Badaude

Green shoots, green roots...

I'm walking accross the Place Bastille, my hair blowing across my face in the sharp March wind. There's a girl getting out of a taxi by the bus ranks. She's dressed in that Bastille chic style - leggings; obviously expensive check lumberjack coat; many layers of natural fabrics; satchel straps and scarves decorating her shoulders. Her long hair looks like black sheep's wool: ringletty and lanolined. Uncombed and unwashed. It looks fantastic.

Mine doesn't. Several lolipop layers of misguided colour. A little grey at the roots. A generally  fade (faded) appearance. I have to do something about it.

I have my hair dyed once a year. Every Spring when the days start to lighten and I notice the remains of the last bad dye job and the little strands of bleached-out grey. Every year it gets worse. Every year I say I won't do it again. Every year I am suckered. This year is no exception.

The salon I've chosen is called 'Nature'. It is run by a French hairdresser named, somehow ludicrously, George Bacon (No, Bah-coh, not Bay-conne, insists a Francophone friend).

I look at the brochure. The salon offers a solution for women who wish to avoid chemical agressions, keep a safe hair, and who don't want to be trapped by apparent roots.  I don't want to be trapped by my roots. In the face of such threats, who wouldn't go in?

The woman who booked my appointment on phone directs me to the waiting area.

(Ah! Sho-an-nah! La-bas, Sho-an-nah!)

Where my hairdresser looks carefully through my hair and brandishes a lock under my nose.

Look at it! It's vert - green!

I have to agree.

Ok - I say. I have rehearsed this very carefully - I'd like a teinture permenante, chatain cendre. Pas trop fonce, et pas de rouge. (permenant dye, ash chestnut. Not too dark and not at all red).

Ah Oui - she agrees - for your colouring - pas de roux - pas de jaune. Un chatain - pas trop fonce, pas trop clair. Ok?

OK.

I love bossy French women. Here are two of them. I am relaxed. It makes me feel so secure that someone knows she is right.

The treatment is quick. I am dyed and haloed with cotton wool. I am put underneath a machine which steams my head gently. I read magazines. I see hair I like. I point to a photo.

My hair will look like that, won't it?

Bien sur, Madame!

I don't look at what's happening to my hair. J'ai confiance.

Sho-an-nah! Venez ici, Sho-an-NAH!

The salon manager takes over for the 'brushing'. How do I want it?

I show her an ad from one of the magazines.

No, that is a sechage naturel - It is maybe three days since it was washed. I am doing a brossing.

So you can't do that?

No. I will do you a brossing. Do you want it straight? No? Then I will give you - and she wiggles from her head down the length of her body to demonstrate - a little bit of... movement!

She pulls my hair back and forth, achieving impressive volume, and odd flicky bits at the bottom, like Barbie.

She's finished. She smiles broadly as she shows me my hair in the mirror.

It's red.

Which is not what I asked for.

To be fair, it's dark too. Dark like cafe noir. Too dark. The red only shows under electric lights in a halo-like blur.

I have a moment of complete panic. Then kind of panic possible only in this sort of situation; when something extremely trivial looks for an instant as though it might seriously ruin your life. How should I react. Should I say something? Should I complain? Should I explode with anger? The hairdresser seems genuinely pleased with my new colour. I don'tthink she thinks it's as red as I do.

I don't want to spoil her mood so I try to share it. I search for something to lighten the situation. Maybe it's meant to be too dark at first. Maybe the intense colour will lighten after a couple of washes. Maybe my hair just takes in red. Maybe there is a limited amount you can do with my kind of hair and artificial dye.

Then I look at all the other Frenchwomen in the salon with dyed hair. And I remember women I have seen in the street - women who are surely too old for their colour to be natural - and I realise that most of them have hair that is, for my Anglo-Saxon tastes, a little too red and a little too dark. That woman at the cafe outside; that one going by on the bike; the picture in the magazine of Nathalie Rykiel (though it's probably a style thing with her).

Maybe it's what a French hairdresser thinks is not too dark, and not at all red.

I have paid a lot of money to have my hair dyed red. It is no-one's fault. I am full of shame.

...

