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Our man in Paris: Paris prepares for a cock-fight

John Lichfirld
Monday 17 June 2002 00:00 BST
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Paris is full of surprises, of hidden worlds. The worlds usually ignore one another. Occasionally, they clash. Amid the shabby clamour of Pigalle, with its peep-shows, sex-shops, fast-food joints and rip-off hostess bars, there is a short, genteel avenue which might have been plucked from Kensington or Holland Park. It could be a movie-set of Edwardian London for a re-make of Mary Poppins. There are cobbles, trees and early 19th-century houses, set in their own small grounds.

Victor Hugo and Gustave Flaubert spent some time there. The great French gypsy jazz musician Django Reinhardt lived there for many years. To get past the high, iron gate into the avenue, you have to know the entrance code. Once the gate clangs behind you, the other Paris – the Paris of car-horn concertos, Polish tour-buses and motor-bikes slaloming through crowded pavements – vanishes. You enter a parallel world of rural charm, in the heart of the most densely-packed city in Europe.

Too rural for some. You might think that the residents of this island of peace would complain about disturbances from the fretful, Parisian world outside. No. It is the Parisians who live in apartments overlooking the avenue who are complaining. Thy say that they are being driven crazy by inappropriate, farmyard noises from the bucolic universe next door.

Five weeks ago, Henri de Bodinat, who lives in one of the houses on the avenue, gave a cockerel to his wife Clémence for her birthday. The De Bodinats have kept hens in their garden for two years. In that time, they have eaten 1,300 Parisian free-range eggs. They are not the only hen-fanciers in the neighbourhood. The fashion designer, Jean-Paul Gaultier, who lives two doors away, used to keep hens (designer hens?), which once invaded the De Bodinats' garden.

Anyway, Henri de Bodinat, 50, a music-publisher, thought that his hens might like some male company. The cockerel – named "Coucou" or cuckoo, after his speckled grey-and-white colouring, and his race, the Coucou de Bretagne – took his farm-yard duties seriously. He saw no reason to abandon his habits in the big city. He began crowing at 6am.

The neighbours complained. The De Bodinats locked Coucou in the hen-house at night to encourage him to adopt sloathful, urban habits and to sleep later. The cockerel continued, however, to crow during the day, frequently and very loudly.

One day, Mr de Bodinat was abused by a man from a balcony of one of the typically Parisian, seven-storey buildings overlooking the avenue. "Shut up that cock, or I'll shut it up for you," was, more or less, the angry man's message.

Two days later, the police came around. Is there a law against cocks crowing during the daytime in Paris, De Bodinat asked them. They had to admit there probably was not.

A few days later, the police came back. "There are near-brothels just around the corner, terrible screams at night from the streets all around. You'd think the police would have had other things to do in Pigalle," Mr de Bodinat said. "They told me that the commissariat (local police headquarters) had had 50 complaints. They were fed up with answering the phone. They said the cock had to go or we would be taken to court."

The De Bodinats' neighbours in the avenue learned of the threat to silence "Coucou" and were appalled. "We had many messages of support. People were talking about getting up a petition to save the cock. They thought that he added considerably to the countryside atmosphere of the avenue," said Mr de Bodinat. Nonetheless, the De Bodinats declared a truce. A few days ago, they sent Coucou to live in the country for the summer.

The near-neighbours miss him. The De Bodinats' four children miss him. Presumably, the hens miss him. It seems that even Jean-Paul Gaultier misses him. The great couturier is restoring his house. His latest addition is a gold-coloured weather-vane, in the shape of a cockerel. Emboldened by this support, the De Bodinat family has decided to have a cock-fight after all. A lawyer friend has promised to conduct any legal action for free. In September, Coucou, the cockerel, will return from exile and the feathers will fly.

The perfumed swimming lanes of Paris

Despite their recent disappointment in Korea, the French are a great sporting nation. While we have been busy destroying playgrounds, France has been building them by the hundreds. Every large village, it seems, has a football field and a tennis court which would be the pride of a medium-size town in Britain.

Swimming, however, is another story. Paris is short of swimming pools and the French, in my experience, do not understand swimming. Swimming, as a physical exercise, should be about pain and boredom. Parisians refuse to accept this. They think of swimming pools as small, urban beaches, where they can show off new costumes, pick one another up and have fun.

In America, where I used occasionally to swim, they know all about swimming. There were strict disciplines on lane directions and speeds, enforced humourlessly by the swimmers themselves.

My wife was berated for swimming too fast in the slow lane in the Washington YMCA pool, when she was seven months pregnant.

In the Parisian swimming pool where I go most Monday evenings with my 12-year-old son, there is no discipline, no sense of direction and very little swimming. At any one time, two thirds of the swimmers are standing about in the shallow end, chatting one another up. If you insist on doing complete lengths, you have the strange sensation of swimming through a cocktail party.

The other great hazard of Parisian swimming pools is perfume. The French are among the heaviest users of perfume in the world. The other day I hit a perfume slick in the water so thick that I began to choke. If it happens again, I will float on my back until the Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux comes to scrub me with detergent and feed me raw fish.

Big noise

There is an endearingly dotty side to France. Take Philippe Pujolle for instance. Pujolle is the world's greatest bruiteur or noisologist. He makes a living from imitating noises. He recently broke the world record for imitating a steam locomotive. He occupied the air-waves of the Europe 2 radio station for 11 minutes 52.9 seconds, taking his train from a standing start, accelerating into the open countryside and slowing to a halt at its destination.

Pujolle, who lives in Paris, is also the world record-holder for a Tarzan cry (47 seconds) and a Formula One racing car (37.44 seconds). Whether The Sun likes it or not, the French are still champions at something.

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