FOOD FOR THOUGHT

For a short while in Ireland, around the 70’s I think, there was a minor fashion for ‘mystery tours’. These usually took place on summer evenings, and normally consisted of visiting a few places of historical or cultural interest, and almost inevitably ended up in a pub. Of course, it was a fashion that was never likely to last for long – people quickly worked out that it was quicker and cheaper just to go directly to the pub! I have to say I was never on one, nor did I ever feel tempted to do so. So I didn’t really expect to be going on one this week – but I did!

It wasn’t intentional, mind you, but arose from a well-intentioned, but misguided instance of direction-giving. Giving people directions is an art! I don’t mean telling them what to do, but instructing them on how to arrive at a particular destination. You know how it is – you want to find a particular restaurant, or shop, or even church, and someone has been there before and assures you of the best way to get there. One of my favourites in Paris is – “take such and such a metro to such and such a stop, and when you get out of the station it’s right there, just across the street from the entrance – you can’t miss it!” It must be some special gift I have for achieving the impossible, but time and time again I have most definitely managed to “miss it”!

So it was with a certain degree of trepidation that I set out during the week to make a purchase from one of those shops that I couldn’t miss. I got out at the suggested Metro station at Blanche, having being assured that the shop was just opposite the Moulin Rouge – “you can’t miss it!”. Now, there are lots of shops in that vicinity that one can’t miss, but the one I was looking for wasn’t one of them! I walked two hundred yards to the right, two hundred yards to the left, looked down all the side streets – definitely not there! Maybe I should have got off a stop earlier? I walk back to Place de Clichy. Definitely not there either! Maybe I should have stayed on ‘til the station after Blanche?

I set out again – consoling myself that at least the weather was fine, and I was getting a bit of exercise. Mind you, walking down the centre of Boulevard de Clichy is not exactly where I would choose to take my exercise! Apart from having to keep my clerical eyes closed in case my tender Irish sensibilities should be offended, if I was recognised walking up and down there not everyone would necessarily believe that I was trying to find my way to Sacré Cœur (which I wasn’t!). Anyway, to cut a long story short – I would have preferred to cut the long walk short – when I got to the Pigalle station, sure enough there was my shop just thirty or so yards away. True, I couldn’t have missed it if I had come out of the correct station and had eyes in the back of my head!