A week later I put another dye through my hair. It's called blonde cendre. It tones down the red and lightens the darkness.

I look at the end of one of my locks. It has a khaki-ish tinge.

My hair is green. And what's more, I like it that way.

g

Backwards and forwards...

The clocks go forward this Sunday the evening I'm heading back to England on the Eurostar... to find British Summer time corresponds exactly with French Winter time.

Still, maybe it's time to change jackets...

Rentre bien

Yesterday I took part in a demonstration.

I was on my way to get the metro to the Daumier exhibition at the Bibliotheque Nationale by way of the rue du Bac, when I heard some interesting noises: whistles, shouting. I could see the banners in the distance. I knew what it was. It was a manif.

I've taken part in manifs myself, but they're not common in the UK any more. The February 2003 anti-Iraq war demo* aside, public political demonstration has more or less stopped being a way for Brits to express their political opinions. The demos I went to in the late 80s and early 90s seemed like a last gasp, and not a very healthy one.

In France, they're very much alive. The last time I got close to a manif in Paris was the anti-CPE demonstration outside the Sorbonne two years ago. There were lots of police, heavily armed, waiting for something to go wrong. It was frightening and exciting in a way that only the tension before something physical happens can be. Today the police were at at safe distance. I was apprehensive, approaching the demonstrators. Was there a reason for this? But members of the public were walking calmly toward and through the group; 6eme mamies in Ramosport raincoats and smart shoppers with bags from Le Bon Marche. Then, as got closer, I could see. It was a demonstration by librarians.

Having gained confidence in the wake of the vague rouge or red wave - the power-swing to the left in the elections municipales earlier this week, the French left has gained the confidence to step up demonstrations against the Bling-Bling presidency.

It's the vulgarity of the Sarkozy government's aims protesters seem to be most offended by: his departure from traditional French values of state-sponsored cultural activity. I see a placard saying On est pas chez Disney! (This isn't Disneyland!).

The strikers are mostly middle aged, or older. More than half of them are women. They work for the services culturelles. They are dressed smartly but sensibly in black. Some of them have arty scarves and hats.

They're not a naturally noisy crowd. A lot of the noise comes from a big sound system and many of the demonstrators have whistles. There is a speech then a woman gets up and sings Cotillard-style into the microphone. They shout, A Versailles, à Versailles! (a historial joke - they have been joined by a group from the museum of Marie Antoinette's former residence). Mostly they shout, Ren-tre, rent-re, ren-tre RGPP! (take back the RGPP, or the proposed reforms to rationaliser government services). It rhymes, but does't quite scan, the first R being swallowed to make the slogan fit.

A man dresseds as Asterix wanders through the crowd, part of a delegation from the Syndicat de Recherche Archologicale. One banner says, Archives sacrificées; Memoire Menacée (Libraries sacrificed, Memory Threatened) and I wonder how many of the participants are themselves walking archives, old enough to remember the Paris demonstrations of 1968.

The delegates from CGT or General Union of Workers who have the word, Socialiste on their banners have stickers with the words, Casse-toi, pauvre con. These are the words which president Nicolas Sarkozy ill-advisedly spoke to a handshake refusenik at an agricultural show last month (the equivalent of the Queen telling the winner of the best cake at a village fayre to piss off because she hadn't called her Ma'am).

During the anti-CPE riots, a piece of graffiti said, Paris réveille-toi, la Commune est là (Wake up, Paris, the Commune is here). Maybe yesterday's demonstrators could write, Wake up, the people who know about the Commune are here.

(*I don't think the Iraq demo can be defined as a political demonstration in quite the same way as it was crucially not aligned to any union or political party but brought together many very disparate groups working pragmatically for the same end).

C'est lui - Le Roi du cafe*

I can admit that the cafe du coin (where they lost my keys, remember) has become my number one cafe of choice, not to mention my QG (HQ) and a.m. office. So, in way of apology, I'm offering an homage to the place.

At the moment, I'm there almost every morning. I'm the one in the corner with the portable (laptop) trying to look inconspicuous during the breakfast rush.

Paris is an inside-out city where apartments are so tiny that you have to go out to have breakfast. And, when you do, it's a social occasion. It's a party.

