The advice after falling off a bike is to get back on straight away.
So after the 10-1 thrashing last Saturday morning, the offer to go and play 5-a-side with Simon's team just seems too good. Even if I don't have the appropriate footwear.
After all I don't want to be frightened the next time I go on a pitch for a competitive game. I watched the Marseille v Liverpool slaughter on TV last night.
It was horrible. Horrible. The Marseille boys seemed stricken. Stevie G roused his international Scousers and the rest was slaughter.
Good for them. The main sports paper L'équipe described Marseille's destruction as La Lune dans le caniveau ...the moon in the gutter......I knew this phrase as it was the title of the second film of Jean-Jacques Beineix who shot to fame back in the early 80s with Diva.
During my term at the British Institute in Paris I did a project on Beineix from his time in advertising, via shorts to his feature films.
Le cinéma du look and its flashy abstractions.
Anyway that was long before Beineix was anywhere near Betty Blue and the uberpout that was Béatrice Dalle.
Wednesday's L'équipe has naturally turned it's attention to the Rangers v Lyon match at Ibrox. Lyon need to win to progress to the last 16. Rangers merely need a draw.
I'm going to go and see the second half with Neil over at the usual pub near Chatelet.
That's providing I can literally get on my bike after the 5-a-side kickabout.
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Saturday, 8 December 2007
The Slaughter
I always get a bad feeling when the opposing team do their warm-up routines across the pitch in a synchronised phalanx.
After all this is supposed to be Saturday morning jollies, not testosterone-fuelled combat.
But when they stripped off their identical tracksuits to reveal their names on their football shirts, the feeling got worse.
When I saw Tito 13, I felt relieved that I was only going to play in the second half.
By the time I spotted Kaiser 9, I was starting to hope that the niggling hamstring might snap me out of having to take part altogether.
I watched from the touchline and it was an even opening 10 mintues. But AS Cheminots scored two quick goals. Even though we pulled one back they increased their advantage soon after and nothing else happened to stem the tide.
I wished that we could have played them three weeks earlier when the cheminots (railway workers) were all on strike and holding the country to ransom.
Perhaps they would have forfeited the game. It seemed that the lay off from actual work had reinvigorated their team and now they were expending their pent up energy on dismantling newly promoted sides.
To use a cliche. We were given a footballing lesson. When I went on in the second-half I started up front but was drafted back into midfield to stem the tide.
But by that time they'd taken their foot off the pedal. It was 9 or 10-1 at the end.
The dressing room was actually quite ebullient after the defeat. Everyone realised that the opposition was just better on all fronts.
The railway workers are planning another round of industrial action starting on December 12. I'm hoping it's going to drag on.
We play AS Cheminots at their place in early January.
The
After all this is supposed to be Saturday morning jollies, not testosterone-fuelled combat.
But when they stripped off their identical tracksuits to reveal their names on their football shirts, the feeling got worse.
When I saw Tito 13, I felt relieved that I was only going to play in the second half.
By the time I spotted Kaiser 9, I was starting to hope that the niggling hamstring might snap me out of having to take part altogether.
I watched from the touchline and it was an even opening 10 mintues. But AS Cheminots scored two quick goals. Even though we pulled one back they increased their advantage soon after and nothing else happened to stem the tide.
I wished that we could have played them three weeks earlier when the cheminots (railway workers) were all on strike and holding the country to ransom.
Perhaps they would have forfeited the game. It seemed that the lay off from actual work had reinvigorated their team and now they were expending their pent up energy on dismantling newly promoted sides.
To use a cliche. We were given a footballing lesson. When I went on in the second-half I started up front but was drafted back into midfield to stem the tide.
But by that time they'd taken their foot off the pedal. It was 9 or 10-1 at the end.
The dressing room was actually quite ebullient after the defeat. Everyone realised that the opposition was just better on all fronts.
The railway workers are planning another round of industrial action starting on December 12. I'm hoping it's going to drag on.
We play AS Cheminots at their place in early January.
The
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
The Director's Cut
I felt as if I'd been granted a reprieve. Blade Runner — the way the director really wanted it all those years ago — hadn't disappeared from the screen at the Renoir Cinema in Russell Square. So I went to see it.
