Paris – This Week’s City of Culture

Er, hi… or should I say “Bonjour”.

Because I’m bourgeois I travel around Europe eating in fancy restaurants, wearing pointy toed suede boots in a fetching maroon colour and looking at fine oil paintings through my monocle. In the past this blog has been too concerned with maintaining an easy and accessible tone. So, from now on I will be dealing with high culture, fine wines etc.

This week we are in Paris, city of romance. And looking at some interesting paintings by Jean-Léon Gérôme; a Frenchman. Some of his exquisite works are on show at the Musee D’Orsay in Paris right now. Here’s some I liked.


Enveloppant la Salope
(Throwing a Cloth Over The Bitch)
In this painting we see a sculptor and his new mistress and model throwing a cloth over a nearly completed sculpture of the artist’s old mistress. The sculptor is pretending to wash his trowel while sneaking a glimpse at her vag.


Stagiaire Interminablement Intern
Intern Interminably Interned
Here we see a girl from a good family who has just graduated from the London College of Printing. She is working for free in a sculpture factory in Hackney painting a ‘limited edition’ of mass-produced street art statuettes for the Chinese market. She thinks she’s hit paydirt and is planning to upgrade her iPhone. The iPhone is actually made in China so this is a beautiful example of economic circularity and solid evidence of fiscal recovery.


Aucun Vagin Plus Chaude Jeune Pour Toi Grand-père
No More Hot Young Vagina For You Grand-dad
This poignant painting illustrates the exact moment that despite being a smoking hot piece of ass straight out of school with a un-quenchable desire to fuck, that stupid dried up grump would rather spend all day sanding a cold, boring lump of stone – even if I do an exact impression of it – identical in every way.