And what do Parisians do at a party? They like to argue.

The bar's already crowded. A group of mecs (guys) stack their moto-helmets on the bar, and begin earnestly discussing the pouvoir d'achat (cost of living). This is the French equivalant of an English conversation about house prices - and if you're from the UK you'll know exactly the level of detail this implies. What are they saying? Apparently the essential foodstuff by which the rise in grocery prices is measured is natuaral yoghurt (hausse choquant do 40% - 40% shock price rise!). Natural yoghurt - a dietary staple? Only in France.

So I go in and sit a little away from the bar (all those bodies block the WIFI signal, right?) and order my café andtartine - a skinny ficelle baguette with a thickcentral vein of butter which melts on contact with coffee. They bring it with a large and necessary carafe of water to let down the caffine.

Outside the window, there are neat mamans and mamies taking their children to school, impeccably turned out in little quilted jackets. One mamie is leading her charges on a micro-scooter. They run behind. No-one laughs. Micro scooters in Paris are just another way of getting around, like - erm - rollerskates, and another way that the French take seriously what the rest of the world consigns to the playground...

There's an old French guy the bar. He's wearing a hat. He's talking to everyone. Is he a regular, which makes this bar a kind of Paris equivalent of Cheers, or is he just a little dingue (crazy)?

I order another coffee.

You're English, right? (Vous etes Anglaise?) He asks me.

Yes.

So you like football? (Vous aimez le foot?) He indicates the screen in the corner which is showing a report on last night's game.

Euh (Yes, I really had a go at making this essentially French sound)...Assez bien - mais je ne le suis pas. (it's ok but I don't follow it)

This is a big lie. I have no interest in football. I'm just being typically, Englishly aquiescent. No wonder the French think we're slippy. If I can't even say out loud that I don't like football in a no-pressure situation, what hope is there for my nation?

Ah! - vous n'etes pas une vrai Anglaise! (You're not really English)  he says with satisfaction, and goes back to asticot-ing (needling) two women at the bar about their non-arriving breakfast dates.

About half an hour later, he turns back to me.

Vous aimez le biere?

(What? Are you offering me one? It's 9am.): Oui - erm - je l'aime.

Actually this it not strictly true either. My answer to question 1 would fit it better; I like it ok.

Old French man with hat: (looking crafty) Ah - Donc vous etes une Anglaise - un vrai! (So you're really English after all).

Happy, he goes back to his own morning demi. I go back, a little disquieted, to my cafe and computer. He's right: I am so English. Just maybe not the sort of English he was expecting.

*Le Roi du Cafe - The king of the cafe

Hot air rising...

Outside Franprix on the Rue Lecourbe, Paris 15e, there's a woman selling Itinérant, the magazine sold by the sdf or homeless. She's standing in the doorway, clasping the top copy accross her chest as if to keep herself warm. I can't read the whole headline, but the word, pollution flashes out at me in red.

It's cold. There was ice this morning on the cars along the Boulevard Garibaldi and, this week, the 'luminous' panneaux publicitaires du mairie are telling us to turn our heating down to 19 degrees centigrade, Pour limiter la pollution et lutter contre le dérèglement climatique (in order to limit pollution and fight against climatic deregulation).

Further down the street there are billboards of Carla Sarkozy, the new first lady, touting Lancia cars.

She's advertising 'une beaute spacieuse'.

About a month ago, at the end of a freezing January, the new Mme Sarkozy appeared on the cover of the French edition of Closer magazine wearing a black bikini opposite a photo of Sarkozy's 10 years older ex-wife, Cecilia, who was showing une beaute perhaps une peu pluse spacieuse in a similar swimsuit(inevitably it was somewhat harsh to place the 50-year old Cecilia next to the 39-year old Carla, who still contiues her career as a model).

It's probably the most shockingly <<people>> (ie. celebrity) cover I've seen in France; the French are edging ever closer to the brutal, deregulated Anglo-Saxon world of tabloid journalism.

Though French journalism is Heat-ing up, the country's legal system retains its traditional froideur. When Cecilia sued Closer, the judge awarded a provisional ruling in favour of her 30,000 euro claim, agreeing with her lawyer that it was as though the two women "were comparing goods".

