So Alun, there we were you and I, on Christmas Eve, trying to get to a pub on the north side of the river at Westminster Bridge. As we were stuck in traffic crossing said bridge, in a National Express coach all of a sudden for no apparent reason, we looked at the Parliament buildings and saw that some very low, dark, fast moving clouds were obscuring the top of Tower of St Stephens containing Big Ben. As we watched, those clouds slowly pushed the tower from its rightful vertical state, until it toppled flat on to the roof of the House of Commons below. As we continued to watch, the base of the tower overwhelmed the structure of the roof and crashed through on to the MP’s below who were fortunately sitting in high backed wooden chairs so the tower rested on the top of the backs of their seats giving them a lucky escape. Betty Boothroyd in her former, elevated position as Speaker however was not so lucky, and what remained of her was taken away in an ambulance. We, no longer in a coach, continued to watch the spectacle for a bit until I said that we better get a shift on as they were likely to close the bridge soon and we’d be stuck on the wrong side and wouldn’t be able to get to the pub.
That was last night’s entertainment in my head.
As far as I can make out, Bergerac has no gym. Shame really as that would amuse me in an 80’s British crime drama kind of way. Unless of course Cyrano is French for gym, in which case there’s a film about it. Who nose?
I may have pointed out before that Bergerac is lovely and it continues to be. Been back here for 3 days now and had a marvellously relaxed time courtesy of my host Geoff, his friends Ian and Karen, and the fabulous resident restaurant owners, Michael and Andre. On arrival in this old, old town on Friday night, after a train ride made all the better for not featuring the word “couchette”, I was whisked like an Angel Delight straight to L’Enfance Du Lard for a night of fantastic food, great company and a very funny plaster goose dressed up in 12 different outfits, one for each month of the year. A Turner Prize winning installation if ever I saw one. Much laughter was had as well as much gorgeous red wine and some pretty lively Eau De Vie (A lot like Grappa which I think is Italian for “fire water”) before retiring in a very wobbly state back to Chez Geoff to polish off a couple of restorative lagers (Ian’s somewhat faulty idea of a hangover avoidance trick) and to the delights of watching Geoff and Karen, half miming, half dancing to David Bowie’s early classic, The Chingaling Song. When I say “early classic”, of course I mean “absolute drivel”. It makes The Laughing Gnome sound positively meaningful.
Drunkenly to bed.
Next day, Geoff left heroically early to pick up his very, very heavy Christmas Tree from the local market and drag it back to his place before leaving to have lunch with Michael and Andre, leaving 3 very hungover casualties on the sofa’s, talking gently about how we could string out this life of leisure for as long as possible. A plan is required. Given the state of us, it wasn’t surprising that a plan was not forthcoming, so instead we drank a lot of tea and had a nice time anyway.
That evening, after Karen and Ian had left, Geoff and I ignored doctors advice and headed off for a quick beer before going to find a pizza. We never found the pizza, but we did find the Sherwood Pub which was full to the brim of young funky Bergeracians with more bizarre facial hair than me (and that was just the girls) all grooving to a Kraut Metal soundtrack. We drank really quite a lot of beer and left when the barman Sebastiane made us as it was way past our bedtime. There’s every possibility we will return. You really have to go back to a bar that has a full working bath and shower in the toilets don’t you?
Yesterday, absolutely nothing was done apart from some gentle trimming of a Christmas tree and the making of Blue Peter style tree decorations. I directed, Geoff got out the round ended scissors, glue pot and sticky back plastic.