I did a gig at New Hall College bar last night. It was a bit weird because we used to go there quite a lot in my student days (turns out it's smaller than I remember). None of the girls would ever talk to us. I can't say I blame them. It was nice enough, but I got the feeling they got tired of me about halfway through. I can't say I blame them. I do seem to be singing pretty well at the minute though, by my own standards. Anyway, the setlist was: Edinburgh, Grace Cathedral Hill (Decemberists cover), Watertight, So Finally a Love Song, You Can't Spend Your Whole Life Hanging Round With Arseholes (Ballboy - it's been a while), You Won't Break My Heart, Closure, Grateful Smile. It didn't help that my upper arms are severely bruised after I gallantly allowed a strange drunk girl to repeatedly punch me there in The Swan on Friday.
So, Flickr finally let me upgrade my account and put all my photos up, which means I can continue writing about Paris (even though it seems like ages ago now). It may well turn into a big list of photos. You can see them all here. On Sunday we went to The Louvre.
It is ridiculously big. We saw some Mesopotamian things
Egyptian things
French things
A very long corridor
Various strange heads
As well as the Venus de Milo, and the Mona Lisa, but everyone knows what they look like, and they don't really live up to the hype.
Once we'd finished we had a pleasant walk to the Metro
and went to Sacre Coeur.
We sat on the steps and looked at the spectacular view Paris for quite a while, then wandered round the church (and watched a woman crawl up the entire aisle, extremely slowly, on her knees) before going for a drink nearby. Jason tried quite hard to take a picture of me where I didn't look either very ugly or plain ridiculous, but didn't manage it. I think Séverine may have taken one where I only looked moderately bad, but I only saw it on the back of her camera and thinking about it, it seems pretty unlikely. I successfully took a picture of our beer where my half pint looked nearly the same size as Jason's full one.
It's pretty picturesque round there.
If a bit tacky in places....
More (and cheaper) beer was the order of the day so we went on a bit of a hunt for some, which involved going back down the hill. We got the funicular railway back up, because it's a funny word.
The Eiffel tower puts on a light show for 10 minutes every hour, so we watched that, and then found a bench overlooking the city, and some fire jugglers. Jason did untold damage to his fingers and his keys opening the beer, but I'd like to think it was worth it. I've not been so relaxed and contented for a long time.
Séverine and Krystèle had to go home because they had to work the next day, but Jason and I went for a couple more beers at the Irish pub we went to when I first got there, and our second kebab of the weekend. It was a good day.
On Monday I got to go to the Cimitière de Montmartre. I really like looking round cemeteries. They sure know how to do tombs in France - proper solid stuff.
I'm not sure I like the idea of leasing plots though - lots of the graves have expiry dates on the back - what do they do with the bones? The other thing I'm not so sure about is having your still living spouse's name engraved on the stone with only the date of death to fill in. I got a bit carried away with the photos again, so here is a selection.
There are a few famous bods there.
I'm not sure if I've made my feelings about saxophones clear on here before, but someone, at least, is pleased they got invented.
After a proper French lunch (camembert, mustard, baguette and a bottle of red) we went to see the Eiffel tower up close. It's really big. I find looking up at big things almost as traumatic as looking down from up them.
Then I got my slightly overdue twice weekly complete soaking as we walked back across the river to the Metro.
We went and got my stuff, trotted off to Gare du Nord, and I got the train back.
The book I'm reading ('Notes From An Exhibition' by Patrick Gale) is excellent, but I'd warn against reading it in public. The funeral scene had me sniffling away in my seat. I went for a huge curry at that place opposite Kings Cross, and was for once successful in eating out on my own without feeling like a loser, despite the waiter treating me a bit like one. It was the best weekend I've had in ages.
It's been a busy week since too. We had a Morning People practice on Wednesday (meaning that I mercifully missed the Liverpool game). Ciaron and I went to Vinopolis near London Bridge on Thursday for a wine tasting session, which was rather good fun, though the total amount of wine you got amounted to a bit more than a large glass. I guess, to be fair, there was the beer, whisky, gin cocktail and absinthe as well, and some of the other people there were a little bit ragged by the end.
If I ever think it's acceptable to wear a bright red anorak indoors and push in front of people while attempting to assert how much I know about whisky, just shoot me eh?
Then The Morning People had a gig on Friday, which was fun, but meant that I missed the first leg of Cambridge's play off match (I've got £50 on Burton in an effort to jinx them) which sounded exciting.
Next week we're relocating work to Bath for a few days, which means that I'll miss the second leg of Cambridge's play off match, but there's bound to be a pub with Setanta in Bath...