SW2

the common, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

11 months in London and I am in my third house. I have left the genteel north-west and made it to the soon-to-be-gentrified south-west. It is still possible to be the only white guy on the street, but if there IS another white guy, chances are that he is either gay or Australian (or both). No surprises that I feel more at home here?

Then again, when I stumbled upon Brixton a year ago while looking for a house it was also the first place in London that felt to me truly alive. There is a bustle of actual locals moving through the streets, with more fresh food shops than anywhere else I have seen in London and a pub on every corner. You will find smoky meat being cooked in large metal drums and served with bountiful rice and peas, fresh fish for a few pounds, stolen bikes, great pizza and madmen preaching to the converted (with two evangelical churches on every street).

Though Brixton has a big Tescos I do like that it isn't its social hub.

bars in paris

more drinks, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

The North-east

The Kitch Bar
10, rue Oberkampf, 75011
metro: Oberkampf
My favourite bar in Paris, this lounge-room sized bar is a place where if you don’t know everyone’s names on arrival, you will before too long. This goes for English speakers too, I have had many a bilingual conversation here. It’s specialities are cocktails and it is worth trying out the Shrek (think mint slurpey), the nesbite (an long island iced tea, plus two alcohols), or the choufleur (a whipped cream caramel shot). Not a place to come for standard American-style cocktails though (stay away from the bloody mary).

Ethnika cafe
127 Rue Saint-Maur, 75011
Metro : parmentier
3.50 – 4.50 euro cocktails and flavoured rum shots (where the rum has been sitting in huge glasses with figs, honey, carob, for 12 hours) are the draw cards to this crowded bar, though the downstairs area often has djs. The entire stretch of bars around this one offer a range of cheap drinks and fun places to try out. Oh, and remember to check out the toilet here..

Le Lèche-vin
13, rue Daval, 75011
metro : bastille
A bar full of catholic iconography, coupled with the most obscene toilets on earth. The pope will never bless this place.

Ave Maria
1, Rue Jacquard , 75011 Paris
metro: parmentier or oberkampf
Similiar to the Lèche-vin, this is a bar/restaurant with a religious feel, though this one embraces all faiths. The food is great, though pricey, with some interesting “fusion” dishes. Further up the hill, past parmentier (and around the Ethnika café) there are hundreds of small bars for you to also try out.

Le 50
50 Rue de Lancry , 75011
Metro : jacques bonsergent
A bit in the same style as the Kitch, but this place also has good wine, cheese plates, ginger flavoured beer and a series of rooms at the back for when it gets busy. It draws in a very diverse crowd (from 18 to 80) and each different barman has different taste in music.

The Marais

The Lizard Lounge
18 rue Bourg Tibourg 75004
metro: hotel de ville or St Paul
Owned by some English speakers, this one does tend to be a bit of an ex-pat or tourist haunt, but it has a nice vibe, has a mezzanine with board games, a downstairs bar, and some good standard cocktails.

Les étages
35 rue Vieille du Temple, 75004
metro: hotel de ville or St Paul
The barmen and women of this establishment stepped straight out of a world war II French resistance movie and spend more time posing than actually serving drinks, but that’s ok. Famous for strawberry mojitos.

L'Art Brut Bistrot ‎
78 Rue Quincampoix
metro: chatelet or rambuteau
One of my favourite wine bars in the centre of paris. It’s got a good selection and is always bustling.

Le Connétable ‎
55 Rue Archives
75003 Paris, France
metro: rambuteau or arts et metiers
It is a bar that never shuts, slowly collecting the dregs and remains of the night, usually a swarm of desperate, smoking men. It is part tavern, part someone’s home, you can smoke on the top floor, and the owners dogs are usually sitting around.

Le Duplex ‎
25 Rue Michel le Comte
75003 Paris, France
metro: rambuteau or arts et metiers
The gay version of the Connétable, it also shuts late (around 5am), and is designed to give you very strong cocktails, then set you up on the one long table where someone will come and say hi to you within a few minutes.

Les Souffleurs ‎
7 Rue Verrerie
75004 Paris, France
My new favourite gay bar, with friendly bar men, good music and a downstairs with strange video projections and djs. A slightly alternative crowd, the type of people who will end up at the Duplex at 2am (if they haven’t picked up).

More to come soon!

and so it is the middle of summer...

sunset while leaving, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

Sunset in London: 9:21 pm
Sunset in Paris: 9:58 pm
Sunset in Oslo..... 10:43 pm :)

welcome to nw3

fine food in the east end, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

So, what do you think of London so far? How can I think of London, when my room, my job and the path between these things are different enough that I haven’t even had a though about which city I am in.

Gone is my spacious room in a small apartment, exchanged for a tiny room in an enormous apartment. Farwell my empty nights, now re-immersed in house share and long bottles of wine. My groceries must fit into one shelf in the fridge and one shelf in the cupboard, I should probably not play music at full blast at 3 am, and I probably shouldn’t let that dirty dish sit there over night.

Goodbye the piling of bodies upon bodies, of lives against lives that is the Parisian apartment house, the Parisian street, the Parisian world. Hello long empty streets, half hour tube rides, listening to my ipod in the dark and the rain, bars being closed at 11, supermarkets open on Sundays.

