Warning: this blog entry contains extreme sexual swear words, excessive violent imagery, and references to cake. All thoughts and ideas expressed are solely the opinion of the author.

Once upon a time there was a man who had a dream. His name was Walt Disney, and his dream was to make as much fucking money as possible. He in turn founded a company with the same ethos - to grab as much money as possible from its dumb patrons without giving a shit about them, their welfare or their opinions.

My visit to Disneyland in Paris started rather inauspiciously with a huge entrance fee.

That'll be sixty two Euros please. Oh, and fuck you. Next!

Chris and I had travelled from central Paris as we're both roller coaster freaks, and thought this would be a fun way to spend the day. However, the food made us choke. It consisted of a grilled veggie sandwich, crisps and coke. Oh, and a carrot cake which was nice.

twenty Euros please. Fuck you. Next!

We queued for Space Mountain; a well known ride that leaves you in the dark as you spin around on a roller coaster inside a large dome. However, it was the Disneyland staff that left us in the dark. We had already waited an hour in the unfeasibly long and sweaty queue when the fucking thing broke down. We waited another hour in a packed corridor without air conditioning in 30 degree plus weather without any announcements. There were lots of kids there who just put up with it. Most of the adults left. Chris and I decided to stick it out. Eventually a rather taciturn announcer mumbled something in French and the queue started moving again. Two hours and a rather short two minutes (for the ride) later and we were done. No explanation, no apology.

Thank you and fuck you. Next!

We went to see a lame 3d film called "Honey I Shrunk the Audience" which they had dragged poor old Rick Moranis out of dotage for. It really was appallingly bad - the 3d effects looked as realistic as Michael Jackson's face.

We were herded unceremoniously out of the cinema as soon as the credits rolled.

Thank you and fuck you. Next!

Starting to feel like a piece of gristle in a meat processing machine, I tried to find something I knew I would enjoy; the Indiana Jones adventure ride - probably the biggest roller coaster in the park. But Disney had other ideas. It was closed; blocked off from public access with no warnings whatsoever.

Thank you and fuck you. Next!

By now we had been in the park for over four hours and had been on one ride and seen a shitty five minute 3d film. I've had more fun banging nine inch nails into my scrotum. Infuriated, we decided to go on the Star Wars ride. It was advertised as an hour wait, but it was Star Wars - it had to be good, right? Well, it was ok as a matter of fact, but certainly didn't justify the hour and a half wait that we actually had to endure.

Raging, we went to the other park (yes - Disneyland in Paris is split into two parks - they charge you for two in order to wring you as dry as possible).

Here we went on the Hollywood Tower ride. I must admit, it was a great ride (I had been on it in Florida and knew it was good) but as soon as it was over, the park was closing.

So let’s sum that up. Three rides, a short film and some shit food all for a grand total of eighty two Euros. I've been mugged before, but it cost me less, was definitely less painful, and at least that time I managed to get in a few return punches.

At Disney though, I came away tired, bruised and feeling as though I'd just been anally raped by Minnie Mouse with a strap on.

There was once a rumour that Walt Disney's body had been frozen after his death so that he could be revived by future technology. At this point, I just wanted to thaw him out so I could give the cunt the biggest fucking slap of his life, then put him on ice again.

A company like Disney is not some amorphous entity without a brain or blame. It is a collaboration between individuals, each with their own roles and responsibilities, passions and endeavours. However, that means that somewhere in Disney, there is an Executive who is wholly responsible for the appalling time I had there. They probably don't care that I had a bad time, which is why I had a bad time in the first place. And they'll probably go on raking in their high salary until they retire without really giving a shit about what they do. They are absconding from their responsibility and therefore letting the whole company down. That's because ironically it's not Job Centres, but large corporations that are the biggest hideout for the criminally workshy ever invented.

Someone in Disney is getting an easy ride. And that's more than can be said for their fucking customers.

I was in a rush. I had to get four things done in two hours.

Firstly I had to go into town and get the medicine for my inoculations from the Pharmacy.

Step two: go to the clinic and allow the nurse to puncture my arms full of dirty, filthy medicine.

Thirdly, get back to Chris's to meet his mum and dad as they were driving us to the station.

Finally, get down to the local train station and catch the train to Paris.

It had to go wrong – there were too many external dependencies. The pharmacy could decide to shut randomly for the day so the shopkeeper could sit at home drinking cheap wine and smoking Gauloises, as is her right under the rules of the republic. The nurse’s head could explode after learning she was going to see part of me naked. A meteor could hit the train, although being a French meteor, it would probably go on strike preventing all other meteors from landing that week whilst setting up a picket line in the upper atmosphere.

