I’m perpetually tired at the moment and, this week, I seem to have taken to getting off the Metro after work, at 7 or 8pm, at Place de Rihour and walking the 20 seconds or so that it takes to get me to one of my favourite terraces in Lille, rather than actually doing anything structured or valuable with my time. If you read “Bars de Lille – Episode 1”, then you’re already slightly familiar with the terrace in question at The Metropole. It’s very well-placed for “people watching” which, in my current low spirits, is a therapeutic thing to do. It’s a multi-faceted therapy. On the directly-positive and simplistic level, it gives me the opportunity to enjoy the sight, in an innocent and distinctly non-pervy sense, of some of Lille’s very beautiful women as they pass by. As with every other bloke (and, I imagine, lesbian), my own idea of what constitutes a beautiful woman is entirely unique to me. There are often groups of “young bucks” or ageing golf-tourists at adjoining tables and they invariably crane their necks to follow the sight of some mini-skirt-wearing, fake-titted, overly made-up and ostentatious bimbo with a shitsoo (sic) on a string. I don’t know whether women like that are really attractive or, perhaps, blokes think that they ought to find them so and, therefore, the men go through the motions of the neck-craning, the wolf-whistling and the lewd comments and, for their part, the women presume themselves to need to look that way. Either way, seeing women looking that way has far more of a comedy value to me than anything else. Whilst the golfers and bucks are exchanging obscenities over what “they could do” with her, I’m usually looking in the other direction at some demure, natural, dignified-looking and beautifully, femininely-dressed woman who isn’t struggling so much to stay vertical on her shoes. Is she blonde? Brunette? Redhead? Is she pale? Tanned? Is she slim? Large? Somewhere in between? The answer is, quite genuinely, that I don’t care. She’s elegant, dignified and naturally beautiful and she presents her beauty and femininity to the World effortlessly and, one imagines, quite obliviously. Women like that fascinate me and, if I fantasise at all, it’s about what they are, who they are, maybe how amazing it would be to be to enjoy some time with them – certainly not what I could “do with them”, as the golfers would put it.
People-watching also gives me the chance to see what clothes I ought to think about wearing as, having no female advisor in my life, I’m capable of being pretty clueless in that respect. It also gives me the chance to see, male and female alike, the weirdoes of the World who, seemingly lacking any judgment at all, present themselves in the most unfortunate ways. The males amongst the weirdoes help me to gain confidence that I’m normal after all and that, in comparison with them, I can remain invisible each time it is I who am walking in front of a terrace full of people watchers! Without a word of a lie, there are people out there who, ignoring their bizarre dress codes, don’t even know how to walk in a normal way. I’m not talking about disabled bods – just normal people, with no handicaps whatsoever, who never got to grips with how to walk in a normal manner – in a manner which doesn’t make them look bizarre. Maybe I could start a “walking school”, based on a combination of the principles of comportment, which used to be a part of the coming of age of all English young ladies and the principles of dog training, a stiff jerk on the choke chain each time the subject forgot themselves and reverted to their crazy and attention-drawing gait.
The females amongst the weirdoes reassure me that being without a female partner is not necessarily a completely bad thing. If someone said to me, tomorrow, that they’d found a partner for me, someone with a “heart of gold” who I was “bound to like” as she loves forests, rivers, the seashore and intelligent conversation, just like I do, I’d inevitably be excited and interested at the prospect. If, however, on meeting her, she was shaven-headed, wearing a yellow parachute jump-suit and sported a pierced eyebrow and a tattoo of Justin Timberlake was peeping out from somewhere in her cleavage, I’d lose interest in the first second. I’m afraid that, as old-fashioned as it may seem to some, I like dignity and natural beauty in a woman. To my tastes, a yellow jump suit would always lose in a contest with a long, flowing skirt. Feminine locks would always beat a “right-on” shaven head and, if someone thinks that piercings and tattoos make them or their body more attractive, then their body probably never was and never will be attractive.
