ROSETTA STONE - PARIS
Kitbag Capers - Part II
"Paris in the
the spring"
HIGH atop a mountain, surrounded by favoured earth that nourished magic fungi
and wild orchids, there came to be a magic stone of immortal dimensions and
properties; however our epic journey to the west began in slightly less
epic climes - high atop a hill in North London surrounded by favoured
A roads and nourished by the rain that drizzled in eternal dimensions. A sage once wrote "A journey begins with but a single step", ours began
over a bottle of wine, some pancakes, and a slightly undercooked
kangaroo stew[1], or perhaps it started almost a week before with a phone
call.
"What are you doing next week?"
"Nothing much."
"Wanna go to Paris?"
"Yeah, why not...."
And so we found ourselves shocked into a rude awakening after oh too few
hours of sleep by the bleeping of alarm clocks and the boiling of kettles. It was almost time to feed the animals, except we weren't on a farm, and
the next meal was 3 hours away on a ferry from Newhaven. Kitbags (and
various other pieces of goth-shaped luggage) stowed, fluids and stereo
placed into the various racks, and legs squeezed into their acceleration
harnesses, the brave crew of the "lean-green gigging machine" blasted
off into the night... Readers of an earlier episode of Kitbag Capers will remember that we
failed to make any proper sacrifice to the Road God before we left. This
time, armed with hindsight and retrospect we forgot again! London during those weird hours which are either stupidly late or
incomprehensibly early is one of my favourite times. I used to get up
and go for walks through the woods or down to the river, stopping for a
cup of coffee or to be searched by members of the metropolitan police,
anxious to see what mysterious things I had in my pockets, however because
the navigator couldn't even find the A to Z we took what amounted to a
scenic route. "Ah, a railway station - now we know where we are!" It was the first railway station we'd ever seen which was full of meat on
hooks. Victorian Helen, being a vegetarian, probably noticed first; we
turned round and re-entered the ring of plastic that surrounds the City
of London in search of directions. We eventually found a policewoman who, contrary to previous experience,
did not want to look in my pockets, instead she gave us rather accurate
directions of how to get south of the river. As we crossed the bridge
everyone checked their weapons were loaded. The commander pressed a
secret button on the dashboard and the windscreen lit up with a bright
display showing missile locks, and a big gun popped out of the roof.
Almost immediately the windscreen misted up. How we wished we had a
GPS, then we wouldn't need the map. Onwards, through the badlands, the wastelands, at Brixton we were attacked
by a 10,000 foot tall demon with three heads and 12 arms, but Juliet
wound down her window and gave it a scary look and it disappeared before
anyone else saw it. A close escape I thought! South, south, ever south we travelled until at last the coast was in sight. "I've been to Hastings, I've been to Brighton, I've been to Eastbourne too!
So what!"Newhaven is a contradiction in terms, it is neither new, nor a haven. We
arrived about half an hour before the ferry was due to depart - just
in time to board. "Not today!", suggested a friendly man in a Stenna jacket. We discovered that due to a technical problem the boat had only just left
from the night before. "Here are some duty free vouchers and directions
to Dover." they said "By the way you have 90 minutes to get there!" "I've been to Hastings, I've been to Brighton, I've been to Eastbourne too!
So what!"We sped along the south coast, not stopping for anything save traffic
lights, and to scare nine shades of something out of early morning learner
drivers. The ride of the valkyries played over the sound system as we
galloped across the sky towards the boat that would take us over the pond. Of course we didn't make the boat, so we got the one that came next; On the boat we stomped around, frightened schoolchildren with our magic
clogs, spent the duty free vouchers, worked out that Stenna were actually
paying us to make the trip, and had a quick lesson in 'rude things to
shout in French'. Arriving in France at exactly the same time as we would have done if
we'd got the 7:30 boat, unfortunately we were about 2 hours further north
than we would have been had we followed the original plan. "Bonjour" said the man with the sunglasses and the rubber gloves, he
asked one of his friends if they thought they should get dogs to crawl all
over our car while they searched the luggage. We all smiled innocently
at him. It is a truth universally acknowledged that *not* being turned over by
French customs is a bit like not setting off a metal detector at the
airport, but not entirely. And with a shrug we were off with a chorus
of "Drive on the right!". But I've got as far as France without introducing the brave and fearless
crew! There was "Commander -Bat", tour thing and explorer who can go
for weeks on a single hours sleep and a pain au chocolate; Juliet, mistress
of the look of death, and the hypnotic smile that allowed us to breeze
through customs (she is actually the real world equivalent of a Jedi
Knight as any Anglo-Saxon re-enactors with missing teeth will tell you.);
Jane of England, who let slip that she is actually Queen Jane I, but is so
modest that she will always deny this and claim it is because no-one else
can speak French properly and we all misunderstood; Victorian Helen, dance
instructor and deputy sherry queen; and me, with a hat on. The journey continued, once again we headed south - towards Paris, city
of romance, of men who shrug, where the rules of the road do not apply,
and were navigating with the map in the rough guide to Paris is like
snakebite made with apple juice. We stopped for coffee. The sun had set by the time we found the club. We had been driving around
Paris in ever decreasing circles until eventually we spotted a large
red Windmill which meant we were just next door. Some moments later a
very drunk Queen Jo appeared and led us off in a general direction which
turned out not to lead to our hotel at all. People kept offering to sell
