first visited Paris as a rambunctious 19 -year old youth. We’d heard about these crazy affairs called fashion shows so went in search of long legged lovelies. Five like minded individuals and yours truly travelled there on the ferry, which was hell as there was a gale and we went back and forth only to arrive in Gay Paree at midnight. After having the obligatory run in with not only razor wielding Gallic Teddy Boys at le Gare Du Nord we eventually got to our hotel that my fellow travellers sister had booked for us because by all accounts she could say yes in French. She’d simply booked the cheapest hotel in Paris. It was in Pigalle (then perhaps the sleaziest red light district in the world) and, thoroughly sordid and entirely down market, we later discovered was favoured by ladies who rent by the hour. We should have known when the door was opened by a rotund 200 pound 40 something short black woman dressed in a see through baby doll nighty holding a banana that this was a knocking shop but it was only when I opened the wardrobe and found three platinum wigs, a whip and a crusty set of knicks that we twigged.
Consequently, we had our belongings stolen, were overcharged at every turn, given counterfeit change and brawled with not only Teddy Boys but Punk rockers, Market Traders, bouncers and football fans. We were thrown out for nicking drinks at the nightclub Le Palais and ended up in some dodgy drinking club where some rude fellow pulled a knife on me. Those were the daze. Since, I have visited Paris some 40 times or more and have, via the auspices of Paris nightclub guru, DJ Albert de Paname and translator Clive Hadley, avoided all of the above and got to know the ins, outs and in between of the City of Lights and fully understand that, to enjoy Paris, one really has to get deep, burrow well below the surface and know your onions.
These days I take the Eurostar which I still find really rather wonderful. You get on at St. Pancras, take in a nice half bottle of wine and alight some 2 hours later at Le Gare Du Nord into a different world where the attitudes, tastes, smells, people and culture are as different from London as sand is to salt. Undeniably, it is quite an anomalous experience - one that only a plane journey can really prepare us for- stepping off a train into this alien environment that’s both Paris and, due to French colonisation Gambian, Moroccan, Tunisian, Sudanese and Algerian. Tis’ in all respects downright foreign. Usually, a train journey of such duration would take us to the heady heights of Manchester, which in every particular is definitely not Paris.
ALBERT DE PANAME
OUTSIDE Le Picoti
My hotel Mama Shelter Paris East was in Eastern Paris and was very chic, really comfortable and unusually inexpensive with rooms starting at just 111Euro including breakfast. Indeed, I could not find fault with this hotel. It was perfect and is now the only hotel I will entertain in the City of lights.
Situated on rue de Bagnolet in the 20th Arrondisement (nearest metroAlexander Dumas) I guess its like staying in Bethnal Green but, as the Paris Metro is so darn good and Ubers are everywhere it makes no difference whatsoever.
Hotel Mama Shelter Paris