Badaude

Sarkobsession

I caught a glimpse of him in the street, the week before the first round of the elections last April. I'd like to say our eyes met, but there were too many bodyguards.

I'm talking about the now-president of the Republique, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Last night, rather disturbingly, I dreamt about him:

I have no idea what this means, but I certainly find him strangely compelling. His fascinating hyperactivity; the passion with which he defends his ideas; the way he looks up from under his dark eyelashes like Princess Diana did (maybe he does this because of his height variously estimated at aroud 165cm).

And he has the personal appeal of an actor. Have you noticed how extreme his facial expressions are when he's photographed? When he looks stern, he could be playing Macbeth at the Comédie-Française ; when he laughs, he could be presenting children's television. When he looked at Cécilia, well...

He also has a good head of right-wing hair. I've always had a bit of a thing for it's iron-clad inaccessability.

In early May this year my friend Isabelle wisely predicted a wave of strikes in the Summer if Sarkozy gained the presidency. I waited for them all the vacances. It was like a phoney war, but the serious action didn't arrive until October.

Now they've been around for a month and, after the wobbly end of the transport strike last week, politically I'm in a no-mans land.

Supporting strikers in France is part social grace. Unlike the UK where grumbling is a competitive sport, in Paris it would have been rude to complain when the trains didn't run. As commuters congratulated strikers in the street, it made for an almost festive atmosphere. And in the metro, people waited in eerily polite silence for the reduced service.

I used to be left-wing or rather, I still want to be. I just don't quite know what 'left-wing' is any more. The continuing currency of traditional left-wing ideas is one of the things I like about France. Trouble is, I find I can't object to the things even Sarkozy has so far only tentatively paid lip service to. Things which British socialism has been letting under the radar for such a long time that they seem part of the package: privately run national services; removal of subventions; easing of employment laws...

Maybe in the UK, we've reached something a little like post-feminism - a state of mind which allows for enjoying the possibly conflicting delights of emancipation, lipstick and high heels.

I guess you could maybe call me a 'post-socialist'.

The other trouble is that Sarko seems to believe in a lot of other less acceptable things too. The question I find so confusing is, is he right but repulsive, or wrong but wromantic?

Polls will be taken. Your votes here, please...

TAGS: SARKOZY, DREAMS, GREVE, HAIR, HEIGHT, NEW LABOUR, TORY, 1066 AND ALL THAT.

The Shoe Queen of Le Bon Marché

There is nothing like le Bon Marché if you are rich and beautiful But if you are not rich or beautiful, it doesn't matter. The store is a sort of artificial world with its own rules. Life here is divided into different departments. Sometimes you find yourself in the wrong one but, like Tiffany’s you feel that nothing bad can ever happen here.

Le Bon Marché is always the same and always different, like those postcards of the Eiffel Tower shown a hundred ways. In the sun, in fog, in sunsets, in snow. Its shelves may look different in Spring or Autumn, at Christmas or Easter, but the experience it delivers is always the same.

There are no postcards of the Eiffel Tower in the rain, but it does frequently rain in Paris. And when it rains, you can shelter in Bon Marché, running between the two ground-floor sections with one of their large orange paper bags suspended over your head (it's too short a dash to open an umbrella).

Inside, it's perpetual summer. Customers complain of being too hot and are forced to take off their coats beneath the stencils of artificial flowers which bloom across the walls in midwinter. The orange paper carrier bags are not made for real weather, either. I've found that, once wet, they leak dye onto your hair, your coat, and leave orange stains on pale carpet and floorboards...

It's Saturday afternoon and I've been randomly trying on shoes.

I don't need shoes and I don't have the money to buy them so I don't have to choose practically. I have a hypothetical desire for hypothetical shoes to be worn in a hypothetical situation.

The salesgirl is one of the tiniest and youngest I have ever seen. Even in Paris. She averts her eyes as she slips the perfect shoes onto my feet.

Suddenly they are not perfect. The fine strap that reaches around the back of my heel sticks halfway up the back of that nameless bump of tendon, not high enough up to keep the shoe on.

We unstrap and restrap the shoe. No good. We try another near-identical pair. No good either. I go up a size, down half a size. It's not the size that's wrong.

So I do what any Anglo would do in this situation. I made a self-deprecating joke.

Peut-etre mes pieds sont à faute?

The girl looks at me seriously, sadly, somewhat shocked at this suggestion.

Non, madame, ce n'est pas vos pieds!

She pauses pour reflechir.

Cependant, Madame, ils ne sont a vous.

They're not for me? Don't I have the say in this transaction. Since when did the object decide whether or not it suits the buyer? I suddenly have a vertiginous sensation that the shoes might be the customer, and I might be the purchase.

Maybe they wouldn’t suit me anyway. Perhaps I’m not designed for these shoes, or they're not designed for me. Even when buying with a hypothetical credit card I’ve learnt that in Paris, no matter how much money you have, some things are just not for you.

