The Sunday before last brought some events which swung my heart around like a cabbage in a tea towel. The bar I work at was robbed twice in one day but the second time around I caught them red handed…(Je suis ici mais très occupé maintenant, il y a un nouveau post de lachouettevie viens cette semaine!)

(Poppy in the middle of negotiation with the flower man, usually daily)

My workmate Hannah had stocked up the downstairs bar in the morning and just after 1pm she came to me and said “someone’s stolen 20 bottles of Carlsberg out of the fridge downstairs”. Sure enough, the grog was gone. We both remembered seeing some dodgy buggers hanging around having a drink earlier in the day – it must have been them!!…

Later on in the afternoon a small group of guys walk into the bar (it’s a bit busier now) and one of them heads down the stairs, Hannah said to me “I think that’s the guy”. So I went and hid in the stairwell for a moment then continued down and saw him pocketting bottles of Smirnoff Ice. “COME HERE NOW!!” I yelled and he said with a rather rough French accent “I don’t speak English”. That was followed by me saying “Je parle français, tu vien ici MAINTENANT!”.

At this point I was shitting myself as I thought he probably had a knife or even just the fact that he had bottles in his hands didn’t exactly thrill me. I knew that just around the corner at the top of the stairs there were three South African rugby players, Poppy and a group of people who were here for the Paris airshow (who became friends).

I told the criminal to walk slowly up the stairs and then I said in a loud voice “This guy and those guys over there have been stealing from us, don’t let them leave the bar”. Canadian Dave was first on his feet then the three SAF boys and I knew that if any of the criminals made a run for it they would receive a nasty tackle outside. Poppy took the main door, when I saw him there posed as if he was in a boxing ring it was hard not to laugh.

(Me with the wonderful Canadian group, Katie grinning in the middle, Dave on far right)

After 20 minutes or so of negotiation with some aide from others who speak better French than me I got the money off them for a rough estimate of what they stole. By this time they had weasled out the door but the crowd around them was bigger, they weren’t going anywhere. I was actually going to let them go but then the manager of the bar next door came and told me they’d stolen from him too. I signaled to Hannah to call the Police.

This was the best part, seven Police vehicles with a total of 15 Police (rough count) all holding little machine guns (except for the two detectives in suits).

Poppy giving a bit of advice and more antics, ha!

It took me a few pints of Guinness to settle down after that one! I knocked off work half an hour later and we all sat down for a pint. I must tell you more about the Canadians, I mentioned when I was in Canada that all of the people I met were fantastic and I’ve had another experience like that here. Dave and Katie came to Paris for the air show. They run a company in Canada which manufactures parts for aircraft. Lovely people! and after that little episode it was nice to chat, sing and dance to wash away what had just happened.

A bunch more has happened in my Parisian world since I wrote this, more coming this week!

…and these guys below, they keep wanting to be famous! It’s their little claim to fame haha!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 1:59 am While Dave was in Paris. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.