Weasels seized my brain

La Tour Eiffel at Sunset

You will not be surprised to learn that Cate does not like the hotel. Anything about it in fact – including the location. She may not – in fact – accept that it is a hotel – in the true sense of the word.

On a scale of 10 this is a 4.5 and - my lowest score since Prague in 2009 – which I really never thought I could beat. That was really special – the one with the door that you could lick while you were sitting on the toilet – if you had a mind to lick toilet doors.

That was also the one that was next to the church with the belfry and you could not only hear the bells you could almost touch them as they were just across a narrow street – and at the same level as us - and we had no sooner asked the question ‘I wonder if they still ring those?’ than our question was answered.

But they stopped at midnight at which time we were able to stop gritting our teeth and our ears and ungrip our fingers from the frayed arms of the lounge chairs that once belonged to communist apparatchiks - and even the rats became more relaxed and stopped crashing around in the walls and bleeding from the ears.

Other than that – and perhaps Stockholm – which was not really my fault – this has not been my finest hour.

But it is entirely due to faulty planning and research and a last minute panic. There were indeed mitigating factors but I will not affect to apportion blame but will take the whole burden upon myself.

But it is indeed a stupid hotel. I mean it has shag pile carpet on the walls in the restaurant and the stair wells and the elevator looks like the movie set for a scene for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre - and it is in a part of Paris where you simply would not go after dark without armed guards or unless you were training for a tour of duty in Afghanistan and even then you would not do it without 12 navy SEALS in tow.

When I got the taxi there from our first hotel my driver had never heard of it and was amazed that it existed. When I said it was 4 stars he laughed out loud and said `why would you put a 4 start hotel here?’

Why indeed?

Well we had dinner here tonight. It was adequate. We saw no beautiful people although the nightclub fired up at about 9:30 and the singer was excellent. She looked liked she was Algerian.

She clearly had the hots for me because I was wearing my Eric Bompard cashmere top – and was looking for a more mature (if not fossilised) man - but Cate kept her at bay with a mild death glance.

The Ice Cube Bar is somewhere you go by booking in advance and paying €38. For this you get to go into a freezing room and have four shots of Grey Goose Vodka.

They have these places all over Moscow. They call them Metro station entrances. The vodka is not Grey Goose but the results are much the same. The greatest hazard in the Moscow metro in winter is circumnavigating the comatose Russians and the empty vodka bottles.

In Vienna the biggest displays are for chocolate. In Moscow they are for vodka. In any given supermarket – 50% will be devoted to vodka.

Given what I have learned over the last few years – and the mistakes I have made – I am astonished that I have fucked this up so badly. With the benefit of hindsight there was almost nothing right with my decision in terms of location, quality, style, presentation, ambience etc.

I mean it is a complete Goat Fuck. It is just stupid. This is the last hotel in the world we should be at. Weasels obviously seized my brain just before I made this decision. There is no other explanation.  

It does have some potential

Bedroom with outdoor cupboard on right

Well we did find a few ducks yesterday on the canal near Jaures Metro station. This is near where Molly’s friend Andy lives. They were not the best looking ducks I have ever seen and they did not put on much of a show for us so I have not put a photo on the blog.

Today I moved into the KUBE hotel. This was entirely as expected. I arrived at midday and completed all the formalities including filling in forms and producing passports and credit cards and was told to come back at check-in in time – which was 3.00 PM.

So I wandered around the area which is very cosmopolitan. I am quite familiar with it because I always walk around here when I stay with Molly. It is very African and Arabic and full of strange sights. It is still the 18th Arrondissement  – but the opposite side to where Molly lives.

At 3.00 PM there was no one on reception but after a while a new man appeared who could not believe that I had already checked in – and for a long time could find no evidence of my having done so – so we did the passport – credit card thing again and then he took me to my room where we did the finger recognition reader on the door thing. The fingerprint thing is the only way you can get into your room. You can imagine how much confidence I have in this working properly.

The room is certainly funky – do they still use that word? It is certainly also the most impractical hotel room I have ever been in and seems to have been stripped clean of lights and power points.