The last time I saw the film was on the giant screen at La Villette in Paris during the open air summer shows there. That was so long ago I can't remember.
It was altogether cosier in the Renoir on Monday night. But as the credits rolled and I saw the names such as Rutger Hauer and Sean Young, I wondered what had become of them since their halcyon days of 1982.
Daryl Hannah is now a big eco campaigner. I know that as she was featured in one of the British Sunday papers last weekend. Harrison Ford is simply big and Ridley Scott is massive. Indeed the Renoir's programmers can congratulate themselves on harmony. They have Scott's latest work — American Gangster — also showing.
About half way through I began to ask myself why I was sitting there. I don't have the same forensic knowledge of Blade Runner like I do of Star Wars (Episodes 4,5,6) so any extra, extended or deleted scenes would have been lost on me.
I don't even have any of the compromise cuts on DVD. Was I just succumbing to hype?
Well it was entertaining so why not. There's nothing wrong with such intellectual feebleness. This allowed me to take in the Louise Bourgeois at the Tate Modern on Tuesday morning.
This is a big show. Call it a retrospective even. She's 96 and still going strong, experimenting with forms and ideas.
There were so many shapes and concepts to admire but the most salient for me was an etching in ink and pencil from this year entitled: Where my motivation comes from.
And the etching states: "It is not so much where my motivation comes from but rather how it manages to survive."
Go girl.
The last time I saw the film was on the giant screen at La Villette in Paris during the open air summer shows there. That was so long ago I can't remember.
It was altogether cosier in the Renoir on Monday night. But as the credits rolled and I saw the names such as Rutger Hauer and Sean Young, I wondered what had become of them since their halcyon days of 1982.
Daryl Hannah is now a big eco campaigner. I know that as she was featured in one of the British Sunday papers last weekend. Harrison Ford is simply big and Ridley Scott is massive. Indeed the Renoir's programmers can congratulate themselves on harmony. They have Scott's latest work — American Gangster — also showing.
About half way through I began to ask myself why I was sitting there. I don't have the same forensic knowledge of Blade Runner like I do of Star Wars (Episodes 4,5,6) so any extra, extended or deleted scenes would have been lost on me.
I don't even have any of the compromise cuts on DVD. Was I just succumbing to hype?
Well it was entertaining so why not. There's nothing wrong with such intellectual feebleness. This allowed me to take in the Louise Bourgeois at the Tate Modern on Tuesday morning.
This is a big show. Call it a retrospective even. She's 96 and still going strong, experimenting with forms and ideas.
There were so many shapes and concepts to admire but the most salient for me was an etching in ink and pencil from this year entitled: Where my motivation comes from.
And the etching states: "It is not so much where my motivation comes from but rather how it manages to survive."
Go girl.
Sunday, 2 December 2007
The Lust for Life
I'm going to do my utmost to stay injury free because it might extend my life.
I missed Saturday morning's match. I felt I could have played but didn't feel I would have had that devastating turn of pace - so crucial in my angles running game.
As part of my rehabilitation for next week's game I cycled over to the radio station for a day of surveying international sports.
On Canal + Sports they were showing the English Premiership match between Chelsea and West Ham.
It made me angry. Chelsea got rid of Jose Mourinho because he was avowedly no frills. And what I saw on the box was a spectacularly workman like 1-0 victory over a defensively minded team.
I have no reason to return my support.
There was a mass of traffic on the roads in the evening to the point where I had about three close calls as the motorists failed to spot me as they tried to turn right and through the cycle path.
I'm not quite sure why the system is set up this way. Pedestrians are ushered across the road by the green man at the very same time that drivers are urged to turn right. The idea is that cars and motorbikes will give way to pedestrians.
What it often leads to is deluded flair merchants in the cars slaloming through the banks of pedestrians. Very bizarre behaviour.
After the third near catastrophe I realised that I don't usually cycle on a Saturday night during the winter because I'm invariably lugging a bag load of football kit and therefore on the metro.
Sitting out the game meant that there wasn't the agonised gait as I wended my way to the Gare du Nord this morning.
It was fluidity in comparison with last week.