I jumped from years of three to five people firms to a firm that has over one hundred in London alone, and has another three offices worldwide. In Paris coats went up on the rickety coat rack, the toilet had been leaking for months, there was no cleaner or secretary, I went out to buy a kettle, coffee machine and desk light for the office and on certain days I needed to work on a computer brought from home. Hell, I didn’t have a contract for months on end. Hello fully equipped kitchens with dining rooms where everyone eats in canteen style, hello a thirty person admin team, a sixty page office manual, projects in every country on earth, project teams twice the size of my former firms. Oh, the joys of time sheets.

As to London? How do we experience a city? Is it what it looks like, how we can go out, how we shop, who we meet, how we move around, the parks, the galleries, the bars? I think London is not a city that reveals itself quickly. Here, with the sun setting at four and constant rain, it is hard to find it pretty. And Soho on a Friday night, with its mix of overcrowding (it’s like Chatelet on a Friday night, and why would I go there?) and bars closing really early is a frustrating wonder. I am waiting for the sun to set later, to be able to walk and walk, or maybe buy a bike. This city is rough and raw and not at all easy, but already I love the difference between where I live (West Hampstead) and where I work (Waterloo). I like that in my firm only 10 people are British and 90 are foreigners and that every European language can be heard. I don’t like that the 10 British members include most of the directors, but that’s another story.

I am still in that horrible moment where I can’t help but constantly compare things to Paris. I will need to give London a chance to show me a different way of living, just as Paris showed me an entirely different way of living to Sydney.

Now, if you will leave me, Ken gave me a copy of Down and out in Paris and London and I might just be reading it with a smile on my face.

a night with dezeen I

While looking up some of the old articles on Dezeen I stumbled upon the above project for lamp clothing for women by French photographer and stylist Marianne Maric and this almost Miyakazi like design for a shale shaped hot air balloon hotel called Manned cloud.

Dezeen is one of my morning-read-while-drinking-coffee sites, along with Questionable Content, XKCD and Cat and Girl (see links to the right). A great place to waste time.

que je change de cap, de capitale

riding to work, velib included, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

The office was still bustling while I started packing up. It was actually happening: in the middle of a huge competition I was going to be able to keep my long planned four day weekend to London to see the National and Jonsi. There had been nights of stress when I was sure my bosses would tell me it just wasn’t possible as there was too much work to do, but this once things were going to work out ok.
I logged onto gmail to send myself a few files just in case I had some time to work on them on the Eurostar and noticed an email in my inbox. I opened it and read it.

“Um.” I said to the two workmates at my table. “David Chipperfield’s office just asked if I was in London this weekend for an interview.”

“That’s great” Guillaume said, looking up from his work. “Isn’t it?”

“Um. Well. Yeah.” I had sent off the CV to David Chipperfield’s office three months earlier and it had somewhat been forgotten amongst the 80 or so CVs I had sent.

The irony was that I had been leaving work early to try and pass by my gym and sign up for a years subscription while the rates were still cheap. I was so close to accepting staying in Paris for at least another year.

So, I hesitated, and went to meet up with Nat next to the canal instead. The wine was excellent, and I was euphoric due to the prospect of seeing Jonsi and the National (and Nat’s fine company, obviously). Somehow the whole job interview business just seemed like a surreal addition. Nat and I finished off a bottle each, had a wonderful meal, and the next morning I hopped on the Eurostar.

Well, the weekend was wonderful; Jonsi was beautiful and the National made me feel warm and fuzzy for weeks after. And on that rainy Monday when London was having a transport strike I did two interviews and got the job. The starting date was going to be almost exactly one year after quitting my last long term job.

The next month passed by in a snowy gloom. Work got tough, the competition deadline approached. As usual though, friend’s and alcohol made things bearable. Now that I knew I was going to leave Paris my time left seemed too short. Everything was already seeping into nostalgia: will this be my final trip to the Buttes Chaumont? Will this be my final Shrek at the Kitsch? Soulwaxmas at La Villette, the insane end of year drinks with my work where I still don’t know how I got home (and I am sure I didn’t pay for any of my drinks, but the bar owner took the same metro home as me and he didn’t mention anything, so it’s all ok).

Paris also continued to show me its quirks:

While taking the metro home late one night a young man hopped on at the station after mine and started a familiar spiel: “hello, my name is Jean, I’m 25 and recently I lost my job and my house. If you have a ticket rest, or...”

Meanwhile, a muttering could be heard from the other end of the carriage: “I don’t have a house, I don’t have any money, if you could please...” A much older man, shabbily dressed, completely drunk, was giving the same speech.

The younger man stopped and shook his head. “I don’t believe this. Can’t you see I am talking?” He said to the older man. The older man seemed confused. “This is my carriage, go away, go home, everyone can see you are drunk”.

People were both laughing and a little uncomfortable that the younger man seemed to be so aggressive to the older. The young man apologised to everyone, and then pulled the older man off the train with him at the next station.

A few days later Ray and I would be walking around the gare St Lazarre, freezing to death, and wanting a tea. Ray stared at the prices in horror: 5 euros 20 for a tea? I tried to explain that it was normal for this area, but that didn’t seem to make things better for him. We found a place that sold a pot of tea bag tea for 4 euros 20, and a demi of beer for 4 euros; at least it would take us out of the cold.

I was in mid sip of my beer when I noticed a mouse running around the neighbouring table. I was somewhere between amused and a little worried. I called out to the “garcon” and he shrugged, said “so what”, and told me that the mouse was very well behaved.

When I came back from new years in Cologne I found myself with two days to get my stuff together for London, and everything started moving so quickly. I hopped on a train, and suddenly I now lived in London. Paris had slipped away without me really realising, and the whole move is still only slowly sinking in.