Last thoughts in Paris

End of a busy week. And which might - just might - be my last week as an actual down-to-earth, hands-dirty, sod-busting contract creative resource.

The trouble is...

... I like this stuff too much. 10pm in a messy graphics studio surrounded by Macs and boards, long hours thinking up concepts in a daze followed by odd hours of frantic typing. Ideas and sketches translated into pin-sharp graphics and images that scar consumers' souls. The ersatz solitude of business hotels, the emptiness of hotel bars, the crackle of being someone else for a few days and nobody knowing who. Padding softly around the plushly carpeted hallways of the Silver City. This sort of thing used to be my whole life, and despite the other reasons I have for joy right now, I realised this week that I miss it.

When I said goodbye yesterday to the old pal who brought me over to work on this pitch, I mentioned it could be my last week like this. I could tell from his eyes: he didn't believe me.

Switching gears: a little hotel in town

I was determined. I knew I wouldn't finish up until late Saturday out in Boulogne-Billancourt, but before leaving (I've already delayed my flight once) I HAD to see 'my' Paris, the Marais and the Latin Quarter and the streets between Bastille and Republique. So I booked my last night into a distinctly non-Radisson place: a funky little hotel on rue Oberkampf, six floors tall and three tiny rooms per floor, serviced by a lift the size of a shoebox. Every surface is painted red or yellow and the bathroom furniture follows the same theme. Crazy but it works.

I reach this little hotel sometime after midnight. And, somehow not fatigued after a week plus of 14-hour days, I go out. I have to.

I head south, veering to walk across Republique and Bastille, then veering southwest towards the Quartier. Cross the Seine, into the streets I first visited when I lived in this city long ago. And I see...

... a modest greek lunch counter. It was the first place I ate in, years back. (I moved to Paris on a New Year's Eve and ended up befriending the owners.) The shop is different - the whole street seems slightly more upmarket - but...

... the people are the same. And by an amazing fluke, the two guys there remember me. Egyptians have good memories.

I enjoy a pita bread or two. And then a beer or two out on the edge of the Quartier, before standing at my favourite spot on the Ile de la Cite and walking north along rue du Temple, my old home (it's got gayer) and rue Faubourg du Temple.

It's 4am. I've been walking for hours, drunk on being in this beautiful city again. But it's all been worth it.

Paris means... going to work on a Saturday in wet underwear

Still in Paris! The project's going well if involving a few too many late nights, and after skipping the flight yesterday I'm also missing an MBA rock climbing session back at Warwick which, er, I organised (thanks for taking over K.) It's odd just how disorganised the best-organised week can become.

Take this week. There are three things I never travel without: my pegless clothesline, my sheet sleeping bag, and a Silva compass. (When your sense of direction is as bad as mine you need to know which way you're facing.) I used to include my 12" survival knife in this list, but airlines tend to object to those these days, so I take a Leatherman instead. From North American bus stations to nights in the Egyptian desert, I've never been without some means of sleeping or the option of clean clothes.

However, you don't expect to need such things when you're booked into a decent hotel all week, and having a proper bed for a change meant I neglected my backpacking basics. So... at midnight I had nowhere to hang hastily-handwashed laundry and ended up wearing wet stuff this morning. Urgh.

However, I have one final task when this day's done (probably late again): I've booked a cheap sleep tonight in Paris itself, forcing me to visit Paris proper at least once before my flight leaves tomorrow. I WILL get to see the Ile de la Cite this trip.... the pointy bit at one end where you can look out over the Seine, lights of the city all around you. About one metre square, it's one of my favourite places in the world. But it's been one hell of an effort.

Raw like the pain of cash for sushi

Wow. It's been a while since I paid £45 for dinner for myself. (I am a student, after all.)

The trouble is, when you're working 12+ hr days in a suburb of Paris, there just aren't many places to eat late evening, especially the night before a public holiday. (I've had too much room service recently at the Radisson, corridor pictured: it's smart and funky, but endless club sandwiches aren't my thing.) Which is why I ended up in a Japanese place tonight. And it was very nice. But that's not the point here.

I walked past perhaps 20 restaurants on the way back to the hotel, including the hotel itself. But let's face it, being the only customer in a COMPLETELY EMPTY restaurant is depressing. The staff resent you, the food's served grudgingly, and everyone's watching you just wanting you to be out of there so they can go home.

