Le journal du chat qui pêche

Cricketosity and filmishness

2006-12-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

What's new pussycat? Laaa la la la laaaa la....

Well, I've been watching cricket til silly o'clock in the morning on the internet while the test has been on, except for this morning, when I couldn't bear to listen to the biased Australian commentators gleefully counting down the runs needed for 2-0 up in the series. Of course, the fact that I'd sacrificed a lot of sleep watching the damn thing made me more more annoyed than usual that we lost. Although I'd better not get started or this will turn into a rant that not many of those reading this will be able to empathise with/give a damn about...

Been to see a fair few films recently - the new James Bond, Little Miss Sunshine for the third time and The Prestige. All are recommended, especially LMS which is absolutely 100% my film of the year (Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carrell - need I say more?). Daniel Craig is too muscly in a bursting-out-of-his-shirt way for my liking but the poker game in Casino Royale is brilliant, and the baddie is a mean nasty man indeed. And The Prestige is just your average twisty-turny-keep-you-guessing Christopher Nolan movie. With David Bowie. And Gollum. And a veeeeeeeeery fine Christian Bale. Here he is...mmm...

Just reflecting whether any girls actually read this blog to appreciate that last comment (and this picture)

For those of you after a more detailed and wholesome film review, try this crazy Christian fundamentalist site... It even provides handy links to the appropriate Bible reference for you!

Les Killers - c'etait enorme!

2006-11-19T14:44:00.000-08:00

Wednesday night was the Killers gig I'd been waiting aaaaages for, and I wasn't disappointed! Went with my friend from Manc, Sharon, plus her sister and a mate from Paris, Jethro. The venue was nice and intimate (about the size of the Futureheads gig for those who went to that - can't remember which Academy room that was) and we were right at the front. Lots of jumping around, getting hot and sweaty and singing til I lost my voice - all required ingredients for a great gig. They played all the crowd-pleasers and encored with All These Things That I've Done, though my fave was Mr Brightside which rocked. Pictures from my mate's camera will hopefully follow shortly if she gets around to sending them to me!

After the gig Jethro casually told us that he'd met Razorlight the previous week in the pub he runs a quiznight in. After impressing them with his wit and charm the whole evening (and plying them with lots of free beer) he managed to get a promise of being "sorted out" for the gig they're playing in December supporting Muse. So we texted them after the Killers gig to see if the offer was still available and think it's in the bag! Whether it's tickets or guest list or backstage passes we don't know yet, butI'm not complaining whatever happens. Plus I now have Razorlight Guy's number in my phone hee hee!

And now for something completely different...

Have a look at this freaky robot called BigDog!!!! Credit for finding this monstrosity goes to Christopher. Click on the Video Download thingy to discover the full extent of the creepiness :

http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog

This is going to give me nightmares for weeks. And now I've shared the nightmare with the world. Evil laugh mwah ha ha etc etc...

Le Away Day - c'etait terrible!

2006-11-19T12:10:00.000-08:00

On Monday we had an Away Day with work which everyone in the office got to go to. One of the benefits of working in a small office I suppose. The whole day took place in the Montmartre area, and we started the day with croissants and coffee in a little cafe. Then we had a guided tour of the Salvador Dali museum which was really interesting. You can appreciate it a lot more once you find out what all the symbolism in the paintings relates to.

After that we had lunch in a semi-swanky restaurant and found out that in the afternoon we were going on a treasure hunt (joy)... It was actually quite good, as we were basically left to our own devices wandering round Montmartre all afternoon looking for plaques and street signs and stuff. The winning team got a free book all about the secret out-of-the-way corners of Paris (which I was actually quite jealous of) and we all had a kir - white wine and blackcurrant liqueur for those who don't know their French booze jargon - to finish off the afternoon. In the evening a few of us stayed out and ended up at an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner. I've never eaten Ethiopian before but basically you have a mixture of various meat curry-style dishes and a big round piece of bread more like a pancake in texture. You eat with your hands and scoop up the food with the bread, it's quite messy but very tasty and quite spicy by French standards. Had a nice Ethiopian beer as well to wash down the spiciness. Yum...

