Before I forget.....

Making coffee just now I was mulling over how absent minded I had become, counting the spoons in to the cafetiere, when I noticed the glass container that I'd just washed, drying by the sink. Looking down there was the metal frame and a neat little pile of ground coffee on the kitchen surface.

This kind of thing happens only too frequently. The other night I undressed, getting ready for bed, while chatting to Gill about something. Before I knew it I was half dressed again with fresh clothes. Looking around the room I knew I had missed something - ah yes, of course, the night!

Come to think of it, I've always been absent minded. I remember once going to school without my blazer under my top coat. No big deal you might think. But when you're the single grey jersey among a sea of navy blazers in school assembly you're made to feel a proper plonker. No-one wants to stand out at school.

Once on holiday in France we travelled miles up the motorway and I was thinking how clear the traffic looked through the rear-view mirror until we noticed that the hatch of our estate car was standing vertically, fully open. Fortunately our cases were so squeezed in the rear we avoided the nightmare of belongings strewn across the motorway.

Another time, on a train journey in to Paris we discovered we were on the stopping train and switched platforms to the fast line - except Gill left her handbag with all our passports and money on the other train. In Paris we waited for the train come in to the station and I dashed down the platform. Through a window I saw a woman placing the handbag in to her shopping bag. Bounding in to the carriage for perhaps the only time in my life when a smattering of French came in useful, I shouted: "C'est mon sac!"

During my years of commuting I must have left virtually every accessory possible on trains: briefcases, hats, scarves, umbrellas, gloves, coats, a mobile phone, more hats. Very few, if any, were later retrieved from the lost property office. My mum used to sow my mitts to a long piece of elastic, threaded through my coat sleeves. Unfortunately I never outgrew this dependency.

Sometimes I forget the whole train and, with a sense of deflation, watch the Woking sign sailing past as we run through the station. Over the years I have become quite familiar with Winchester station down the line in Hampshire.

I would never, ever, ever tie a knot in a handkerchief. It would drive me mad, wondering what it was supposed to be reminding me about.

As I get older the forgetfulness seems to be getting worse. The boys tell me that I'm always starting sentences but before I get to the end.......

And so it continues. I'm sure there are many more examples but as you might guess, I just can't recall them.

France v England - tour report

What kind of idiot thinks that a 9 pm start for a rugby match is a good idea? The French invented the guillotine for those who forgot the needs of ordinary people. It’s probably the only pre-match entertainment (with the scheduler hauled out as victim, ideally screaming for mercy) that could have relieved the hiatus in what otherwise had been an excellent two-and-a-half day tour.

Instead we settled for the slow strangulation of the French which did nothing to enliven the apres match atmosphere as the bars were thinning out at midnight.

Peaking too early in Paris before the six nations match at Stade de France, was always going to be an issue. The tour planning was going to take skill, balance and judgement, all of which were in short supply among our six-man party. The secret is to limit your time in the bars. The limits were more than generous. So that was all right.

We like to mix our drinking with the cultural experience of a big city so I had bought a useful little book called Authentic Bistros of Paris. The first one we found, La Petite Porte, was staffed by an authentic New Zealand bar maid (just like London then) called Sabine. Sabine - who it turns out was no ordinary barmaid - was going on to yoga class after her stint and she had found a few potential recruits. We had to drag ourselves out of that place but it was only 5pm.

Blurred vision

Art next, so we hit the metro, had a little singsong on the train, then rolled in to the Orangerie to look at Monet’s lily pond paintings in the oval rooms. The great thing about these paintings for the semi-inebriated is that blurred vision is no handicap.

Had we thought about it we might have shortened our subsequent trek to the Rue Mouffetard with a train ride. We might too have avoided an interlude in another bar. By the time we had found our chosen bistro, Le Verre a Pied, the manager was putting up the shutters. She pointed out another place just further on so the evening ended well.

The Saturday was always going to be tough, so Stuart (whose wife, Delia had cooked us some lovely oggies for the train journey), had suggested one of Peter and Oriel Caine’s Paris Walks. For two hours Oriel guided us around the Marais district, showing us places and telling us stories that we would never have heard or found otherwise.

Port-a-loo

One of these stories referred to the 17th century preacher, Louis Bordaloue, whose sermons at the Saint Paul-Saint Louis Church were so popular that the wealthier ladies in the neighbourhood would send round servants to save them a place.

Once in situ, the ladies were expected to endure a three hour sermon so they would take along their silver potties (called Bourdaloues, naturally)and pop them under their flouncy dresses whenever the need arose. They peed where they prayed. It gives a whole new meaning to the silver collection.

Too much Mucha

After a long lunch in one of the Marais bistros the options were extended televised rugby in a nearby Scottish bar or more culture. I can just about handle Irish bars in big cities, but the idea that anyone should want to import the Scottish drinking experience, complete with 80 Shillings beer at 7 euros a pint, is laughable. I went instead with Stuart to the nearby Carnavalet museum, the former home of Madame de Sevigne where you can find the superb preserved interior and facade of Fouquet's jewel shop, designed by Alphonse Mucha. More about him here.

We probably overdosed on the culture and neglected the drinking too much but I thought we had settled on the wrong type of bar (not authentic French) with the wrong beer at the wrong price and with far too much TV*; otherwise it was fine.

On the way in to the ground I was disappointed to hear a group of English supporters singing the National Anthem just as they do at football matches. They should stick to Jerusalem and learn the words, leaving the anthem for the official singing just before the match.

Oikish chanting

Even worse, inside the ground, after the English had scored their first try I heard some supporters chanting "you're not singing anymore" to the French. This is crass bad manners. Oikish chanting at rugby matches should be discouraged before it is allowed to take hold.

