The Spanish high press

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

I read that mate, but I've ready everything about Nellcote and Exile on Main St. Currently working my way through Les Curieuses Chroniques de la Villa Nellcote which I found in a wonderful shop in Marais at the weekend. I could have spent 3k€ on Dominique Tarles 'Villa'. Quite the collectors item but not sure I want to spend 3k. Not certain I don't as well!

Appazza the Russian oligarch who owns it and only bought it to launder his filthy Putin money has had it confiscated by the French government. So it's locked up, I could only peer through the netting on the gates and take a few photos. I could have fit between the gate and the wall and jumped into the garden but was with the Mrs and not sure what would have happened to me. Some old French bag had a go at me just for peering through the gate. She would have been Vichy in WW2

Gutted I wasn't still there or I could have met you in Marais - I stay a 5 min walk from St Paul metro. {Btw, doubt this is your thing but the St Paul church has Delacroix in there. My mate, being a commie atheist, didn't ever go inside so didn't know.}

If you're in to Les Halles, reading Zola's The Belly of Paris {le ventre de Paris} is highly recommended if you want to get an idea of what it was like during the 2nd Empire. {It was my mate who recommended it to me after I said I'd listen to a R4 adaptation of Zola's Ladies Paradise. I downloaded the whole series of about 20 novels to a Kindle iPhone app for less than a quid.}

Oh, that's what I forgot to offer to buy you in the pub. Have you ever had a Picon? It's this booze they put into beer. Makes the beer taste much nicer and stronger.

Had my first one a few years back when my {sadly now dead} mate, Gwar, took me to the catacombs. {He'd taken me before in 1994.} We got back up around sunrise and went to a bar and my two mates ordered those. When I tried a sip and said I liked it, Gwar insisted on swapping drinks.

The day before I met you, I'd found a British pub near me on the other side of Rivoli showing the cricket, opening in time for the evening session. Got Merwenn to come and join me when I said it had AC. For our last drink, I asked him what that drink I'd had with Gwar was called and he said Picon and we got a pint each. €5 or 6 for the pint and I think €1.5 for the shot of Picon in it.

You've really got to try it. Have a demi first to see if you like it because if you do, it makes drinking in a bar so much more enjoyable.

If you haven't tried it by then {which would be silly} I shall buy you won next time we meet.

Ganpati bless.