This is no exaggeration for effect. Both women are or were professional models. Describing their bodies as 'goods' cannot be seen as a an insult, or even a metaphor.

Paris markets are in freefall: The worth ofValeurs sûres (sure things/blue-chip companies) might have plummeted recently, but value resides in the most unlikely places. The Société Générale's bodies of accounts might have turned out to be fakes but Carla and Cecilia's assets - whether fake or naturel - are holding value.

But it's not only the appearance of the personnages at the heart of the president bling-bling saga that valent ses pesants d'or (are worth their weight in gold).

The president is himself sueing newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur over their claim, earlier this month, that he texted Cecilia before his remarriage offering to cancel his wedding to Ms Bruni.

In an exclusive first interview in L'express recently the new Mme Sarkozy expressed her surprise at moving into the political world où les mots ont plus de poids (where words weigh more heavily).

Even in an overheating climate, there's a heavy lot of hot air going around.

The Sarkozys, past and present, are fighting the new climat dérèglé (deregulated climate) of French journalism. For the moment, they're winning damages - France remains a country where images and words retain their value - even if only after the scandal is published and the damage has been done.

Meanwhile, back on the hoarding, there's the new Mrs Sarkozy endorsing new cars; global rechauffement: the convenience of private transport at the expense of public pollution levels.

Back at my apartment, the heating is set to 18 degrees centigrade. I move it up a notch to 19.

And the woman outside Franprix shifts her feet, and clutches her fundraising magazine closer to her chest.

It must have been fashion week...

The 6.30am London-Paris Eurostar last Monday must have been the chic-est train of the week. As it was Paris fashion week, it may well have been the chic-est train of the year.

I notice it immediately. The groups of powerful-looking older women in black coats, big scarves and bags with plenty of hardware; buckles, bag-charms, chain handles. I even see a reasonably heavy-looking padlock. (OK. I'm not stupid. I know these hang outside bags. But why is she carrying one inside?)

Each group is attended by one or two unnaturally fashionable, very young men. They run along the platform as the train's about to leave, trailing flying accessories.

So what is the famous difference between French and British fashion players? Let's play the game of, 'Is she British? Is she French?'.

Ok. The French are wearing trousers; the Brits are wearing skirts. Their skirts are mostly knee-length and flare out a bit at the bottom. The French trousers are uniformly black. The Brits are wearing colour; the French won't touch it: strictly black, grey and cream. One crucial difference: British pashminas are bigger, MUCH BIGGER, I mean SO MUCH BIGGER than the French equivalent. They're so big that, if bounced from their hotel booking, I think the Brits could camp under them. The French compensate for this by adding odd rows of little bobbles, crinkled textures and embroidery to theirs (so long as they're in a neutral tone). Oh - and the British tend to wear novelty knitted and felted hats. Cute, huh?

That said, the Brit look is fantastically difficult to carry off - and some of them are even managing it.

The most chic person on the train, however, has to be the guy below on the right...

The  French woman beside him looks fantastically stylish too. She's in her 50s, smartly dressed but un-made-up. I can see (tiny) wrinkles and age marks which add to her allure. Bare skin is daring; in age, even more so. She looks bold and confident.

We approach the outskirts of Paris. She takes out a small mirror and begins to apply makeup with a sponge. Her skin becomes uniform in texure and slightly unnaturally peachy in colour. You know that if you got close to her it would no longer feel or smell like skin. It would smell like powder and feel like ultrasuede. And you know that, if you kissed her, you wouldn't be kissing her, and that little bits would stay on your skin when you pulled away.

She takes out a concealer pencil.

And, as we pull into the Gare du Nord, she slowly erases every trace of herself...

(An un-made-up photos of me can now be found at www.stylebible.com where I have just become a contributor.)

The quartier where everybody knows your name...

I've moved apartments, to the 15e.

The 15e is a part of Paris few visitors know about. It's wedged between two towers - Montparnasse to the South, which seems to follow you wherever you go, and the Tour Eiffel to the North, which sends out its searchlight over the quartier each night.