Pictures for all who are interested in seeing what French actuaries look like are at the link below. These were taken by the company who organised the day. I don't think they're particularly good pictures myself - the photographer was a very gorgeous but very ditzy girl who just wanted to waltz around with an expensive camera more than anything else. Sorry - there's no pictures of her in the collection...

http://www.stratevent.fr/event/WatsonWyatt_Montmartre/index.html

Remember me?

2006-11-09T14:08:00.000-08:00

Well it's time for my quarterly update of all things Evansian. Here's what I've been upto in pictures since July when the weather was nice and I could go on my bike to work without my ears turning black and falling off...

Going up a skyscraper with my friend Becky and taking lots of pretty pictures of Paris at night (and getting very stupid hair due to strong winds).

Going go karting (August I think) with my old Mercer colleagues which was great fun although very sweaty. You start the evening by putting on already drenched all-in-ones and it goes downhill from there (literally, seeing as the track had a cool little ramp bit). I came 4th out of 13, beating most of the boys so I was pretty chuffed. Apparently I became quite the road rage dervish once I was on the track - Vincent had a bruised leg to prove it after I accidentally mounted his kart (no innuendo necessary...)

Now take one last look at the photo and notice how baaaaaad French people's shoes are. You see, I was simply doing my duty to the world of fashion by trying to mow them down on the karting track.

This is the almost the front cover for the mix CD I made for all the excellent ladies and gents that I went to the Rock en Seine festival with at the end of August. I say almost because the final version has loads of groovy colours on it (I'm being considerate to OG by posting the tame edition above). Rock en Seine's a whole other post in itself (and I've probably missed the boat there to be fair) but I'll just tell you that The Raconteurs, Morrissey and Beck all rocked big stylee.

These pictures were taken on the Sunday morning after Dave (the satisfied-looking guy all ready to fly with his passport in his pocket) had cooked us fantastic cheesybaconscrambledeggs on toast. In a word, yuuuuuummmmm......

After the high japes and hilarity of ReS, the dark age of Exams followed, for which there are no pictures for very good reasons. Once the light at the end of the tunnel had appeared, the Evans family went for a little trip down to Dorset which was lovely indeed. Here's a nice piccie of me and my sister...

...and an absolutely ace picture of my dad which makes me wet myself every time I look at it. My dear sweet sis is completely oblivious to the raging lunatic in a Bob Marley t-shirt behind her.

This was taken at the site of the Cerne Abbas giant (aka white man with a big willy carved on a hill, fertility symbol and supposedly a sure fire way of getting pregnant if you have sex on the bit that counts). We took the obligatory pictures and made small talk but it was a bit embarrassing for all concerned, especially when I unwisely embarked on the Millenium Eve orgy story that I'd watched in a documentary on the telly (late night channel 5 at a guess). Thankfully it started raining about 5 mins after this pic was taken so we let the crazy man drive us back home.

At the end of October I went on a flying visit to London (Lunt - I waited for you in Wimbledon Sainsbury's all morning - where were you???). This is a pic of me and Dave that I like just because of his smoooooth posing on the picnic bench (he really should be hiding that wedding ring if he's going to pull moves like that).

And this is what three tipsy girls all sharing a room got up to at the end of the evening when it was time for bed....

Righty, well that should provide a good 10 mins distraction for all those bored at work!

And here's Jerry's Final Thought...
I hereby pledge to update my blog more regularly (well, more regularly than once every 4 months) to avoid such unreasonably long and insuffciciently detailed posts. Every day I shall aspire to be more like Emperor of the Regular Bloggers, Maximowen Gartsidius.

(Hilarious tampered photo not pictured.)

Langoustines linguistiques

2006-07-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

This is a by-no-means-exhaustive list of the most silly French words I've learnt so far:

Diaporama = slideshow
Strapontin = fold-down seat (I know I've told you this one before but I just think it's fab)
Pif = nose
Avocat = either avocado (logical) or solicitor (less logical)
Manchot = either penguin or one-armed (as in "un manchot manchot", obviously. Have needed this one on an almost daily basis)

And here are some of my favourite slang phrases:

Clean(ish)
C'est terrible = it's fantastic
C'est enorme = it's hilarious
Grave! = I jolly well agree
Mince = Damnit
La vache! = Bloody hell!

