Grawble...

Ach, today is not a good day. Although it is better than last night. I found myself struck down with some vomity bug and it was as much fun as, well, spending an entire night boking... I think I'm ok now, though I still feel rougher than three bags of gravel. Very coarse fucking gravel.

Anyway, on a note which is slightly lighter than that, I'm still in Paris. It's really quite nice here, I think I could get used to it...

Got here on the 23rd, booked into the hotel, which turned out to be miles out of town. But it didn't matter, it was a lovely place and the Metro is so very reliable here that you're never actually far from anywhere.

The Metro is a funny thing indeed. I was a bit wary of it at first cos it appears to be just a bus on tracks in a tunnel. Sparks come off it and if you look though the window while turning a corner, it's not unusual to find your lunch begging for release... Also, there are the weird people who populate the metro. Once you're in the station, you can travel as long as you like, until you get bored. This means it's a wonderful place to find the homeless, nutters, beggers and buskers.

Now - when I say buskers, I don't just mean people strumming away in the stations. No, there are buskers who spend all day climbing into different carriages, play a coupla tunes and then come around trying to get money off you. The guilt factor is incredible.

When we arrived here I was a little let down because there was not a single accordion playing ANYWHERE! But it was all ok cos we hopped on a metro a coupla days later and there was a guy playing the accordion right next to me. Be careful what you wish for is the moral of this particular tale...

For Xmas, myself and Sarah for saw a day of boredom and misery watching cartoons in French. It started badly, admittedly. We awoke to find Love Actually on TV. In French, bien sur. What a disaster!

But it got better. Sarah gave me the Black Books box set and I gave her the new Rufus Wainwright album and a coupla other things I'd picked up on my travels.

Then we decided to go for a long walk to the Eiffel Tower, assuming, of course, that everything would be closed and the Metro wouldn't be running. Au contraire, the whole of bloody Paris was open for business. Très bizarre, n'est-ce pas? But fortunate also.

So we spent Xmas day on top of the tower, drinking soup and feeling vertigo.

Then we went to the aul Louvre on My Day. It's a very impressive place and no mistake! Saw the Mona Lisa (funnily enough, today I saw a bookshop called Mona Lisait. I chuckled...) and was unimpressed. It's a lovely picture an' all, but there are so many bleedin' tourists around it with their cameras that you can't get close at all. There's an awful lot of hype around it. No, for my money the best bit of the Louvre is the fantastic Egyptian exhibition. So much incredibly cool stuff... I learned that Ramses II was a fat bastard, fond of his pies. And I also learned that there are only so many pictures of Jesus a man can look at before he starts to really hate the guy.

It's not like he was that great looking even.

That evening we dicided we'd go check out the Moulin Rouge. Got there and discovered the cheapest seats in the house were €70. I blame Ewan McGregor.

So we went to an Irish pub, got ripped off for a while, went for dinner (I had snails - strange, but nice in their crustacean way) and missed the last metro home. Now, I'm sure there are people living in certain parts of Paris who don't worry too much about missing the Metro, but they don't live out in Boulogne, where our hotel was. There was much being grumpy, much swearing, much walking and many arguments along the way. But we made it home having walked the length of Paris so we can say without lying that we have seen the whole city...

Then yesterday (before I started feeling sick) Sarah went to the Centre Pompidou and I went to L'Espace Dali. Sarah had fun seeing genuine paintings by The Master and I had fun looking at things The Master designed and had his minions make copies of. He signed them afterwards, of course. There's an area in the museum where you can buy limited run signed lithographs of some of his work for in and around loadsa money.

Oh, before I forget, I want to mention (more to Paul than anyone else, but hey, I'm not one to keep the wrapt millions out of the loop... Snigger...) you can buy Sandman Graphic novels here for under €17 and they are HARDBACK. They are absolutely beautiful and the only thing that's stopped me buying them is the fact that my Frech is just not good enough for me to enjoy the surreal, philosophical musings of Mr. Gaiman. I'm not happy about this.

Today I was going to see the Pharon exhibition in the institute for Arabic studies- another Egyptian thang- but the queue was enormous! We had to queue for about an hour for the Eiffel Tower, but this was double the size! So I decided to leave it.

Also, my ongoing quest for a scrap-book is yeilding no results. These continentals just don't seem to have them. I tried to explain the concept to a woman earlier and her face assumed the position of one who is trying very hard not to scream, "Oh my God! You've got a rabbit on your head!!" Not that I did, but I may as well have...

