Yanda Time

April 8, 2006

The Cat Burglar and the Carlton in Cannes

At 5:00am yesterday morning I walked into the lobby of the five-star Carlton Hotel in Cannes. I had bare feet and was wearing my baby blue pajamas with the pink stripe on the pocket. Despite the early hour, the lobby was busy with very important television executives and the hideously rich, all catching sleek black Mercedes to the airport.

My pajamas had been a gift from my friend Bernie. She had made them herself. They were soft and fluffy. I have been told they make me look like Cary Grant. Admittedly, that was by a woman blinded with lust (i.e. my wife). Still, the concierge could tell by looking at them that I was a person of quality.

“Bonjour, Monsieur,” he said.

“Bonjer,” I said. “Jay oon problem.”

My accent produced the faintest of deep physical revulsion from the concierge. “How may I help you, sir?” he asked.

“Well, you see, there was this woman,” I said.

He nodded.

“No. It wasn’t like that. She’s a lesbian,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows.

“We work together. We were sharing an apartment a couple of blocks away. She left this morning, but something happened and she was shouting up at the window and somehow I ended up in the street in my pyjamas.”

“I see, sir,” he said. I could sense the most ephemeral of smirks straining behind his eyes.

“Let me try again,” I said.

A woman came up beside me clutching a small dog and a bottle of champagne and a bottle of scotch. “Henri, can you look after these?” she asked, putting the bottles on the counter.

“Absolutement, madam,” he said.

The woman’s eyes flicked up and down my pyjamas. She frowned, shielded her dog from me with her body, and continued into the hotel.

“Never mind,” I said to the concierge. “I’m locked out. But it’s only a spring lock.”

“Ah, bien,” he said. “You would like a piece of plastic to force the lock.” He elegantly mimed sliding a card into a door jamb.

“Exactly!” I said.

He held his hands palms up in a shrug. “I think it is very difficult,” he said. “Maybe there is someone you could call.” He looked up at the clock. “I think maybe it is too early, though.”

“I think I might as well try to open the lock,” I said.

He nodded and vanished from behind the counter. A couple of minutes later he reappeared with two blank plastic room keys.

“Merci,” I said.

“Bonne chance, Monsieur,” he said.

I left the Carlton and walked through the flurry of chauffeurs in front of the hotel. The sprinklers were on and the paving stones beneath my feet were wet.

A work colleague and I were in Cannes for a conference. We lost our hotel rooms at the last minute and the organisers booked us into a two bedroom flat.

My companion was catching an early flight and a car had come to pick her up. As I lay in bed, I heard her getting ready and open the door. Then there was a period of silence. It occurred to me that she would need her key to get the elevator to work. I got up to see if she needed any help. Her luggage was there propping the door open but she was nowhere to be seen. Very odd. I was still a bit asleep. I wandered into the lounge. She wasn’t there. I peered out the window. There was a car below the apartment. A man in a suit stood by the open driver’s door. I couldn’t see my friend anywhere. I could hear what sounded like a bird making an odd strangled cry.

I opened the window and poked my head out of the apartment. The driver noticed me and waved at someone over to my right. “Alors!” he said. “He is here.”

My friend came from around the corner. She had been shouting up at my window trying to get my attention. Being English and a lady, she had been trying to shout discreetly and so ended up sounding like some kind of exotic bird rather than a human being.

“I’m sorry, Chris,” she said. “I’ve locked myself out. Can you help?”

“No problem,” I said. I closed the window and looked around for her keys. I couldn’t see them anywhere so I went back to my room and got my own. Soon I was out in the street with the luggage. My friend kissed me on the cheek as the driver loaded her bags into the car and then they were off.

I went back inside the building and took the elevator upstairs. I put my key into the apartment door but the lock wouldn’t turn. I suddenly had a mental picture of where my friend’s keys were. They were inside the apartment, stuck into the lock from the other side.

