Bloody Mary/bloody mindedness

Our charming and cheeky waitress Camille finessed the failure of my Bellini and Elodie’s Bloody Mary to arrive together by informing us she is going to the bar for “Ze Bluddie” right away. Over the 24 hours in Paris I would substitute this for bloody mindedness of which we experienced several examples. There was the failure of the taxi driver totally stuck without any movement to explain we were only 250 metres from the hotel: the absence of any hospitality of the stand holders at the Biennale: on checking out the normal “We hope you enjoyed your stay and return” was absent: in the taxi journey to the Gare Du Nord a driver  pulled out right in front  of us without checking the retroviseur (lovely French word for rear mirror) then proceed to execute three point turn in front of an ambulance. The Parisienne reputation for bloody mindedness is well deserved. Still the bilan (assessment) was that the beauty of its architecture, the sophistication of the restaurants and hotels out-weighed this and made for an enjoyable and successful break.

It did not take too long for this to wear off, 45 minutes in fact.This is the time the taxi took to crawl along the Euston Road for a journey of no more than 2 miles from St Pancras to Marylebone for a cost of £21.   Why is that a drop of rain brings traffic to a standstill? Back in Marylebone I felt it matched Paris in being cool and chic. Perhaps the difference is that Marylebone came from nothing to something in 20 years which you cannot say of any Paris arrondissement. Also eating in the Viennese konditorei Fischers I appreciated that the cuisine is far more eclectic here. The only evidence of a military presence was a troupe of armed soldiers at the Gare du Nord. London has not had a Jihadist outrage. Yet.