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MONSIEUR PARISCOPE
In my twenties, long before satnavs invaded the City of Light, I roamed Paris under the watchful guidance of my bachelor-companion, Monsieur Pariscope. He was a compact listings magazine, costing a few francs at the newsstand, but worth his weight in gold. He was a dapper, glossy-coated flaneur, who chaperoned me with Haussmann expertise, to the distant ends of every Metro line. We stepped out from my borrowed flat in the Marais, under the Renaissance arches of the Place des Vosges and the formalities of the Hotel de Sully, into the squalid modernities of far-flung banlieu where a cathedral lurks amongst market debris. He was cultured and eclectic in his tastes. He showed me the cluttered dreams of Redon’s artistic workshop, but was was not impressed by the dangling guts of the Centre Pompidou. He was tired after the long march we took around Versailles. He coveted the tapestries and Visigothic crowns with their rough cut gems in the Musee de Cluny. He attended organ recitals in the Madeleine and took cheap seats at the Bastille opera, and even went to the cinema every day for a whole week. He made my solitary days of scholarship in the Bibliotheque Nationale bearable, helping me plan our outings. He gave me a sense of confidence as I explored his city. He only spoke to me in French, so my accent improved under his tutelage so that even Parisians sometimes asked me for directions and thought I was allemande, not anglaise. He shielded me from beggars on the Metro. He glared at mecs who tried to chat me up in bistros, cafes or banged on phone-boxes as I called home in tears. He taught me how to be streetwise and give the finger to impatient drivers on the free-for-all of zebra crossings. We gazed at the Ile de la Cite from the prow-like park of the Jardin du Vert-Galant, as we ate cakes with greedy concentration. He stays with me, though our Paris is long-gone, his suit dove grey like the late-spring sky, his gold-topped cane glinting with past recall, like the roof of the Grand Palais.