Batman in my bedroom

On Sunday morning I woke up in Paris with a feeling sometimes known as... The Fear. It was that abstract unease that often accompanies a bad hangover, when you wonder exactly how obvious it was to all your friends that you had one too many shandies last night (or in my case, caipirinhas), and exactly what you were conversing with the taxi driver about. In French. When you don't speak French.

It all started well. On Saturday night, after a lovely afternoon with Barry and Marion, I headed out to meet my old university friends Sarah and Alex in a shabby but irresistible sci-fi themed bar called UFO, on Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud. One fast caipirinha later, we were skipping off to a cheap and cheerful pizzeria (not very French, I realise) where Sarah (who had been drinking for a few hours) kept saying "You've got to catch up!" and topping my glass up with vinegary red wine.

Then we got to the main event: Eurovision. For those lucky enough not to know what I'm referring to, the Eurovision Song Contest is an annual celebration of Eurotrash in the form of a music competition. Every country in the continent (or most of them) submits a song, and then everyone votes for a winner. A good Eurovision song must meet at least most of the following criteria:

• As Alex sagely pointed out early on in proceedings, it must have someone playing gypsy violin.
• Everyone on the stage must be wearing a hideously tacky costume, featuring sequins, cleavage, lycra and feathers.
• Wherever it comes from, at least part of the musical number must be sung in heavily accented English.
• Any male who features in the performance must be unbelievably camp.
• Each song must feature some sort of faintly disturbing dance routine. If a skirt or two gets ripped off, so much the better.
  

Then when it comes to the voting bit, each country has its own (debatably) good-looking TV presenter to come and announce the points awarded. This presenter will usually attempt a series of crap jokes and puns before getting to the points, perhaps in the hope that this could launch an international career for them. Also, it is a given that every country will give the highest points to the countries nearest them. It's all political. It's fabulous.

So the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 was on Saturday night, and Alex insisted we find somewhere to watch it. Disappointingly, it turns out that the French couldn't be less interested in Eurovision, so we ended up in a tiny English pub which had three other customers: two silent English blokes and one incredibly drunk Irish man. We'll call him Pat, because I think that was his name.

While Sarah, Alex and I sat in a corner, knocking back rum and cokes and shouting at Norway, Pat kept stumbling over to our table, asking us where we were all from, shouting about Ireland, spilling his Guinness and then trying to give us all hugs. Charmer. The reason we were shouting at Norway was that Norway won. By a landslide. Their song heavily featured a virtuoso gypsy violinist.

By the end of the contest, I was in such a good and patriotic (and drunk) mood that I was on the verge of doing my own performance of God Save The Queen.

I was just about to ask the others how they were getting home when Sarah cheerfully announced that we were going to meet her friends back at UFO. My head said no, but by this point my heart was driving.

So off we tottered to the bar, which was now overflowing with Parisian hipsters. At least that's my hazy memory. I also remember having a conversation with a very good-looking and arrogant French boy on the stairs. I have literally no idea what was said or whether I even managed to string a sentence together.

It was at this point that I turned to Sarah with a look of panic in my eyes and said firmly, "I'm really drunk." I remember turning down the last caipirinha. That was probably a good choice. Soon afterwards I headed back to the hotel, which is where I awoke eight hours later feeling a bit sheepish.

To sum up, I had a fucking great time in Paris.

Also, I thoroughly recommend the hotel I stayed in, which was one of the cheapest I could find (apart from hostels) and couldn't have been more comfortable and stylish. It's called Mama Shelter; it's a Philippe Starck designed hotel and you can check it out here.

Here's me in my lovely room (snapped in the mirror):


The only slightly creepy (or cool, depending on your perspective) thing about the hotel is that there are Bruce Wayne masks hanging in the rooms. You can imagine how I felt when I opened my eyes on Sunday and was confronted by Bruce peering at me, his face inches from mine.


Paris, I shall miss you. London, I'm still happy to be back.


IMPORTANT P.S.: There's an excellent breakdown of Eurovision - with photos! - here. Thank you Fug Girls!