A rainstruck Beave sings a street sussed serenade

We had a fifth birthday picnic this weekend. This was the perfect excuse to get a bunch of people down by the river to eat and drink in the sunshine, not to mention drag in some random passers-by. I have pilfered some photos from Rafael's website to illustrate the kind of things that went on.

Uh-oh. There's a Timber on stage.

Do not underestimate our pulling power.
The gibberish gameshow scene attracts a passing boat.

Opportunist group of North African dancers borrowing our audience during the interval.

Clara models her new sunglasses. Reactions were mixed.
But wait, who's that style God sitting behind her? Maybe he'll be able to give her some tips.

Sarah the kiwi tries them on. And I'm still not convinced.
"Ah, Beave, I should introduce you. This is Seera."
"Hi Seera."
"Year," says Sarah, "he carls me thett. But my nime's ekcherly Seera."

Festivities continued until about 6ish, by which time Beave and I had made off back over the river, planning to walk up to Place de la République to find an Indian restaurant. This plan lasted until a few hundred metres along Rue de Turenne, when Beave noticed that we were directly under a friend's flat, and the window was open. And did I mention it was beginning to rain quite hard? In a very Dire Straits moment he shouted up to the window. She had two other friends over. Bargain. We elegantly gatecrashed, only to decide that we would go straight out again and reserve tickets for the 9pm showing of The Da Vinci Code at la Bastille. At this point, those of you who are not fans of getting drenched while making pointless round trips in the pouring rain will wish to note that the ticket office at Cinéma La Bastille only opens 10 minutes before your fillum starts.

This all resulted in dinner at chez Marianne, which serves a Jewish take on tapas, and which, as Ruth helpfully pointed out, was recently recommended in the Economist. You're probably best off doing what she and Georgie did, ordering a platter of 10 different items to share between two. With careful umbrella deployment we made our way back to the cinema, and saw ye fillum. Haven't read the book, so I can't comment on how well adapted it is. One thing I would say, however, is that Tom Hanks + Audrey Tautou really doesn't work. But overall it wasn't as bad as I expected, possibly because it's the kind of fillum that critics love to hate (but then, usually I do too. Hmm. Where's my cynicism gone?)

In fact I find it difficult to have strong feelings either way about it. Most of the harsh criticism over the book is that, to put it bluntly, it presents bollocks as fact. Ok, but it's hardly the first book to do that. People who can't tell the difference are probably the same people who don't understand why it's called Da twice. The plot requires a hell of a lot of suspension of disbelief, but again, that's not abnormal in the world of fiction. And I enjoyed the twists. I find it difficult to hate The Da Vinci Code, because contrary to popular opinion I don't think it's pretending to be anything it isn't. I just wish they'd hired someone less fundamentally uninspiring to play Robert Langdon, and someone better at acting in English for Sophie Neveu (sorry Audrey, you're great in French, but it all went a bit Emmanuelle Béart In Mission Impossible there).

Mangiamo Italiano

The Improfessionals were in Villetaneuse last week to perform in front of 200 first year IT students at Université Paris XII. In a display of casual narcissism, we picked up copies of this month's Paris Times on the way there, and read about ourselves on the train. You will be pleased to know that Timber got the closing quote of the article, although I'm not convinced I actually said it.

The Villetaneuse campus is a monument to awful 1970s architecture. Apparently it was originally designed to be built in Tunisia, but funding fell through. So they built it in a northern Paris suburb instead. Not quite sure how that works out, but hey, tant mieux, it means that we can enjoy its myriad concrete passerelles and prefabricated buildings of the sort that were designed as temporary measures with the intention of replacing them 10 years later. Which of course never happens (cf. Reading School geography rooms).

So we performed in a lecture hall in front of reams of identical wooden benches only identifiable by the three-figure number stamped on them, and a vast blackboard with some fairly horrifying equations scrawled across it. The students take English as a unit in their IT course and had certain difficulties keeping up with the funny parts; as you would expect, the front row watched attentively, while further back was a guy who countered every actor's request for inspiration by shouting "Mousse!"

The others decided that after our exertions we should all eat an Italian meal together. As we headed back to Paris I spotted this fabulous looking establishment through the window of the bus. Unfortunately my argument, "let's go there, it'll be Really Good!", failed to convince anyone.

We then proceeded to spend most of the money we'd just earnt, at a suprisingly classy ristorante round the corner from Pigalle.

In other news, there is now a Steeve Sfax myspace page.

Summer concerts

Radiohead confirmed at Rock En Seine festival, 25th August, near Paris. Two day pass 70€, one day tickets still to go on sale I think.

Sigur Ros play l'Olympia, 6th July, Paris. 30€50.

And not forgetting - Eddy Gatline au Sentier des Halles, 10, 17, and 24th June, featuring Timber... 18€ on the night

If any of these interest you, please get in touch. Tickets available chez fnac.

Congés payés

Suddenly, I like the employment system.

Having finished my reception work last Thursday (in which David came and then spent at least an hour talking to a random Japanese-American tourist about nothing in particular) I was entitled today to my final paycheque. They buzzed my room and asked me come down to deal with a few papers.

I need you to sign here, said the gérant, to say that we've paid you everything we owe you and the contract has been fulfilled. And here's your cheque. Obviously you get a bit more than usual.

I do?

Yes, you didn't take holidays.* The law says we have to give you a paid holiday allowance. [Cites amount which exceeded normal monthly wage by almost as much again].

So that was nice.

*Not strictly true - see Même quand je suis en vacances je bosse from January archive - but I let it pass.

(Excuse the lack of meaty blog entries at the mo, I've been working on other things. This includes the Q-biq Xpression myspace page, and forthcoming work on Eddy's hitherto awful web site which I shall be improving if I have anything to do with it.)