I fiddled and strained and jiggled but to no avail. The lock wouldn’t budge. I went outside and peered up at the building. I considered trying to climb up to the balcony. There didn’t seem to be an obvious route that didn’t involve one of those cool rappelling things that batman always carries around in his belt. I wandered out into the middle of the street. It was deserted. The streets were annoyingly free of litter. If I was in London, I was sure there would be all manner of rubbish including discarded wallets filled with customer loyalty cards perfect for popping the locks on French apartments. But here an army of invisible minions kept every brick and knob polished at all times.

And so, a short while later I found myself two blocks away in the lobby of the Carlton.

The concierge was right. Popping the lock was difficult, but not impossible. Once I was back in the apartment, I found my friend’s keys right where I pictured them to be. I took them out of the lock and put them on the table in the kitchen. Then I washed my feet in the bathtub and went back to bed.

As I slept that morning in my Cary Grant pyjamas, I dreamed of the film “To Catch a Thief”.

Posted by YandaMan at 10:34 PM | Comments (2)

April 10, 2005

On Board the TGV

(more pix from the TGV)

We took the train to and from Grasse. It's a great way to travel. For one thing it is far less environmentally damaging than flying. For another, you can get up and walk to the bar car which is an excellent way to prevent deep vein thrombosis. And while joining the mile-high club has a certain cachet, the metre-high club is almost as cool and, if you rent a sleeper, far more comfortable.

Posted by YandaMan at 7:14 PM

April 9, 2005

46e Rallye de Grasse Alpin

(more of the Rally in Grasse)

The last couple of days we were there, Grasse hosted a rally. We didn't make it out to any of the competitive stages, but I snapped some pics as the cars were leaving and returning from the staging area. From my limited knowledge of the area it was difficult to imagine a safe area for them to race. Perhaps the sport was simply in making it through traffic in a set amount of time. I have a picture in my head of an outraged Frenchman who every year ends up with at least three rally cars in his swimming pool. This is simply a daydream. As I said, we didn't see any of the actual racing.

Still, it's a lovely picture: shoulders raised, arms outstretched, enormous moustache quivering like an epilectic mink; brightly coloured Peugeot slowly sinking in beautiful blue swimming pool. Ah, the glamour of motor-racing...

Posted by YandaMan at 8:23 PM

April 2, 2005

A Reflection Upon Water in Various Forms

(more pics of St. Cézaire et Pont des Tuves)

On Thursday we took the bus to St. Cézaire and went for a hike down into the gorge to Pont des Tuves. Pont des Tuves is a beautiful ancient bridge spanning a river as clear, green, and refreshing as a bottle of Heineken. If it was a hot summer day, it would be the perfect spot in the world to go for a swim. Unfortunately, it poured rain on us most of the day.

The rain didn't really bother us that much. We don't get out of the city that often and it was nice to be somewhere green. It brought back memories of my old treeplanting life in a kind of bitter-sweet way. In particular, I remembered one very cold and wet day on a similarly steep mountainside somewhere in B.C.

It was snowing that day rather than raining and I had a desperate need to pee. I was wearing fairly heavy rain gear -- the type with bib overalls -- and I knew that in order to pee, I'd have to take it all off and expose myself to the freezing wind and snow. My hands, in particular were absolutely frozen. I was finding it difficult to stick the trees in the ground because they were so numb. But I knew that the only way to stay warm was to keep working and generating warmth. The only problem with this plan was that working hard meant planting trees which meant bending over which meant putting pressure on my bladder.

Finally, I could take it no longer and I dropped my bags, undid my bib overalls and let the front flop down in front of me. I unzipped my jeans and forced my barely functioning hands to manipulate my block and tackle into a suitable direction. Despite the blizzard swirling around my plumbing, it felt fantastic. It wasn't just the reduced pressure on my bladder that felt so good. For the first time in hours, my hands began to unthaw.

I stood there looking out over an absolutely stunningly beautiful mountain valley, and kept my hands where they were for far longer than absolutely necessary. I was mesmerized by the thought that for the first time in my life I was fondling my genitals because it made my hands feel good.

This thought entertained me so much that it completely changed my mood and I soon found myself belting out the Christmas carol "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire…"

Fortunately, it wasn't nearly that cold at Pont des Tuves and we knew that once we climbed back out of the gorge we could warm up with coffee in a lovely little bar. No singing was required.

