| Testing My Influence |
| Written by Brendon Green |
| Thursday, 10 December 2009 05:26 |
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On Saturday I went to farewell a Kiwi who has fallen victim to the ever tightening joblessness of Paris. Well actually she got offered a sweet as job in London, but I don’t like to overlook a chance for hyperbole. We met at a busy café in the Saint-Germain des Pres area. Café de Flore the place was called. It was humming with activity and filled with English-speaking; a dead giveaway that it is a tourist attraction. My friend told me the house specialty is the Hot Chocolate, which is totally enough of a reason to make a café essential for me. But then, on the front page of the menu, I saw the true attraction. A quote from Jean-Paul Sartre. This was intellectual tourism! Apparently Mr Sartre came here often, existentialism could literally be traced back to these Hot Chocolates. And that was enough to pack the café day after day. I was very impressed by Mr Sartre’s influence, and a new life goal was born. (To date - all my ramblings and references to the Hollywood Bakery by the Lincoln Road Warehouse have not resulted in increased business, a fact that I am quite disappointed about.) I decided to test my influence by going to a rugby match. (I’m sorry, I’m not writing about sport this much as part of an agenda, it’s just how my life is unfolding.) The game was Racing Metro (a Paris team) vs. Toulon (a Toulon team). Two metros and a bus ride later we were at the stadium, which wouldn’t look out of place hosting a 2nd division Air New Zealand Cup match. Racing Metro is a fairly new team to the top division of the French Top 14 Competition, and as such their home ground isn’t as swish as the salaries paid to its players would suggest. (I.e. there’s no big screen to watch replays, what the what?!) This paragraph will probably only interest sports fans, I apologise in advance. The amazing thing about seeing this game in a dinky little stadium was being so close to the absolute class of the players on show. Johnny Wilkinson was playing for Toulon, although it was Racings #10 that did all the dropkicking. Sonny Bill Williams was at centre for Toulon (looking incredibly average, and making a strong case for a move back to League where he was a genuine superstar). He was marking Francois Steyn (an IRB Player of the Year nominee), who is shockingly huge in real life. Also amazing to watch up close in person is Sebastian Chabal, who made some bullocking runs and was every bit the force that has made him a national hero. But my main interest was the reserve #10 for Racing Metro: All Black great Andrew Mehrtens (now sporting an impressive pot belly, but still apparently able to gallop around the field). The test of my influence? Try to convince the Racing Metro coach to substitute the impressive young #10 Jonathon Wisniewski for Andrew Mehrtens, so I could see the legendary turnstile in action one more time. Turns out saying “I’m from New Zealand and I write a blog for an online magazine” - isn’t enough credibility to get you into the coach's box. So I settled for the good old fashioned influencing of screaming at the players from the stands. I’m pretty sure my yelling caused Mehrtens to start warming up in the in-goal area. But I failed at getting him into the actual game. I officially have little to no influence. I have come up with some suggestions for New Zealand Rugby’s flailing local competition though. I’m not saying the French way is better, it’s just different. Where New Zealand has a guy hitting a bucket with a stick to lead chants, the French have a full brass band sitting with the supporters. Also it was awesome to go buy refreshments at half time and have the choice of pate and a whole selection of wines, even though I went with the chips and tomato sauce (sorry, frites avec ketchup). It’s the little things that made the game special, like being able to run onto the pitch at the end of the game and congratulate the winning local team (or ask them how Andrew Mehrtens is, as was my case). Ok, that’s enough sport stuff. I promise a whole lot more ‘cool’ stuff from now on, like Christmas. I may even try and reference Owl City or whatever you kids think is cool now. I mean - I too want to believe that planet earth turns slowly, but you just don’t hear me going on about it. |