On the evening in question, I was sitting on the terrace, people-watching. Beside me, occupying two tables, was a group of 8 ageing golfers from, judging by their accents, somewhere in the Midlands of England. As ever, I had nothing on my table to give me away as being English and, as usual, I had nobody there to talk to so they couldn’t identify me as being a countryman. I’d like to think that they imagined me to be “just another French bloke”, an idea reinforced by the fact that, in the summer, I carry a “very French” satchel-style bag……….. ok, it’s a cocking handbag! Are you happy now? Lacking enough pockets when it’s too hot for a coat, I use a bag like a big gay. Ok? Lots of blokes here in France use a gay bag like I do. I'm assimilating!
After an hour or so of witnessing these has-beens, (probably with wives waiting for them at home), telling excruciatingly boring “golfing trips of yesteryear” stories to each other and making lewd comments about each tart they saw pass in front of the terrace, I was extremely pleased to see that they were ready to leave, never having sussed me out as being English. They stood up, stretched and were about to head for their hotels when, suddenly, there was some noise in the square which drew their attention. Mine too.
There’s a glass pyramid water feature in Place de Rihour. It’s nowhere near on the scale of the Louvre pyramid but it’s a nice little feature all the same. The noise came from that direction. Two thugs, one French and the other clearly an immigrant, had started to fight. They were trying to punch each other but it was clear that, whilst they both had the desire, neither had the skill so not one single punch seemed to be landed. Being unskilled, they tried to kick each other but, even there, their intent outstripped their efficacy. Their plight of ineptitude was exacerbated by some knob who kept trying to keep them apart. He spoilt what could have been a very entertaining moment.
I need to explain something. I’m completely pacifistic and the whole idea of people attacking one another makes me sick to my core. However, there’s a big difference between an attack and a fight. It’s a big difference but it’s a very simple one. In an attack, which I despise, there’s an unwilling party – a victim to the attack. In a fight, there are two protagonists, each as worthless as the other and, to an onlooker like me, there’s a real desire to see the fight develop into whatever extreme it can. Why, as a pacifist, would I want to see a fight get as violent and as definitive as possible? Simple. There’s no contradiction involved. I have nothing but contempt for people who decide that fighting is an appropriate course of action and, as a pacifist, I love the idea that, when two people, each of whom likes the idea of fighting, decide to fight, one or both of them might either be killed, seriously injured or, of course, simply hurt enough to make them unwilling to engage themselves in such savagery in the future. It’s totally pragmatic.
On this particular evening, I was left disappointed. On the one hand, there was a violent French guy, looking like some kind of puny, quiff-sporting, rockabilly relic from some trend which was never anything to do with France and, on the other hand, there was an angry-looking, non-assimilated immigrant with a whole bag of chips on each shoulder. He looked very pissed off to be in France. Even as a pacifist, I’d have been delighted to see either of these vermin hospitalised or, even better, killed in a hail of fists, boots or even bullets. My pacifism and my desires to protect myself and other decent humans from bestiality don’t extend to dross like these savages. The more people like that evening’s "fighters" who are either killed or re-educated as a consequence of their own savagery, the better.
If someone said to me, tomorrow, that there was to be a monthly tournament on the planet whereby all of the countries of the Earth would be invited to submit all of their violent people as challengers on a “fight to the death” basis, I’d be all for it. If there were 300,000 entrants from around the World, then 299,999 would, rightly, be obliterated from our midst during the contest. That would be an excellent gain for humanity. So much less hate, aggression and violence on the planet. Always “to the death”. No rules. Anyone who entered would, by definition, be no loss to decent people. Win-Win. Even the winner would, almost inevitably, be killed in the following month’s contest.
Vaccination for society. Remove the violent dross on a monthly basis and no decent people are even involved in this massively-beneficial development at all. Flawless!
I just need a name for it.
How about “I’m violent; eradicate me (out of here)”?
Ok. Maybe that’s too complicated. Let’s just call it “Scum Cull”.
That has a nice ring to it.