Posted by YandaMan at 7:53 PM

April 1, 2005

Cannes and Monaco

(more pics of Cannes and Monaco)

The day we arrived in Grasse was the first day they'd had a rail link with anywhere for 20 years. Accordingly, the train was packed with shrieking teenagers when we took it from Cannes to Grasse that day. We also used the train for a couple of day trips to Cannes and to Monaco. The day we took it to Monaco, the train was a bit delayed leaving the station and when it finally did leave (about fifteen minutes behind schedule), several people cheered.

I preferred Monaco to Cannes. As bizarre as it may sound, Monaco feels more like somewhere I could imagine myself living. Cannes just feels like a tourist trap suburban shopping mall, filled with shops where I couldn't afford to buy anything. Vicki described it to her parents as a cheap seaside resort for rich people.

Of course, maybe I just like Monaco because within my chest beats the heart of a poodle-clutching multi-millionaire. Plus, it has hills. I like hills. Monaco goes a bit overboard on as far as hilliness goes, but at least the roads are wide enough that your chauffeur wouldn't have any trouble getting the Bentley down them.

Grasse is equally hilly but the town planners thought they were anticipating future needs by making sure the roads could fit a pregnant donkey instead of just your standard chaste beast of burden. I'm glad we didn't rent a car while we were there. We managed to get lost enough just walking around the place. The map we bought in London turned out to be largely a work of fiction. It did have one minor benefit over the map from the tourist bureau in that it showed the location of the train station.

Of course, if the hills in Monaco are too much for you, you could take the approach of one local resident and live on a yacht big enough to have its own helicopter, but then parking might be a problem. Even in Monte Carlo, life isn't perfect.

Posted by YandaMan at 7:42 PM | Comments (1)

March 31, 2005

How to Smell

(more pics of Grasse)

Vicki and I took the Eurostar and TGV down to the South of France for a week's holiday. We rented a small but perfectly formed apartment in the city of Grasse. The main industry of the town is perfume making and, as dutiful tourists, we went on a tour of the Fragonard perfume factory where I learned some important perfume smelling tips.

We were given a tour by a very stylish and rather stern woman in a tight grey suit. "I don't want to catch any of you doing this," she said, sniffing one of the perfume dispensers. I felt sure that she intended this comment specifically for me as that is exactly what I had been doing just before the start of the tour.

They have been making perfume in Grasse since the 14th century. Back then apparently only "dirty" people needed to wash. Since the more noble you were, the less "dirty" you could possibly be, the less you washed. If you were a King this meant you never had a bath. And thus, the perfume industry was born.

Their oldest scent was developed for a Hungarian woman in the 13th or 14th century. "This woman had a problem," explained our tour guide. "She was very ugly. But she wanted to get married." A kindly monk took pity upon her and created this scent which is now called Eau d'Hongrie. This scent was so beguiling that almost instantly the Hungarian woman snagged herself a husband - the King of Poland, no less.

I was so impressed by this tale that I bought some of this scent for myself. It's now marketed as a scent for men, which goes some way to support the thesis that Miss Hungary 1329 was not the most feminine of women.

I didn't buy it just based on its pedigree, though. As instructed, I tried it out first, and this is when I got yelled at for the second time by our sexy tour guide. I sprayed some on my wrist as demonstrated, but then foolishly rubbed my wrists together. "Don't rub it!" admonished Frau Scentmeister. "Never rub!"

I think she did this just so I would blush, making my skin heat up and accentuating the effect of the eau d'Hongrie. Whatever her intention, it seemed to make my wife frisky, so I bought a flagon of the stuff.

Posted by YandaMan at 7:24 PM | Comments (1)

March 30, 2005

Hyujnm

(more pics of the flat in Grasse)

Hyujnm. Right now, that is the worst word in the world for me. I've burnt my right index finger you see. And typing "hyujnm" uses that particular finger for every single one of its letters.

Now "Ow!" is a fine word to type. I could type "Ow!" all day long. It doesn't use my right index finger at all. It feels great when I type "Ow!" Not "hyujnm" though.