Just plain vulgar
Tu me fais chier = you're pissing me off (literally "you make me shit". Nice)
J'ai rien a foutre = I've got nothing to do (translates literally as "I've got nothing to f***")
Tu te fous de ma geule? = Are you making fun of me? ("Are you f***ing me in the mouth"?!)

A little extreme under the circumstances those last three I'm sure you'll agree...

I was also filling in a programming spreadsheet thingy at work today and it asked me for the length and position of the tampon. And I thought French was the language of romance...

And so, Mesdames, Messieurs, here ends my unexpectedly crude (but very colourful) post...

High time for an update

2006-07-12T12:03:00.000-07:00

Good evening, I'm Natasha Kaplinsky. And now a summary of the main headlines this Wednesday evening:

Alice back living the values once more
Started new job last Monday, everyone's nice but have been reminded how it's always a bit rubbish starting from scratch in a new place and having to get to know how things work etc. Rediscovering the joys of Insite and Extensity, and spending many a happy hour catching up on all the Send to Babloos that I missed. I haven't really got enough work to do so my main challenge at the moment is trying to stay looking busy on good days and trying to stay looking awake on bad days. Have just managed to get myself involved on a client which might mean I get to go to Abu Dhabi for a meeting though (a small chance, but still better than anything I would have got in Manc) so that's not bad for a week's work. It's probably cooler over there than in the office anyway, seeing as we have no flaming air conditioning!!!!!! If it had been 2 degrees hotter last week we would have got to go home; instead, I sat and got hot and sticky in front of a 2000-row Excel sheet weighing up whether to go and put my head under the tap (probably not the height of Parisian chic).

Alice gets caught up in World Cup chaos and has to walk 2 miles home
Yes I know this is all happened a long long time ago. I'm only telling you so I can make this blog entry more colourful with some pictures...
For reasons I still don't fully understand myself, I watched the England v Portugal match in Planet Hollywood on the Champs Elysees. They had a big screen which was good, then loads of ridiculous celebrity cardboard cutouts stuck in front of the screen in a kind of display, obscuring about 1/3 of the view. This was bad. About 20 mins in some drunk northern bloke took action and pulled a load of them down, all his mates started shouting "Easy!!" and it felt just like home.
Then I went to see my friend Jethro (sic) to watch France v Brazil. Anyways, to cut a not very interesting story short, the metro stopped running due to all the revelry and silliness and I had to walk all the way home on my own at 1 in the morning pursued most of the way by various drunk French idiots going "allo bebe", "tu as des yeux merveilleux" etc... Not happy was I. Thankfully they lost on Sunday and so I was able to get myself back home and tucked up in bed at a reasonable hour ha ha!

So here at last are the damn pictures. These were the scenes at the Arc de Triomphe. They don't really capture what was going on - there were riot police and burning cars down one of the avenues but I was a bit scared of taking photos of the gendarmes as they tend to be a bit touchy about that kind of thing...

Alice superglues fingers to coaster in moment of craft-madness
I have a stupid cheap IKEA coffee table in my flat with holes in it:

Everything falls through and it makes me cross. When I was walking by the river with my friend Helen who came to stay this weekend I found some cool arty coaster thingies. This is what I made with them!!!

Unfortunately I've been blinded by my own creative genius so I have no idea of whether my coaster table covering oeuvre d'art is very cool or very naff. All comments greatly received. As long as you don't criticise in any way whatsoever.
It was the first time I'd ever used superglue and, naive as it sounds, I just didn't realise how sticky it is! So, obviously, I managed to stick 3 fingers to the bottom of one of the coasters while holding two together to stick them. I now have little patches of gold-coloured paper on my fingertips, which provide an interesting diversion on the metro as I try to pick/suck/bite/file them off. Wonder how long it'll take...

And some more!

2006-06-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

Here are some proper touristy pics that I've taken since I've got here. See - you've all got to come and visit - this place is amazing!

Inside the Eglise St Chappelle - my favourite church in Paris. 13th century stained glass almost from floor to ceiling - absolutely breathtaking on a sunny day.

