#6 - A year in the Merde!

Our guest today is British author Stephen Clarke who lives in Paris. 

He has sold more than a million books world-wide including the hugely popular and hilarious Merde series which began with a Year in the Merde based on Stephen’s own experiences in France and with names changed to "avoid embarrassment, possible legal action, and to prevent the author's legs being broken by someone in a Yves Saint Laurent suit…". 

He talks about how a job as a translator at a French dictionary company led to becoming a best selling writer. He shares his tips for how to find a good restaurant in Paris, get a Parisian attitude with just one word and how the hero of his Merde books, Paul West, is perpetually 27 years old!

We also answer listener's question - do French people hug... find out the surprising truth! 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 3:27 Interview Stephen Clarke
• 33:08 Q&A Section
• 35:48 What's next

Transcript

// Transcript of The Good Life France's podcast. Main feature: the guest interview.
-->Stephen Clarke //

Janine Marsh Our guest today is British author Stephen Clarke, who lives in Paris. He has sold more than 1 million books worldwide, including the hugely popular and hilarious Myth series, which began with a year in the Med based on Stephen's own experiences in France, I suspect, and with names changed to avoid embarrassment, possible legal action, and to prevent the author's legs from being broken by someone in an F San Lawrence suit his words. He's also written several history books on topics such as the French Revolution Waterloo, a biography of Dirty Bertie, also known as King Edward the Seventh, who enjoyed a Playboy life in Paris and France. And he's written many more books about Paris and the French. Stephen, welcome to the show today. It's absolute pleasure to have you here. 

Stephen Clarke Thank you. Pleasure to be here. 

Janine Marsh So I'm going to dive straight in and ask you if you can tell us a little bit about your background, where you're from originally, because I know you live in Paris now, but you're not from Paris. And if you can tell us a bit about life before Paris? 

Stephen Clarke Well, I think it was a swamp, actually it’s turning back into a swamp now because of the rain. My life before I came to Paris, where I grew up, was mainly in Bournemouth on the south coast of England, where I spent a lot of time on the beach, a lot of the time playing bass in a rock band, but managed to get some A-levels as well and went to Oxford where I studied French and German, which was great because we talked a lot about literature and they kind of assumed that you do often learn the languages yourself. So I did. You know, every holiday I used to go grape picking and working in hotels and stuff like that to learn the languages. So when I came out of Oxford, I was pretty fluent in French and German and I kind of opted for France and came here to work first, as loads of people do as an English teacher, teaching English to bored businesspeople and try and stay awake on long afternoons. And then I got a proper job. I went back to the UK a bit and I worked, I worked for a dictionary company putting rude words in computer words into dictionaries. 

Janine Marsh Really? That's a real job. 

Stephen Clarke What happened was all these big bilingual dictionaries were written by individual people and they were kind of slightly prudish when they wrote these dictionaries. They didn't put many swear words in apart from the obvious ones. And they also, well sometimes they got things wildly wrong. So they hired a bunch of people like me who actually lived in the countries to sort of tart the dictionaries up and make them more realistic. So I remember one them what the best what I found was them in one of these French dictionaries, the French word “jouir”, which means to have an orgasm, translated by somebody in the 1970s or earlier, as ‘to have a really good time.’ Horrific mistranslation. So you can just imagine someone you imagine in a novel and you see a character saying, “oh, je suis en train de jouir”. And it's I'm having a really good time. You know, even a desk would be prudish. 

Janine Marsh So that could be terribly misconstrued, couldn’t it? 

Stephen Clarke Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you want. Yeah, yeah. Let's go and play cards and have a really good time. Yeah. Yeah. So we went in there and I put in loads of, I'm not sure how many swear words I can say, but if you look at the Colin's rabbit a dictionary, look at the English word mother.f.er, ever use the whole entry that I compiled and translated and things like that? Linguistically, it was fascinating because I was having to explain to French translators, you know, all the different contexts you could use these words in. 

Janine Marsh Fantastic. 

Stephen Clarke And different translations. So that was a proper job. Then I came back to Paris and worked as a journalist subeditor on an English language magazine, and then I kind of progressed through the ranks by poisoning my superiors, and I became editor of this English language magazine. And then when I lived here for about ten years, I wrote a year in the Merde. So it wasn't just a touristy book with someone who came here and says like, Oh my God, people eat these long sticks of bread, which I've never seen before. It was like real life in Paris, in a company finding somewhere to live, having lots of bad experiences, and exaggerating my linguistic incompetence because I could speak French, whereas Paul West can't. So you know, this is linguistically challenged. 

Janine Marsh So is that the only difference between you and Paul West in the book? 

Stephen Clarke No, no, no. It's all of them. He's permanently 27, which is the you know, the rock star age, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse. They all died at 27. 

Janine Marsh I didn't know that. 

Stephen Clarke Yeah. So I made Paul West, 27, you know, forever and Yeah, he's surviving. 

Janine Marsh I it's absolutely fascinating the fact that you, you know, had a job actually writing swear words in a dictionary in computer terms, as we all know, the Academy Francaise does not like to have Anglicised terms for these things. I quite often come up with weird different words. I can't think of anything at the moment…

Stephen Clarke Like, well, I mean, you know, if you if you speak to someone official in France, though, they'll say that they'll send you un couriel. Yes. An email. Whereas French food you say is the un email. 

Janine Marsh True. 