"Political Freesias" is fine. As is "Wackadelic Dopers" or "Exacerbated Excesses".

"My Hymn-book Is Munjy" is a bad one. And I should definitely avoid "Hymen! Hymen! Hymen! Who has my Hymen?"

In retrospect, the key was probably not to light my finger on fire in the first place. It's easy enough to do though. All one needs is a loving attentive spouse and the temporary sabbatical of one's own brain cells.

My spouse and I are on holiday at the moment. We've rented a beautiful one bedroom flat in the French city of Grasse, eight miles Northwest of Cannes. We found it at http://www.homelidays.com/ which I'm putting in a plug for because I'm so pleased with the flat. It's lovely, well-equipped, in the centre of the old city of Grasse, and 300 Euros for the week including linen and heat. You can see the flat itself at http://grasse.2pieces.monsite.wanadoo.fr/index.jhtml.

And because we're on holiday, I stayed in bed this morning while my loving attentive spouse got up to make us some coffee. In fact, as soon as she got up, I rolled over to go back to sleep.

Except that I could hear her trying to light the stove. "Click!" -- that's the noise she made every time she pushed the stove lighting button. "Click!" I don't mind typing that; it doesn't use any of those right index finger letters. "Click! Click! Click!"

It was driving me mad. So I got up to help her. The previous night I'd spotted a lighter in the cutlery drawer and I assumed the stove starter button just didn't work.

"Let me try," I said as I entered the kitchen.

"No, I think I've got it," said my wife, pointing towards a burner at the back of the stove. "It's just that…"

"Which burner are you trying to light?" I asked.

"Well, I was trying to light the one at the front, here," she said, indicating a burner at the front of the stove.

"Okay. Let me try," I said. I held the lighter against the ring of the front burner as she turned the knob. It instantly roared alight, burning my finger. "Ow!" I said.

Actually, I said quite a few other words but they all have the letter "h" or "u" in them so I won't repeat them here.

"Are you all right?" asked my spouse as I thrust my finger under the cold water tap.

"Ow!" I repeated -- (or words to that effect).

"Sorry," she said. I tried to tell you. "I think the gas was off. I just turned it on." She gestured towards the back of the stove again. This time I spotted there was a gas valve there.

"Ah, right, that would be it," I said. "Glad I could help."

Fortunately, the flat has a lovely little kitchen with a lovely little window above the kitchen sink with a lovely view of Grasse. I spent quite a while looking at that view, leaning over the kitchen sink in my y-fronts with cold water running over my finger.

My wife, meanwhile, finished making the coffee and went back to bed.

Posted by YandaMan at 2:44 PM

February 18, 2005

Living it Large on the French Riviera

(more pics of Cannes)
(more pics of St. Raphael)

You know how sometimes you wonder about things. I used to wonder what it would be like to drink champagne on the deck of a 5 million pound yacht in the South of France. The answer is: it feels pretty good.

I've just been at the 3GSM mobile phone conference in Cannes. Exhibitor Space is at a premium there, so some companies rent a yacht for the week. Usually these aren't used for walk-by exhibits, but for meetings and as a place for the delegates to stay when they're at the conference. Hotels are also in short supply. I ended up staying in the town of St. Raphael 30 miles south of Cannes. And if you have a yacht and you're going to invite people on to it for a chat, it only makes sense to do so in the evening and offer a few cocktails.

Note that this was for work though. I wasn't there on a pleasure trip. I was on that yacht (well, several yachts, actually) drinking champagne and WORKING. This is the key point. It's all about steely resolve and finding out what your host knows and building relationships and doing your damnedest to ignore the jazz trio playing on the upper-deck and not getting too loaded down with canapes and bubbly so your mind can still operate at peak efficiency and making sure you can do your best for the corporation and bring back juicy bits of espionage and that one crucial business card that can whisk your fly out of the ointment just before the cleaver comes down.

But enough about work, let's all just look at the pictures and dream of moving to the South of France.

Posted by YandaMan at 10:58 PM