I'm killing time now until my train to Barcelona. It's an overnight train and it doesn't leave til about 10pm - lotta killin involved!

My time here is almost thru, I only paid for an hour and it's gonna cut me off unceremoniously pretty soon. I'll try blog more from Catalonia so I don't end up writing one of these marathon chunks of text every time - but so much has happened!

Waffles - everywhere! Waffles!

So... We find ourselves inh a train station in Brussels for two hours. It's a curious thing trying to type on a foreign keyboard, everthing's in the wrong place! For example... The q and a are in the wrong place. You have to push shift for to get the full shtoppen up, and when you try to put in a number (eg, 9) you have to press shift! (or else you get ç!) It's just not right I tells ya!

qqqqqnywqy;;;

qhem; We're currently waiting on our train to Paris, which should be nice. If it isn't I shall be writing a letter to Jaques Chirac to complain. Not just any letter either, a strongly worded one!

We went to a puppet show last night. This theatre called 'Théatre Toone', down a wee alley near the incredible fish-based restaurant quarter, puts on all sorts of things (including Hamlet and the Three Musketeers, we saw the nativity.) Through the medium of puppetry. There were some moments fantastique, like when Mary revealed she was up the duff thanks to the holy spirit and Joseph asks had the spirit never heard of condoms... I larfed... Hohohohohohohoho...

Sarah is reading this over my shoulder so I can't say anything bad about her. Not that I would, of course (OW!)... Mmmmm... I hope these whiplash welts fade away alright. Coff.

There are SO many things I could write, but probably won't. For example, I could tell you about the incredible architecture in Brussels, or how there's this great statue of Satan (Genie du mal) in the Musée des beaux arts ici. I could also wax lyrical about the beautiful winter village in the centre of Brussels... Where they sell mulled wine on the street! That is what I call civilised.

I think Brussels gets pretty bad press. Everyone thinks it's dull, but I can't recommend it highly enough. Just make sure you get off the train in Bruxelles Centrale, not midi, and avoid Auberge d'Autriche. Never before have I been so urged to have breakfast. My level of impressedness was pretty low when I got a phonecall at 0830 reminding me about it. When I got another call at 0835 reminding me again it was all I could do not to scream. We stole the muffins though, so that was ok.

UM... There's really nothing more to add. This keyboard is annoying me so much I just canùt go on. Plus I've had a fair bit of vin chaud and must avail of le bloc sanitaire. Trop d'information...

Keep it greasy.

Like a monkey under a rock fall!

Well, here I am in Hamsterjam. It's great. There's so much I could write, but probasbly won't because I'm a lazy bastard and the last few days of weed-fun have put my head in quite the place. It's gonna be seriously odd trying to cope with a real place after this. We're going to Brussels for a rest! A rest I say!

Things we saw: Markets, people, fairytale-style houses, drugs, dealers, prostitutes, punters, canals, museums, stoners, stones, expensive pints (6euros!), cheap pints (1euro!), joints, bongs, mushrooms, art, 'Art', Darth Vader, smart shops, stupid shops, souvenirs, postcards, all rings of hell, some rings of Saturn, 12 young men in reindeer costumes (Bob's Reindeer army?), women jiggling bits behind windows, red lights, green lights, trams, bikes, trikes, trains, London, Penrith, Rotterdam... The list is almost endless... Almost... I'm just bored of typing things...

We managed to avoid the Van Gogh museum and other such worthy things, but we did get to the Botanical Gardens where Sarah sketched and I didn't. Actually, Sarah's been quite good about the whole sketching thing. We'll make an artist out of her yet!

It's weird the way you can smoke indoors here. It seems like forever since the ban came in in Ireland. To make any Irish smokers jealous, I'm in an internet cafe in Amsterdam having a cigarette... Muh-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaaa!!!!

And I don't even smoke, still, when in Reme...

Thanks to Donal for recommending Hillstreet Blues. it's a lovely little place. And if I'm any judge (which I'm not) their Morning Glory's pretty good. Get's you where you wanna be anyway!

And now I'm going to sign off because I have to figure out where I'm going to sleep tonight. Sarah has some romantic (by romantic I mean daft) notion about sleeping in a train station. I'm not for it. Contre is exactly what I am.

Adieu for now. I'll be back online in Belgium...

Semi-sob...

