The Fear

I'm sure there's a line in the film Withnail and I about "the fear". I will have to check it out at some point. Certainly not now.

I have noticed how aches are beginning to multiply about my person. Sadly not those of sexual longing. Merely ones preceding football on Saturday.

Maybe it's psychosomatic. I haven't played for going on two months and I'm starting to anticipate pain. Wow.

I wish I could anticipate a couple of passes.

I signed up this morning for Saturday's encounter. I planned to cycle into the radio station but that scheme went out of the window as I left my keys there on Sunday and then forgot to ask the missus for her key to the bike house.

Oh well since it was blowing up a gale, it was probably the safest thing.

I didn't let that mishap interrupt my high energy day. I went for a swim and was my ever majestic self at the Piscine Pontoise. I felt so regal as I did my breast stroke. Any sign of open water and I went all freestyle.

I have no idea where the team lies in the league. But it's the participation that matters.

In the FA Cup over the weekend all the teams that should have won failed to do so. What marvellous examples Barnsley, Cardiff and Portsmouth set.

Barnsley beating Chelsea was probably the best result of the lot in terms of improbability. I was thinking that the Chelsea owner Roman Abromovich got rid of Jose Mourinho because the self styled 'Special One' was unable to provide his boss with entertaining football despite the millions spent on players.

Jose has gone. Avram Grant has come in. The players have stayed.

The team's entertaining loads of people now.

The Art House

Quite incredible. For the second time in a week I found myself cycling down Boulevard St Germain. This time I was en route for the L'Arlequin cinema in Rue de Rennes.

I had it in my mind that it was a plush venue to see a film. It was not. But at the same time it wasn't a dive. Maybe I as confusing it with somewhere else. Though where that elsewhere is now escapes me.

There was a lovely cinema in London called the Lumiere. It was in St Martin's Lane and I used to go to watch late night art house numbers there when I was a-courting in the city.

But that was London in the late eighties. This is Paris in 2008 where I can now go to the movie house for a reduced price thanks to my Carte Famille Nombreuse.

And you don't even need the children to enjoy these things. I love France.

I saw Peter Greenaway's latest offering: Nightwatching. Usual cinematic feast. It was about the painter Rembrandt fulfilling a commission to paint some soldiers in Amsterdam — The Night Watch
(The Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenhurch).

There was one particular scene which struck me as masterly. The Rembrandt clan were having an alfresco meal in the countryside. They all piled onto a table and formed a tableau. The camera receded to show white sheets swaying in the wind in the trees.

I thought wonderful. Simply wonderful. I was hoping for shots of decaying apples and oranges which seemed to permeate Greenaway films of yore. Didn't see anything of that sort this time. Like the fruit, he has matured.

And the narrative was more comprehensible than earlier films such as the Baby of Macon or the Pillow Book.

I emerged enlightened visually and intellectually.

The Final Tablet

Perhaps I should have had more ceremony. Perhaps it should have been a lavish meal. I took the final malaria tablet. It was a simple repast.

As I was eating I wondered what it must be like to eat alone often. I rarely do this at home. The noise of four others fills out the meal usually. And it's punctuated either by the eldest wolfing down her food, while regaling us with her mind's incidentals or complaining that the middle one is lingering.

Or there's just the horror that the boy has regurgitated some clump of rice and meat. Oh it's animated.

Tonight it was just me and my malaria tablet.

Now that it's down I have to be wary for a few months at the slightest sniffle. It could be the onset of something far worse.

I wrote an email to the captain of the football team to say that I would be again available for selection from March 15.

That will be nearly two months out what with the trip to Ghana and the school holidays. Knowing my fragile frame, I'll probably do myself a mischief and be out for a few weeks as soon as I kick a ball in anger. But we must be brave.

I have resumed my training programme and so I cycled over to the radio station this morning. To embellish this resurgence I planned to stop off at the Piscine Pontoise on the way back home.

It was a mild afternoon and I crossed the river to join Boulevard St Germain just by the Assemblée Nationale. It was a pleasant ride, not too much traffic and I was able to see the posh boutiques and cafes along the route

I even stopped off at the Bang and Olufsen shop as it was advertising a sale on display items. Helas anything vaguely within my price bracket had long gone.

But I do know where I'll get my next TV.

I eventually reached the swimming pool. I read the notice that it was closed for cleaning between February 25-29. I went in and asked for a ticket for a swim.

The man pointed at the notice and of course said it was closed.

I said I'd seen the very same poster and registered the information. Sadly the twirl of foam bouncing between my ears couldn't process the data.

I'd gone through a whole day not knowing the date. What kind of state is that?

Me at the Bang and Olufsen shop thinking I could buy something. Unaware of the date. Perhaps the rambling, delusional symptoms of malaria have already kicked in.

The Church Visit

Since I spent a good amount of time on the roads in Ghana praying for deliverance, it seemed only right and proper that I go to church on my first Sunday back.

