I sometimes hate England, at the moment I'm going through a particular hatred of Richard Branson, it costs more on Virgin trains from Liverpool to London then it does to fly anywhere in Europe. So we went to Paris instead.

It's a beautiful city, full of grandiose architecture, wondrous smells of baking pastry - croissants, coffee and charm. It's a shame that they hate anyone who speaks English. Which is unfortunate since I think their language just sounds so camp. Sure when whispered romantically in ones ear I'm sure its awesome, but just the way it turns action sports - eg paragliding in to parapenting (pronounced paraponting) and diving into plonger makes me cringe.

And the French, only the French could come up with an art form of force feeding geese until their livers fail, then boiling these with butter and producing fois gras... Which admittedly is absolutely fantastic.

I commend the brave soul who let a bucket of milk sour, go solid, then green, and smell like athletes foot, then taste it. I commend the French for turning it into an artform, creating around Paris little fromageries, foul smelling shops, of feet and mould; selling cheeses made from any animal that has a teat.

Our hotel room was miniscule, the weather outside a balmy -4°, which made the queues at the Eiffel tower very very short, a walk up the stairs to amazing views over the city, fast tracking our way through the French national treasures we headed to the Louvre, no queues and like every tourist in the louvre made a B line straight to the Mona Lisa.

Yep, the most expensive painting of some frumpy old bird in the world. Still its quite spooky how her eyes seem to follow you as you move across the room.. and her scowl changes between hey I?m a surly bitch to one of cheeky mischief.

The Louvre is huge, gigantic in fact and we soon suffered serious museum fatigue, walking ever so blas? past great works of art by the great masters... We returned to the Eiffel tower for dinner ? a rather expensive meal, with great views, obligatory snails and showing again how much the French hate the English. In the whole restaurant we somehow got sardined in between the only other English speaking people there, our elbows interfering with our fois gras appreciation... meanwhile everybody else was comfortably spaced out... bastards.

Breakfast in the Latin Quarter, the gorgeous Ille Saint Louis, a tiny bastion of village style life in the heart of Paris, chocolat croissants overlooking Notre Damme cathedral, before starting early and hooking into the local wines... Which soon lead us to a late night meal.

And there on the menu? frogs legs. Now I always thought the French were taking the piss with frogs legs, so I ordered them. They are delicious, dainty little legs (poor little frogs) with a delicate taste of fish and yes.. well chicken. My vegetarian (who also eats seafood) girlfriend partook as well... she?s moving into amphibians now.

We drank til late, and left the next day, awaking early to smells of fresh pastry and coffee before heading back. I ate the perfect chocolate croissant for breakfast. It was amazing. Twas a pity that the only coffee I could find to accompany it was McDonalds. Picture Gallery and Panorama