Well, it appears the rich text honeymoon has ended already. No more can I choose between Verdana, Webdings and Times fonts, it's plain old boring whatever this font is. And in black too. I was going to write this entry in green, but my plan has been scuppered.

Currently trying to type an essay or two, but I'm finding it very difficult because of the rampaging pain in my head. This bloody cold better go away before Wednesday I tells ya! I'm not going to be a happy bunny if I wind up in mainland Europe and get quarantined along with the rabid dogs and cold-blooded signs...

I'm still quite surprised by how much I've taken to 'Strictly Genteel', a classical introduction to Frank Zappa. The music ate my mind and now alls I can think of is getting more and more and more and MORE of it. But I probably shouldn't. At least, not until I get back from my marvellous holiday in the land of scary foreigners.

Which reminds me... Now it is DEFINITELY time for me to go home and start thinking in a sensible fashion about the things I should be thinking about, ie, French. None of this is any help at all. None.

Whatsoever.

Found out the other day that Sarah won the Taylor Prize back in her college days. I'd never heard of it before, but I'm reliably informed that winning it is quite the achievement. So you can imagine my bafflement at her NOT TELLING ME! If t'were I had won such a winning there'd be no shutting me up!

*shaky head*

Nose to the deadlines...

Ahem.

So far I have discovered one deadline I've missed. Ho-humm. Maybe I shouldn't've gotten this cold. I'd certainly be ahead then. Maybe.

Handing in the radio project that I am currently listening to. I'd really like it much more if you couldn't hear Bono in the background while James Kelly is reading his poem about Brendan Kennelly's drinking habits.

Somehow Blogger has given me rich text today. I'm not certain what lead to this generosity. Maybe it's sympathy.

Maybe it's just coincidence.

Still Can't figure out pictures though!

Times to goes methinks.

Don't eat the yellow snow.

Certainly good advice...

Currently listening to Frank Zappa - he's odd, and I like it.

It makes a change from the constant Dylan I've been subjecting myself to over the last few days. It's very easy to get pulled into a severe Dylan binge, I find. But then, I have the means...

I got my copy of the Taj Mahal Review the other day. In case you're not familiar with the TMR, let me fill you in: I don't know anything about it either, but they published a story of mine (which I might post on this thing soon. I'm sure I can put link to things off the page. Can't I? Blogmaster! Help Me! Oh, God, it's pitiful. I can't even post pictures! Technophobe, no. Techno-useless-bastard, yes!) (And I don't know how to put hyperlinks in either *hint*hint*)

I seem to be coming down with illness, disease and plague. I managed to survive all last week when Sarah was dying of the common cold, but an hour in the pissing rain followed by five hours in wet clothes on a bus and the bugs have kicked down the doors to my defensive system. Bastards.

Anyway, I'm sure there's some practical application I could be putting this computer to ("Brain the size of a planet and he uses me for blogging..." etc) apart from this so I think I'll fork orf and seek out the chalky dust of the love salmon...

A payphone was ringing...

...And it just about blew my mind, when I picked it up and said, 'hello' this foot came down the line...

Ah, sorry about that, I'm currently indulging in my newest favouritest thing - transferring my CDs onto minidisc. Any cyber-nerd out there will now start screaming, "Minidisc?! That's, like, so last century!" And you'd be right, but I don't care. My life has taken on a new and much more shiny aspect now that I have little boxes onto which I can record 5hrs of stuff. I'm currently subjecting Dylan to this torture (hence the opening quote...)

It's my baby.

Today I did several things. I got up. I bought toilet roll AND kitchen roll AND a steak. These may seem unconnected to you, but just you wait... I'll show you all! Muhahahahhaaaaa! *coff* Sorry.

Ahem.

Checked my email earlier only to discover a message from Joe Woods of Poetry Ireland aksing me if midday was ok for our interview. Sure, it would've been had it not been 2pm by the time I got the message. So, I panicked for about three minutes, called him, apologised and made a date for 5pm. He was very cool. I think I'm really getting the hang of this interviewing lark. My strategy is: turn up late; don't prepare any questions; don't research your subject and above all; be polite... It seems to work nicely...

*sigh* I'm starting to bore myself at this stage. Going for a drink with Nathan tonight - I'll have to be sensible. I have a lot to do over the next few days.

Did I mention Mike McCormack will be giving me the interview AND a proof copy of his new book. Hurrah! Life, currently, is pretty sweet. How long can it last?

Hmmm...