TAGS: REPETTOS, LOW BOOTS, BON MARCHE, SHOPPING, PARIS, EIFFEL TOWER, SHOES, SATURDAY

How I finally became a moto girl...

I'm in the studio of artist Matthew Rose in the 14e.  From his window, I can see directly down on top of the roofs of rue Daguerre, the zinc ones picked out from the tiled by the reflecting winter sun, like something smashed; glass on terracotta.

Inside's an equally confusing of vintage comics, 1950s women's magazines, ads, pot of paint, varnish, glue covering every surface. Matthew works in collage.

What do I want to drink? Coffee. Why did I say that? I've had far too much coffee sitting around in cafes this morning already. Coffee's safe. But what do I think? That he's going to offer me absinthe? Yellow kitchen; Zinc coffee pot; square of blue window. Caffine makes everything fragment a little more.

He wants me to do a card for his series cartes de rencontre. I'm flattered. This is the first time I've rencontred him. One of those lucky meetings you sometimes have on the internet. He's not unfamiliar, though. He seems to be a twin of Ted Dewan who I know back in Oxford.

He pulls out some of his already produced cards which he leaves in Velib baskets. The card is perforated half-way accross. On the front are twin images and on the back, message boxes you can tick. You can tear them in half, fill in your details and hand the fragment to the Velib rider of your dreams. The text on the back reads:

On s'est rencontre

Ou.........................

Date.......................

J'aimerais bien:

Vous voir..................

vous inviter a diner.......

faire du velo avec vous....

mon numero.................

mon adresse ...............

Matthew hopes to revive the lost art of calling cards - So if someone asks, you can just pull on out and say, this is who I am - especially amongst Parisian youth. I have Rouge et Noir images of duels and other 19th century social niceties.

Matthew asks me about what else I'm working on.

What are you writing about? Falling in love in Paris? That's boring. Falling in love takes about 10 minutes. Why not write about falling out of love? That's far more interesting...

We talk about recipes for paint glazes for while, then I have to leave to see Susie of Ivy Paris

So now for the moto bit. Matthew offers me a ride up the boulevard Raspail. I could just take the metro but that would be chicken, wouldn't it? I've never actually been one of those cool girls who ride around on the back of motos, or who drives one herself. Who knows when I'll have the chance again? The image appeals to me but I've reached the age where thrills are balanced by terror.

So we wind round and down the art deco staircase, alternating light and shadow and go outside and I stand by Matthews pretending to look cool and like I know what to do.

Oh good he has a spare helmet. But it's one of those French ones without a visor that are now illegal in the UK. There's something complicated about the chinstrap. Actually there isn't. It's only when it's completely undone that I realise I was attacking it from the wrong end. Once on, it makes my head heavy. Inside it smells of warm hair. Whose?

Then Matthew climbs up in front and I swing, or try to (I find you can't do this elegantly because of the carrier on the back) my leg over the seat behind.

Wait a minute. I have a moto etiquette question. Only I don't dare voice it: How exactly do you hold onto someone you've only just met for the first time?

Before I can address this properly, we're moving through the air libre, round the bright blur of the Denfert-Rocherau interchange, swaying over frighteningly to stop at traffic lights. Am I meant to be helping with the balance here? Or am I the completely passive partner?

I'm glad it's Sunday. I'm glad there's not too much traffic.

By the time we get up to Sevres Babylon, I realise I have the answer. The truth is, you can grab onto the person in front on the moto with your arms or legs. It really doesn't matter. In a situation like this, there's no need for calling cards or formal introductions. In any case, they're probably wearing some kind of motorcycle garment so thick they can't feel your thighs clasped tightly aroud their back...

No-vember?

November is a kind of no-month in Paris.

It's always been a bit of a no-month for me ever since I got a virus during the last year of school and November dissappeared down a hole. I'm not really sure what I did that month but apparently it included an Oxford entrance exam.

It's just turned November and the first Christmas tree has gone up in the window of Maison de Famille, a shop which sells a bonne mere idyll to the inhabitants of the wedding-cake batiments in 6e. I feel a little sorry for the tree which will have to spend the next two months waiting patiently, getting knocked and dusty.

Like an egg-timer has gone off, although the weather is warmer than last week, Parisiens/ennes have gone into full big-coat mode. I think it's to do with wealth, not warmth. I think it's conspicuous coat display.

I don't know what season it is in the Jardin du Luxembourg. The same signal which made the Saint-Germainians put on their coats has made the trees strip. In a week, they've gone from full foliage to naked.

Last weeked there were two women practicing a martial-arts type thing with fans in the hot autumn sunshine; a Bel Ami-era guardsman with a feathered kepi and a flirtatious glance and, in full Autumn, a Summer fashion shoot...

SEARCH TERMS: MODEL, FASHION SHOOT, PARIS, JARDIN DU LUXEMBOURG, COCO CHANEL, KARL MARX, AUTUMN, FALL, BEL AMI