AUSTRALIA | Tuesday, 22 Sep 2009 | Views [101] | Comments [1]
"Davy's on the road again Wearin' different clothes again.." Who WAS that? Blue Oyster Cult? REO Speedwagon? Manfred Mann's Earthband? Whatever, as we say here in America; it pretty much describes where we are pretty succinctly - on the road ... Read more >
Tags: america, usa, greyhound, bus, death valley, grand canyon, road trip, las vegas.
USA | Friday, 4 Sep 2009 | Views [127]
I’m writing this in the back of an SUV on the way back to Fort Lauderdale from the Florida Keys. A wet and sultry tropical storm is passing overhead and a passing SunCruz Casino sign says Florida has the loosest slots. There is a Burger King and ... Read more >
FRANCE | Wednesday, 22 Jul 2009 | Views [144]
MANY thanks, Lufthansa, for telling me that you couldn’t find my son on your manifests because he had somehow got his tickets from United Airlines. Despite being on Lufthansa flight LH 565 from Ghana to Frankfurt and a further Lufthansa flight from ... Read more >
Tags: paris, plage, beaches, popsi bubblehead, el bulli, spain, beer, keith austin, voie georges pompidou, summer
FRANCE | Thursday, 16 Jul 2009 | Views [133]
Saw an interesting sign at the Science Park in Paris’s 19e the other day (see thumbnail accompanying this update). It’s basically a Lost And Found office but it was the literal translations that struck me. In French it’s ‘Objets Trouves’ – Objects Found;... Read more >
Tags: paris, france, parc de la villette, bastille day, fireworks
FRANCE | Thursday, 9 Jul 2009 | Views [143]
THERE was an advertising slogan in Britain many years ago which urged people to ‘Let the train take the strain’. That was in the supposedly good old days of British Rail, Intercity, and a nationalised train network, of course. That slogan, though, ... Read more >
Tags: paris, france, popsi bubblehead, trains, eurostar, glasgow, scotland, prestwick, beauvais, girona
FRANCE | Tuesday, 23 Jun 2009 | Views [204]
* My quest to make cassoulet here in Paris has to be deemed a failure. While expat Australian author John Baxter, who has lived here for 20 years, might have been a bit of a purist for insisting that cassoulet had to be cooked in a wood-fired oven he ... Read more >
Tags: paris, fete de la musique, marais, hotel de ville, bongo drums, wine, bastille, market, cassoulet, lozere
FRANCE | Monday, 22 Jun 2009 | Views [232] | Comments [2]
With mere weeks left until the end of our six-month sojourn in Paris – hang on, didn’t we just arrive? – thoughts have turned to the question of souvenirs. This is a somewhat vexed question if the truth to be told as the only souvenirs I’ve picked ... Read more >
Tags: souvenirs, paris, eiffel tower, notre dame, sacre coeur, berlusconi, michael jackson, elvis, berlin wall, mona lisa
FRANCE | Thursday, 11 Jun 2009 | Views [155] | Comments [1]
SPRING sprang in Paris and then sprang right away again; we’ve experienced the first prolonged period of persistent pluie since arriving four and a half months ago and although the rain has stopped it’s left behind cloudy blue skies and a cold wind.... Read more >
FRANCE | Thursday, 4 Jun 2009 | Views [210] | Comments [1]
RECENTLY we have been concerned with the question of ‘chicness’. As in the age-old dilemma of whether the French actually are more chic than anyone else, or is it one of those self-fulfilling prophecies? Certainly the chap strolling the Marais ... Read more >
Tags: paris, popsi bubblehead, chic, fashion, scooters, tourists, spring, jimmy choo, stiletto, notre dame
FRANCE | Friday, 29 May 2009 | Views [144] | Comments [1]
Back in the 70s the manager of a pub in Hackney Road, east London (The Queens, I seem to recall – now a sari shop or a sports shoe wholesaler or somesuch), leaned close and, through the crashing wall of Philadelphia Sound being pumped by DJ Blossom ... Read more >
Tags: walks, paris, latin quarter, st germain des pres, st severin, st sulpice, keith austin
AUSTRALIA | Monday, 20 Apr 2009 | Views [289] | Comments [4]
