Coronation from Paris

I put this photo, taken by V not me obvs, on Instagram and a friend commented that watching the coronation from Paris was very ‘Duke and Duchess of Windsor’.  As we went through the morning I kept an eye on proceedings at home.  We went up to Montmartre to look down on the city and it was heaving with crowds so we peeled off and walked slowly down to Pigalle.   Some things haven’t changed since I was a teenager in Paris, the paper metro tickets, the bunny cartoon on the train doors, the women smoking (so many young women smoke - so that’s how they all keep thin) but the pavements are cleaner as people pick up after their dogs.  Who’d have thought?   

We had lunch in Bouillon Chartier, an old fashioned restaurant that I also first went to as a teenager and later with a Parisian boyfriend.  Completely unchanged although the queues were much longer. It was worth it as it was lovely, basic food,  V in pig heaven with a plate of choucroute.  

After a late lunch we walked down towards the Champs Élysée and picked up a shuttle bus to Fondation Hermes where, in the huge Gehry designed pavilion there was an exhibition of. Warhol and Basquiat’s combined paintings.   I felt that the collaboration rather undermined both but some were very striking.  We decided not to go out to dinner but sat at the bar with George, the charming bar man who was an anglophile, spoke perfect English and adored Doctor Who, somewhat implausibly (favourite was Matt Smith).