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.