My Friend - the Cannibal

I did some excellent cloud spotting on the flight back from Paris last night, some of the best I’ve seen in fact ! The trip over was not so fun. I didn't sleep a wink the night before because I was staying in a hotel next to a) the airport and b) the express train to the airport. I finally nodded off when the plane took off and then woke suddenly to the sound of the stewardess screaming "sit down sir, we are about to land, please sit down now" I don't know if English wasn't his first language but basically it took a long time for him to understand her ! Not a nice way to wake up...

Things got from bad to worse when I realised that I had arrived in terminal 1 but my cameraman and ressearcher were arriving from Plymouth into terminal 2 !! It was pouring rain and i had to find my way all alone with very little french. Their flight arrived a little later than mine so i used the time to sort out the hire car, well i tried to, but the hire car man did not seem to understand my french (well actually it's more like french with a bit of spanish thrown in for good measure!). I finally gave up and decided to wait for my fluent french speaking researcher to arrive, only problem was i took off with the car keys (without paying) so was very embarrassed when the iriate hire car man found me and demanded I return his keys immediately !!!

It was then that it hit me - I've travelled alot in the last 8 years since I first left Australia and I've travelled to a lot of different countries all over the world, but usually I travel with other people !! Collegues, friends etc etc so it was a bit shock to have to fend for myself in a foreign country. It's fine whenI fly to Australia because I know that mummy and daddy will be there quietly waiting for me as I walk through the arrivals.....honestly, I'm such a baby.

I went to Paris to film with a convicted murderer and cannibal about modern conceptions of Satan in our society. It's the same guy I interviewed last year for my Jeffrey Dahmer film - he's a really fascinating character and it's really interesting to talk with him, even if I don't share his beliefs !! He took me on a tour of Paris to all the places he feels "close" to the Devil - Notre Dame was one, a statue of St Michael banishing Satan from Heaven was another and then we went and hung out at the cemetry for a while....hmmmm

By the time I had to fly back to London - I was absolutely starving & completely exhausted after a couple of long filming days and thought that BA provided food on the flight back so I spent my last 10 euros on (another) present for Baby Isla. I nearly cried when BA offered me an egg sandwhich!??! I hate eggs and worse than that – the whole plane then stank of eggs for the rest of the trip ! Ewwww, at least is was only short !

I learnt (the hard way) that the French are a "pull rather than push" society. You have to pull rather than push pretty much all of their doors - restaurants, hotels, toilets. I learnt this by waiting for ages for the toilet (after carefully "pushing" each door to check if it was free) and hen realising that all I had to do was pull !!!

Had a funny encounter with a French security man as I was going through security – he started asking me all these questions and I was getting worried until he told me that he wanted me to stay in Paris with him so he could take me out to dinner?! !! And then on the way through customs at Heathrow the immigration man was reading my passport with great interest and then said “that’s nice progression you’ve made there love” (referring to my numerous visas and work permits over the years) “it must be quite a story” !!. If only he knew...

Anyway - I must sign off as I have a very important flight to catch in a few hours that will take me to Australia to see all my family and friends that I haven't seen properley in about 2 years !! I'm very very excited about meeting baby Isla.....now, if I could just think of a few more things to do on my 30 hour journey....

xx

TODAY’S FIRST: the flush button in a Parisian loo was on the floor so you had to use your foot to flush?!