The apartments here are respectable, but not smart. Not cheap, but not fashionable either. It's the kind of area where nearly the people you see all wear working black. Neat suits and overcoats. Not trendy. Not daring. They go to work in offices. They are comme il faut. They are pressed and coiffed. They are correct. They are impeccably Parisian.

The night before, I was due to move in my house agent (let's just call him Alain) calls me.

Alain: I can't come in to Paris tomorrow.

Badaude: OK. But how am I going to get the keys to the apartment?

A: It will be fine. I left them at the jeweller's. Three doors down. His name is David.

B: But I'll be there in the morning. Around 9am. He might not be open.

A: That's OK. He'll leave it at the bakery. And if not, the cafe on the corner.

B: Who should I ask for at the cafe?

A: Just ask them. They'll have it.

B: Ok...

My attempt to get into my new apartment went something like this.

The jeweller is open. That's good. You have to press a bell to get into the tiny shop. There are shelves of swatch watches and shiny things that wink at me from inside glass cases, but which I don't take the trouble to identify. There's a woman selling a silver pendant to the silver-haired man behind the counter, who looks much too serious for the happenstance leaving of a key at his shop. He looks up from the desk where he'd bent to examine the pendant. His glasses flash a multicoloured reflection of the Swatches.

Moi: (sceptical) Vous etes David?  (You're David?)

D: Oui

M: (well thought-out sentence). Je suis client de Alain et je me
demand si il m'a laisse des clef de son appartement chez vous?

(I am a client of Alain's and I wonder whether he has left me the keys to his apartment with you).

D: Non

M; Oh. Erm... Peut etre au boulangerie?

(maybe at the bakery)

D: (sceptical of the whole enterprise) Peut-etre. (Maybe...)

I walk to the boulangerie.

Its shut.

I know boulangeries in Paris have idiosyncratic horaires (opening hours).

But it's Wednesday. It's 9am. It can't be shut.

Maybe they just haven't put the lights on and the assistant's in the back. I get close to the plate-glass door and push on it gently, surruptitiously, while looking in the opposite direction. The door doesn't give.

It's shut.

Au cafe du coin.

Me: (lesss well-thought out sentence) Bonjour, Madame. Est-ce-que Alain a laisse un clef pour moi ici?  (Hi, Has Alain left a key here for me?)

Fille: Non. Je pense que non... Non. (No, I don't think so... No).

She turns back to polishing glasses.

M: Mais Il m'a dit qu'il l'a laisse. Il m'a telephone pour dire cela. (But he told me he left it. He telephoned me to say that.)

I'm rescued by a 2nd fille (managerial-looking).

2e Fille: Je vais chercher. (I'll go look).

Long cherching

2F: Ces't ca?

M: Ouis, je crois.

Key has rugby ball keyring and several keys, not one. Seems wrong, but I'm grateful to get my hands on any key.

M: Si ce ne marche pas, je retournerai.
(ie. I'm not stealing your key).

I wheel my big suitcase a few doors down to the apartment. Door code. Lift to 4th floor. Door with camel. Or is it a zebra.

The key doesn't work.

I call Alain.

Alain: Yes I left the key yesterday night. It has a car on the tag.

Back to cafe

Me: Cela ne marche pas. Alain m'a dit qu'il l'a laisse le vielle. Il y'a un porte-clef comme une voiture. (This doesn't work. Alain told me he left it last night. It has a key-ring with a car).

F et 2f cherchent again

F et 2F: Non. Ce n'est pa la. Vous savez - il y'a des differents gens qui travaille ici les soirs. (No. It's not there. You know there are different staff here in the evenings)

I call Alain again.

A: Yes, they put it in the drawers on the left .

M: which one? (there are four drawers).

A: I don't know. On the left


Me: (a f et 2f) Il l'a laisse dans un de ces tiroirs.

f et 2f cherchent encore. They pull out two of the drawers and rummage through them.

Desolee, Madame.

They show me. There are lots of keys. There is no ring with a car.

Et les autres tiroirs?

They show me how the other two drawers do not open. Are they fake, or are they locked, with my key inside?

2f: Desolee, Madame, nous ne pouvons pas vous aider.

They shrug, Frenchly, turn around and polish the glasses. Clealy, they have finished their conversation with me.

