A city of contradictions

Just back from a short break in Paris - the city of love. What a wonderful place. So different from London. Obviously, London is great. The cultural capital of the world. The most cosmopolitan city on Earth. A place anyone can feel comfortable in.

Paris is different. It will claim it is the culture capital of the world, because it will ascertain nothing comes close to French culture. What better evidence one needs than French Pop? It is clearly cosmopolitan - all French speakers are welcome, and as long as they are white and born to French ancestry they will be considered 1st class citizens. Comfortable? No one should feel comfortable. One should revere the scale and importance of anything Parisian. Comfortable is for Provence, not for the greatest city in the world.

And that's exactly why I love Paris. Because everyone is taking themselves so seriously. Because everything happening in the present is linked so firmly to the past. And because the French are not shy about introducing draconian regulations that will keep things as they were. The primary manifestation of this is the success of local shops. In London every street looks exactly the same; Tesco, Gap, Boots, Whetherspoon pub. In Paris local shops are protected by long-term leases which mean that the chains are kept at bay. Every Boulangerie is an independent. Two of the best of them are within 100m from the hotel we stayed in. You know they are different not by the pastries on offer - they are all the same traditional fare - but by the croissant. One goes for the crispy brown version. The other has just enough flour in it to shape the butter into a crescent.

MGF S&M who joined us for a couple of days could not disagree more on which was better. MGF S was so dismissive of the latter she said: "I don't even need to try it. I know exactly what it will taste like". Their views on baguettes were even more extreme. You see, like true Parisians they care about this sort of thing. And to think that the croissant is an Austrian invention to mark the defeat of the Turks; eating the crescent being the culinary equivalent of sticking up two fingers. [Those of you who know me well will think I made the Austrian reference up. But no. MGF M told me the story, which means it must be true. The man is a font of historical knowledge.]

But how does one explain this persistent individualism and perfectionalism of every artisan, chef, shop-keeper or intellectual? My guess is that it is necessary if one is to feel meaningful in face of the enormity of the institutes of the French state. The Louvre is a mile long. Napoleon's tomb is bigger than Wembley. They are designed to make the individual feel small, and in an odd way, pushes them toward an excellence that makes them bigger.

PS 475km down. 525km to go. And, BTW, got it completely wrong with BP. Don't even think it's reached rock-bottom yet. It could implode, and with it most British pension funds.