Victory Over Flu, Defeat Against Manchester United

...can't win em all, can ya ?

The day progressed, I stayed in bed. The Simpsons floated in front of my eyes for several hours as the clock ticked by and, having slept for 16 hours last night and complemented that with some high class laziness during the day, I felt better and decided to celebrate this by heading down to the Old Oak to watch Lyon destroy Manchester United. This sadly didn't happen and, tail firmly between legs, I came back home again. This is where the big thinking session of the night came. On Thursday night I'm invited to P's birthday party where the theme, interestingly, is the letter P. I have my poncho as a back-up option but I've come up with an ambitious plan with ATS to go dressed as a pint and a packet of Pringles respectively. We're going to meet up to work on it one of these days. ATS studies at an art college and so we're hoping we can skank some supplies from there and make this great. If it works, expect to see some pictures. If it's a horrendous flop, just imagine me in a poncho and accept my apologies for the lack of illustrations.

From yesterday, a cautionary tale. Why should one never trust sisters ? Probably for reasons like this. As I went down the elevator to attempt my aborted day at work, I looked in the mirror and realised I looked like some kind of overgrown bush. On the way home, I looked in the same mirror and thought the same thing. At this point I decided to ask my sister for a haircut, given that she has one of those cranial lawnmowers and I still only have 2€ in the bank. Sure, she says, how long ? I ask her for the longest one, and she says "9 then ?" and, being the idiot I am, I say well yes. 2 minutes later, in the bathroom, comes one of those little giggles. "Oops !! It put itself on the shortest one !" Yeh right. "Well feel it !" As my quavering hand reaches towards the back of my head I realise that there's not much hair left there. And by not much, I mean hardly any. And it's a big stripe down the side of my head. "I can probably salvage it by doing you with a 6", she says. And if that's halfway between the shortest and the longest, it shouldn't be too bad. This is where having flu and a haircut at the same time is a problem. You become some kind of moron who floats through the day and is incapable of intelligent thought. I firstly believed my sister (error number 1) that there were only 3 measurements on the razor (error number 2) and then didn't wonder how the middle of 3 lengths with a big stripe of the shortest length would appear seamlessly on my head (error number 3). After a while, I was informed all was done and that I could admire myself in the mirror. The result was quite impressive - somewhere between a chemotherapy patient and a neo-Nazi militant. Fantastic. "It looks good !" she assures me. It seems the flu has disappeared somewhat because, for the first time, I'm not sure I believe her. After some prolonged niggling I find out that the longest cut is actually 21. I decide to do it myself next time.

In 16 days I'll be off to Paris. I've been there a few times before but never for very long. Actually my most recent visit there was also my longest. Given that this was in 2001 and that I stayed for 2 nights, it's quite obvious that I don't know Paris very well. This time I'm going for.... 2 nights again. Being an office monkey as I am now, however, I can't go there for longer so I'll just have to take what chances I have. Given the Lyonnais roots of 50% of myself, I spend most of my time poking fun at Paris and disdaining Parisians as snobs, bad drivers and various other things Parisians are well known for being. So why I am travelling 8 hours on the bus in order to spend 44 hours there, you might ask ? The answer, as it often is, is M. She spent 6 months studying there and she's now going back for a week, to immerse herself in culture, sunshine, and beer. Or maybe just the last one, but it is impossible to go to Paris and not immerse oneself in culture, is it not ? This jury is still out... In any case, it was impossible to know she would be so close to Brussels and not to see her. So I'm going to arrive at 10 on the Friday night on the bus and take the metro across from the Porte de Bagnolet to Neuilly-sur-Seine to the apartment she'll be staying in with some friends. So what's the plan, M ? "We're going to Coolin for some beers !!!" A good respite from the week !

And once again, as they did from the jungle paths of Cameroon a few nights ago MSN windows call me back from the bars of Paris to an Brussels apartment where I can continue dreaming of the big wide world............