I just stay there. Nothing I can do.

Then, miraculously, a man wearing a hoodie staggers into bar. He looks slightly drunk. He goes up to the counter. Is he about to order a coffee, or a first biere of the day?

Oddly, he seems to be in charge. The F and 2F confer with him.

Drunk Looking man in hoodie: Ah ouais! Alain! Le clef! C'est la!

He shows me the interior of the tiroir again.

He picks out a set of keys.

They have a SEAT-branded porte-clef - a car tag. Not the image of a car...

I go back to the flat again.

The key turns in the lock. I'm inside my new apartment, in my new quartier.

The 15e. Where everyone knows each other but no-one knows where anything is.

Memed!

What does this meme?

I don't quite know but Lauren of Maitresse did it to me.

She wants me to open my nearest book at a random page, count down five sentences and write down the next three sentence I see.

Ok. It's Stupeur et Tremblements by Amelie Nothomb.

You can get it in English too, but this is the French version.

Ms Nothomb says:

Ce n'est pas informatisé.

Si. A la fin du mois, Monsieur Ujani introduira toutes les factures dans l'ordinateur. Il lui suffira alors de recopier votre travail: cela lui prendera très peu de temps.

or

'That is not computerized.'

'Yes. At the end of the month, Mr Ujani will put all the bills into the computer. He will only have to copy your work: that will take him very little time.'

Simple and direct: Nothomb's regular style and one of her great strengths. But, like Nothomb's narrator in this true story of a stage epouvantable (nightmare work-placement) in Japan, I somehow feel I should be giving you more.

I haven't finished the book yet but, mentally squashed by her bosses who don't know what to do with this eager-to-please 'Western geisha', she is reduced to roaming the office building updating the 'page-a-day' tear-off paper calendars of every employee, and photocopying her boss's golf-club regulations until they match the original document to the milimetre.

So now I've been memed, who else am I going to target?

Well Miranda ought to have some interesting books. And how about artist Matthew Rose? As he works in collage, this sort of thing should be right up his street. In fact, why don't I ask him to turn the results into one of his one-page-books? You may call it random - I'd call it a Dada-esque experiment in automatic writing.

So - anyone who's participated in this experiment - send me your results (see the 'email me' form above). Let me know who asked you to do it, and who you passed the task on to so I can get the results into some kind of order.

Looking forward to hearing from you...

Sunday part II; What Paris is mostly for...

In Anita Loos', Gentlemen prefer Blondes, the sincerest gold digger in the world, Lorelei Lee, remarks to her companion, Dorothy 'Shopping seems to be what Paris is mostly for'. It's true that Paris seems a very different place when you can't buy it.

It's two weeks after the shock revelation that an obscure employee of the Societe Generale (too junior even to be called a trader) lost nearly 5 billion euros of the banks assets by creating a series of false accounts. Some people will be thinking twice about shopping, even in the dernière démarque of the soldes.

I'm walking across Paris from Place Blanche to Saint Germain.

It's Sunday afternoon and the fashionable rue des Martyrs is all closed up. With it's designer storefronts hidden until the start of the working week, the street looks more part of the surrounding area than usual.

With nothing to distract at street level, my glance turns upwards. At the corner, half-way down, the top storey windows of a building are crowded with outsize carnival masks.

I continue down the grandes boulevardes, past Printemps and Galleries Laffayette all shut up. There are small groups of tourists milling around hopeful that something might open. They are dressed for shopping - smartly in black, with sunglasses. There is the odd fur coat. They go right up to the windows of the big stores to check that they are really closed (in London, in New York, they'd be open). They walk up and down in front of the abandoned Opera just in case they are mistaken.

In fact there is one shop open. The sort of small shop you find sqeezed between international chain stores on the main streets of any big city It sells cut-price pashminas, cheap souvenirs and wheeled luggage. The neon-paper discount signs in the narrow windows are always bigger than any display of goods. As nothing else is open, the hopeful tourists are actually going in there. They'll maybe actually come away with a plastic vanity case or a commemorative scarf featuring the Eiffel Tower. On any other day, they wouldn't even notice this place on their way to Charvet or Hermes but today, even on Sunday, they need to shop, and this is the only shop available.

