"Allo, et maintenent..."

Be warned, I may go on a bit tonight, mon amis!

Have I mentioned how much I love being in this wonderful city?

I'm blissfully alone now in Lyon. Le grand gaffer has buggered off home & no one else from England is here till Sunday night.

Tonight I have been walking again, I've walked so much it has hurt my feet!

I'm going to talk to through my walk in a minute ( whoever said I could talk the talk but not walk the walk?) but first , so I can observe some order round here, let me take you back to work where I took a photo of my office today. You ready for this?


C'est magnifique, non?












I finished a little earlier than usual today due to it being Friday & the absence of Le grand gaffer.
My hotel is in an area called Guilltieré. It is named so because it was where lot's of people had their heads lopped off in the revolution. Nice!

Here's my "home" for the foreseeable future:

Note Humbert sitting on the chair.












The hotel is on Rue de Marseilles & the view of that from my window looks like this:











Then I had to deal with the only thing about Lyon that I fucking loathe; The shower from hell.
The shower from hell has been a thorn in my side all week long, but tonight, ugh!!!

It has no curtain & is "fixed" to the wall in such a clumsy fashion that the damn thing twists round and showers the bathroom floor. Having time on my side today, I took to rectify this problem. Using a few folded up bits of paper & some inginuity I managed to keep it pointing in the right direction. Alas, no amount of Blue Peter style maintenance could regulate the bllody temperature. I stepped in & set about my buisness. several nanoseconds later I had to step away from the molten liquid that started raining down on me. As I did I slipped.
I fell backwards, I was desperately trying to reach out for something to keep me upright but there was nothing. I tumbled back onto the ceramic floor, smacking the back of my head on the tiles, grazing my knee & cutting my index finger.
I let out an involuntary exclamation of "You fucking whore!" to the empty room & lay there, naked & bruised on the floor.
Merde!

After regaining my composure & completing my preening I headed out for my latest exploration. This may be boring ( I don't care if it is!) but I'm gonna share with you the songs that Humbert played me ( set to shuffle, of course) as I made my way round France's 2nd largest city. There was no skipping involved & the tunes added to my own personal ambience.

An olive grove facing the sea - Snow Patrol
Senseless - Erasure
Master & servant ( an on USound science fiction dance hall classic) - Depeche Mode
I set off up Rue de Marsilles & turned left to cross the Rhone. Here I (tried) to take the first of this evening's pictures. I'm actually quite happy with the effect I inadvertently got:


I dont actually know what that building is, but at night against the river it looks spectacular.







A town called Malice - The Jam
Dirty soul - Shed seven
I walked on through Bellacour (which appently is one of the largest public squares in Europe, fact fans!) and came to the city's second river; the Saône.
At this point I got the camera out again:

Please forgive the blurring, I'm not known for my steady hands! ( I am known for my magic hands but that's another story!).
What you can see here is the cathedral de Saint Jean in the foreground & up atop the hill is the, um...building that I don't know about yet. Rest assured I will go up there at some point for the view if nothing else.




Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me - U2
Mercy in you (the BRAT mix) - Depeche mode (which worked splendidly, by the way)
So I crossed the bridge and found myself in familiar-ish territory. I was by the Metro station that we came out of the other night when we had the Indian. Now being the handsome, debonair gent that I am it came as no surprise when a pretty young french maiden approached me as I walked. I removed my headphones and uttered my stock phrase of "err, non parlez francais". This didn't deter the young lady who then said "Will you give me 50 cents please?"
"Maybe" I replied as I delved my hand in to my pocket to check my change. She muttered something in French as I found some coins for her.
"There's 60" I said with a smile. She thanked me a scuttled off into the night no doubt to buy a tube of UHU and a carrier bag.

