DB Lenck's Mutinous Musings: From Oxford to Paris in 20 Degrees

Guess what this is?

I have had one of those really weird days, weatherwise. Usually the temperature in Paris is very similar to that in Oxford and London, just a few degrees above or below. But yesterday was another thing altogether! I knew that Paris would be considerably warmer than Oxford (I have my spies everywhere!) – Oxford was below freezing and 4 inches of snow expected, Paris was supposed to hit a high of 12C – so what to wear was a bit of a headache. Dress appropriately for snow and ice in a heavy wintercoat and perspire in Paris, or wear light spring clothes for Paris and catch a cold in Oxford and London, seemed to be the only options.

Luckily I have a good assortment of clothes, and more than one warm coat. I chose a light but warm darkish camel coat which looks good when worn open, and a Liberty heavy wool wrap. While in England I wore the coat closed and covered my head and shoulders with the Liberty wrap. In France I put the folded scarf into my bag and opened the coat to let in some air. This worked well until mid afternoon, when the temperature hit 17C!!!! and I had to take off my cardigan and add it to my bag as well. When I got back to London it had stopped snowing but was still freezing cold, and I was thankful for my woolen winter clothes. What a weird day it was!

Le Club

First off I met a friend for coffee near the Gare du Nord, then I rushed to the centre of Paris to re-new my subscription to my club there. One of the benefits of being the member of a club is that there is a network of them all over the world which give each other membership rights – free!!!! So whenever I am abroad I can use the clubs there – provided there are any! English speaking countries are very clubbable, the US and India for example are simply littered with them. France, on the other hand, has just one (well there may be others, but only one is in the network). One! Even Germany has more, in Hamburg alone I can use three different clubs. Luckily for me this French club is very conveniently located, right in the centre near the Louvre and other tourist attractions. So once a year I drop by to renew my subscription.

Horse & Carriage

The trouble with the centre of Paris is that like Oxford it is simply heaving with tourists. They are everywhere, ruining the prices and hogging all the best places. For example, I have never been to Angelina in the Rue de Rivoli, a wonderful Viennese style café – long queues of people whenever I pass by. And I hate queueing! Then there is the toilet problem. Most public toilets are not very nice, nor are many restaurant ones. And of course they all have queues! So having club in the centre of Paris is really very handy.

I decided to have lunch there, too, this time. The receptionist – what a prosaic term for the utterly charming gentleman who hosts the visitors – told me, with a certain amount of pride in his voice, that they had refurbished the place since my last visit and that one could now have coffee next to the swimming pool! Wow! All of a sudden hot summer afternoons in Paris seem almost appealing. I had a good look around, and decided to have a light lunch in the little bar area, it still being a little too cold for sitting near the pool.

The club is very different from a London gentlemen’s club. There is no library or snooker room, and instead of leather armchairs and slightly faded rugs there is gold painted furniture and chinese carpets. The main purpose of the London club used to be for men to hide from their womanfolk – which is why women gained admission to them only recently – and the atmosphere still reflects this. The main purpose of the Paris club seems to be evening entertainment on a large scale and grand affairs generally, the place simply reeks of priviledge and drips with gold. And the flower arrangements are absolutely marvelous, and everywhere! I looked at them very greedily, and Mine Host, charmed by my obvious pleasure, allowed me to take a few photos provided I didn’t depict any club members. Lovely lovely man! They would skin me alive in a London club if I took photos of anything other than the toilets (and even that is probably a violation of the sacret principles of clubhood).

I had steak tartare for lunch, basically raw beef run through a mincer and seasoned with all sorts of spices and moistened with an eggyolk. I am quite fond of this, but rarely dare to eat it for fear of nasty bugs – eating raw meat can be risky! But I reckon they are not going to risk poisoning Giscard d’Estaing or any of the other amazingly illustrious club members so the food should be safe. There were only about a dozen people around, noticably most were couples (as in one woman one man). In London clubs on a Saturday you would mainly see men, single or in small groups (until I started to arrange my little Ladies who go Clubbing events, that is).

Eventually I had to tear myself away and dropped by the Hermes store just down the road, to torture the sales assistants. For years now I have had a scarf called Pani la Shar Pawnee, and been trying to find out what the heck ‘la Shar’ means. I have looked at oodles of dictionaries and quizzed innumerable ‘experts’, to no avail. So I decided to invade the Great Mothership itself and force an answer to my question. I asked one sales lady who didn’t know but referred me to another one more knowledgeable, who didn’t know and referred me to another one, who didn’t know and made me wait for ten minutes until she had rootled out their Assistant Scarf Expert – who didn’t know, either. But he took my address and promised he would investigate. I threatened him with my return in three weeks’ time if I did not hear from him, but he seemed unfazed by the prospect. All the staff are unfailingly charming in this store, I never had a bad word from any of them even though the store is usually very hectic and I am obviously neither rich nor a celebrity. They have given me cups of tea and let me use their toilet and drawn little maps to show me where to find a little out of the way beautyspot, so I can’t really be cross with them for not knowing more than me about the scarves they sell.

After that it was time to meet S for tea, and I took any number of photos on the way to my favourate little café near Notre Dame. I am going to skip the description of the journey home, especially the cancelled bus and wait in the cold for 45 minutes – I don’t want to destroy the illusion that I am leading an impossibly glamorous and priviledged life!