The Place Vendome is the most glorious shopping arcade of them all. It's closed and empty, the meticulously clean shop windows flashing with gold light. In the centre by the Vendome column, there's a black hire-car with a photographer and a couple in wedding clothes. The photographer's assistant runs over to straighten her dress. They embrace. They smile into the cold wind. But something's not as it seems. It starts with her hair. It's too bouffant, too fashionable, too exciting for a real wedding. I wonder, is she embracing him sincerely enough - or does she look too thrilled, too much in love. He looks unconcerned, but maybe that's standard for men. Then I remember. Getting married is another thing you generally can't do in France on a Sunday. This isn't a wedding. It's a photo shoot.

Down by the river, there's a man in a red bandana selling roasted chestnuts from a homemade oven; a shopping trolley caging a brazier made from a large cooking-oil tin (huile fritable)  with an inverted dustbin lid balanced on top. His cooked chestnuts resemble an ariel battle-plan, ranked in three divisions. He moves his batallions with a long rake, like a movie-general deploying his troops: the raw occupy the hot centre; the just-cooked, he pushes to the right, and the well-cooked, he moves towards the outer edges of the lid.

What to do in Paris on Valentine's day on your own...

What do you do on your own on Valentines' day in the City of Love?

Paris is making it as easy as possible to fall in love. In shop windows and newspaper editorials there are pictures of all the things you can buy in order to induce a coup de foudre.

Laduree's vitrine is full of heart-shaped macarons, in boxes begging Please love me flavoured with (and I quote their English translation) 'cream and strawberry jam' or ganache créme de menthe. Le Palais des Thés offers a Thé des Amants, mélange de thé noir, pommes, vanille, amandes, cannelle, gingembre dans une boîte édition limitée, 12,50 Euros la boîte de 100 g,  There are chocolats aphrodisiaques, heart-shaped bouquets, bras with heart-shaped cups, heart-shaped handbags, necklaces and vibrator/candles to brighten up the dinner table.

But these presents are all for eating, drinking, paying and displaying. I have a supicion they're not about love, or even about sex, which is not really a very material pursuit (according to Anita Loos, France is the thriftiest of all nations; to a Frenchman sex provides the most economical way to have fun.). Gifts can take your attention away from love. They're about other things you might do instead.

I've finished an illustration commission for a lunchtime deadline. I need to go for a walk. Crowds surge out of the metro, crossing at the lights at the Place Saint Sulpice, where the panneaux lumineux are pulsing out Mairie-sponsored messages of electronic love. The particles of neon light dance out to the commuters, hitting them all equally with state-approved amour. Maybe they are putting out a little warmth too but, a few centimetres away from them, Paris is still icily crisp from the morning frost.

I decide to go to the only place you can get truly warm in Paris in winter - the hammam.

Paris has lots of hammams.That is, traditional steam-baths, which cost 39 euros per session max, (including massage and pastries) not chi-chi hotel spas.  There's one down a tiny sidestreet in the Marais; a large, cleanly-white building in the 20th. But today I'm going to the hamman at La Grande Mosquée de Paris.

It's easy enough to hand over the notes to the cashier at the till in exchange for a handful of different-coloured paper raffle tickets and a mysterioius plastic envelope full of squishy black stuff. I know what this is. I know that it's savon noir. I've seen it for sale in big plastic tubs in the marché at Place des Fêtes in Belleville. What I don't quite know is what to do with it. Or when. Just like love, a visit to the hammam might make you warmer, but they don't hand out an instruction booklet.

Past the cashier, it's too dark for my outside eyes to map the patterns on the tiles. If you look up through the steamy light filtering down from the small, domed window in the ceiling, you see cobwebs. Suddenly eveything's asleep. It's like a Dulac illustration of Sleeping Beauty. I have bought a ticket for '1 seance' or session. In English the word is used for a session communicating with the dead - those shabby genteel 19th Century Madame Blavatskys using French to lend their activities an air of glamour.

There are four massage tables in the centre of the room. (You take your shoes off - I can work that one out). I follow the clothed clients between them. There are two women working at the tables, one fat in a some sort of white chemist's or nurse's coat: one thin wearing an adidas cropped top and tennis skirt. The fat one is staring into space. The thin one is vigorously massaging a customer. She looks up at me. She has light-dark skin with dark freckles. She says:

Ces't votr' premiere fois?'

