Travels With Brian

Barefoot and Blistered in Paris

"We'd like to talk to you."

Now why did that sound a little like "Please see me", the three ominous words every teenager didn't want to see at the bottom of an essay when the teacher dropped it back on their desk? Thankfully it wasn't the case this time and my student days were long behind me.*

* - I was not a good student. Exams were always things that I participated in as more of an audience member than someone who was actively involved. I would look around the room at people scribbling away furiously and then try and cajole Brian into doing something similar. Sometimes he obliged, sometimes he counted the bricks in the sports hall wall. A friend of mine and I used to compare notes on how many bricks there were. It's not something I'd recommend doing if you wish to gain any useful qualifications, unless of course you want to become a brick layer, which is a highly skilled and worthy career and perhaps something I should've thought of at the time.

Several months before the "please see me" message, I'd dropped a note to the Head of Community at Wattpad and had suggested that a job advertised on the job pages was something I could do remotely for them. Her answer had been polite, but negative. So I was a little surprised when I got the summons to go have a chat a few months later.

All I had to do was go to Paris.

"Oh aye, sure, it's just down the road," said Brian utilising a certain amount of sarcasm. Brian doesn't always do well with surprises, and then had to dig himself out of a deepening hole.

"Er... sure, that sounds very cool." Better Brian, sorta. Schmuck.

The suggestion of a trip was followed by an assurance that they'd pay for the flights and a hotel for the night. And so, after my wife telling me to get the hell on with it and join the rest of the family in Cornwall when I got back (it was a long weekend in the UK and my wife was taking the kids to see her sisters), I found myself at the local airport on the short hop over the channel to Paris.

I've been to Paris a few times over the years, nearly got arrested once**, and tend to consider it necessary evil rather than a place to visit. The architecture's cool, and I understand why people like going there, it's just not my favourite place on the planet.

** - My French is passable. This usually means I tend to get myself into trouble rather than out of it, and understand more of it than I can speak. But I can order food and drink, so that's a good start in my opinion.

The near arrest came on a trip in my early twenties when I happened to go to Normandy on a trip with my parents. The village I grew up in was twinned with a lovely little village just outside Bayeaux, and that particular year I ended up chatting to a local English teacher and we spent a happy day chewing the fat (well her mostly correcting my schoolboy French), and trying to find wine. At the Eiffel Tower, we happened to stand next to a very poorly disguised undercover police officer, who had his radio on full blast so we couldn't help but listen in.

A pick-pocket was doing the rounds, and this particular Gendarme was tasked with finding him. Le description of said thief was being shouted out by his radio.

"White shirt. Black trousers."

- shut up Brian, I'm not a pickpocket -

"Black shoes. Dark hair. Goatee and glasses"

- Brian, shut up!

My French friend was at this point trying not to laugh as the Gendarme turned and gave me an appraising look.