Saturday 2nd April, 2005 - A girl's night out - but I think I detect an impostor in the ranks!
In preparation for our girl's night out, Ange and I went for a princessly wander around Paris. We bought some fancy pepper grinders, drank a little red wine, visited the Arc d'Triumph and wandered around the courtyard of the Louvre. Here is Ange under the Arc.
And here's me in front of the Louvre.
As you all know, women are imbued at birth with the sacred right to call for a "Girl's Night Out" at any time they see fit, irrespective of the circumstances, and without providing an explanation or reason of any kind. This is simply one of the fundamental laws of nature.
Now on the girls night out of which I write, there arrived at our fancy dinner a third and unexpected girl... This in itself is generally not a problem, however I had my suspicions about this woman. Humm... Large hands... Excessive facial hair... A considerable clump of chest hair protruding over the neckline of her dress... Rather wiry black leg hair was visible under the hem of her dress... She had a very deep voice...
But in her favour I must add that she did arrive wearing a long sleek black dress with a pinstriped jacket, perfume, black strappy high-heeled shoes, a pretty little wig (which she unfortunately removed before the camera came out), a handbag, and makeup. Here are the ladies at dinner.
After dinner we went for a wander. Humm... Maybe Ange has gone gay? She was unusually affectionate towards princess number three.
Ahhh-Huh! Busted! She was not a she after all! She was a he! There was an impostor at our girl's night out!
Meet Ange's boyfriend Olivie. He doesn't even need a phone booth to change his disguise. It seems that he's either a cross dresser, a man desperate to know what the girl's do on these secret nights out, or both!
After princess number 3 finished her side-of-the-road transformation into a he, we went for a beer at the Auld Alliance Scottish Pub. Unfortunately I began my transformation into a pumpkin at this stage and made lousy excuses about needing to go home to sleep. So I left the two lovebirds at the pool table and made my way out of the pub to the station.
It turned out that these Scots couldn't contain themselves inside their bar and some of them had wandered off 50 metres up the road to the station with their bagpipes. They were creating quite a spectacle.
These three seemed to have lost their pipes.
But they had cool shoes and socks...
I even took a video of their tunes. It's probably not something you'd put on for a quiet candle-lit romantic dinner though...
05_15_BagPipes.mov (3.6MB)
Then another troupe came past on their way to the pub. It seems there's a bit of Scottish rivalry in the area. It appeared to be quite a noise-off, like "I can make more noise than you..." But the newcomers had sissy shoes - they just didn't cut it!
And the first group were up to the challenge.
