A trip to Paris

The Lapin Agile - a long-ago night spot, now looking very tiny

We went away to celebrate our 30th Wedding anniversary. To Paris! We stayed in Montmartre behind the Sacre Coeur, so on our first day we climbed up the hilly streets behind our hotel and approached the lovely white church. I had intended to go to Mass there because it was Palm Sunday but there was a massive queue to go in and we never did. We just admired the view, and went down the hill on the other side and up again. There were masses of people for whom a sunny Sunday is wasted if you don't spend it on Montmartre admiring the view. They take picnics and rugs. We walked a lot that day. It was a shame we didn't have a guide to the streets because I have read Gertrude Stein on the great days of Paris and I would have loved to see where all her arty friends had their ataliers and their adventures. I came home and couldn't find my copy of "The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas. But ah! now I have found it.

Outside the Sacre Coeur, with the view from Montmartre

The next day we were going to go to the Musee d'Orsay but that was closed, and we were going to go to the Louvre but the queues were so long we couldn't bear it, and so we went to the Pompidou Centre. There was a queue but we found it was to be searched. We found the same thing on Eurostar. There are very long queues but these are to be frisked and have your bag searched. The fourth floor was closed but that was OK because we spent a very long time on the fifth floor. We had an interesting time.

Inside the Pompidou Centre

 The next day I was completely resigned to the fact that we would have to queue to get into the Musee d'Orsay and it did take an hour of queueing and I generated a lot of hate for queue jumpers, which was uncomfortable. However, when we got our bearings and started to look around I really enjoyed it. We started with the impressionists and I was bowled over to see so many really important and such beautiful paintings, but having finished that we went to see the symbolists and I enjoyed them too, because they were trying to say something. I think we spent the whole day at the musee, apart from dinner.



This picture is by Degas. It is so tempting to think it's by Toulouse Lautrec.

I think the next day we did  the Galeries Lafayette, which is a big shop with a pink and gold dome inside, have you seen it? I wanted to buy souvenirs, but couldn't find anything my loved ones might want in the souvenir shop, which was on the top floor, and having got up there, we saw signs to a roof terrace, so we went out there and had our packed lunch on the sunny roof with all the students and young people who seem to know that it is a great place to hang out without having to pay anything. Then we went to see Notre Dame. Then we sat in the Jardins de Luxembourg.

The dome inside the Galeries Lafayette

The next day we did something in the morning that I can't remember and then did a walking tour, which took in the Left bank and Latin quarter, which was great, as it was led by a student who was very communicative with lots of little stories about the history of Paris and also helpful and told us about a cheap, atmospheric little place to have dinner. We found it difficult to find good places like that.

And finally on the last day on a recommendation we went to the crematorium of Montparnasse, which was pretty and I liked it but Ashley decided that graveyards are not his thing, and then we took a tour of the Seine on a vedette, which we found interesting and good value. Again, it was quite hot. I really wanted to go into Shakespeare & Company's bookshop which is close to the Seine on the Left bank, but I felt shy ! and I didn't go in. I sort of wanted to buy a book there, but I knew they would be far, far cheaper at home.

So we had a very good few days in Paris. At home we were just gearing up for the Council elections,  when Theresa May announced there would be a general election, in the name of stability, which is a laugh, and so the country is in a muddle again. There is information about tactical voting being passed around, but Jeremy Corbyn doesn't let go of his dreams that he will wake up one day and find that the whole country has turned socialist overnight, and voted that way, so he will never enter into election pacts with other parties even though the aim of all the non-Tory parties is to bring in a system of Proportional Representation, which should keep the Tories out forever, so is well worth sacrificing a few seats for. But his dreams...!

And in Paris, we heard something very interesting. A Parisian told us the UK was right to vote for Brexit and a lot of French people want the same thing. I would say "racist" only he was a Algerian Parisian. So we said, will Marine le Pen get in and take you out of the EU? No, he said, because if France left the EU the EU would fall apart. So Mme le Pen, according to him, has taken a huge bribe from high places to back pedal on that one, and not to take France out of the EU. Well, if all that happens, you heard it here first.