Sacre-Coeur at night - very eerie with the light. Glad I spent so much money on my camera now!

Guess where this is taken from...

The back of Notre Dame. Much more impressive than the front if you ask me. Everyone started copying my view-through-the-flowers idea soon after!

Llama llama farmer llama llama llama duck

2006-06-19T12:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of my nearest and dearest. I'm getting excited about going home next week and seeing everybody and I felt like putting these up...

My little sis Holly. Adorable...

Nightmare fountain-coming-out-of-head situation more or less averted by my dad

One cool chick leaning on one cool dude leaning on one cool hedge

This is the country of cheese indeed

No-one beats Jonesy in a pouting contest

How on earth did they do that??!! Hilarity at Notre Dame

I'll give you one guess who the best kisser is...

Can't beat a bit of jazz hands on a Monday morning

Back by popular request

2006-06-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

Or a moan from Owen, more precisely.

So, quoi de neuf? Passed my exams! Tried to get all the French lot out for drinks on the Thursday night before I got them, we went out to a bar 2 mins from my flat and I nipped back to check the website at 11pm. There was the usual problem of the French not drinking - the first round consisted of 3 shandies, a perrier-menthe and a leffe (mine). It got worse after that - nobody was in the mood (probably because they were all stone cold sober!!!) and I was pretty stressed. Luckily after that my kiwi friend Mai and my Irish friend Niamh turned up and so I was able to get a bit merry with them to help calm my nerves. When I got my results I offered to buy a round but they all point blank refused and just sat there without drinks. All very odd. I'm not a big drinker particularly but I feel like a real alcoholic here!

A week back in Manc should sort that - I'm flying back home on Friday for a few days in between finishing at Mercer and starting at WW. Have already been recruited for a netball match by Lydia! Reckon living on the 4th floor with no lift must have made me fitter somehow so I'm counting on a thrilling comeback...

Life in Paris is getting good as the weather improves - it was 35 degrees at the weekend. I managed to find myself trekking up the only hill in Paris trying to find some random park where there was apparently some random people of whom I knew one. It all worked out fine in the end though and I spent the afternoon/evening eating lots of cheese and saucisson and drinking cheap fizzy wine (no corkscrew required). Later we went for supper at a Chinese restaurant called the Cok Ming. Mmm...

Good atmosphere here at the moment with the World Cup on - all the expats are bonding even more excessively than usual and the English/Irish pubs are always busy. Just watched the England match on French telly with French commentators - they were utterly scathing about the English team and basically spent the whole 90 minutes ripping it out of daddylonglegs Peter Crouch. Sorry, make that 80 minutes. Happily they shut up after that ha ha.

Here's a silly picture of my friend Sarah at Sacre Coeur to finish off...

2006-05-02T13:15:00.000-07:00

My last weekend was full of culture and booze and so I'm feeling inspired to write my monthly entry. I had my two best friends from uni (Mesdamoiselles Skilbeck and Jones) to come and stay in my little flat, which is still in a complete state. C'est la bordelle as the French would say (bordelle being a whorehouse, hmm...). We managed lots of alcohol-related things at night and lots of Parisian things during the day (well, the afternoons). The unnecessarily long episode in H&M doesn't really count but apart from that we did the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, the Louvre etc etc - all very nice. Touristy weekends remind me why I'm here in this cool place!

Change may be afoot with all things job-related - WW are keen to tempt me away and they may yet be successful. The location of the office might just do it on it's own - 5 minutes from the Eiffel Tower at WW compared to commuterville hell at the skyscraper district La Defense if I stayed at Mercer... Haven't yet spoken to the big bosses at Mercer but think they're likely to be a bit annoyed - oh well!

Final piece of news is a bit more exciting - bought tickets yesterday for the Rock en Seine music festival at the end of August in Paris. Only 70 euros for two days, and the set list is as follows:

http://www.rockenseine.com

Not bad I'm sure you'll agree!!

Pictures from my weekend to follow as soon as the picture uploader thingy decides to co-operate...

And so life begins...

