L'escale

It's been an interesting week at l'escale, the cafe on the ile st louis where I take coffee in the morning. I've obviously crossed some kind of boundary. Instead of just making me a coffee without asking for my order, which is obviously the first phase of becoming a 'regular', the barman now shakes me by the hand and asks comment allez-vous, before making jokes about the british olympic performance (the usual 'all medals won sitting down' jibes. France are doing terribly, by the way). This must be the second phase. The third phase, which I have observed in other regular customers, is when he calls you by your name. Your first name. I guess that probably takes about two years. The fourth phase is when you get a tab. This happens when you've been coming for about 37.5 years, i.e. the time it takes in France for a civil servant to get a full pension.

The barman speaks with a kind of staccato rhythm, showered with little quips and witticisms, which is apparently very typically Parisian.

The next day there was a film being shot in the cafe. I thought it looked a bit full for 8:15am - usually there's nobody sitting down at all at that time - and the barman waved at me from inside while an earnest young frenchman in a high-vis vest turned me away from the door.

Edited to add Thanks to a last-day rally, the French olympic team finished 10th in the medal table with more medals than they have won for many years. Reading the national press the mood seems to be one of perfect contentment with this result, despite the fact they were 7th last time (with fewer medals, but more golds). "Team GB", with a comparable population and GDP to back it up, finished 10th in Athens in 2004 causing something like a national outcry. I'm not sure either of these positions are laudable, but it's interesting to observe nonetheless.