Nothing Toulouse

Wouldn't it be clever if the title tied into the content of this post...

But I had plenty to lose. Amongst the top of the list were my life, my sanity, and my liver. If you have read last year's post about my last encounter with Richard and Friends you'd know that once again all three were in danger when I arrived in Toulouse for Richard's birthday celebrations on the 1st of May.

Toulouse is an historic city, warmed by the bold sun of the southern plains of France. It boasts beautiful churches, majestic squares and magical river walks - or so I'm told. I am more familiar with it's late night turkish delicacy purveyors and car surfing opera singers.

It all started so genteely.

I had taken the train which winds through the Pyrenees from the Atlantic coast inland to Toulouse. A general strike had turned Friday into Sunday and kept a compartment free for me. I sat happily alone in this seating arrangement from a different age and watched the Basque towns give way to Catholic mecca of Lourdes. A suitably grim looking place that day, its phoney wonders contrasted starkly with the towering natural beauty of the surrounding mountains who frowned on the faithful. Finally, putting piety behind us we rolled without urgency into Toulouse station.

Ten minutes later Richard and I were enjoying a crisp French beer in the seedy cafe opposite the station. I love these places, always harbouring a collection of weary alcholics on the move, shady mustachioed coffee worriers, low rent hookers and highly medicated solo conversationalists. Richard did not share my romantic perspective 'This is shite! Lets go' he announced and so we went.

Now, Richard is a charmer, built slightly less powerfully than a rhino, his yorkshire accent is warm, confident and strangely compelling. Ok not so hard to be compelling when your picture might sit under the definition of 'robust' in the Oxford English Dictionary, but nevertheless a charmer he remains and I was in no mood to disagree.

We swung back by the station to pick up Paul who was coming in from Bordeaux. Whatever Paul may lack in hair he makes up for in tattoos. A 'hardcore' following lifeguard of North African decent who speaks English excellently Paul reluctantly joined us for another quick drink in the stale plastic surrounds of the Station bar. One beer later we were all faintly relieved to be going.

Let's skip to the night. There - done.

Now I don't intend to bore you with a tedious recollection of large scale beer drinking, lets take that as read. This was after all the birthday party of an ex-professional rugby league player and his gentlemen friends of similar stature. The added element was of course that they were French.

Having their arse kicked in every military engagement since Napoleon forgot his earmuffs outside Moscow has had a queer effect on the French - to wit - they're mad. But bloody hell they're good at it! The last time I touched on this subject I described the debauchery of the Tiempo Latino festival in Vic Fesensac . There were no bikinis this time but a semi naked stage dive and some car surfing replaced ill-advised cross dressing as the entertainment.

The stage dive was notable not so much for the fact that Richard was not wearing anything above the waist nor that his plunge from a rickety table in the middle of the bar took place relatively early at about 9pm (whilst some patrons were still finishing their dinners) but rather the refreshingly laissez faire attitude of the bar staff.

The sight of a 100ish Kilo man stripping to the waist and climbing onto a table shouting 'stage dive!' is one of the things security staff in the Anglo Saxon world tend to take a dim view of. The French appear aloof of such prudish concern. A bar man collecting glasses sneeked a anxious peek as he passed but the leap was completed unmolested.

A small lake of beer later and I was in the street. Everyone else was in the street too - what could have happened? I don't know. What I do know is that Laurent had arrived. Laurent is called Lorenzo - again, I don't know why - and he likes to sing. A small man with rugby player's muscles he sings operatic compositions without the impediment of having to know any words and instead opts for word like sounds and volume to create the effect. An effect he apparently believes is mesmorising to young ladies - although there was scant evidence of this on this night.

When, excitingly, we found ourselves in another street Lorenzo turned his siren song away from the confusingly resistant women folk to passing cars. Only this one wasn't passing because Lorenzo was singing at it. The young men inside were clearly not music lovers and edged their standard issue drug-dealer BMW towards Lorenzo who responded by climbing on the bonnet. That's it I thought, these guys are going to get out and get angry, but no, instead the BMW sped off.

I'm not sure if Lorenzo kept singing but I like to imagine that he did - he certainly hung on to the windscreen wipers pretty well because he was still enjoying the ride when the car hit the first corner. Luckily for this story the BMW had to stop for the traffic allowing our friend to dismount injury free. I looked around at the faces of the rest of our group whose expressions clealy identified this phenomenon as 'normal'.

The rest of the night is a wee bit hazy. The rest of the weekend was far more wholesome. I pushed Annemae's pram though the Sunday market in Rabastans with Richard, Natalie and Paul, sat in the square and drank red wine, and relaxed in the spring sunshine.

On the train home my ipod ran out of juice, when the music stopped I could hear what sounded like opera, I just couldn't quite make out the words....