New Generation Travel Guide

Although the mayor and even the federal government have tried to convince Parisians to flash our best set of teeth to you outsiders with big bold posters and, ugh!, official badges that say that you are invited to talk to us in whatever ugly dialect you cling to, but there is no way we are going to do that. Ever. We will not smile (well, maybe to your lover. That’s right, the one next to you, we want that one.) We will not wear the badge. We will not make that effort. Parlez-vous français? You bet we do! A duchess once said that she did not understood why the English have to say ‘Bread’ when it’s so simple to say ‘pain,’ and that applies to just about everything here.

Not that we think all the time of keeping our little secrets to ourselves, we don’t wear wall-colored suits to walk about or have secret handshakes to identify the true “Parisians”, but it’s just that this is our life and we have not constantly thought of communicating it to others, that’s all really. Honest. That and the language problem. That and our ‘cultural exception.’ That and all you guys standing in front of the Mona Lisa (we call it La Joconde, ok?) like you organize turns to keep us from looking at it. That and your pink bermudas, your loud t-shirts, your big buses and your barbarian manners! Oh, well, I think it’s in our blood.

But I will take it unto myself, inhale all the air that I can take, and try to relax a minute and magnanimously give out a few hints. You look so pitiful sometimes. Like, for instance, when you want to cross a street: just do it, will you! Don’t wait there for some green light to tell you that you can go as if all the powers of hell would fall on you for transgressing the laws of the city. Just wait for the traffic to slow down and go for it, you’ll feel such a sudden relief and you will have made your first step in la Vie Parisienne. Harder still, but you are willing to learn, is to try to shortcut a waiting queue. My advice is not to try to go right in front of everybody, how rude, but just to shoulder yourself into the first half of the crowd. If things get to worse you can still pretend that you don’t speak French: voila!

Now that you feel good about moving in the City you can enjoy the delights that were sealed to you before. You will also find that there is a lot that you can do at night, while the others pack, lemming-style, into Le Lido to eat bad meat and see fake skin, you could revel in your own private view of Paris by Night by going up the deserted Sacre Coeur. The city lights will be cut off up there after 10PM, there is no fear to have, the muggers have all gone to Le Lido too; after you climb the big staircase you will embrace Paris whole and I’m sure that that significant other will get into a romantic mood and you will indulge in the scenery. While we are speaking of great heights, it’s good to know that the Eiffel Tower is open until 1AM: no wait then and if it’s my birthday we could be celebrating together.

You have moved, you have walked long stairs, you might want to eat. But there are so many booby traps on that one, ready to explode in your stomach or your wallet, that I don’t know where to begin. And there are all those other Parisians looking over my shoulder right now that I feel that I might already have tested the limits of what I am allowed to tell. They are closing on me right now and I must return to my favorite spreadsheet. Maybe next time. You Are Not Welcome, you hear?

Although the mayor and even the federal government have tried to convince Parisians to flash our best set of teeth to you outsiders with big bold posters and,

Eurostar has not been running for 3 days and has been roundly criticised for not informing passengers what’s going on. In that climate you would have thought that other train operators would have been especially attentive to customer service in the event of delays. Oh no, not even close.

Sarkozy even called in Guillaume Pepy, boss of SNCF, to ask for an explanation of the Eurostar mess. Perhaps Sarko could also ask how SNCF can provide such shockingly bad service on its own trains too.

Yesterday I took SNCF TGV 9834, scheduled to depart Bruxelles at 15h20, final destination Marseille St Charles, via Lille Europe and Charles de Gaulle Airport.

The screens at Gare du Midi showed no delay, TGV due to depart on schedule. Passengers board. More and more board, including, as it turns out, passengers also bound for Perpignan whose train had been cancelled. And then… nothing. The train did not move, no announcements were made, until a small word on the tannoy told us the doors were closing – a full 40 minutes late.

5 minutes into the journey a further announcement told us that bags must not block the doors, but not a word was said about the delay and no apology was made. A stressed elderly lady sat beside me in the train bemoaned the fact that she would already have missed her onward bound connection.

We arrived at Lille Europe 40 minutes late, still no explanations, and some passengers disembark. An announcement tells us the train is supposed to be attached to another train, but there’s no explanation of when we will leave.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands and went to ask the train staff gossiping and smoking on the platform (pictured). I’m told the second train will arrive in 5 minutes. I ask why passengers in the train have not been informed and the response is a shrug of the shoulders of the SNCF employee I spoke to.

The first announcement to passengers in the train that there was a delay was made at 17h07, precisely 61 minutes after the train was due to have left Lille Europe, and 1 hour and 47 minutes after the train was due to leave Bruxelles Midi.