Posted 27 October 1993
Stagg Meander was over for Euro NetWorld+Interop and the four of us spent a weekend in Paris. As you know, despite Maastricht you still have to queue at passport control when travelling between the UK and France.
Slippery Jo and I were behind Stagg in the queue, and I could see he was getting nervous. Several additional French INS types were called over to his window; nothing serious yet, just a few awkward questions. As we walked up to see what was going on, I heard Stagg mutter, “Is there a can around here? I got the trots like you wouldn’t believe.” He swerved off through the booth, beckoning for one of the Franco-INS guys to come with him.
After Jo and I were processed I ran off to the jacks to see what was going on, and got to the Gents just in time to see several tourists and the French customs agent come staggering out, wheezing and coughing and eyes watering. “Christ,” an American tourist moaned, “What’s wrong with him? The air’s unbreathable in there.”
“Ah, Tandoori night last night,” I said, “Very potent stuff.”
“And Bubba’s House 0’ Kimchee on Leicester Square for dessert,” added Jo. “Some those curries eat through man’s stomach lining, curdle his intestines and turn sphincter into jelly.” In fact, it was one of her little orange Mega-Max-Lax pills Stagg must have taken as he jogged to the Gents. They’re Russian-made, with instant and brutal results, very useful in a tight spot, almost as effective as a dose of Mace.
“The flight was murder,” I continued, “It hurt just to watch him get up and run down to the lav every six minutes.” I saw Stagg slip out of the Gents and stroll off nonchalantly if a little wobbly to the taxi stands, while the American dried his eyes and the customs guy retched against an x-ray machine.
You don’t even want to hear about the rest of the weekend.
Stagg reported later:
Here I am on a bench in the Jardin o’ Tuileries, banging away on my Compaq GonzoBox through fingerless woolen gloves, freezing my balls off in a frigid wind coming off Place de la Concorde. I was driven out of the CNIT at La Défense by the frenetic madness of the NetWorld+Interop exhibition set-up, and driven to this bench by the frenetic madness for shopping which occurs every time Slippery Jo finds herself on Rue de Rivoli.
The sky is grey, the trees all look dead, and I am cold and uncomfortable, with a suppository the size of a zucchini taking up space between me and the bench. I had the sniffles or something yesterday, maybe AIDS, no one was sure, so the French doctor I went to about it gave me these suppositories. Things respectable people would take a Tums or Valium for, the French shove a suppository up their butt. They’re suppositorymad in France; this place must be a Freudian’s Disneyland.
I haven’t yet been to any raves or Ecstasy parties here in France, and I’m not looking forward to an invitation. I can imagine entering the soiree and the host offering me, as a celebrity, a cap of acid to stick up my ass. No thanks. While I’m in France I think I’ll stick to Jack Daniels and maybe just a little medicinal hash, smoked orally.
“It’s too bad you don’t smoke,” sez Lono P to Mitch, back in London, “Because France is a great place for smokers. Not just because there are almost no non-smoking zones, or because the French routinely pUff away in the non-smoking zones anyway, but because cigarettes are free. No kidding, if you want a cigarette, you just ask anyone you see on the street or in a bar and he gives you one. I’ve been collecting them for three days, mostly so I have something to hand over when some French guy hits me up for a cigarette.”
“Stagg smokes,” sez Mitch, “He smokes like Pittsburgh.”
“Gimme a cigarette, eh?” sez Stagg.
“Piss off,” sez Lono, “We aren’t in France anymore.”
Stagg knocks over Mitch’s beer as he reaches across the table to cuff Lono, who bounces away nimbly. “My goodness, my Guinness!” yelps Mitch. Lono races back toward the Gents, while Stagg follows brandishing a fistful of darts he has kiped from a drunk Australian. There is shouting and commotion over around the jacks. Mitch, blue denims stained brown, wanders back to find Lono P locked in the Gents and Stagg crawling around Outside the dart-festooned door, sorting among a selection of Chesterfields, Lucky Strikes, Gauloises and Marlboros scattered on the carpet.
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