I am using my Mac on a tiny desk in a darkened corner. The nearest light is three metres away. There is no power point within three metres but I have taken the glass top off the entertainment console – which contains a sound system and DVD player – and am using the power point in there.

There is no chair for the desk but there is a little wobbly glass topped stool and if I take a wide stance I can balance precariously on that – but need to take regular breaks because it is not built for comfort.

There is no cupboard in the room but there is a coat rack with some glass beaded hangers. The upside of this is that we will be close to our coats and can keep an eye on them during the evening.

Business Centre

The bed – at first glance – seems to be large and comfortable.

And – importantly – we seem to be at the extremity of the hotel and well away from where I think the noise is made in The Ice Kube at night. I have no interest in this unless I am the one making the noise.

Despite its potential shortcomings I like it a lot.

Here we are again

Photograph by Jean Baptiste Peillet

Well here we are again in the City of Light. It never ceases to fill me with wonder as there is nothing quite like it.

I spent some time on the airplane coming from Vienna trying to remember the French word for ‘what’. Just could not think of it. But amazingly – when we got into the taxi – it started coming back – as it always does – and I was chatting away with the taxi driver for an hour on the way in to Paris. He flattered me by telling me that my French was very good.

It is not – it is very bad. But I can get by and that is all I need to do.

I always forget that the French – like the Viennese – are world class smokers and you simply cannot escape the smoke anywhere outside hotels or cafés or the Metro – or indeed – anywhere in the street.

However, unlike the barbarians in Vienna – all bars, restaurants and cafés  are entirely and blissfully free of smoke. I would never have believed the French could do this – it is indeed a miracle – but for which I am most grateful.

Molly and I were to go ducking today but we were a bit short of time because her landlady is selling Molly’s apartment and Molly has to be there when prospective buyers come through – and this happened today.

She needs to do this just to see to the wellbeing of her cat Merlin who is by far her most precious possession. This whole business is a bit traumatic and causing some havoc in Molly’s life but she is doing the best she can.

So today we had lunch at the refurbished Sancerre in Montmartre. This always used to do the best Onion Soup but closed down for renovations. It has reopened – and I am pleased to say that the Soupe à l'oignon is as good as it ever was.

They have kept the same waiters and the same rats – for the sake of continuity – so things are much the same as they always were.

Molly lives in the centre of Montmartre – just off the main street of Rue des Abbesses – and her local bar – or one of them – is the Grand Hotel de Clermont – which is not really a very grand hotel and I think has only four guest rooms - with a shared bathroom.

I once thought I might stay there but Molly did a reconnaissance and suggested that it would not be appropriate for a person of my breeding and with my particular standards of personal hygiene.

It is most famous for once providing long term accommodation for Edith Piaf. It now accommodates as its regular drinking patrons a strange collection of characters – some of whom I have met on my regular visits.

Just down the hill from Montmartre is the Place Pigalle where there is the Moulin Rouge and some of the most unattractive places in Paris. It was always thus and during the war the American servicemen called it ‘Pig Alley’.

It does however have one of the best Japanese restaurants in Paris and it is one of Molly’s favourites. We ate there tonight and I had my usual - and delicious tempura prawns and miso soup.

The worst part about going there is that I always have to brave the attentions of those denizens of the deep who infest the pavements of that area and think that there is nothing that a blissfully happily married man of my age would rather do than go into a dingy rat infested bar - be inveigled by girls with short skirts into buying champagne at €200 per bottle then be slipped a Mickey Finn - have my wallet emptied - my credit cards stolen and then be tossed comatose into an alley 3:00 AM.

Not that I have not done that before – but I was younger then and had more stamina – and Cate was not waiting for me in a hotel on the other side of Paris.

Not that she is indeed waiting. She is conferencing somewhere and as I am writing she is having a dinner – probably in this very hotel.

That has not distracted me. I bought a bottle of French Chablis from room service and am having a quiet glass of fine wine and writing a blog. What could be better that that.