Paris.It`s big. It`s beautiful. It`s stylish and fast and varied and everything people said it would be. We arrived on the TGV on Saturday after a trip through the French countryside at about the speed a plane goes just before take off. There were the immediate problems, on arrival, of figuring out exactly where we were and how we were to get to where we should be, but people are helpful and the Metro, once you figure it out, is amazingly efficient. We have a very lovely little apartment near the Bois du Vinciennes, about 15 minutes on the Metro from the centre of Paris, and we have been walking,walking,walking. In all our perambulations I didn't find an internet cafe until now,and this one uses continental keyboards, with the keys stylishly lit navy blue on black. It looks fantastic but it's extremely difficult to use.I've checked my email, and I'll pop back later to write something a little more substantial, although I don't think I'll be posting pictures until we get to England in June.
In 1969, when I was 16 I left school and got a job as a labourer. My wages weren't high but to me they were a fortune and within a few months I bought my first car, a 1938 Morris 8 sports, this one here. It had a minuscule 4 cylinder engine and a wood framed body which meant it was slow and it flexed so much when going around corners that the doors would sometimes fly open. Nevertheless I thought it was pretty damned cool, especially with the modifications I made to the muffler for performance and advertising purposes, ie, removing it. Back then, the most popular TV program was The Avengers, in which the suave and resourceful hero, John Steed drove a 1928 3 Litre Bentley. Which looked kinda like my car, right? Yeah, right. Anyway, John Steed usually entered his car by leaping nimbly over the door, so I emulated him whenever possible. Now all this is preamble. I want to tell you about something that happened to me one day in Papanui Road, Christchurch. My car ...
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