On the Eurostar I finally got round to watching a documentary on Edwyn Collins. It was directed by Paul Tucker, a mate of mine from university, and charted Collins trying to recover his poise and bearing following a stroke two years ago.
It was extremely moving. The shots of all his guitars from his years of performing juxtaposed with him at the physiotherapist trying to unknot his right hand.
Playing the guitar with anything approaching his former aplomb is out of the question for the moment.
But his wife said working on the new album had rekindled is lust for life. He knows what's wrong and won't be told otherwise, she stressed.
"The great news is that you're back to being stubborn," she said to her husband. ... "The great news is he's back to being cussed ....awkward," she confided to the camera.
Laughter......
"Steady on," says he turning away. "Good God."
"So this is cause for celebration," she continues with a mischievous giggle.
It captured their dynamic of fight, tenderness and optimism.
Brilliant stuff.
Sets you up for the day.
I missed Saturday morning's match. I felt I could have played but didn't feel I would have had that devastating turn of pace - so crucial in my angles running game.
As part of my rehabilitation for next week's game I cycled over to the radio station for a day of surveying international sports.
On Canal + Sports they were showing the English Premiership match between Chelsea and West Ham.
It made me angry. Chelsea got rid of Jose Mourinho because he was avowedly no frills. And what I saw on the box was a spectacularly workman like 1-0 victory over a defensively minded team.
I have no reason to return my support.
There was a mass of traffic on the roads in the evening to the point where I had about three close calls as the motorists failed to spot me as they tried to turn right and through the cycle path.
I'm not quite sure why the system is set up this way. Pedestrians are ushered across the road by the green man at the very same time that drivers are urged to turn right. The idea is that cars and motorbikes will give way to pedestrians.
What it often leads to is deluded flair merchants in the cars slaloming through the banks of pedestrians. Very bizarre behaviour.
After the third near catastrophe I realised that I don't usually cycle on a Saturday night during the winter because I'm invariably lugging a bag load of football kit and therefore on the metro.
Sitting out the game meant that there wasn't the agonised gait as I wended my way to the Gare du Nord this morning.
It was fluidity in comparison with last week.
On the Eurostar I finally got round to watching a documentary on Edwyn Collins. It was directed by Paul Tucker, a mate of mine from university, and charted Collins trying to recover his poise and bearing following a stroke two years ago.
It was extremely moving. The shots of all his guitars from his years of performing juxtaposed with him at the physiotherapist trying to unknot his right hand.
Playing the guitar with anything approaching his former aplomb is out of the question for the moment.
But his wife said working on the new album had rekindled is lust for life. He knows what's wrong and won't be told otherwise, she stressed.
"The great news is that you're back to being stubborn," she said to her husband. ... "The great news is he's back to being cussed ....awkward," she confided to the camera.
Laughter......
"Steady on," says he turning away. "Good God."
"So this is cause for celebration," she continues with a mischievous giggle.
It captured their dynamic of fight, tenderness and optimism.
Brilliant stuff.
Sets you up for the day.
Friday, 30 November 2007
The Light Interlude
Well the strikes according to me made its appearance in the guardianweekly podcast and in comparison with the other items on the show, mine was decidedly the most interesting.
No I joke. It was the least beefy of the pieces. There was stuff about George Bush's Annapolis extravaganza, the election result in Australia and a look at Anglo-Soviet shenanigans a year after the poisoning in London of the ex-KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko.
Just before I went into the studio on Monday, my interviewer, Isobel Montgomery, was talking to Ghaith Abdul-Ahad from Baghdad.
He was on a visit to London and had just dropped into the Guardian to say hello to a few people but once word got around that he was in, he was all over the shop giving interviews.
Ever considerate about other people's needs to go and hit the joys of Selfridges, I didn't delay him with another plea for an interview. After all this is not that kind of blog.
Well, what on earth is this kind of blog? Simple really. It's just an airy reflection on a life spent between two of the juiciest cities on earth.
There are plenty of places to find perspicacious insights into the onset of armageddon. But for the moment I'm keeping it breezy.
No I joke. It was the least beefy of the pieces. There was stuff about George Bush's Annapolis extravaganza, the election result in Australia and a look at Anglo-Soviet shenanigans a year after the poisoning in London of the ex-KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko.