We are all prisoners of our prejudices at times. We can try to combat them but . . . for instance, have you ever driven past one of those Classical revivalist McMansions and wondered what it looked like inside? How surprised would you be if it was ... Read more >
Tags: joel robuchon, paris, la table, eat up, popsi bubblehead, food, review, pigs trotters, pets, smoking
FRANCE | Friday, 10 Apr 2009 | Views [215] | Comments [1]
So here we are, on a fast train out of Paris’s Gare de Lyon, and the fun has already started. The blonde woman across the aisle has a little Yorkshire terrier in her handbag. Next to that, in a sort of pseudo sports bag with mesh sides, she has a fluffy ... Read more >
Tags: pets, lozere, paris, clermont-ferrand, hotel de ville, venice
FRANCE | Thursday, 2 Apr 2009 | Views [155] | Comments [1]
Cassoulet – a sort of southern French bean stew with sausages and duck - is my next culinary task. Many years ago Popsi Bubblehead’s sister, who lives in the Lozere region of southern France, gave me a large vacuum-sealed jar of the stuff and I have ... Read more >
Tags: cassoulet, john baxter, spinach, food, wolves, lozere, france, au bon st. porcain, arrondissement
AUSTRALIA | Saturday, 28 Mar 2009 | Views [160]
Having just finished watching the three Lord of the Rings movies again it’s a good time to mention that The Ring Bearers of Paris continue to ply their wares. Every time we go anywhere near The Louvre there will be two or three of these women – seemingly ... Read more >
Tags: paris, ring bearers, louvre, notre dame, musee dorsay
UNITED KINGDOM | Monday, 23 Mar 2009 | Views [215] | Comments [1]
Yes, it’s me again, and so soon! Feeling a bit guilty at my lack of communication recently but it’s amazing the things you can fill a day with, still feel that you’ve done nothing, and yet be exhausted at the end of it. While in the UK recently ... Read more >
Tags: food, pubs, pangbourne, popsi bubblehead, thames, foodie, cheese, wine, tasting, berkshire
FRANCE | Sunday, 22 Mar 2009 | Views [226] | Comments [3]
Mes amis, je suis desole. Vraiment I am. A combination of a few days in the UK seeing the family, problems getting online while there, and general lassitude on my part have led to a prolonged absence from the blogosphere and an egregious failure ... Read more >
Tags: recipe, rabbit, lapin, food, france, uk, eating
FRANCE | Friday, 6 Mar 2009 | Views [248] | Comments [1]
Just a few thoughts regarding living in Paris ... where O where does all the shit come from? On one of my irregular morning runs around the Ile Saint Louis this morning I spent more time dancing around the little – and not so little - piles of dog poo ... Read more >
Tags: paris, popsi st bubblehead, photographs, st gervais, rue de rivoli, market, rabbit, lapin, dog shit
FRANCE | Friday, 20 Feb 2009 | Views [212] | Comments [3]
No sooner had we touched down in Paris than a medical emergency at home necessitated a quick trip to London. And quick it was; the Eurostar train takes just over two hours to speed from the Gare du Nord to Kings Cross St Pancras. Central Paris to ... Read more >
Tags: paris, photographs, eurostar
FRANCE | Saturday, 7 Feb 2009 | Views [252]
How many times have you heard that people, when they arrive at a new destination, want to “experience” the place like the locals do? They want to eat where the locals eat, drink where the locals drink ... it’s an obsession, and a ridiculous one. ... Read more >
Tags: keith austin, popsi bubblehead, venice, trains, paris, tourism, tourists, prices, croissants
AUSTRALIA | Saturday, 31 Jan 2009 | Views [297] | Comments [2]
We are in our final days here now and our attention is turning towards the overnight rail trip we are taking to Paris on Sunday night. But a few thoughts first on Venetian mysteries: Where are all those many little old ladies in perms and fur coats ... Read more >
Tags: keith austin, popsi bubblehead, venice, italy, lido, murano, glass, detachable penis, rick steves, rick stein
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