It's not as if I didn't try. I looked in a restaurant called 'La Marmite'. (What's on the menu? Just toast?) Several pizzerias. Three brasseries. All of them forbiddingly vacant. Most others were shut completely.

Since I spend about seven hours a day thinking about food, this was a nightmare.

Finally I happened across a Japanese place, all beechwood and shoji, looking inviting at 9.30pm, with a whole two tables occupied. Went in - and yes, it was great. Sat at the bar all Tokyo like. Had grilled yellowfin and rice, then some yakitori, and a fair amount of Asahi. Bill: E55.50.

That's a lot when your client's only paying hotel and breakfast. On my reduced day rate (you take whatever's on offer when you're a student) it's not far off 10% of my daily fee. (However unlikely it may sound, I AM that good.) I was hungry. And hunger counts for a lot.

But I'm strangely content, since the counter and paper menu and the little red pepper pots reminded me of that country I loved so much. A bar below streets in Ginza, where you could hear drunken footsteps above your head. A teahouse in Kyoto, where the guests sat admiring koi carp late into the night. A basement in Roppongi, where the proprietor served up hour-young tuna in a way I've never forgotten.

Alone at the bar of a japanese restaurant in a suburb of Paris, three languages in the air, grilled yellowfin on the table. This is where I really belong. Surfing the foamy tubulars of utter cultural confusion.

Back in the City of Lights

Paris!

Despite having worked on the Champs Elysees for two years, this is the first place I've worked from which I can see the Eiffel Tower from my place of residence.

(Look hard. Centre of the pic.)

This isn't even 'Paris' to a true Parisien - too far outside the central arrondisements. But it's nonetheless good to be back in a) non-academic work and b) in the city of lights, and I can find glamour in the least elegant of travel experiences. No business class here - BHX-CDG last night was on a noisy little prop plane (I've JUMPED out of bigger planes than that) and after I hit Paris Nord I had a long, long Metro ride into the suburbs where my client's located. Can't complain though, because...

...I miss this stuff.

Skydiving: the perfect weekend

Hope, mud, and sunburn. The three essentials of every truly perfect British weekend, and I experienced them on this one.

Up at Langar with Warwick University's staggeringly efficient Skydiving Club, and it's been great. I was running on empty after the Strategy & Practice module, but somehow 7 days of 3hrs sleep a night was do-able. A couple of jumps to build my RAPS static line experience, late in the day after winds on Sat, and a legendary set of twists in my canopy - TWICE. Once due to my over-nonchalance at exit ("Hey, all this training can't make THAT much of a difference; I think I'll just gently push off the aircraft this time - oops) and once due to the slipstream itself ("Great exit! The plane really pissed up the bag though.")

As befits a roomful of people doing rather extreme things all weekend, the party later is suitably magnificent: lasers and a sound system that wouldn't disgrace a London club, while the room fills with costumes: men in pants, even the Klan and Nazis put in an appearance. ('Inappropriate' is the theme.) Even I dance. And it takes a lot for me to dance. I head back to the tent about 4am, and plenty of people are still dancing. (Apparently until 6.15am. The beauty of a remote location is that the dancefloor and bar only close when there are no remaining customers.)

I love skydiving. And I love skydiving culture, too. On the edge.

WBS scavengers

Long after nightfall, in the darkened halls of the Business School, the denizens of the MBA programme go hunting.

At intervals impossible to predict, they emerge from their dens, often in packs. Hollow-cheeked and glassy of eye, they seek only one thing: sustenance to carry them through the night's project work.

This is their habitat. They know its every nook and cranny; they have made it their home. They work and play and sleep here. And at this hour, they know where food is to be found.

There's always a company event or presentation evening going on in one of WBS's lounges, and where these people gather, there is prey. The prey: leftover buffet. Sandwiches, cakes, and if you're lucky some of those yakitori things or the chicken pieces with pepper.

It may be in the upstairs lounge, where the central terrace glows eerily in the spring moonlight. Or the hall opposite, where the strange coven known as the Alumni meet for their lunar rituals. Sometimes the MBA wing itself, although in this area the hunters are many and the land overgrazed; but venturing further afield, to the smaller rooms of the 3rd or even 4th floors, can yield rich pickings for the alert hunter.

The prey has been found: a consulting company presenting in a meeting hall. Swiftly and silently, the MBAs take their prey without a struggle, and slink back into the syndicate rooms from whence they came.