However, two hours later, we were standing at the train station having successfully completed our previous goals.

It was while taking the above photo that Chris noticed a bus pull away from the front of the station.

No train arrived.

It seems there was a bus service transferring everyone to the next major station and the next bus was in five hours. We were in Cercy La Tour, a one horse town in which the horse had died of boredom long ago.

We camped in a small Pizzeria where we were the only customers. We spent the time eating, drinking and idly chatting. I must admit we quite enjoyed this forced respite, even though I really wanted to get to Paris as I was meeting friends from Jersey there. However, all those plans were scuppered when we eventually got the train and it was late by over an hour. It was 11:00pm when we checked into the hotel. 

We were tired and pissed off, so decided to write off the evening and hope for a better day tomorrow.

Both Chris and I had been to Paris before, so the next day we decided to go to a place neither of us had previously visited: The Paris Catacombs.

By the time we got to the entrance, the queue was growing rapidly and it was touch and go whether we would get in, but we just scraped into the last party.

We trudged down a long spiral staircase, it becoming cold and damp as we descended, the air cloying and musty.

We had to make our way through five hundred metres of small passageways hewn into the rock centuries ago by quarry workers before we happened upon the bones of the Parisians who had been “re-homed” after Paris's graveyards had become overflowing with decay and disease.

There were lots of bones here; arm bones, leg bones, ribs, skulls - all arranged in patterns and aligned carefully, almost like some macabre art installation.

I waited for my imagination to kick in, to feel empathy with these broken relics of people's lives, but nothing came. Chris took a picture of me with a flash, and one of the other tourists immediately started shouting "No flash photography." I was about to say, "It's not going to do them any harm now love," but Chris was angry with her as all the French tourists were happily snapping away. He told her where to go in no uncertain terms and she slithered away into the darkness. 

I could understand if it was out of respect for the dead, but if that were the case, strangers shouldn't be paying to come down here and gloat. I hate busy bodies!

My ID photo for the Annual Serial Killer Convention.

So now we were penetrating deeper into the catacombs: bones!

Around a corner: more bones!

Down a narrow passageway: even more fucking bones!

And then it happened. I saw the cobbled streets, the old Market stalls, could smell the freshly butchered meat hanging from hooks, heard the low rambling shouts and whispers of everyday life echoing down the streets. For a fraction of a second, these bones that were once part of something real and animate and strong once more took on the vestiges of life and paraded before me in my mind.

Sadly, it was gone as quickly as it had arrived and all that was left was the gaudy parade of bones shaped into boats and barrels, and the long disappointing trudge back to daylight and reality above.

The walk back to the hotel was much more enjoyable – from Le Jardin de Luxembourg up through St Michel and on to Montmartre, there were many beautiful buildings, boulevards and parks. Paris simply cannot be beaten for its architectural symmetry and visual artistry. Here was my favourite example of this.

That evening we went for a few drinks near the notorious Pigalle area of Paris.

The pub Chris and I chose to start in was an innocuous sports bar. 

Unfortunately, they were charging eight pounds a pint. We had four before we discovered this, but they mixed up our bill and only charged us for one beer. Normally I would have pointed out their mistake, but on this occasion, in Stevenage parlance, "we done a runner."

Gloating at our good fortune we headed off to a cocktail bar and had a couple there before heading into central Paris to meet my friends from Jersey, Debbie, Natalia and John.

We had a very pleasant evening sitting on the Boulevard chatting, but all too soon the bar was closing and none of us wanted the evening to end. We headed off back to Pigalle and O'Sullivan's Bar, which we had heard was open late. It was fun, but expensive, and when it was near closing time, it was suggested that we visit the club next door.

Being all fairly lubricated by this point, we headed straight into the heart of the club, finding our way upstairs to a separate dance floor from the main one. It was then that we noticed that most of the women here were prostitutes.

Going downstairs, we noticed a parade of rent boys standing along the walls of a bar.

Along with numerous freaks floating round the place like ghosts, you would have thought that I would have found it all rather amusing. 

However, I thought it was the sleaziest, most depressing club I have ever visited - and I'm from Stevenage for fuck's sake!

All this didn't stop me from having one final late night drink at the bar though...

Next day. Bad head. Sore. Groggy. Zombie. Wuuuuurrgh!

A long slow day in which we all met again in town to parade our battered bonces. We headed off to the Pompidoux Centre and wandered through the exhibits - although the highlight turned out to be a great little band busking outside. Then it was off to the Lizard Lounge, a very cool little bar in the heart of town, but not even a naked parade of lesbian vampires could drag us from our tired stupor, so we had an early night.

The Lizard Lounge – seek it out.

