid Home Counties vowels with no glottal stops, and the word 'fuck' with which he'd previously been peppering his prose, was not to be heard. "I did two years in the Cadets," he said eagerly, "and a couple of mates of mine actually joined Two Para. They're out there now, Special Ops, you know. I still think about trying for Sandhurst, but I'm on good wonga at the moment, so..."

"Oh, DON'T join the bloody Army!" exclaimed Pru. "It's full of thickos and half-breeds now. Get out, enjoy yourself, go to lovely parties...I'm having a lovely party tomorrow, while HE'S eating off bone china at Buck House..well he'll miss out on my Shepherd's Pie and champagne, won't he? No, you go to lovely parties, meet lots of lovely girls and don't get into any fights. You don't, do you?" BB shuffled a bit. "We don't," he said, "but he got assaulted a few weeks ago, on the beach...it was a Portugese bloke...turned out he's wanted for murder at home but the Police said they can't deport him because of his human rights..I mean I'm not being racist but it does seem to be the foreign people who cause all the problems..."

I probably don't need to reproduce the discussion that this nugget stimulated, but it began with a giant, equine snort from Prunella and a shriek of 'Human RIGHTS?!" You know the song, you can improvise the words. My own thoughts at this point were dominated by a single, glorious, horrible vision of me, taking hold of BB by the back of his neck, and slamming his face down on the table, again and again and again. It simply wouldn't leave me, no matter how I tried to distract myself, and at Haywards Heath my fingers were twitching as Larry and Pru got off the train, waving, and BB, resuming his 'cockney' accent, turned back to Skinner and said "they was alright, wasn't they? For a pair of old wankers, I mean."

The four of us were the last to leave the carriage when the train arrived in Brighton. I had a heavy bag, and L assembled his bike, quite slowly. As L put his cycle helmet on, I heard the faintest snigger from behind me, and I spun round and fixed BB with what, from the frozen expression on his face, I assume was a fairly Medusa-like glare. Apparently I'm quite good at them. He dropped his eyes and shuffled for his phone.

I stood and stared at him for a few seconds, which he may well have assumed was just for effect. It wasn't. I was genuinely weighing up the possible consequences of giving in to my Inner Beast, and driving his head into the table. I really was. A craven, unprincipled, arrogant, idiotic, racist, cowardly bully, BB was - is - a composite to make my flesh creep, and to move my normally fairly measured temperament to genuinely violent impulses - for which I resent him all the more. I'm a bloody psychotherapist, for the love of Jayzus, and all I wanted to do at 11.30 last Friday night was leave a 21-year old who I'd never met before in such a state that his own mother wouldn't recognise him. He brought out my Shadow, and I'm ashamed.

But I don't half feel better for having written it up. Try not to judge me too harshly. I'm really quite nice and I've never actually hit anyone. Yet.