Two nations - and more

Benjamin Disraeli wrote a novel which I haven't read, but I will, called Sybil, or The Two Nations, and this is the most famous quotation (never "quote" please, girls!) from it.

Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets. The rich and the poor.
 

Well, now we know, don't we! In this country it's the educated and the uneducated, and it's the same; we don't know each other. We hardly visit each other's websites - even though it's easy to do so - because they are so unattractive each to the other. I accidentally went to a website called Right Lad and I was really disgusted by it - jeering hatred of a tearful liberal woman. ("Her period will stop and she'll forget all about it.") And this is triumphalism, which they are good at (not that they know the word) because they have won the referendum. The level of their comments ranges from "Suck it up you whining bastards" to "Don't you get it, losers, it's a democracy!"

At present the situation which most worries me is the potential for a split between Scotland and England - another two nations. This is such a small island that to break it apart makes no sense at all, except for the Europe question. Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, that this thing had to happen at all. How gloriously happy and blinkered we have been. Of course, often when I wrote about my life I said we were lucky and that many people in the U.K. are not so lucky, and I jeered at myself in a way, because I am not entirely unfeeling about that.

London voted to remain - in large numbers - and they are pretty angry with the situation. London is interesting. It is becoming politically active. It supports Jeremy Corbyn, whose parliamentary party is trying to oust him as leader - resigning in huge numbers - really with no reason as most (62%) Labour supported voted to remain, the same as Nicola Sturgeon's Scottish Nationalists. There is another binary split between the lefties outside parliament (pro Corbyn) and those inside (anti Corbyn) and why on earth should those inside entirely ignore the wishes of those outside whom they are supposed to represent? Anyway, a mob came out to show their support of Corbyn on Wednesday. The London mob! It hasn't been seen for centuries.

Parliament Square, Wednesday

Sadly, not so many at his last meeting yesterday in Bloomsbury.

The reason why all these people support him is because he is not at all glossy and tailored; he can't be bothered about his image; he is just himself - a conviction politician who has been active all his life for the things he believes in - veteran of anti -apartheid, anti- nuclear protests; you can go back decades and see him protesting. When you look at the last Labour leader, Ed Miliband, you can appreciate the difference. He was part of the political machine - he lived and breathed Westminster - it was very hard to identify with him because he was such a rarefied species. I never felt he'd been to anything like a protest where he might have to rub shoulders with the common people! For me, he was Blair's man, so I loathed him the way I loathed Tony Blair.

Of course, Miliband has said that Corbyn should resign!

In the Tory party there is also a great deal of infighting as they try to decide who will take the leadership from Cameron. If it is Boris Johnson he will split the party as he is not respected or trusted; he doesn't seem to have convictions and he has not served much time as an MP. When he was an MP he did it part-time as he was still a journalist, and was editing the Spectator at the same time. He delegated his MP work to some secretary. Not much commitment, then, no time to make connections or to form judgments of his fellow Tories. However, the people seem to warm to him. They think he is a real Union flag, Brexit man like themselves, who wants to close the borders (he doesn't).

Some people want Theresa May, who is a natural successor to Cameron, but she was in the Remain side and some people say the new leader must be someone who was in the Leave side. (Theresa May has no moral scruples. There was a programme on Parliament and it showed her pushing through an important piece of legislation by tabling it at short notice at the end of the day so there was no time for a debate on it. She swept in with her acolytes and looked like an Empress with her courtiers. She didn't look as though it had occurred to her to represent anyone but herself and her own glory.) Well, the Tories will like that, I suppose.

Another thing about Corbyn is that he does want to represent the ordinary man who voted for him. I don't think this is laughable. I think he correctly understands his function!

When I see Owen Jones trying to be brave and encouraging us all to make plans for the future, I still feel terribly sad, and reading all the comments I see that everyone else feels the same. We are like headless chickens.