Groupon competition

I have a confession. I am addicted to buying ‘deals’.

For nearly a year I have been secretly logging on every morning to sites like Groupon and buying vouchers for activites ranging from PowerPlate classes to cooking classes, meals in restaurants to spa treatments, haircuts to hotels stays. An the great thing is, I’m guaranteed to save at least 50% on the face value. This is like magic to me!

I’ll be writing a fuller article on my experiences with Groupon in due course, but in the meantime, I want to tell you about a competition they’re holding to celebrate their first birthday in France. You can win a whole year’s worth of deals – worth 720€ – if you go to this link and enter before the 4th March. 50% off is good, but free is better! So get clicking.

Main Groupon site: http://www.groupon.fr/

Salon Du Chocolat

a quickr pickr post

Tony Frank / Serge Gainsbourg

Just thought I would add that I was lucky enough to meet Tony Frank yesterday and acquire a signed copy of his book of photographs on Gainsbourg. This guy worked really closely with Serge – one of my favourite French people ever – intimately and over many years, and a fantastic selection of his photos have just been published. See Tony below, my book and his inscription, as well as some of the most iconic photos he took. It really is a beautiful book – sod the coffee table, this is pride of place on my bookshelf.

Dans le Noir

Last Friday finally took me to the restaurant known as ‘Dans le noir’ (‘In the Dark’), after having heard a lot of buzz about it on both sides of the channel.

The concept of Dans le noir is that you are led into a pitch black room where you eat a meal. And I mean pitch black – you can’t even see your hand in front of your face. You don’t know what you’re going to eat – although you can specify dietary requirements before you go in. Our group of 15 all opted for the main meal and dessert option.

When they brought the first dish, I could tell that eating with a knife and fork was going to be a problem. Hence shortly after I accidentally dropped my knife, I quickly moved on to eating with my fingers. Luckily I’d washed my hands before I went in, but some others were wishing they’d been given a heads up about this. I thought I identified some beef (which had usefully been cut into small pieces), a potatoey/cheese gratin and some cold ratatouille-type stuff. I wasn’t far wrong.

Dessert was a selection of 3 little things – one sorbet thing on what I think was a biscuit, another lemony creamy thing, and finally another cream thing with BASIL in it. Yes, basil. And I confirmed that on exit.

This was washed down with a cocktail which I think was offered to us free as we were a group booking. Frankly; the food left a bit to be desired – I think they took advantage of the fact that we couldn’t see it – especially since we plumped for the cheapest menu option (the 2 courses) which was 39euros, normally without drinks. There are various options around the 60euros mark and then you’re encouraged to take a variety of wine options – where you guess what you’ve been given when you go out. No thanks, I thought.

For my friend who had been 3 times previously, she said that a lot of the fun lay in the potential conversation with strangers sat either side (you are at long tables for around 10 people). We were in a big group so we missed out on that, although at one point I turned around and tapped a neighbour on the shoulder in an attempt to start a conversation. It was unsuccessful. It is possible that they were enagaged in the other activity that my experienced friend had recommended, although she soon piped down when I told her that there were infra red cameras recording the room. Her jaw literally hit the floor, but the staff confirmed in when we left the room – they said it was a legal obligation in case anything illegal (assaults, thefts etc) happens. Said friend was rather red-faced…

As we loitered in the foyer afterwards I spotted an info sheet all about the history of this kind of activity in France, which began with discussions in the dark and evolved into dinners in teh dark. Was pretty interesting.

Another point to mention is that most of the wait staff are blind, and the restaurant has won numerous awards for this.

Overall it was a fun experience, but much more an experience than an especially good meal. I could be persuaded to go again and I think it’s a must-visit at least once.

Dans le Noir

http://www.danslenoir.com/

Paris

51, rue Quincampoix 75004

Metro Les Halles, Hotel de Ville or Rambuteau

Other restaurants in London, New York and Barcelona

Vogue Fashion Night Out in Paris

Last week Paris’ rich and glamourous – and less rich and glamourous – hit the Avenue Montaigne (street next to the Champs Elysées which is much more stylish) for Vogue’s Fashion Night Out. You can read more about what it was all about here, but here are some of my pics in the meantime.

In memory of Joe Rimmer

I just wanted to add a post in memory of my wonderful grandfather who sadly passed away a few weeks ago. This might not seem to be an appropriate place for it until I explain that he and my late grandmother were major forces in my life and giving me a taste for travel. Hence, perhaps without my early memories of my Grandad teaching me bits of languages including Arabic, French and Swahili from a young age, which not doubt contributed to me doing French at university, coming to Paris for a year and then coming back this year, this blog might not exist. My grandparents had a fantastic life travelling around Africa and the Middle East and listening to their tales of exotic ways of life abroad definitely gave me an appetite for adventure and being abroad. Below is an obituary written by my father which was read at my Grandad’s funeral, and was shortlisted for the Guardian’s ‘Other Lives’ section, although regrattably it didn’t make the final selection. His appetite for experiences and knowledge was inexhaustible to the end, to the extent that I saw him reading a book about ‘blogs and bling explained for oldies’ (or something similarly entitled) in his last weeks. Therefore I like to think he’s smiling down as he watches me put his obituary online on my own blog. I hope any readers will learn something (I didn’t even know my Grandad was colourblind until the funeral) and be inspired. Anyway, this one’s for you Grandad, much love always, Pip x
Joe Rimmer.