Just before I went into the studio on Monday, my interviewer, Isobel Montgomery, was talking to Ghaith Abdul-Ahad from Baghdad.
He was on a visit to London and had just dropped into the Guardian to say hello to a few people but once word got around that he was in, he was all over the shop giving interviews.
Ever considerate about other people's needs to go and hit the joys of Selfridges, I didn't delay him with another plea for an interview. After all this is not that kind of blog.
Well, what on earth is this kind of blog? Simple really. It's just an airy reflection on a life spent between two of the juiciest cities on earth.
There are plenty of places to find perspicacious insights into the onset of armageddon. But for the moment I'm keeping it breezy.
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
The Buy-Off
Hurtling through northern France on High Speed 1 — or HS1 as I constantly see in the brochures — I wonder if I’m a one.
I’ve been musing on atavistic parochialism.
How could this in any way be related to moi? I live and work between Paris and London; I studied French and German at university, hell I’ve even lived in Karlsruhe.
But when it comes down to it. Am I just a south London boy at heart?
What launched me on this quest for inner enlightenment was Sunday night. I arrived at the flat where I grew up and the calf injury sustained during my self-styled heroics on the football field on Saturday morning began to feel better.
Is there a mystical energy in Streatham that revivifies the locals? Perhaps. But at any rate its centripetal forces didn’t replenish me enough to be able to run for a bus on Monday morning. It was more of Quasimodo like gallop.
But on Monday morning I did feel considerably better. And then there was the preparation for the podcast interview on the south bank and a plangent cry for the lost terminal at Waterloo. Face facts Paul. You're Clapham-born and Streatham-bred.
It might explain my brooding brow during the journey to St Pancras International from home in south London. It is much longer. But I cannot argue about the voyage to central Paris — that is spectacularly shorter.
And it’s going to get sweeter the longer the Business Premier Lounge is under construction at St Pancras International.
Outside the room where it will be eventually housed, there was a long table containing a crop of national newspapers.
Genial Eurostar staff ushered travellers to the fruit bowls and soft drinks on the flank and a particularly well-groomed young Eurostar suit was spending time apologising to an equally well-buffed woman.
“How long is it going to take to finish?” she inquired.
“Well, two weeks ago it was completed,” lounged the suit. “But then there were some problems with the heating. And the thing is with this building….and quite rightly so…you can’t touch anything without English Heritage being there. So that’s what’s causing the delay. We hope it will be ready before Christmas.”
Maybe HS1 really stands for High Smarm One.
The way he was looking at this lady, you felt he’d like to obtain her telephone number for heritage purposes.
And who could blame him for she did indeed look lovely even at six in the morning.
As I went to get my bottle of water I thought that his kind of smooth patter deserved its rewards.
But that was before I encountered the mother of all pitches.
I was handed a large white envelope. It didn’t contain money sadly but a message from the chief executive Richard Brown.
“Dear traveller," it began chummily.
"Welcome to St Pancras International and thank you for choosing to travel with Eurostar today.
"I am delighted that you are among the very first of our valued travellers to benefit from high speed train travel, direct from the centre of London to Continental Europe.”
Well obviously there I’d disagree since St Pancras International doesn’t seem that central to me. But this is about me embracing fresh concepts and spaces.
“At the present moment finishing touches are being made to our new Business Premier Lounge, so I am very sorry that this service is not available for you today.
"I would like to offer my sincere apologies for the natural inconvenience and disappointment.
"I hope you will accept the enclosed gift voucher as a gesture of apology and thanks for your understanding for the delay to the opening of the Lounge.”
Said voucher is for a gift box of fine wines and I am to contact Tordoffs, Eurostar’s wine importers, to arrange delivery.
Well that’s mighty neighbourly as a Western gunslinger might intone.
But could I be won over by such crude gimmickry? While I was on the cusp of succumbing I thought a glib renaming of the Bee Gees song — How cheap is your love? might bolster my scepticism.
No. Not really. It's too good a deal.
Not even a staunch south London boy can look a northern gift box in the mouth.
Especially if that's where the contents will end up.
I’ve been musing on atavistic parochialism.
How could this in any way be related to moi? I live and work between Paris and London; I studied French and German at university, hell I’ve even lived in Karlsruhe.
