Saturday 26 February 2011

Newton's Law of Cab Music: what comes up, must come down...

Following many years spent in taxis on both sides of the Channel I can confirm that there is a conspiracy against positive thinking after midnight in the back of any taxi.  That is unless you are too drunk to remember, in which case, just remember to pick your knickers up off the back seat...


In a bid to rekindle my bond with the rest of civilisation, this evening I took up Ms Lynch on her request for wing-man duties for her gig-seeking rendez-vous, sought out underwear for the first time in four days and extracted myself from the fug of sweatpants and a variety of hooded tops that serve to keep my brain warm at 5am when trying to convene with Don Draper.  (To those of you that I met for a glass yesterday afternoon, I hope you are not reading this and if you are, just be thankful I was wearing trousers...)

The Swan Bar is pitched as a New York Jazz Bar in Montparnasse.  For this, may I just suggest that you default directly to New York proper and go to Brandy's Piano Bar.  Job done.  The Swan, as lovely as it is, was tonight torturing the collective memory of Judy Garland and a not quite as yet dead Liza Minelli (despite Sex and the City 2) for the best part of an hour.  With accessories.  With the utmost respect, were the bowler hat and hot pink feather boa really essential?  Just a thought.

We escaped after the first set to an oasis of two euro beers served on a dirty cafe table with some not-so succulent olives.  Sometimes that's all you need.

Which brings me full circle to my point about taxis after midnight.  You can guarantee that they'll either be streaming MagicFM (London) or CheriFM (Paris), and that after a great evening of session lagers and cigarettes those tunes will always pull you back into a post-romantic fug like a stale pumpkin.  At least I didn't lose a shoe...

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