Paris..

... or the day trip that turned into a weekend. It was fun. As planned, I managed to see the Gainsbourg exhibition, the Maison Europeene de la Photographie and Sainte-Chapelle, and meet up with one of my former students. And since I managed to miss the train home, ended up in a bar listening to metal bands.

I never quite got white the French admire Gainsbourg so much. I find his music very thin. The latter part of his career seems to have been about being a success as a dirty old man. But the exhibition was interesting enough, revealing him to be more of an intellectual and self conscious artist than I'd thought. A bit like Andy Warhol, only uglier. I think the French like him more for his couldn't-give-a-shit attitude rather than anything else. And pulling all those women.

The Maison was disappointingly smaller than its website would have led you to believe but nevertheless contained four good exhibitions. Good press photos by Goksin Sipahioglu, but for me the highlight was Sabine Weiss. The name hadn't meant anything but some of the pictures were familiar. Especially that horse! Which was exhibited in a really large print. And deservedly so, it was probably the best pic in the entire building. I can see she could be accused of sentimentality perhaps but I feel she manages to stay just the right side of it. People and faces predominate, and a genuine warmth and interest in her subjects comes across. Perhaps there's something too constructed and deliberate in some of the other things - the 1950s Paris fog pictures for example - but I liked it. All of it.

And Sainte Chapelle was just too good to be true. Pity I had to go when it was crowded, could have sat there for hours and looked for so long at that stained glass that I would have got a very sore neck.

So after that whistle stop tourism it was great to have a get together with Emilie. And Clothilde turned up unexpectedly as well. Chatting so much I didn't make the train, ended up spending an evening listening to heavy metal bands and sleeping on Emilie's couch - not for long, as I had to get up at five. Good good good. But I'm tired tired tired...