I have been to Paris with my GBF and can confirm that BonsoirAnna is right about EVERYTHING

[morningpaper]

The women - gasp - they are all so chic and beautiful.

They just wear gray dresses with tiny belts and high heels and are all thin and smoking. Their hair is ALL PERFECT.

And the MEN!!!!

dearie me

GBF practically had to be physically restrained, particularly after an unexpected burst of rain when suddenly we appeared to be surrounded by a city of Colin Firths just emerging from the lake.

Honestly, Parisiens look like they are about to have sex ANY MINUTE and this talking-in-cafes is just really an interuption in their constant lives which are full of serious shagging.

Occasionally we would see an ugly person but they would be british tourists.

The only consolation was that there wasn't much laughing. British people ARE funny.

So my conclusion is that BonsoirAnna is probably right about everything.

I felt like a Cornish pasty with earrings.

well i'd prefer to be happy than sexy

[lying through teeth]

So who actually eats all those cakes in the patisseries then? British tourists?

I don't think they DO get eaten

They are really for looking at and giving as present

They are also VERY tiny, and a lot are teeny macaroons

Whereas we would have six jam doughnuts

yes i find it very similar to scunthorpe in that regard

I find the men a bit small and weedy - it's the lack of shoulders - you think it would be like cuddling a girl. Agree re the women though. In fact a former French flat mate of mine also thought English men a bit more hunky (if scruffy!) and English women often a bit of a mess (although, as she kindly conceded, more daring - often French women can look a bit too samey and conventional).

last time i was in paris i felt like a wounded albatross flapping round

But they are happy too? Non?
They have lots of sex, they still smoke with no shame and have great museums! What's not to be happy about?

Are there no jam doughnuts in Paris?

Yes, it's very different over there, I would be a gibbering wreck if I lived there - the pressure to look good!

i like how they try and make us feel better by praising our individuality! yes millions of highlighted orange faced buffoons in white stuff tunics all expressing their individuality

Then men seemed tall and dark and brooding but they were all a bit thin and slightly too effeminate for me

But for the Boy I was with they were v. g.

He says that French men love English men because they are basically rough looking builders

yes BO we are all individually hideous

can't say I find it to be like that. I don't just hang around the touristy bits either though I do have to go to the musee Rodin every time as I love it there. ( I was thin last time I went though so maybe I just don't notice it)

You buy them for your MIL Kaitsha. Evil

MIL thanks you and smiles through gritted (very clean) teeth as she knows you know she hasn't has a croissant, let alone anything covered in patisserie cream, for 15 years!

I didn't see ANY Muslim women at all, despite walking for seven hours around Paris on both days (feet are bleeding stumps)

(women in burkas I mean)

I really dressed up the last time I went to Paris to fit in a bit better.

That went to hell by day 2 as I embraced looking like a tourist again as my boots were killing me (slipped on some Birkenstocks so I could walk round all the lovely tourist spots).

Didn't matter, even as a size 12/14 I was too chubby to really fit in

Sounds fabulous morningpaper.
I think you should write a musical based around those gorgeous Firth-alikes emerging from the fountains of Paris, a la Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
And dancing doughnuts in the background to represent Les Rosbifs?
Ok maybe not .

Did the men not have silly lemon/pastel pink jumpers on?
Is that just Rome?

Goodness.

Truly - we travel, yet are bounded always by the self we travel with.

Morningpaper, I think you are a lovelier person than me.

My Paris - smelly, smelly tube metro experiences (Parisians say "non" to deodorant), usually accompanied by trop de sexual harassment.

Much dog shit on pavements.

Dull dress sense. Where's the innovative, young people's, counter-cultural sartorial presence?

And they, too, have banned smoking in cafés.

But it is lovely and bourgeois. And they are, generally v. attractive.

no pastel jumpers, mainly tight collarsed shirts undone to display their manly chest-wares and dark coloured velvat jackets, and tousled hair

Hm, I found Parisians to be quite extraordinarily bad-tempered. Perhaps they're hungry!