But when it comes down to it. Am I just a south London boy at heart?
What launched me on this quest for inner enlightenment was Sunday night. I arrived at the flat where I grew up and the calf injury sustained during my self-styled heroics on the football field on Saturday morning began to feel better.
Is there a mystical energy in Streatham that revivifies the locals? Perhaps. But at any rate its centripetal forces didn’t replenish me enough to be able to run for a bus on Monday morning. It was more of Quasimodo like gallop.
But on Monday morning I did feel considerably better. And then there was the preparation for the podcast interview on the south bank and a plangent cry for the lost terminal at Waterloo. Face facts Paul. You're Clapham-born and Streatham-bred.
It might explain my brooding brow during the journey to St Pancras International from home in south London. It is much longer. But I cannot argue about the voyage to central Paris — that is spectacularly shorter.
And it’s going to get sweeter the longer the Business Premier Lounge is under construction at St Pancras International.
Outside the room where it will be eventually housed, there was a long table containing a crop of national newspapers.
Genial Eurostar staff ushered travellers to the fruit bowls and soft drinks on the flank and a particularly well-groomed young Eurostar suit was spending time apologising to an equally well-buffed woman.
“How long is it going to take to finish?” she inquired.
“Well, two weeks ago it was completed,” lounged the suit. “But then there were some problems with the heating. And the thing is with this building….and quite rightly so…you can’t touch anything without English Heritage being there. So that’s what’s causing the delay. We hope it will be ready before Christmas.”
Maybe HS1 really stands for High Smarm One.
The way he was looking at this lady, you felt he’d like to obtain her telephone number for heritage purposes.
And who could blame him for she did indeed look lovely even at six in the morning.
As I went to get my bottle of water I thought that his kind of smooth patter deserved its rewards.
But that was before I encountered the mother of all pitches.
I was handed a large white envelope. It didn’t contain money sadly but a message from the chief executive Richard Brown.
“Dear traveller," it began chummily.
"Welcome to St Pancras International and thank you for choosing to travel with Eurostar today.
"I am delighted that you are among the very first of our valued travellers to benefit from high speed train travel, direct from the centre of London to Continental Europe.”
Well obviously there I’d disagree since St Pancras International doesn’t seem that central to me. But this is about me embracing fresh concepts and spaces.
“At the present moment finishing touches are being made to our new Business Premier Lounge, so I am very sorry that this service is not available for you today.
"I would like to offer my sincere apologies for the natural inconvenience and disappointment.
"I hope you will accept the enclosed gift voucher as a gesture of apology and thanks for your understanding for the delay to the opening of the Lounge.”
Said voucher is for a gift box of fine wines and I am to contact Tordoffs, Eurostar’s wine importers, to arrange delivery.
Well that’s mighty neighbourly as a Western gunslinger might intone.
But could I be won over by such crude gimmickry? While I was on the cusp of succumbing I thought a glib renaming of the Bee Gees song — How cheap is your love? might bolster my scepticism.
No. Not really. It's too good a deal.
Not even a staunch south London boy can look a northern gift box in the mouth.
Especially if that's where the contents will end up.
Monday, 26 November 2007
The Self-Promotion
It was just like being interviewed for a radio show. The wonderful world of podcasts. There was a little studio on the fifth floor at 119 Farringdon Road and there I was asked about the travails of the strike.
What was it like? And what will happen next? There was nothing new to say. But at least I was saying it in a new venue.
I went to the National Film Theatre on the south bank cafe to collect my thoughts before going in for the chat. It was a bright morning, the sun reflecting vividly on the snake of buildings on the north side.
I'll miss my Sunday mornings in Waterloo. Perhaps I need to take a Sunday morning and walk around St Pancras Interntaional. I might discover its charms.
What was it like? And what will happen next? There was nothing new to say. But at least I was saying it in a new venue.
I went to the National Film Theatre on the south bank cafe to collect my thoughts before going in for the chat. It was a bright morning, the sun reflecting vividly on the snake of buildings on the north side.
I'll miss my Sunday mornings in Waterloo. Perhaps I need to take a Sunday morning and walk around St Pancras Interntaional. I might discover its charms.
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