These pigeon coops also encourage the birds to poop in one place so that their droppings can be collected and disposed of, a new job so unpleasant that, rather than directly creating employment as it so often does, the city has outsourced the work to some unfortunate private company.
A typical Parisian reaction to this scene would be ‘beurk’, or ‘yuk’. Parisians call pigeons ‘flying rats’, though at least rats don’t climb into trees and poop on your head. The city has recently introduced a pigeon contraceptive scheme, fortunately not involving condoms. For the unpleasant details, see this chapter.
In the market for street entertainment
Two or three times a year, the pavements outside my building spring a surprise on me. I heave open the heavy porte cochère to find the way completely blocked by a jam of people selling or browsing at a vide-grenier.
Literally, this is an ‘attic-emptying’, though very few Parisians have attics. Many of them have caves (cellars) as well as wardrobes full of old clothes, shelves of books they’ll never read again and toys that the kids have outgrown. This, in theory, is what a neighbourhood’s vide-grenier should consist of, but of course Parisians are far too fond of bending rules to limit themselves to any theory, so in practice, the markets are a fascinating mix of private belongings and professional merchandise. They happen all year round (Parisians are naturally optimistic about the weather, and assume that Nature will obey their wishes), usually on a Sunday, and are always great places to pick up cheap pieces of Parisiana.
I went along to the most recent vide-grenier in my neighbourhood to see what kind of things might tempt a visitor to the city.
The first thing I noticed was the wide disparity between the stalls. Mine is a very mixed area, so the sellers ranged from families spreading out old sports shoes, PlayStation games and video-cassettes on a plastic sheet, to arty furniture sellers more suited to the Marais. There were also plenty of slightly roguish-looking brocanteurs (bric-à-brac dealers), postcard dealers (all French antique markets have at least one of those), stands selling a bizarre selection of old electrical parts, and one man in an Aéroports de Paris jacket selling suspiciously new-looking clothes.
But this vide-grenier was much more than a slice of Parisian street sociology. It was also a treasure trove for anyone looking for something unconventional but typically French to take home.
Here is a list, more or less at random, of objets parisiens that I saw:
An old gendarme’s badge, a 1950s souvenir of the Sacré Coeur printed on a bit of varnished tree trunk, vintage black-and-white postcards of Parisian streets, alcohol jugs, trays and ashtrays (featuring Ricard and Pernod, of course, but also lesser-known brands such as Marie Brizard, Saint-Raphaël and Cusenier), complicated corkscrews (French engineers are constantly working on revolutionary ways of opening a bottle quickly to get at the contents), a 1960s Nescao tin with a picture of a hopelessly non-feminist French housewife, several old toy models of Citroën 2CVs, a book apparently claiming that the French single-handedly invented aviation, editions of Paris Match magazine from the ’40s and ’50s, with covers reporting on the death of Matisse, Princess Margaret’s failed engagement to Peter Townsend (bilingual headline: Sad Princesse) and a 1949 edition predicting that les mâles vont disparaître (‘men are going to disappear’—though they didn’t say when).
My favourites, though, were the porcelain jug representing ex-President Mitterrand, which allowed me to ask, ‘How much do you want for Mitterrand’s head?’, and a little lead statue of Napoleon, which I haggled for and eventually bought for 5 euros, telling the French antique dealer in my English accent, ‘I’ll take Napoleon off your hands … again.’ For some reason, he didn’t seem to think it was funny.
Say it with wordplay
The French love puns, and the streets of Paris are a perfect playground for messing about with words (as in the case of ‘Sinners’ Street’ mentioned above). This is true on advertising billboards, of course, but there are also more permanent monuments to Parisians’ verbal foibles on display, and these are the names they choose for their hairdressing salons.
Perhaps it is just the happy coincidence that the French know the English word ‘hair’, which lends itself to almost endless word games. They pronounce it the same way as ‘air’, and it’s also like the French suffix ‘-aire’ in commentaire, commissaire, etc.
So whenever you smell a waft of warm shampoo as you walk past a Paris shopfront, or see a perfectly coiffed man or woman smoking in front of their shop door, it is a good idea to look up at the sign. More often than not, it will contain a painful pun.
Here are just a few of the Parisian salons that you might stumble across while out ‘flanning’. They are all real names:
Chambre à Hair—literally ‘hair chamber’, but sounds like the French for the inner tube of a tyre, which is a strange thing to want to look like.
Gram’Hair—another strange one, sounds like grammaire, or grammar. Specializes in coiffing schoolteachers, perhaps.
Besoin d’Hair—literally ‘need for hair’ but sounds like the French for ‘need some fresh air’.
FM Hair—a clever, modernistic play on FM radio and hair, which sounds like éphémère, or ephemeral. Though come to think of it, that doesn’t say much for the durability of their haircuts.
Post’Hair—sounds like the French pronunciation of ‘poster’, though surely it also sends out a disturbing subliminal message about baldness. What else is ‘post hair’? A wig specialist, perhaps.
Hair du Temple—a pun on air du temps (spirit of the times) outside a salon in the rue du Temple, thus achieving a double-whammy play on words.
Diminu’Tif—a purely French pun. Tifs is a slang word for