Perhaps it's the fitness ideal and obsession with winning that has killed the drinking and singing traditions in some rugby clubs. I hope not.

There was a long wait the next day for the train home so we took a trip on the Seinne and found another bistro from the little book. This was called La Tartine in Rue du Rivoli. A three hour lunch with cheese before the pudding - the French way - was just what we needed and there was even enough time to visit another bar before heading for the terminal.

A good weekend all round that would have been even better had the game's administrators thought a little bit more about the travelling fans. But maybe I'm just an old fart who hasn't moved with the times.

*Postscript: the BBC has apologised for showing almost 12 hours of continuous sport on BBC1 last Saturday (mostly six nations rugby matches - three games broadcast live). It plans to do so again next week.

The joys of cinema

"Where do you want to sit? Middle?" says the bored-looking ticket-seller at our local cinema. She doesn't look up from her cash register.

Almost everyone, it seems, opts for seats somewhere in the middle of the seating area. Why this flight to the middle? Is it a safety thing? Is that where you get the best view? Personally I quite like sitting at the front but I am as programmed as everyone else to seek the middle ground. "Middle," I bleat like every other sheep.

Armed with our numbered tickets we grope our way down the darkened aisle trying to find our seats. Once upon a time there were people with torches who showed you to your seats.

I recall that in France at one time it was customary to tip the usher. I did not do so once in a Paris cinema, either out of ignorance or meanness, and received a sharp jab to the ribs from the "assistant" who fled in the dark.

Today, however, there is no usher so we get down on our knees in the gloom, trying to make out row J. I count the seats to numbers 12 and 13 that are already occupied so the people must get up and sit elsewhere. We claim our places to find that the cinema is almost empty.

You can't win in these circumstances. To avoid accusations of churlishness we have gone to sit elsewhere in the past only to be confronted by another pair of "anal retentives" who move us on. And once you have joined the ranks of the voluntary itinerant you are condemned like the wandering albatross to scavenge from seat to seat, always glancing sideways, waiting for that "tap in the dark."

So we claim our seats in the middle of a small clutch of other cinema goers tightly bunched around us, ignoring the swathes of empty seats elsewhere. The Afro haircut went out with the Ark but it is enjoying a temporary revival in the seat in front creating a dark "grassy knoll" that obliterates any foreground action in the film. They should sell scissors at the ticket desk.

The cheap adverts for local tailors' shops and "everything for your wedding" have finished but the main feature hasn't started yet and we're watching one of those entertaining Orange telephone advertisements that remind us to turn off our mobile phones lest we disturb our fellow cinema goers. That's rich, that is.

You couldn't hear a mobile phone ringing above the noise of rustling crisp packets, the scrunch of popcorn and the slosh of Coca Cola that is spilled in such quantities, your feet stick to the floor. There is a fart in the darkness and sniggering. I am conducting a silent duel with the bony elbowed woman beside me for mastery of the arm rest.

Meanwhile my neck has stretched to giraffe proportions creating similar discomfort for those behind me. By the end of the film I'm ready for physio but I'm not going anywhere because we're hemmed-in on either side by people who like to watch the credits. Why do people watch the credits in cinemas? I blame those trendy comedies that put a funny bit at the end.

In spite of all this, possibly because of it - some innate perversity that defies explanation - I still love the cinema. All human life is there, anonymous and anti-social, yet clinging to an even stronger social programming that primes our urge to belong.

Another Donkin on cinema.

Friends I didn't know I had

So there I was, minding my own business this morning, writing yet another column, when I checked my email and there was one from Nikki Woodroffe asking if I would be her friend on Facebook. Well I'm already her friend so that seemed OK.

Anyway I signed up and all hell broke loose. I'm getting friends, old faces and people I didn't know I knew popping up all over the place. I'm wondering if accidentally I pressed the button which allowed the system to approach all the 700-odd people on my email log to be my Facebook friend. How embarrassing.

The strangest reaction came from my eldest son, John, who didn't think it was at all cool that his dad might be listed as one of his friends. Anyway he's confirmed me.

Weak ties

Some I don't know from Adam but some I do. Most are in the category of "weak ties" described in this column that refers to the work of Mark Granovetter. That's OK. As the column says, weak ties are good. But how many people are real friends?

It's hard to define a real friend. I suppose it's someone who will help you out when times are tough. I've never had it tough so it's hard to know who my real friends are. But I think I know who they are. My best friend above all others is my wife, Gill. I know that might sound a bit corny but it's true.

Alan Friedman

But there are many more good friends - the sort you enjoy sharing time with. I like friends who tell interesting stories or who surprise me with the things they say or do. I shouldn't admit this, but I quite like outrageous people and some who are really not nice people but who are amusing and have a certain edginess. Alan Friedman, if you ever read this, you know who I'm talking about.

I've lost touch with Friedman. He was outrageous in many respects and, like many such people, would neglect his friends. But he was marvellous company. He introduced me to the wild side of New York that I would have never seen otherwise.


Star Ship Enterprise

He was gay of course, but a bloke's bloke all the same. We called on him in Paris a few years back. In the hallway each wall was painted with a different prime colour with bright green on the fourth wall. There were leopard skin chairs in front of the fire. The telephones were shaped like the Star Ship Enterprise and, above the dining table where there is usually a light, there hung a glass bowl with a goldfish swimming inside. It was all very decadent. But that was Friedman.

We worked together a lot on the Arms to Iraq story in the early days where we found a conspiracy around every corner. I lost touch with him but saw he was doing a business slot on Italian TV. Friedman - one of the great characters of the FT. Not every one's cup of tea. but I liked him.

I notice his Wikipedia entry has aroused suspicion. I'm not surprised. I can see one or two dodgy claims. He almost certainly wrote it himself. I notice also that it's all "was" stuff. I wonder what he's up to now?