Day 34 – Les Deux Magots, St Germain Paris

Day 34 – Les Deux Magots, St Germain Paris

Hemingway, Brecht, de Beauvoir, Satre, Picasso, Albert Camus, James Joyce – any of those names ring a bell? It’s not a hotel, granted, but its literary pedigree is practically unrivaled so I went there instead of the nearby L’Hôtel, Oscar Wilde’s final resting place where he famously quipped while lying on his deathbed, ‘This wallpaper is dreadful. One of us will have to go.’

It was far quieter than I expected (I think my time in New York has warped my expectations of the rest of reality to be frank). I arrived at 10 and requested a table inside, at the back. I explained to my Maitre’d I was only there for a drink and to work and he gave me a nod and smile that I took to mean, ‘Of course, sir. I took you for an author the moment you walked in.’ So, for the next hour and a half, I sipped my Hennessy (‘Ah, perfect’, thinks you) and Act 3 of Roger Spoffin took off. And it really did – I finished with one of my best ever hourly word counts.