I really did try to Blog from Paris but technology beat me.
I have demonstrated that I am incapable of Blogging with an iPad. I am sure it is entirely possible - just not for me.
I can write the Blog but the process of getting it onto the Blog with photos tested the Badger beyond his limited capacity. I can assure you that in terms of technology the Badger is very limited indeed.
I am good at buying it but bad at using it.
In fact the first Blog vanished into the ether and is at this moment traveling at the speed of light towards another galaxy.
The Villathena is not the hotel I thought it was but on the bright side - if the TV remote clagged out I could change the channels with my toes. The bathroom was compact. If I was tired I could rest my head in the wash basin while I was sitting on the toilet. This was not a problem. I am a small Badger and require little space.
I am very thankful that I did not choose this hotel for a visit with Cate. My ears would still be ringing. My ears are still ringing.
It was definitely the noisiest hotel room in which I had ever stayed. It was very noisy on the first night and they raised the stakes when a troop of workmen arrived at daylight on my first morning - with trucks and roaring and clanking machines - to start erecting scaffolding around the building opposite the hotel. That is - about 5 meters from my window - which did not have double-glazing. It may not have had single-glazing. It may have been cellophane for all the noise it kept out.
At night tag teams of drunks took turns throwing each and passers by through shop windows and at dawn the garbage trucks arrived and the men had shouting and bin throwing contests. On my last morning it was the semi-finals and I think the team from St. Lazare won.
Meanwhile in India - Cate had a room with a view of the Taj Mahal. She said it was the biggest hotel room she had ever seen. A man filled her bath with water and sprinkled it with rose petals. A man sat outside her door in case she needed anything. Like more rose petals. Why would she need more rose petals – was she supposed to eat them?
More disturbing was the advice from Melissa that I should 'take care' on the way home as I was apparently in a dodgy area. I am not sure what that meant. A number of ladies indeed tried to entice me into bars but I told them that I could not possibly accept any such invitations without Cate's permission - and that this was extremely unlikely to be forthcoming if I woke her at any time at all – and especially at 2:00 AM Indian time.
Not that the invitations were particularly enticing. Most of these ladies were neither young nor attractive. Not that I am either. But if someone wants me to pay €250 for a bottle of no doubt very nasty and watered down Champagne I would expect that there would be some fringe benefits.
And if they send as their representatives outside these establishments – which look like they have not been renovated since D-Day – women who - shall we say - barely pass muster in street light – one must wonder what one will find in these dimly lit dens of grimness that pass for places of adult entertainment in Place Pigalle in Paris.
I mean if they used me – for example - to entice women in to see the Chippendales you would not expect much of a result would you. You see what I am getting at. I mean Ferrari does not use Paris Hilton at the Berlin Motor Show.
One particular woman- with a head like a Grave Robber’s Dog - suggested that Melissa and I should both visit a particularly odious and festering looking bar. This prompted Melissa to ponder what her role would be in any transaction which took place inside. It is a place that I would not have contemplated entering without wearing a 7mm wetsuit and rubber gloves.
It would defy anyone at all to make this area more hideous than it is. It simply could not be possible.
Oh – alright maybe the NSW State Government could add something – it doesn’t have a concrete car park to provide kickbacks to politicians – but it has just about everything else.
It even has a Japanese restaurant where a Chef went berserk and murdered three people with a Sushi knife. That takes some doing.
All of which sent me scuttling at a fairly rapid pace back to my small and cozy hotel room – avoiding the clutches of the many ample-bosomed women in the bars on the way down the hill.
It was not all tough going though – we saw some excellent (live and happy) cats in the Pet Cemetery. I shall report.
