11 December 2007
Quote:
"Oh, it
was just something I overheard whilst hemming somebody's
trousers."
--
Garak
Aix-en- Provence
Friday I took the whole day off to have a leisurely travel day. I took the train to Gatwick Airport because I feared that the flights from Manchester might be delayed again. They have a YoSushi! at Gatwick, and I got into a right feeding frenzy! All the sushi girls were Russian. Now, that's globalisation!
I met Kristine and Kenneth at the gate for our Marseille flight, and in France No�lle picked us up at the airport and drove us to Aix-en-Provence. The hotel she had booked was lovely, but unfortunately we would only spend a couple of minutes in it. For dinner we went to a small Italian place and then got ready for the club which was just around the corner of the hotel.
The club only opened at midnight, but filled up amazingly fast. It was a small basement club with only one small dancefloor and a DJ booth right on the dancefloor, only a little elevated. We couldn't believe our luck and started searching for that other BIG room with the mile-high DJ booth, but that's all there was! We even started dancing before George arrived because the first DJ was playing nice, danceable stuff. We did not have to wait long as George came on at 1:30 or so.
The crowd was rather young, stylish in a grungy way, and cool. They didn't even take photos - or maybe they were so young that they didn't even know George at all? I found they all looked like they've just come from a hairdressers' convention.
George was in a good mood. He said hello to Kenneth and smiled at me when he spotted me. All throughout the gig I got so much more attention than usual that I thought I was going to DIE!
Kristine and No�lle pulled lots of young, drugged boys who went all touchy-feely and danced like zombies. I'm not sure which drugs they are taking in clubs these days but whatever it was it is it definitely does not make you look sexy.
Reims
The next day were early at Marseille airport waiting for our
flight to
Paris and were just hanging around on the benches by the gate.
When I went
to the toilet for the 16th time that day I spotted George and
went to say
hello and we talked for a couple of minutes. When he saw me he
said "I
almost did not recognize you without the slap on". I
thought that was a
funny quote coming from him! I wish he wouldn't always wear
those dark
sunglasses when travelling because you cannot see his
eyes.
I told him some
silly
insider thing that involved me and Kenneth, and we kept making
fun of it
for ages. On the plane, George, Craig and the French guy who was
travelling with them were sitting behind us in cattle class as
there was
no business class. We were in row 5 and they in row 18 or
something. When
we got into our seats George kept shouting silly stuff through
the whole
plane to us, and we hollered back. (Or maybe that was just me.
LOL)
Sweet Craig suggested that he would put our names on the
guestlist for
that night. He is so nice and always goes on about how he cannot
believe
we are EVERYWHERE! After we landed, Kristine and I waited for
the luggage
with Craig and I asked out of curiosity how they got from
Letterkenny to
Blackpool the week before. He said they were actually supposed
to take the
same Ryanair as me flight from Stansted into Derry that Friday
night, but
Coda had forgotten to book them on it!
When Craig had all the bags, we went to join George and Kenneth
outside
and we talked some more until they left for their car and we
made our
difficult trip to Reims, which involved the train from CDG to
Gare du
Nord, then a walk to Gare de L'Est through the pouring rain, and
then a
rush to the train to Epernay.
After all the
rush, our
train was 40 minutes delayed and we knew we would miss our
connection to
Reims. But amazingly when we finally arrived in Epernay, they
were still
holding out connection, so we arrived in Reims around 8PM. It
was raining,
of course, and cold, and we had a much longer walk to the hotel
than
expected.
Around midnight we walked another long way through the rain to
the club. I
told the door people that we were on the guestlist. The girl
asked for our
names, but obviously saying them did not help so she
showed me the
list. Our names had been added in handwriting under the small
printed
guest list with the header "Guestlist Boy George". And
she said: "Ah,
you're on BOY GEORGE's guestlist!" Yes, apparently. Then
the security guy
asked us to wait because he did not know what to do with us, or
which of
the tickets to give us, or if we also got free drinks or
whatever. They
all seemed confused.
The Saturday gig
was also
great, even though it was more crowded and therefore more
uncomfortable.
When George came on he still seemed relaxed and happy. He looked
so
gorgeous, I was only drooling!
Every time he looked over to us he was still making references
to that
silly insider joke we had laughed about earlier.
At one point one guy climbed on a table and shook a bottle of
champagne
all over the crowd, and it hit the desks and did surprisingly
much damage
to the set! George quickly looked at Craig and asked him
"Was that for
me?!" but as it wasn't and was just random, George did not
have to throw a
hissy fit and he just laughed and tried to wipe the champagne
off the
skipping records, and the music stopped, and he changed the
records, and
threw one of the records into the crowd as he decided it was
broken.
When he left he got into the car quickly and it had dark windows
so we
couldn't see him, but when they drove off past us he lowered the
window
and shouted another silly remark about our joke.
But the funniest quote that weekend came from Craig. Before he
got into
the car he said goodbye to us and said: "See you next
week?!" like he was
simply saying goodbye to his mates. LOL!
We had virtually 18 minutes sleep that night before me made our way back to Paris by taxi, train, metro and RER. I take back everything I have ever assumed about the effects of tranquilizers because it is totally possible to nod off whilst the plane is landing and only wake up when people are getting up to disembark.
Back in London I took a connecting flight to Manchester and then struggled back to Sheffield with the usual rail-replacement services that they employ on weekends. When I got home I found that I had been awarded an award for "Outstanding Performance" by my company. It had been announced at the Christmas party which I did not go to. But the weekend had been worth several Christmas parties, that's for sure. It was so good that I can now never do anything again because it will likely be not as good.
It doesn't take
much...
(Aix)
That bloke in
B-Rude gear
(Aix)
One of
Kristine's
(Aix)
Look, what it's
DOING to
me!
Me and Kenneth
in Reims
(we're still doing it - haha!)
Superstar DJ @
Reims
One of
Kristine's
(Reims)
