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Life in Paris - Paris
As the sun is shining here in Brittany (yes, sad as it might seem, I’m actually starting to miss the rain!) I thought I’d take a little trip (electronically, of course), to Paris and catch up on some of the blogs there.
Logical? You really shouldn’t expect logic on this site!
I decided to start off with Life in Paris – a blog by a 32 year old English guy called Gavin who, to use his own words, describes the blog as… “The life and adventures of a 32 year old Englishman (the proverbial ’starving artist’) who has come to find himself in Paris without plan or intention of ever setting out to live in a city, let alone a French one.”
Now, I have to say that this isn’t one of the more frequently updated blogs around (and I have emailed the author to complain!!!!) but the quality of the prose and the standard of the photography make it, in my book, a must-review site!
So, where’s the obligatory Dog Poo post?
Being a Paris based blog, I expected a big steaming Dog Poo post and I wasn’t disappointed!
In fact, if you search for Paris Street Merde on Google, Streets of Merde comes top!
Now, that’s something to be proud of!
Gavin doesn’t come up with any solution to the problem and ends the article (I am quoting his own words) with … the brown knolls of foul odour will adorn the streets of Paris for years to come!
Gavin doesn’t leave the subject there. In Random Paris Musings he threatens to (and once again, I quoting directly from his blog)… “take a video camera and film one particular street very close to me that I take on my way to La Poste. It may just pass for the biggest turd infested street in Paris, and with no exaggeration there is something to avoid every one to two steps.”
Let’s get to the naughty bits….
Being based in Paris, I thought to myself, this blog has got to have some naughty bits, hasn’t it?
Once again, I wasn’t wrong!
In Paris Erotica and the Orsay Museum we are treated to a cacophony of nudity and female genitalia (I do know that cacophony is not the right word to use but… I get so little chance to get to a thesaurus these days…) which warms us up nicely for the revelation, in Bois de Boulogne. Lost in Neuilly that nude sunbathing can sometimes be witnessed in the Bois de Boulogne!
What about the culture, then?
I’m not really too sure what to make of Bercy Paris, stiltskin dancers and olive oil but, upon reflection, feel that it sits rather better here than in the naughty bits section.
Now lets get down to the serious business – food!
There’s only so much Doggy doings, naughty bits and history that one can take (well, me, that is) without getting hungry. And getting hungry is an occupational hazard for anyone who reviews Life in France blogs as a hobby!
However, I’m not sure how much Gavin understands about the art of eating well as, in Eating Snails in France – the art of avoidance he seems to be rather wary of this cullinary delight?
He does make up for it, though, when it comes to talking about Choucroute Garnie – Alsace where he at least manages to try, to use his own words… “shredded cabbage, left to ferment by various lactic acid bacteria!”
Yum, yum is all I can say – that’ll put hairs on your dangly bits!
Perhaps a few more visits to E. Dehillerin – Paris’ Oldest Kitchen Shop will have Gavin serving up Pigs Trotters and Andouillette?
So, what’s Life in Paris really like?
Well, as we find out in Paris Neighbour Wars – doormat abuse it’s always the poor doormats that suffer, isn’t it? So, if you’re thinking of using your washing machine after 9pm, take some advice and buy your doormat a flak jacket (or parachute!)
In Notre Dame, cannibalism and opera we are advised to visit Paris in the autumn. I’m not sure if this has anything to do with the quality or flavour of the meat but, it does seem like good advice anyway!
And in the useful guide to The Paris Metro we get to learn that there are female flashers on the Paris underground – why don’t they put that sort of stuff in the guide books?
Suffering from a Man Cold (and women will never, never understand how bad that can be!), the author gets rushed to hospital (having previously lain half-naked in front of three Paris firemen – some people do have the strangest of hobbies, don’t they?) You can read all about that in French Hospitals, and City Rat Race Stress – personally, I try to avoid all that medical stuff but, as the author says… “If you’re going to fall victim to tetany, it seems France is the place to be!”
Summing up….
You should really start by looking at the first post, The ‘how’ and ‘why’ of moving to Paris and, from there, just branch out (always keeping a careful eye out for Dog Poo on the pavement and nude sunbathers in the Bois de Boulogne) wherever you wish.
Wherever you end up, you won’t be disappointed – Life in Paris is a very interesting blog.
And me? Well, I’m going to visit The Medieval Town of Provins and then go and have a roll about in the Paris Snow!