The swing of things - A-ha
I turned the corner & found myself in front of the grand facade of the aforementioned cathedral. I had seen it the other night but Le grand gaffer had rushed by at such a pace that I didn't get the chance to soak it up. It's a magnificient building which, curiously, seems to be a focal point for some of the city's less fortunate folk.
The photo does not do it justice:

I continued to walk through the narrow cobbled streets of vieux Lyon, past the Indian restraunt & countless quaint little shops selling french nik-naks. (Oooh, remind me to tell you about the woolworths- nik naks story some time!)




By now I was getting rather hungry & I'd been hoping to find (Look away now, Scully!) a KFC.
I didn't. So I walked some more...

Come as you are - Nirvana
Picasso visita el planeta de los simios - Adam & the Ants
She won't be home - Erasure
During this walk I crossed back across the Saône and back into the more modern part of the city.
Now if I was to get all arty farty on your ass, I would say something about how the startling juxtaposition of the historic, beautiful architecture & the neon lights on the bustling streets makes Lyon a glittering gemstone shining out from Europe like a beacon. It's me here though so I'll just say it's ace!
Then out of nowhere I found myself in another big square when this came on...
Gracedelica - Dark star
...which somehow became the perfect soundtrack for this place:




























Oh lordy, I love this city!
By now my stomach was grumbling at me so I made food my main priority.
N.Y. - Doves
Disgusting - Mansun
I passed thousands of restraunts & cafe bars but, as we've established, I'm a fussy sod & i was a little intimidated by the prospect of going into somewhere on my own with my limited french. I went past the Hippopotamus where I'd dined last night & realised I was heading back to Bellacour where i knew there was a McDonalds. I was determined that it would be a last resort though. I saw a big wide pedestrianised street going off in a similar direction to which I'd just come from & it tempted me with it's bright lights.
Symphony of tourette - Manic street preachers
Again my animal magnetism must have been radiating out of me as I was accosted by a posse of about 8 pretty girls. Again I opened with the removal of my headphones & "non parlez francais". One of the girls said "Anglais?" to which I replied in the affirmative.
The ringleader of this band of beautys insisted that I had to do the "medicine" dance with her. (i thought of Hyde & what a different dance that would be!) This dance consisted of a slowed down, mellowed out can-can which I happily did with her as her friends took photos. She gave me a little peck on the cheek & they all tottered off in a melee of "merci"s & "Bon sour"s. Bless 'em!

Incidentally, I known I've mentioned how delightfully pretty all the girls are here but I'd like to make a further couple of observations. None of the women are "hot" in a FHM phwoar look at the jugs on her kind of way but they emit a natural, uncontrived beauty that knocks those magazine girls right of their airbrushed pedestals. And, there are hardly any blondes at all, which is odd yet kinda refreshing. No competition for Dream Girl that way!

Anyway, I was ravenous by this point when I ran into the cure for my ills...

Cafe Anglais!!!
Yay!

I practically ran in!







I had, however, been suckered. Twas as French as French can be.
Luckily, the waiter was a diamond who spoke English. Not that it helped me read the menu.
After much careful consultation with the menu reading section of phrase book, I ordered.
Minutes later I was drinking beer & tucking into Cote d'agneau avec pomme frites.
which was delicious despite the meat being so rare that a good vet could have revived it!
I followed that with something that was nearly called Choclat Legolas. It was a desert worthy of an heroic elf! 3 large "boulles" of chocolate ice cream topped with lashings of chocolate sauce makes Flash a happy little camper. I'm gonna be a right porkzer by the time I get back home!

Grey Lantern - Mansun
Keep the dream alive - Oasis
Prologue to history - Manic street preachers
Lucky you - Lightning seeds

These 4 tunes accompianied me back across the Rhone & onto the Rue de Marseilles where I sit now in this internet place where I've spent more waking hours than I have in my hotel.

I've been sat here typing this up for just over 2 hours & for the last hour & a half i've been dying for a slash!
There are no toilets in here & I,m getting to crisis point now so forgive me for not spell checking or sorting the layout but I've really gotta live up to my name now!

Adieu.