Tungate Ink

Stranger in a familiar land

A new advertising campaign for Great Britain has popped up in the streets and métro stations of Paris. It must be effective, because it actually makes me feel homesick. Or maybe I’ve just been away too long: 12 years this summer.

I remember having a conversation with a taxi driver shortly after I arrived here. We were motoring along the quais, one of the most beautiful drives in the world. The Eiffel Tower was shimmering, the Conciergerie looked mysterious under a sickle moon, a boat strung with lights wafted down the Seine. I must have made some comment about how lovely it all was. The driver said to me: “You may not believe it, but one day, all of this, you’ll be used to it. You’ll take it for granted.”

He was wrong. I don’t Paris for granted; I find it as wonderful as I did when I first arrived. But I am used to it – I’m not a tourist any more. I’m alert to the city’s darker sides, the reality behind the façade. That hasn’t stopped me appreciating the city. But the advertising campaign for the UK (no doubt created in the run-up to the Olympics) has made me realise something. When I left it, England represented the familiar and the boring, full of constraints and conventions. Now, home is elsewhere. And suddenly, visiting the UK looks very attractive. I can approach it like a tourist. I no longer take my own birthplace for granted.

A version of this article originally appeared in Stratégies magazine. 

Culture vultures

I greeted the launch of David Lynch’s new Club Silencio in rue Montmartre with some suspicion. Not only because I’m one of the few people who think Lynch is overrated (seriously, have you tried sitting through Dune?) but also because the club is likely to attract hipsters.

Hipsters have become one of the blights of 21^st century urban living. You all know their sartorial codes by now: the boys have tattoos and beards; often teamed with spectacles. The girls shun the beards but keep the tattoos and spectacles. In Paris, both sexes tend to smoke a lot. The carrying of scooter helmets is another localised phenomenon. And wherever they are, they wear fake vintage clothing and skinny jeans.

Perhaps the most irritating thing about hipsters is that they claim to be creative and original, when in fact they display a singular lack of imagination. Their narrow list of references typically includes Andy Warhol, Basquiat, Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, Brett Easton Ellis (hipsters like pithy writers because they secretly don’t enjoy reading), The Velvet Underground and obscure indie rock. You can often find them at the Palais de Tokyo, ignoring the art during vernissages. They adoooore New York, particularly Williamsburg. They pretend to be cool and democratic, when in fact they are insecure and snobbish (by the way, you must pay €780 a year to become a member of Silencio). You’ll find a satirical look at them on the blog The Unknown Hipster.

Maybe it's an age thing, but hipsters make me feel grouchy and intolerant. Or is it because I see too much of myself in them? Am I painfully aware that a little nudge would take me over to the Dark Side?

One thing I'm certain of, however: culture is not a shopping list.

 

The Belle Epoque of Paris newspapers

As if the printing presses have begun to roll again, a new exhibition in Paris brings the city's newspaper district roaring back to life. From the 19th century to the post-war era, the streets behind the Grands Boulevards - the long avenues that slice through the 2nd and 9th arrondissements - were crammed with newspaper offices.

Called Paris Journal: Le Quartier de la Presse, the exhibition evokes streets swarming with 'an army of printers, journalists and advertising salesmen, to which could be added a multitude of trades associated with the press: porters, criers, couriers and vendors'. The district was also stuffed with theatres, cafés, restaurants and brothels 'all of which seemed to work in perfect symbiosis with the press'.

The Grands Boulevards and the reporters who strolled them are perfectly captured in Guy de Maupassant's 1885 novel Bel Ami, featuring an ex-army type who claws his way up the journalistic ladder. The exhibition confirms that the boulevards, 'with their rumours, their multiple encounters and their numerous distractions', were part of the everyday life of the Parisian journalist.

Some newspapers employed more than a hundred reporters, while others made use of dozens of freelancers and columnists. They worked in packed, smoke-filled newsrooms or scribbled in cafés. This was an analogue world, in which journalists needed to be close to communication hubs - stations, taxi ranks - as well as to their readers, informers and other potential news sources.

Newsroom at the Havas agency, 1935. Photo: Jacques Boyer/Roger-Viollet

The exhibition takes great delight in taking us back to this era. We can easily picture the bustling boulevards filled with 'the carriages, taxis and cars that whisked reporters to railway stations, political arenas or the scenes of dramatic events'.

Today I live a 15 minute walk away from the Grands Boulevards. And although most of the newspapers have gone, I like to think that the ghosts of their presence remain, like the fading headlines on a yellowing page of newsprint.

Le Quartier de la Presse can be seen at the Town Hall of the 9th Arrondissement, 6 rue Drouot, Paris, until August 21 2010.