All the best
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 The French Kitchen
A delightful book in which Joanne shares with us ‘her family recipes, passed down through the generations. The French |
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Joanna Harris creates a rich and vibrant description of a rural French village with all its petty rivalries and traditional, narrow-minded boundaries on thought and behavior. |
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Five quarters of the orange’ is a story of a childhood tragedy in wartime France, and the shadows it casts across the later life of the heroine Framboise Dartigen. |
 Blackberry Wine
Everyday magic, he called it, the transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams – Layman’s alchemy. |
 The French Market
Following the success of The French Kitchen, Joanne Harris and Fran Warde have collaborated once more to write a French cookbook with a difference. This time they have taken their inspiration from the rural markets of Gascony. |
 Coastliners
Passionate, stubborn Mado, whose “head is full of rocks” tries to save the livelihoods of the villagers of Les Salants by urging them to work together to save the beach from erosion, both natural and man-made. |
 Five Quarters of the Orange
Three sublime audiobooks from the bestselling author, now available together in a specially priced pack. Includes BLACKBERRY WINE, FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE and the huge bestseller CHOCOLAT. With a gentle touch and an eye for human frailty and strength, these mouth-watering audiobooks will draw you into her enchanting worlds. |
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Failed rock legend, pickled onion manufacturer, air hostess and euro-entrepreneur George East takes us through another eventful year of his doomed attempts to make a living out of living in rural France. |
 French Flea Bites
The character of France and the French people has been captured in words beautifully and the hilarious exploits of George his wife Donella, their neighbours and Cato the cat. |
 French LettersThis is not so much a book as a continuation of the serial story of George and Donella as they carry on with their almost idyllic life in Normandy. It’s at least as funny as the others, but the hanky had to come out again several times. More information |
 French Cricket
Once upon a time, former night club bouncer, seamstress and professional bedtester George East and his wife Donella fled to Normandy to escape their creditors and try to live off their wits in a foreign land. |
 Home and Dry in France
Buying property in France is fraught with mishaps and misunderstandings. George East’s book brings humour and fun to what happens when people venture forth to a foreign land with more hope than money and humour than language skills. |
 French Kisses
Those poor people who don’t like George East’s books often dismiss them as fiction. Not so, everything is at least based on real people and real happenings. George admits to a degree of embellishment and often combines several mishaps to produce a spectacular disaster. Such is the nature of his works. |
 Rene and MeTold in the inimitable style which has alrea dy won the author an army of followers, Rene & Me is a somet imes hilarious, sometimes moving and always captivating cele bration of human nature, people and, above all, life and living. ‘ More information |
 A Year in the Merde
This very funny book sounds a lot more like the France that I know. Read it and you’ll still want to come here, you’ll just be a lot better prepared for the surprises that France has to offer. |
 Merde Happens
Paul West is in deep financial merde. His only way out of debt is to accept a decidedly dodgy job that involves him touring America in a Mini, while pretending to be typically British. Also in the car is Paul’s French girlfriend, Alexa, and his American poet friend, Jake, whose main aim in life is to sleep with a woman from every country in the world. |
 Merde Actually
A year after arriving in France, Englishman Paul West is still struggling with some fundamental questions: What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Why are there no health warnings on French nudist beaches? And is it really polite to sleep with your boss’ mistress? |
 Dial M for Merde
In this book, you’ll get Paul, Elodie, her dad and some new French girls. All of them are of course hot and all of them adore Paul. Didn’t see that one coming… |
 Talk to the Snail
The only book you’ll need to understand what the French really think, how to get on with them and, and most importantly, how to get the best out of them. With useful sections on: Making sure you get served in a café, Harassing French estate agents, Living with bacteria, Pronouncing French swear-words and much more! |
 1000 years of Annoying the French
Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? No! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? No! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. |
 The Olive FarmThis is television actress Carol Drinkwater’s lyrical account of a new life in France; about her house, Appassionata, and the trials and tribulations of acquiring an olive farm, restoring it, farming the olives, overcoming the heartaches of taking on a “new” French family and understanding slowly the workings and lifestyle of a vivacious Provencal community. More information |
 The Olive Season
This is an extraordinary and fascinating follow-up to The Olive Farm. The reader is drawn deeply and inexorably in to the world of the author, confronted with her personal struggles and entranced by her pastiche of growth and decay in the world of nature, a metaphor for her life. |
 The Olive Harvest
Carol and Michel have again returned to Appasionata, the Olive Farm that they have restored, and Carol is eager to continue production of the olives and attain their cerificate for producing Organic Oil. |
 The Olive Tree
THE OLIVE TREE charts Carol Drinkwater’s colourful and often dangerous journey in search of the routes that olive cultivation has taken over the centuries. Set during a springtime Mediterranean that is evocative and perennial, it is above all a tale of our time. |
 The Olive RouteA tour de force from Carol Drinkwater in this, the fourth in her Olive series. The joy of this book is in the pen pictures that she creates of the unusual characters that she encounters on her journey. More information |
 The Illustrated Olive Farm
The photgraphy is wonderful and the book is a great insight in to life with the olives and all that that involves. There are wonderful pictures of the dogs, family, friends, even the dreaded wild boar. Recipes as well. |
 Petite Anglaise
Petite Anglaise is a memoir by Catherine Sanderson based on her blog of the same name. In 2004 Catherine decided to start up a blog based on her life in Paris. |
 French Kissing
Name: Sally Marshall Status: single mother Age: 32 Nationality: ten years in France, yet still English through and through I like: Living in Paris, playing with my daughter Lila (four years old), the company of good friends, the smell of baking bread. |
 Tout SweetYou cannot help but fall in love with the author’s character. She seems like a Bridget Jones let loose in the French countryside, getting into a lot of funny situations with both ex-pat English and French locals like, as she adjusts to a totally different way of life. More information |
 Serge Bastarde Ate My Baguette
John Dummer’s sharply focused descriptions of the landscape, towns and villages, and the weather of the South West of France form a animated background for a series of adventures with an array of characters from some intimidating and belligerent peasants to a sad little old man whose only companionship is a collection of antique dolls. |
 Merde!
This book is an excellent source of words and expressions, of varying degrees of vulgarity, that are used all the time by french speakers. I used it often during the first of my two years in France. |
 Almost French
“Almost French” is the story of a woman who goes to France to visit a French lawyer she has only met a couple times before and barely knows. Of course, she gets caught up in the romance of the city and stays on to live there. |
A selection of Books About Paris that might interest you
- Paris for Free (or Extremely Cheap): Hundreds of Free and Inexpensive Things to Do in Paris (For Free Series)
- Top 10 Paris (DK Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guides)
- Paris Chic and Trendy
- A Brit's Guide to Disneyland Resort Paris
- Paris Must Sees Guide (Michelin Must Sees)
- A Great Weekend in Paris
- Rick Steves' Paris 2008 (Rick Steves Series)
- Paris (In English) 2010 Annual Guide (Michelin Guide)
- Paris (Cadogan Guides)
- Essential Paris (Aa Essential Guides)
Paris | Keith Eckstein May 29, 2010