So today I find myself in a small rock and roll bar in a back street of Paris. I am alone again. I spent the last week or so in England travelling from London to Stockton and then onwards to Scunthorpe and then finally up to Edinburgh. From the closeness of the tour bus I find myself isolated in one of the busiest cities of the world. I seem to be an expert at seeking out solitude in the busiest of hubs. Paris is undoubtedly a little more forgiving than London, this is probably due to its hidden streets of dive bars with their unisex toilets and their darkly lit lounges. I can see why many famous writers and artists made Paris their home for the twilight of their existence.
Through the dirty window I can see an open air coin operated launderette.
There are groups of people sitting around waiting for their past lives to be washed out of their clothes ready to take on the stains of another week's work. There is an old lady shaking a rug out of her first floor window directly onto the blissfully ignorant inhabitants of the laundry who are mesmerised by the spinning and tumbling of their smalls.
Diagonally across the room sit two beautiful French girls engrossed in a heart to heart. The one with her back to me appears to be heaping advice onto the frail beauty facing me. She is clutching a full pint of beer whilst still managing to appear so French and ladylike as only the French ladies can.
Meanwhile Bill Hailey and the Comets thrash out another of their tunes, pulling the ghosts of this bar from the walls and for a split second taking me back to a post-war Paris of the fifties. This time however the two girls are being thrown around the room by the two twenty something French gentlemen engrossed in a lively conversation on the table to my right. I am guessing that Paris hasn't changed so much.
