20 April 2010

Pelouse Autorisee says the sign.  I’m in the Luxembourg Gardens because 1) it’s a sunny day and 2) I read that some of the parks in Paris are now wifi enabled and I thought what a lovely idea it would be to sit in the Luxembourg Gardens and write.  Not that I couldn’t have done it the old fashioned way – and many times I have.  But somehow Mr Netbook who I purchased especially for this trip has an insistent idea that it has become my pen, notebook and sketchpad combined and I’m going along with it – for a while anyway. 

But first things first.  Am I not in Paris?  The same Paris where it is strictly forbidden to walk on the grass let alone sit?  As a young man I came here and enjoyed the anarchic game of sitting on the grass along with a multitude of Parisians of all ages until the gendarmes came and swept us off the pelouse, then they left and we all went back onto the grass until the next wave and so on.  It was one of those lovely cat and mouse games that Parisians were (and are) so proud of.  So along comes the Ken Livingstone of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, who not only facilitates free internet access in the parks but also rescinds the law forbidding people to walk on the grass.  What fun is that?  (I had written an entire children’s book based on that premise.  Now what am I going to do?)     

Once it became legal to sit on the grass with a sign that declares it such everyone is doing it.  In fact entire classes of children are picnicking on the green.  So there’s hardly a space to sit.  When it was illegal, plenty of people sat on the grass but there was always room.  Now it’s legal and there is no room.  What does that tell us? 

Actually, I did find a little plot as lunch was coming to an end and the children were packed up and marched off, hand in hand, to indoor school.  So I found a place, sat down in the glorious sun, took out Mr Netbook and turned it on – or tried to turn it on, that is.  Nothing happened.   I think the gods are trying to tell me something.  But whatever it is, I cannot hear.  Bloody gods.  Bloody Monsieur Delanoe.  Bloody Mr. Netbook. 

Then I think, it serves me right.  Technology just gets in the way of good sense – and probably good writing.  What were pens and paper invented for anyway?  I will just go to a stationary shop and buy a proper notebook and that will be that.  Except I’m a little disappointed.  I bought the netbook especially for this trip and the whole idea was being multimedia and being able to combine words and photos and stuff into an amazing blog (whatever that is and why would anybody read it – but that’s another story, isn’t it?)  So, yes, I’m a little disappointed.  Why didn’t it turn on?  Maybe the battery is dead, I thought.  But I used it last night plugged in, so the battery should be fully charged.  It has now become an intriguing mystery.  The reason I bought this thing a month before leaving was to give myself a chance to break it in and get used to it  I read somewhere that if a computer is wonky you usually find out in a matter of days.  If you use it for a month without problems, it’s probably OK.  Except then there was the Hungarian who swabbed it at the train station when I left London – so he’s probably to blame.  Most likely there was something in that noxious stuff he spewed over the keyboard that created more problems than the full stop not working anymore unless you stomp down on the full stop key.  He was a sweet young man but sweet young men have been known to do terrible things  Now I’m so pissed off I decide to go back to my studio to see if Netbook works when it’s plugged in and if it’s only that the battery is wonky.  So I take the RER from Luxembourg to the Gare du Nord which is the quickest way home (a term I used advisedly). 

The RER is not the Metro – though within Paris you can use the same ticket.  It is somewhere between a commuter train running workers into the central city from the suburbs and a (supposedly) inner city rapid transit system.  The problem is that it doesn’t go many places and you have to know the entire system of tunnels and connecting labyrinths – otherwise it’s probably faster taking the Metro.  But the Luxembourg Gardens are only serviced by the RER so, if you’re going from the Gare du Nord, it makes sense to take it. 

However, it does not make sense taking the RER to the Gare du Nord unless you are a masochist or an intrepid explorer or both (usually they are one and the same).  I’ll tell you why.  But first …

Northwest Paris is black both in the British sense of everyone being black except blue eyed, blond(e)s and in the American sense of people whose immediate ancestors originated in Africa.  The RER line B is a fascinating social anthropological model of what’s happened to metropolitan Paris.  If you get on at Gare du Nord, you could probably count the number of pale white faces on one hand (I don’t include myself in that category).  But after Les Halles, you could count the number of black faces on the same hand and come up with change.  If you closed your eyes when you got on and then open them ten minutes later, the car you’re travelling on would be just as crowded but it would seem as if a digital trick had been played and a positive print had been turned into a negative (or the other way around). 

Paris has always been a city of immigrants.  If you’re travelling east to west, there’s not much further you could go without falling into the sea.  So, in that sense, France is like California.  Similar in its absorption but different.  You don’t really find black ghettos in Paris like you do in the inner cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco (the banlieu is different).  But there is a curious dividing line that seems to separate the French-French from the immigrant French speakers – though I’m not really sure what or who the French-French are (and France is probably not that sure either).  During WWII the Vichy government tried to make a distinction between the native French Jews and the immigrant Jews, suggesting that it was the later who should be rounded up and sent to the gas chambers.  But that broke down when it became unclear who actually was an immigrant and how far back you were prepared to travel.  Also a good many French-French are swarthy enough to fit into the British definition of ‘black’ so I think we’re getting into angels on pins territory here.  The point I’m making, I fear, was lost several sentences back.  It does have something to do with travelling on the RER, however.

I was going to say why it was more difficult taking line B back to Gare du Nord.  The reason has to do with the subterranean world of that particular station which ranks with Les Halles-Chatelet as the most infuriating rabbit warren in which to take a wrong turn this side of Lewis Carroll.  Following the signs that say ‘sortie’ does absolutely no good.  You must know exactly which sortie you want and if you don’t then you might as well sit down and wait for the CRS police armed with submachine guns to sweep you up in their net for at least then you might find the light of day without wearing out a pair of perfectly good shoes in the process.  I blithely figured one sortie was as good as another.  It isn’t.  And I know Paris – sort of.  But when I was eventually spewed out into the light of day, I had no idea in the world where I was.  Nor did anyone I asked.  Because no one spoke either French or English.  Wherever it was, Gare du Nord was nowhere in sight.  I must have walked for thirty minutes before I could find someone to ask the directions to Rue Magenta.  By then I was suffering from dehydration.  My feet were as swollen as they would have been after a forced march through the Sahara. 

I did make it back eventually to my cosy little nest that seemed very cosy indeed after this unwanted adventure. 

I plugged my netbook in and it worked.  So did the battery.  What do you say about that Monsieur Delanoe?