At St Michael's the service has the benefit of being in English. And since that's my mother tongue, it does help unravel the mysteries of the almighty. Then again a service in French might be a mystical experience. But I did have enough of those during the road trips in Ghana.

St Michael's is run now by someone who used to be vicar at the church at the end of my road in south London, so there's a certain amount of familiarity with his modus operandi.

What's strange is the area around the church. St Michael's is off the Rue du Faubourg St Honoré which sports some of the top shops. Going along the well scrubbed road just before I went to Ghana, the eldest gasped at a garment that cost 1,500 euros.

"Can you buy me that?" I asked.

Given that I had refused to purchase a Nintendo XXV456LVXYMK4-443 or its upgrade - she naturally refused.

I missed the window shopping with my disinterested girls before the service.

Church has changed in my lifetime. When I was a bairn, there were wooden pews and gritty sermons. Now it's comfy chairs and coffee and biscuits before and after the service. Altogether more humane.

I've never bought into the line that God was all about suffering, distress and having a poor experience of life on earth.

Then again I did notice an inordinate number of churches in Ghana.

The Repose

Solitude is mine once more. The school holidays have taken the family to England and so I've been deserted. Of course that's a gross exaggeration but there's no one here to rein me in.

I took the girls to school for 8.30am. They told me when I picked them up three hours later that there was only a handful of children in school. So they stayed in their classroom and played.

Well there's lip service to the end of term and there's just stupid posturing.

But since I took them away to America back in October for 10 days to see their great grand father, I feel it's only right to have them there right until the end of term.

We phoned him in Jamaica today as he was 91 on Friday. We all wished him a happy birthday and he seemed pleased. Even his two year old great grand son managed to join in with a few murmurs.

It was quite moving.

And just as I was getting used to the raking sounds of my children, they've gone. And all I've got is the ticking of my mind.

I'm not yet sure if that is a boon. But what is undoubted is the unlimited access to my video and DVD collection. There's no need to share the TV screen.

This is almost too much. Where do I start? Quality time with me, myself and I.

Perhaps the four Die Hard films. I was going to take those to Ghana but opted for the Matrix trilogy and Star Wars.

I was a tad disappointed with the Matrix. I didn't remember how number three ended so it was something of a surprise. But I still felt let down for some reason. Maybe it was the heat outside.

Nearly a week back in Paris. Ghana does seem so far away. But while I'm taking the malaria tablets, I still feel slightly exotic.

The Readaptation

It's astounding how quickly I've resumed normality. I've taken the boy into creche and as was my wont I've returned to Chez Prune for a coffee afterwards even though a new cafe on the approach to creche looks quite appealing.

I'm quite pleased about the familiarity. It's so reassuring.

What's not so thrilling is the news from the medics. The nurse at RFI told me to be wary should I get a cold or fever over the next couple of months as it could be malaria.

That's good to know. I've got another four days of the malaria tablets to go and then I'll be free of that concern.

They're a bit jumpy at the radio station about the tablets. This follows the demise of one employee who came back from an assignment abroad and didn't take the tablets once he got home to Paris.

Suffice it to say there was an opening in his department.

I will be vigilant.

Of course the full reimmersion will only begin once I recommence training for the football.

Nothing quite as highpowered as the Africa Cup of Nations just the veterans league.

Ultimately it's all about goals.
F

The Voyage Home

Go Ghana Go was the exuberant cheer which enveloped Ghana's participation in the Africa Cup of Nations. I often heard Go Black Stars Go.

And the chant was valid until the semi final defeat against Cameroon 11 days ago. It was in currency for the third place play-off against Cote D'Ivoire nine days ago.

But now all the Black Stars are back with their clubs around the world. And me, the faithful follower of their footballing fortunes, well I'm back in Paris.

Gone Ghana Gone.

I was whistling Soul to Soul's song Back to Life as I wended my way through Schipol this morning to catch the connecting flight to Paris.

It's a summery tune and it seemed apt as heat is where I had come from. It was -4 in Amsterdam.

I was wearing my flip flops and a tee-shirt. I was also wearing a pair of trousers.

And because I'm a sober sort I had packed an anorak, a pair of socks and shome deck shoes for the final thrust home.

The night flight is perhaps the best way to do the airwaves for me.

The food was wheeled out and I took a couple of small bottles of red with my pasta bolognaise concoction.

I was so becalmed - hardly surprising since it was about 11.15pm - that I couldn't dredge up the energy to watch Elizabeth The Golden Age. Cate Blanchett, who regales us as the regina, is one of my favourite actresses. Maybe it's because she reminds me of a girl I used to step out with.

Whatever.

But not even La Blanchett's cheekbones rising wrathful towards the red thatch could halt the march to slumberland. Go Bess Go. Paul's Going, Going. Gone.

I was perhaps still sleepy as I went through the baggage check at Schipol. It didn't seem too horrific.

I was obviously reintegrating into my natural context.

Gone Ghana Gone.