Man of the Match

Maybe England should hire this guy for the team next time. I trekked all the way out ot the Stade de France for that? Grrr.

Sporting Life

December is almost upon us, dear reader. The nights are drawing in, the heating's on 'roasting' - why, it's even almost time to decorate the Christmas tree. And, after a mince pie or two, there's nothing Kitty and I like better to while away a long winter evening at Rhino75 Towers than a game of cat rugby (complete with made-to-measure ball). In this action shot, she's preparing to go for a conversion after scoring a try underneath the bookcase. Well, she's thinking about it anyway. We're still working on the scrum, though. Oh, ALRIGHT THEN, this ball is just one of the - completely useless - rugby freebies I stole received at a **glamorous beer-themed showbiz** dinner for the 2007 Rugby World Cup here on the Champs Elysées last night. Like every self-respecting "sports" fan, I was, of course, hoping for a Dieux du Stade 2007 calendar (look, the elastic's gone in that poor man's shorts - it happens to the best of us) but no such luck. Instead, there was a photo op with French team coach Bernard Laporte, a scarf, an ugly t-shirt and a book of old and less interesting (to my mind) rugby pics. But dinner was fab, particularly the big shank of lamb and the beer-flavoured ice creams (sounds ewww but they were actually quite subtle - the fig 'n' beer one was particularly nice, Ben & Jerry please note). In fact, this is shaping up to be a bit of a "dining out" week, as Monday evening found me sharing a table with fellow Parisian blogger Matoo. He didn't give me a scarf or an ugly t-shirt but he was totally charming, which is much better, isn't it? Smart guy, read him (but after me, he doesn't need the traffic as badly :))

Football Fever

So, as of last night, France is in the World Cup final!! Who'd have thought it? It's kind of taken everyone by surprise, particularly after the dismal start the team had against Switzerland, but now the whole country is in the grip of football fever. Why, dear reader, I was even bribed myself into supporting "Les Bleus" by Bruno's offer of free beer and pizza round at Château LOG (turned out to be a very impressive spread, too, with melon and all sorts - yummm). To be honest, the game itself wasn't much to write home about. The only goal came from a penalty after 10 minutes and the whole match was severely lacking in oomph, although there was some great defensive play from the French team. But, of course, getting to the final was the most important thing and seconds after the final whistle, the streets around Bastille were full of cheering supporters and tooting horns. And look, second photo in, you can see Darren, doing his stuff on the telly!! I saw him in the office earlier in the day and his tip was for a France vs. Italy final (which proved to be correct) but for Italy to win. Is he Nostradamus? Or is he Paco Rabanne? We'll have to wait until Sunday to find out. Come on now, all together, "Allez les bleus, Allez les bleus" (OMG, it's catching!).

I've danced with the man...

...who danced with the girl who...oh well, you get the picture. Jarvis Cocker's sister-in-law, to be precise. It still ranks some way behind my drink with Sting's gran, but it's not bad for a Friday. And it all took place inside a bridge. Which was incredibly hot, but extremely cool (if I may appear to contradict myself). There were all these stone heads lying around that apparently came from the 16th century Pont du Louvre (on the site of today's Pont Neuf). Frankly, it seems as good a place to keep them as any. Anyway, many thanks for the invite to those gorgeously fashionable kids about town Sid and Nancy. Very good fun, even if I was a little pooped from my London trip. I even made the little banner at the top of this post from my camera pics of the lights!! (creative to a fault, some might say). The rest of the weekend was spent lounging around, trying out my new camera, watching football, crying tears of national shame, watching more football, trying to be a good sport, and drinking and chatting with friends on a café terrace into the night as the whole of Paris, or so it seemed, drove past tooting their horns and waving flags. Yes, well I hope they're still tooting and waving on Wednesday night, is all I'll say. Hmmph. (Am such a bad loser, I know).

Eternal Flame

"Is this burning (burning) an eternal flame?" the Bangles sang. A question I'm sure many of us have asked ourselves at one time or another, and it's usually nothing a course of antibiotics can't fix. But, lest we forget, dear reader, the eternal flame is also the symbol of the Olympic Games. And it is this sporting connection rhino75 has in mind, because this weekend Paris, city of light, hosted its third international gay games tournament. Now I can't quite work out where this stands in relation to your common-or-garden gay games event, as the French Gay & Lesbian Sports Federation doesn't give out much on its website. I suspect it's a rather, shall we say bijou event - the only publicity I saw around the Paris gay village was for a night at some club once the whole thing was over where, presumably, you could meet 'n' mingle and (no doubt) get up to all manner of mischief with gay athletes. However, I AM able to give you an EXCLUSIVE(-ish) peek into what goes on behind the scenes at these international sporting events. The two gentlemen in the middle of the photo above were actually competing in the 400-meter swimming relay today. No mean feat in itself but even more impressive when you take into account they were still drinking cocktails with Signor G. and myself at 3 a.m. - now THAT'S what I call training!! I may well take up gay sport myself, as it appears I've been doing the necessary "cocktail" workout for years. Who knew? It's certainly more likely than me taking up acrobatics in a green knitted hoodie while attached to a large piece of white sticky tape. That's what we were watching at the start of the evening, courtesy of the lovely Mrs. LOG and her (now surely) famous "happening" Magenta Ephémères. Very challenging, but it looked like hard work, if you ask me. Triffic.

A day at the races

Well, more of a Sunday afternoon really. Because, dear reader, rhino75 was very kindly invited along to watch the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris, all 5800 meters and 23 jumps of it. A great excuse to dust off the best blazer and down a few g&ts in honour of the sport of kings. To be honest, I'd forgotten how much fun horse-racing can be, pretending to study the form, placing your bets, tearing up your ticket in disgust afterwards... fab!! And, of course, in the members' (ahem!) enclosure, not only do you have all those small-but-perfectly formed jockeys, but there's also TONS of hot posh totty upon which to feast one's eyes. AND I finished the day up €15. Talk about win-win situation.