The next day, Chris and I went to Disneyland Paris, but I'm going to leave that experience to another blog post, since it will contain lots and lots of outrage and cursing.

Nevers was our destination; a fairly large town of Roman origin with its medieval buildings still predominant in the centre of town.
It was a Friday night and me and Chris were in a party mood. Nothing was going to stop us from finding the most banging spot in town and practicing our "French" on the locals.
We parked up and tried to find a square that Chris had been to a couple of years before that he assured me was the party centre of town, but all we found was a couple of restaurants with sparsely filled tables and a low hum of conversation. We moved on.

We wandered down streets cracked and cobbled, where ancient denizens would once have hobbled, our legs tiring quickly on the ill-wrought stone.

Then we happened upon this strangely familiar place, but although it seemed reasonably popular and there was a small conversational buzz, I was sure we could find a more exuberant place to enjoy ourselves.

The Cathedral was pretty, but we ploughed on to the south side of town, finding a bar with two people in it. One of the customers looked dead, but that was fine, because he seemed to be attracting more guests in the guise of flies, which created a literal buzz in the bar.

Onwards we pushed, and luckily found this place. It looked extremely popular and the conversation was deafening.

Funny how tired legs can change your perspective on things! The rest of the town was as quiet as a shrine to Shakin' Stevens. You see, the French do not drink the same way the British do. They are, frankly, very civilised about it. They will drink some wine with food or have a beer or two whilst watching the world go by; but outside of the big cities, there is no mad rush down the pub on a Friday night to embrace imbibed obliteration. They don't know what they're missing...
However, as far as night life in Nevers goes, it was more like “night night” life.

Next day, we went for a long walk through the beautiful French countryside. It was redolent of the rolling hills of Hertfordshire, but very sleepy - the way I remember Sundays cycling through the leafy lanes as a boy. The somnambulance of the French countryside speckles every rustling leaf, glistens on every twitching blade of grass, envelopes every fluttering insect. The still calm and the brilliance of the sun's light begins to sink in to every part of your body until you are calm, measured, satisfied.
It's pretty special.

 

We found a canal and walked alongside it, finally settling by the leaf dappled edge, breathing in the sun.

Suddenly, a shearing, grating sound shattered the torpor I had relaxed into. A huge boat was attempting to force its way through the tiny bridge on the canal. An even more annoying grating noise pierced the air - the owners of the boat were an American couple shouting directions back and forth at each other. It seemed that here there were two captains and no sailors. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a soft spot for Yanks having travelled there extensively, but these two idiots were really not doing their brethren any favours by living up to the American Abroad Stereotype.
Oh how we condescendingly chuckled!

On Sunday we went off to Lake Setton for a boat ride extraordinaire! The lake was beautiful, but after sitting for 20 uncomfortable minutes on the boat while the captain stared at the dead engine whilst shrugging Gallicly, we realised that it would be faster to wait for mermaids to ride us across to the other side. So we walked. It was worth it.

Finally on Monday we went to Le Pal, a small local Theme Park. It wasn't Alton Towers, but it was fun. Nobody died on the rides - though that would at least have made the rides a little more exciting!

 

 

It was all a bit strange. I was setting out on a world tour, starting in Europe; bags packed, everything in order. But somehow it didn't feel right. A strange psychological flux afflicted me - I knew how fortunate I was to be doing this even though I'd just been through the worst 6 months of my life. The little train stations of Norfolk were chiding me, and Gunton seemed to be quite explicit about it.

The strange feeling didn't last too long however - I soon settled into my standard long distance travel mode; one of a remedial zombie with amnesia.
To London on the train - back up to Luton and a cattle flight to Paris. I was travelling into the heart of rural France and it was destined to be a long and boring journey. And it was, apart from a mad yomp across Paris that would have made Andy McNab proud. Carrying a huge backpack in plus 30 degree weather, I had to race to Paris Bercy from Gare de Lyons to make my connection. I was sweating like a serial killer, but I just made it and at my arrival at Nevers station, I smelled ripe like a true Frenchman.
My friend Chris, who will be accompanying me on the European leg of the tour, was waiting for me with his trusty Peugeot 106 to drive me to his farmhouse somewhere in the Burgundy region. Here we will stay for a few days to plan our further misadventures!
A brief visit to one of the local shops showed that although most of the locals are friendly, a few despise foreigners. One shop assistant smiled at me when I brought some food to the counter, but upon hearing my broken French and atrocious accent, her countenance distorted to that of someone who had fallen face first into a slop bucket and had come up chewing a turd.
It didn't prevent me from enjoying the rest of the day though, sitting out under the tree in Chris's garden throwing back a few cold ones.