us things or to buy various members of the procession. And then we were there. At the hotel. We sorted out rooms. I decided that
I was too tired to get tarted up and began to investigate the medicinal
properties of 100% proof vodka when mixed with travel sick pills. Some moments later I found myself sitting in a stone dungeon, made entirely
from wood and plastic, drinking Guinness. I found a stair and fell down
it. Tried to phone Bushpig in London but later discovered that I had been
using a condom machine to try and make calls. I found the stair and fell
up it. A voice in my head kept shouting "kebab!". This voice belongs to a guardian spirit called Sancho Panza who comes to
me in times of extreme drunkenness and shouts meaningless words and makes
strange assertions. He had also made friends with the commander who
proved that Parisian taxi drivers will not try to knock you down if you
are wearing clogs. Armed with this knowledge we headed for the venue,
stopping only for a quick bite to eat, to stick red plastic straws in
our hair, and to walk straight past the queue. Important lesson - jumping over the barrier and walking straight through
the entrance while shouting "ta mere" at bouncers does not guarantee
free admission. Fortunately Kim rescued us and we stumbled through a
gauntlet of people handing out fliers and free CDs and into the club
proper. It looked like the Hippodrome in miniature, with a very pretty
light show and plenty of smoke. Helen suggested that we show the locals how to dance. This was a friendly
suggestion with one or two small flaws from my point of view. One
I was barely conscious due to a combination of vodka, pills, and lack of
sleep, and two, the only reason I hadn't fallen over was because of the
magic clogs that keep one firmly routed to the deck, even in 65 mph winds
which blow your coffee all over the English Channel.... Soon we had a big space on the dancefloor and various people came over to
tell us what great dancers we were[2]. Everything went into overdrive. The next thing I remember was the
mantra "Cheers, thanks alot!", which could only mean one of two things;
either Vendemmian or Ted Chippington was live on stage. I listened for
a few moments, but there were no jokes so that didn't help. Something's happening now. Oh look mummy quarriers. This was why we had
travelled so long and so hard. This is why we had faced demons and bandits,
this is why we came - Rosetta Stone. I find music journalism almost impossible. That's why I never actually
reviewed any of the gigs I ligged whilst on the student newspaper. I
much preferred the days when the monitor group wittered on about "the
wall of noise as art", and were entirely postmodern[3] about the entire
thing; suffice it to say, it was a good gig, with much dancing, and
arm waving, and looking at the pretty lights, and people going up, and
trying to build a two-stack with less than the requisite number of people,
and wondering why Porl had bunches in his hair[4], and wondering where
the body of the schoolboy actually was, and wondering where the rest of the
crew had gone to, and wondering why if I ordered more than one bottle of
water at a time from the bar they insisted on giving me lager. The next morning I bounced downstairs to look at the damage - almost
everyone was alive and well (with one exception who had made a pact with
Ralph the great lavatory god and who had written cheques his liver could
not cover...) Sometime mid-morning we left the hotel and drove around Paris looking at
the sights and trying to find a way out. Sometime mid-afternoon we found
ourselves once again trying to cover impossible distances in short times
to try and make a ferry. Wagner played once again, and the 65 mph cross
wind threatened us each time a lorry came past the other way. "Bof!" we
shouted. We arrived at Dieppe to see a boat still in dock and not sailing
into the horizon. "We've come for the 3pm ferry!" "Not today!" The surf was up, and the crew of the boat had taken their boards and
wetsuits and were singing Beach Boys songs to each other in outrageous
French accents. They gave us a map and sent us to Calais - 187km away. "I've been to Hastings, I've been to Brighton, I've been to Eastbourne too!
So what!"The map and directions were wrong At one point we entered the town of
"Rue"[5] which was both gothic and invigorating. We were too.
"Break Hard" as we found the road we were driving up had turned into a
muddy track. A local farmer, replete with smock and bottle of cheap red
wine explained that it had been blockaded - we reversed hard. It was dark by the time we arrived in Calais, just in time to join the back
of a five hour long queue made up of lorries and stranded cars all trying
to get back to England. We had two sleeping bags, no food, several bottles
of duty free, and everyone needed to use the bathroom. Fortunately, Commander -Bat knew these roads well, and in a flash was driving
cross country, down a windy path, past a white house, and down a small
grate in the road. We arrived at the front of the queue less than 60 seconds
later with much shouting of hurrah, and indeed "bof" and "ta mere". At 8:30pm we were on our way. A rather foul fish supper and another duty
free run later we arrived back in England. Once again avoiding the
forbidden pleasures of intimate body cavity searches we got our motor
running and headed out on the highway. The journey came to an end, via Ilford, at 1:30am the following morning.
750 miles, 85 cups of coffee, and some fruit later we had returned from
India with the scrolls and had achieved enlightenment.[6] Praise to Commander -Bat Sage of roads and prophet of the Road God.
Peace unto the crew of the lean green gigging machine and unto the vehicle
that can travel 750 miles without upholstery.
"Newhaven-Dieppe is a made up ferry route!"
[1] This is true
[2] Or possibly to say, you are dancing like a drunken fool with wooden
shoes on, please stop it or we will be forced to put the bar prices up!
[3] or possibly post-structuralist reinterpretive hermanutic
[4] He didn't
[5] Honestly
[6] Enlightenment - the moment immediately after you say "I'm never going
to do another tour", when you realise that, infact, you *are*
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