Oui, madame.

On change la-bas.

She comes from the modern world. You can imagine her walking down the street, in daylight. Maybe she could guide me through this dark, dreamy seraglio place.

The changing room is a long corridor, just wide enough for one person. A shock of strip-lighting. There are lockers but no cubicles. If you stand by the old-fashioned radiator, you can balance your clothes on it so they don't fall wetly onto the floor. I don't have a bikini (it's not that I didn't bring one: I just don't have a bikini, or any other kind of swimwear at the moment). So I just take off my outer clothes. At least I have matching underwear...

..which, very quickly, become semi-transparent with the steam. I wander back to the main room. Even more like a fairy-tale, there are doors with no signs and no handles. Which one should I pick?

One of them leads to a brightly lit room with a shower and a door back to the changing rooms. It's empty. This is not the right way.

The other door leads past another - empty - table into a darker room with hidden showers behind partitions. There's nobody in them. Is this where I use the soap? The next room is getting hotter. The walls are plain concrete with a concrete bench - slightly too high for comfort - at one end. There's a high-pressure shower-gun with a lesbian valentines couple giggling as they hose each other down and a line of other women waiting. Then there's another of the sleepy rooms, hotter than before, with a central platform and booths at the side lined with blue vinyl cushions. There are plastic scoops and buckets which you fill from a tap in one of the alcoves and empty over yourself to prevent dehydration. That's how hot it is. There are women in pairs and small groups; friends, sisters, mothers and daughters, lovers. I'm the only one here on my own...

There's one more room.

It's almost unbearably hot and so steamy it's nigh-impossible to see what is happening in there. There are three concrete steps at one end, ranked like an amphitheatre overlooking a very hot bath. The women in here are older - the only ones who can stand the heat. I can't stay in there for more than a couple of minutes. It's for a different species: cold-blooded and slow-moving, wrinkled with rubber-capped heads. It's one of those medieval engravings of hell where the fiery pit is constructed, in a disturbingly everyday fashion, from half a cooper's barrel. I'll be there one day. But not yet. There's no noise but somehow the steam is deafening.

I still have the, now wet, tickets and the little packet of soap.

The room with the hose seems much colder now.

I go back through the showers. I use the soap just to get rid of it.

I have a ticket for a massage and gommage. The massage table room now seems positively chilly; the girls talking together better occupied than I am. I go back to the changing room for a book. I pretend to read but I'm not really interested.

Then, after about 15 minutes, I notice women who are coming in writing their names on a paper in the corner. It's obviously a queue for massages. I add mine. The list is very, very long.

There's a smaller queue for gommage and I soon find out why. After sandpapering  my back with a hard loofah mitt, the masseur turns me over like a side of meat and attacks my breasts. Then - no, she can't be.

Yes, she does do faces too.

I'm sure this must be doing me good.

OK, that's enough. I think I'll have my mint tea now and leave.

At the papiterie on the rue Daubenton I leaf through the valentines cards. In Paris, just like in England, they show babies, small children and animals: beings who don't know what they're doing, who can express the most extreme emotions without taking responsibility; whose expressions can't be understood, but are always taken kindly. I hesitate. Should I pick one? Should I say ga ga, miau miau, or meuh meuh, or should I frame what I want to say in retro terms? There are cards with pictures in black and white or old-style technicolour, the characters and vocabulary self-consciously kitch and ironic. Surprisingly in the city of amour, no-one wants to say it out loud...

A beautiful girl comes out of the business end of the Mosquee. She's wearing a hijab and her clothes completely cover her skin, but they're close-cut and sexy. A group of mecs walking in the opposite direction turn to stare. One of their looks lingers. And there it is - a genuine, unmediated St Valentin contact. I can go home happy.

The panneau lumineux on boulevard St Jacques winks at me: Ajoutez deux lettres à Paris: c'est paradis. (Jules Renard). Someone else spending valentine's day alone has sent a message of love to the city. I'm warm now. I'm getting warmer...