Faking It

L reports queues at the Beat Boxes this morning, so it’s no wonder a lot of them have flat batteries. One woman was (allegedly) at the one machine swiping several cards. Cheat! We should report her.

It turns out that some GP’s had been charging £150 for medical certificates for the Paris Marathon. It appears that plenty of people have been charged over £100 and £50 seemed about average for either the full or the half, as well as for some of the bike races and triathlons they have in France. So seems we got it cheap at £15, although some people said their GPs did it for free and plenty of people faked theirs.

I have physio tonight, in a desperate attempt to get fit for Sunday. I am advised that my lumps really need a tennis ball shoving in them. I'm sure I can manage that if it helps.

After physio I head off to pick my mother and father up from hospital where my dad has been having an appointment. Unfortunately they haven’t told me where to collect them from and neither of them are answering their phones, so I spend an hour driving round in circles until I find them.

Then after I've dropped them off, it's back to Nottingham before coming back over to Derby again for dog training. Afterwards, I'm glad when L again talks me into a shot/slug/bucket of Baileys.

(Wednesday 11^th May)

Parislytic In France

More stress for Doggo today as we dump him and MD at kennels as we head off to Birmingham Airport to fly for Paris for a few days.

I have booked the flights with Flybe but they turn out to be with Air France. Not only do we fly with Air France but we are asked to check in with them. Everything goes smoothly so I make a mental note to book direct with them next time, cutting out the middle man.

On arrival at Charles De Gaulle Airport we buy a five day travel pass so that we can go wild on the Metro and SNCF trains.

In fact we are staying opposite a station, at the Holiday Inn opposite the Gare De L’Est. The subway entry comes up right in front of the hotel which is useful for dodging the persistent rain.

After testing the comfort of the bed we head off to find out what ale there is about. In France of course the answer to this is usually anything Belgian. The only decent French beer I’ve ever had is Pelforth Brune which I’m sure we’ll stumble across at some point but our first port of call is the Frog Revolution.

Frog Pubs are a chain of English style bars started in 1993. Now there are six pubs all with microbreweries in Paris, one in Bordeaux and one in Toulouse. In each site they brew six draft beers, not hand-pulled sadly but then I’ve never seen a hand pump in France. They have fantastic names such as Inseine, Parislytic and Dark de Triomphe. Clearly we have some research to do.

(Thursday 19^th February)

Athletically Taped Up

L has been for physio and has come back all athletically taped up and asking to use by foam roller. Of course she can and I even offer to administer the treatment myself. In fact I shall look forward to it.

In the evening, dog training then home to catch up on Le Tour. It’s still raining in France by the way.

(Monday 14^th July)

The World Cup Starts

I take the bus today to save the battered old legs for squash. Then I find out that my opponent is away in France and won’t be popping back for tonight’s game. So that’s another training opportunity missed although in this case another day off might be a good thing.

It’s also chance to watch the World Cup which starts today. Hosts Brazil open up against Croatia although I thought the holders were always supposed to open the tournament. The pre-match build up is dominated by clips of opening game shocks which are all the holders being defeated...

Brazil are far from convincing but get away with it aided by some very dubious refereeing.

The battle between BBC and ITV for supremacy also starts. The first contest is who has the worst theme music. That's a dead heat, they're both awful.

(Thursday 12^th June)

A Long Weekend On The Piste

We arrived back in UK late tonight after our long weekend in France. We got three days skiing including all day today and even money back on the ski pass due to some of the slopes being closed. We blew that money in the hotel restaurant, several times over, where the food was excellent.

The skiing was good but better earlier in the morning before the snow went too soft, when an afternoon sat in the sun with a beer in the hand became the best option.

Most of the skiing across the Grand Massif area was around Flaine, a not very attractive apartment block resort but one with sufficient altitude to maintain good snow cover even though it is now mid April. We stayed nearby in the prettier resort of Les Carroz which had no snow on its own lower slopes but was a brief gondola ride from where the snow was.

It’s been a period of no specific triathlon training but I think it must have done the legs good and the arm muscles are in decent shape too. Some of the more gentle slopes became unskiable once the snow went soft without a damn good amount of poleing. 

(Monday 14^th April)

An Unglorious Return

Today I make my running return. My first outing on the tarmac since the ill advised Christmas Pudding run at Langdale before Christmas.

We are at the Cheadle Spring 5, a mammoth five miler but needs must. I manage to up my pace a little from the levels of my training runs (all three of them) and record 39:16 and 83^rd place, half way down the field. The official photos show me battling with some school kid who I managed to fend off eventually. It wasn’t a glorious return but a return it was.

In the evening we head into town to celebrate... 

You used to have to go to dodgy little back street cinemas to see films like tonight’s offering. Nowadays it seems even good old respectable Broadway has such fodder on offer. ‘Stranger by the Lake’ (L'inconnu du lac) is basically a full-on dose of gay pornography and perhaps the perfect antidote to last night’s Lego extravaganza or maybe not. It’s so explicit that I doubt even Nymphomaniac can compete, not that we’ve been there yet.

The film takes us on location, to one location, a gay cruising spot by a pretty lake somewhere in France. Everything in the film happens by this lake. Everyday everyone arrives at the beach, park their cars in the same place, lay their towels out in the same place and then tan their equipment in the same place. Before later retiring to the woods for the main course.

By the end of the film I was so familiar with the layout of the area that I could have drawn a map of it. This repetition succeeds in building the tension because you know there’s going to be more to the film than this (surely).

The main character is Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps), a man on a mission, for a shag. Well he’s come to right spot you would think but he’s initially frustrated. The object of his desire, Michel (Christophe Paou), isn’t available. That is until Franck sees Michel drown his current boyfriend. Now Franck doesn’t think oh shit I ought to report this to the authorities, he only thinks that goody, Michel is now available.

To be fair to Franck he’s not the only one who does nothing, nobody else does anything either. Even when the dead man’s car remains on the car park and his towel lies on the beach in the same place for days on end no one bats an eyelid.

Instead Franck hooks up with Michel and covers for him when the police come investigating. Franck is so blindly in love that he even goes swimming with him. FFS. Yet, despite his puppy dog devotion Michel refuses point blank to have any sort of relationship with Franck beyond the boundaries of the beach. Which is good for the director I suppose, taking the film to another location would clearly have blown his mind, and probably ours too.

What we have here is a gay twist on the old chestnut about the young girl in love with the bad lad from the wrong sides of the tracks; the one that’ll be no good for her but her love is so blinkered that she can’t see past the rippling muscles of his chest. Only with a lot more sex. If you already suspect that this isn’t going to have a happy ending, then you’d be right.

It’s educational I suppose, I learnt a lot about how cruising in the homosexual world operates (if this is typical).

 

It’s not a bad film but the endless naked flesh is a bit off putting. I’m also not really sure who the stranger on the beach was supposed to be. Michel? Franck himself? or the self-pitying non-gay Henri (Patrick d'Assumçao), who turns up on the beach everyday for no other reason that he’s on holiday and has nothing better to do.

Henri to his credit is the only clothed man in the film, apart from the police inspector (Jérôme Chappatte), and there’s not a woman in sight.

Personally I’m still waiting for the first body to wash up on the beach. 

We eat at Broadway but are again thwarted at Brewdog which has now become amazingly popular so we have a few drinks in the Major Oak instead.

(Sunday 2^nd March)