22/10/22–28/07/09 Aged 86. Born in Wallasey, my father dreamed of flying aeroplanes; but sadly, when he joined the R.A.F. he learnt that he was colour blind. This was shattering news but he decided to become an armourer maintaining Spitfires and Hurricanes.  He was stationed in Scampton, Aden and Mosul, Iraq, and had great sympathy for the forces out there right now. After the war he completed the forces teacher training scheme and continued to work in education with quiet integrity, encouraging and supporting students and teachers alike for the rest of his life.

He met my mother, Betty, when they worked in Wallasey Town Hall; they married in 1950 and remained so until 2006 when she died. They were devoted to each other and had a lifetime of adventure and often great danger in wars and revolution. Dad first taught in Macclesfield before requesting an overseas posting.  He was offered Zanzibar and moved there in 1955 where he was Head of the Teacher Training College. The students loved his style as he had learnt to speak Swahili; this was to set him apart from other Europeans and he soon became very well known.  Under Dad’s regime all students did an hour of physical education with him in the morning before lessons started!  I was born in Zanzibar but we had to leave in 1964 due to the revolution when the Sultan was overthrown. All Europeans had to leave, but the Zanzibari revolutionaries wanted my father to stay, such was his reputation as a good man.

In 1966 a contact in Libya told him of a teaching post in Tripoli. We packed up our home and drove overland to Libya in a LWB Land-Rover. We continued to live there until the 6 Day War in 1968. On returning to England he was Head of English at Aelfgar School, Rugeley until 1976. Based on his experiences in Zanzibar, he began to write and broadcast his own short stories on BBC radio. In 1977 he moved to the Sultanate of Oman as a Schools Inspector. He visited schools amongst the Bedouin camps, occasionally flying by Police helicopter. He later moved to Muscat and taught at the Royal Guard where Longmans chose him as an author for their TEFL series. In 1986 he retired to Stoke on Trent and became a lexicographer for Oxford University Press.  His younger brother was the late Professor Douglas Rimmer former Head of the Centre of West African Studies at Birmingham University. He is survived by me and my family Judith, Philippa and Rachel. My father was talented and modest with his feet firmly on the ground despite his original aspirations to become a pilot.

The jumpsuit Rocks en Seine

So the jumpsuit once again caught the eye of a fashion blogger, this time Geraldine Dormoy of L’Express Style.

I was at Paris’s big rock festival – Rock en Seine – at the time, luckily bearing a press pass for my work on the magazine, since the whole affair ended rather anticlimactically with Oasis not only cancelling their set (and the rest of their tour) a few moments before they were due on stage, but also officially breaking up. The festival itself was OK – I enjoyed the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Amy MacDonald and what I saw of Bloc Party – you can read the full review here and take a look at Geraldine’s musings here.

Ahh

Walking back from our pétanque I spotted this man’s magical light display and a couple observing it

Pétanque Finlandaise

Paris is steaming hot at the moment so naturally everyone is heading outdoors for a pique-nique as many evenings as they can. For my part, so far said pique-niques have been undertaken at various locations including the following: the Champ de Mars – the grass below the Eiffel Tower which gets buzzing with young people at night and has a fantastic atmopshere (and views); Pont des Arts (great atmopshere until the cops showed up and said they’d arrest anyone they caught drinking); and Quai de Jaurès (fun atmopshere, but lacking in grass which is conducive to bum pain). It was at the last location that I met some friends a couple of nights ago for some ‘Molkky’ otherwise known as pétanque finlandaise. Pétanque is the French’s glam word for what we like to calls ‘bowls’. We were the only people playing this variation of bowls and very few people failed to stop and watch at some point (no pressure) as well as to ask what the rules were. So let’s have a go at this.

1. You have 12 skittles each numbered 1-12.

2. You arrange them close together, like snooker balls, at the beginning.

3. The objective is to knock down the highest value skittle (i.e. 12) with the wooden baton. But, if you knock down more than one skittle, you only accrue the value of how many skittles you’ve knocked down. So if you knock down the 12 you get 12 points. If you knock down the 12 and the 11, you only get 2.

4. The first person to exactly 50 points wins. If you go past 50, you go back down to 25.

5. If you play strategically you should try and use the impact of the baton to push the highest value skittles – or the skittle that someone else needs to win – as far away as possible to make it difficult to reach.

Hopefully that makes sense. It was way more fun than regular pétanque, here are some visuals…

FYI my friend made the kit last weekend with some €5 wood, a saw and a marker pen.

I’m back

It’s near enough a shameful two weeks since I’ve posted which is NUL (translation, bad). I’ve been writing a few other things and trying to get my house in order (figuratively), but I am back.

I was at a vernissage last night at the very cool Orf gallery/bookshop (although when did 6 photos become an exhibition?) in Temple/République and got Facescooped! I hadn’t actually heard of those guys – I’d heard of Facehunter – but it’s the same sort of thingumy. I’ve always seen those pictures in magazines and wondered where those stylish people lurk, so it’s weird to think that someone momentarily considered me one of them. I’m surprised they used me with my dreadful squint and classic cynical frown that I have in far too many photos, but hey it’s my €10 jumpsuit from my favourite Marais fripperie which is the star of the show. I turned up the legs of it last night and wondered if it was a bit too porno, but never bothered to take them back down. Anyway here I am, and here is a link to the article.