2006-04-09T11:51:00.000-07:00

Life after exams that is. Back in Paris tonight after two and a half weeks of joyous last-minute revising in Manchester and two exams, both of which could have gone a lot worse than they actually did. Of course that doesn't at all mean I'm going to pass, just that they could have gone a lot worse... Had enough faith in myself to leave all CT4/CT8-related pieces of paper back in Manchester though - not having to resit those two would make my summer. My suitcase still managed to weigh almost 30kg coming back though - not sure how that happened. Just one of the many daily perils faced by girls everywhere I suppose...

Fabulous welcome upon arrival at Roissy Charles de Gaulle - my suitcase went missing and I had to go to the Services Bagages (what a misnomer that is) and speak to some dolt called Mourad who looked like Manikai/the guy off the Halifax advert. One hour later they finally found my suitcase, and it arrived on the conveyor belt thingy open, with all my stuff displayed for all the world to see. This was just because the guy couldn't be arsed to take me to the unloading bay and pick it up from there, where I could have sorted everything out with a bit of privacy. I managed to close it again, it stayed closed for about 15 minutes and then broke again beyond all hope of repair. Had to do three trips up four flights of stairs to get everything up to my flat!! Found that my lovely friend Becky had sent me loads of Cadburys chocolate when I got back though so seratonin levels were quickly restored :)

Off to do the boring unpacking/getting ready for Monday morning routine we all know and love now. It's ok though. Exams are over. Weekends are back. Life is sweet.

I know, I'm rubbish...

2006-03-12T04:30:00.000-08:00

I really should have made the effort to update this blog before now, apologies to all. The cricket has just finished though and the only other things on my to-do list today are the laundrette and CT8 revision, all of which has led me here.

Went out last night to a Pays Basques-style evening with a girl from work and some of her friends. Food was fab as usual; thought I'd get my recommended weekly allowance of meat all in one go (no innuendo please) so I had a massive plate of various cured meats to start, then steak with fried foie gras and gratin dauphinois potatoes, followed by tropical fruit salad. Two words: Y UM... Loads of songs being sung/shouted the whole time (we were in a big hall eating at long tables), the kind oft heard at rugby club socials and the like, except in French of course. I was the only person in the whole place who didn't know the words! Then some boys at one end of the room stood on the tables and got naked. Then we went into a basement area and listened to a band playing Basquais ska punk. Then I had to endure 2 hours of French retro-pop shite at the 'discotheque' which followed the band. All a bit random as you can imagine... Finally got home about 4am and am now feeling guilty for not having done any work with less than 3 weeks til the exams.

God I've really got the fear now, writing that last sentence has somehow made it all very real... This could be exactly the kick-start I need for a productive day's work. Am still going to help things along with a can of the French equivalent of Red Bull - inexplicably called Dark Dog. I say inexplicably because the dog on the can is yellow! Maybe they're referring to his soul...

PS In other news, the French for fold-down seat (like you get in the metro) is strapontin. I thought that was quite funny...(bloody French)

Slippery slope this blog malarkey

2006-02-24T15:36:00.000-08:00

STOP! This is the Empire of Death!

Not my blog, of course, no, ha ha ahem. That's what's written above the entrance to the catacombs in Paris, a huge underground cave system which filled with the bones of 6 millions Parisians (thought I'd start with a bit of culture before the inevitable descent into general lowbrow ramblings). They had to put all the bones in the caves after the largest communal cemetary in the city burst in 1725. Literally - into people's cellars, dead bodies everywhere. I put a lovely picture of some bones up there to really demonstrate the French sense of humour in action - arranging the skulls in hilarious patterns. Not at all disrespectful to the dead.

Well this is my first post, hello to all who find themselves here. Following the usual infallible model this blog will probably consist mainly of culture-shock rants, silly photos and links to random websites that I come across during my travels. Hopefully the novelty of this whole thing will last long enough for me to dig out some funny pictures of Gartside to add to the ever-growing collection.

The name of the blog comes from my favourite street in Paris by the way, Road of the Fishing Cat. My second favourite road in Paris is in the gay district - Bad Boys Road. This city is cool.

PS Quite an odd picture to put on my first post I know - I'll try and find something a bit less freaky for the next one! (So guess the Gartside pics will have to wait a bit...)