Stephen Clarke I actually did an interview on site for a French TV channel about I went into the academy for answers and talked to them about their dictionary and you know that they're compiling the dictionary, the French language, and they've only now got up to something like the end of the letter S So anything from T onwards officially doesn't exist in French. You know, when I was there, they were they were arguing about the French word “la récré” abbreviation for récréation, which is what every kid calls playtime at school. Yeah. And they were debating whether to put this word. In addition, I said, well, you have to, you know, you have to use it. So French word is used moment, I guess. But is it too vulgar to put in a dictionary? I was saying this is a dictionary, it’s the French language is a living language. No, no, no, no. We're going to have to debate about it. You know, we're all convinced and unfortunately - well, fortunately for me, there weren’t all that, you know, the language companies when I was working there, and they wanted the dictionaries to present real translations of real words that we actually use, which is, you know, that's what we used to translate. 

Janine Marsh I love this idea that all over Paris and France, there is probably these meetings going on where you discuss whether an abbreviation of recreation and similar words is acceptable or not, or is it just not acceptable for us French, because we speak of pure French. 

Stephen Clarke It’s in this big building at the end of the in the Paris the Académie France's I think it's on Thursdays they have their dictionary meeting. 

Janine Marsh Wow. Okay. So you moved from that you moved from writing words in dictionaries to becoming a journalist to becoming a best-selling author. And that was after being born and living in Bournemouth with its beaches, beautiful beaches. So how on earth did you end up living in Paris? Pretty much forever? 

Stephen Clarke Well, it's quite easy, you know. I mean, people say the Parisians on Friendly, which is on the surface, some of them aren't. But what's great about Paris is it is the city where kind of hardly anyone who lives here was actually born here. So loads of people move here from all over the place, all over France, all over the world, so anyone can become a Parisian, you know, you just have to be able to push in front of people in queues and elbow people violently out of the way when you're walking on the pavement and say “pardon” and that excuses it, you just have to take on these bad Parisian habits and you become a Parisian and are accepted as such. It helps, of course, if you speak the language. And as I found, as soon as you can tell a joke in French, they love you. 

Janine Marsh So that's it. You're in. 

Stephen Clarke You’re in yeah! And if you use the subjunctive in French, “il faut que je sois là, they think you're an absolute genius and you get the passport instantly. 

Janine Marsh I'm going to try that. Yeah, I hope it works. It may not work, but I hope it does. A little while ago we had a chap on the on the show called Olivier Giroud, who does a Paris theatrical performance, a one man show teaching you how to be Parisian. And I think he did mention the fact that you have to be able to push in, but he didn't say push people out of the way in the street and say, pardon? So I shall add that to my list. 

Stephen Clarke On the metro, you know, maybe he doesn't use the metro, I use the metro a lot and when there's hardly any space., and you can hardly get on there, you sort of get into the carriage and shove forwards. You don't want to get your head trapped in the doors, you know, or turn around and shove backwards. Or if you want to get off, sometimes, you know, people won't let you off. So you have to elbow your way out past them. And, you know, not literally elbow them, but a good shoulder bag is effective as well. And you say “pardon” (in a light tone) and this excuses the extreme violence that you're inflicting on people. 

Janine Marsh Do you smile when you say it? 

Stephen Clarke yeah yeah, You know ”pardon” if you want to get on in. In Paris, you always greet everyone. You say “bonjour” just like that, light like I’m saying int, and that  Bonjour, it doesn't just mean hello. What it usually means is “bonjour. Yes, I exist. And please stop looking at your phone. Look at me and do your job.” And if you just say bonjour like that, you get whatever you want. And at the same time, if you say pardon without sounding annoyed, people get out of the way and let you pass and let you get off the metro. There's no point getting annoyed, you know, when people get annoyed you get these huge arguments on the metro, you know, between people like they say, you know, ‘don't raise your voice’ and you say ‘you raised your voice first.’ Then ‘No, you raised your voice.’ The answer is just stay calm and pleasant and you get on. 

Janine Marsh So just ‘pardon’ with a bit of a lilt that says, I'm in charge here and I don't care what you say or do. 

Stephen Clarke Yes, ‘pardon’ It doesn't mean excuse me. It means I'm coming through. So you better get out of the way. 

Janine Marsh It sounds to me I mean, there's a bit in your in your first book where Paul West which I kind of think he is your alter ego, but he's not really I know, but kind of. And  he says ‘I don't think I'm ever going to adapt to Parisian life.’ But clearly you have and it sounds to me like you actually feel Parisian after - is it 20 years you've lived in Paris now? 

Stephen Clarke Yeah. It's more than that now. I feel totally Parisian because I feel at ease in any Parisian situation now, especially because I speak the language. And quite often if people are being slightly unpleasant towards you, sometimes they're not being unpleasant, they're just being efficient, and they're not used to dealing with amateurs like me, you know? So you just have to face up to them. But, I mean, I said Paul West would never survive this, obviously because I need to keep up the suspense from book to book, you know, because he doesn't speak French. And even when he starts understanding the words, he doesn't know why French people would actually ay them, you know? So he's eternally lost. But then I wrote another book called Talk to the Snail : The Ten Commandments of Understanding the French, which is actually everything that Paul West needs to know about the French and how to get on with them. But he's never actually read quite honestly. And it’s the Ten Commandments for understanding the French, except because the French are so complicated you can't squeeze it all into the Ten Commandments. So there are actually 11 Commandments. 

Janine Marsh 11 Commandments! I really like that. I'm going to talk to the snail next, because my dream is to one day live in Paris. I'm not sure I'd want to live there all year because I really like living in the countryside and I've got 52 animals. I'm not sure there's a Parisian neighbour alive that's going to welcome me with that many animals. But no I do dream of going there. So I do need to learn how to be a proper Parisian. Like you say, I mean, people do say, Oh, Parisians are rude, but I never find that. I find Parisians to be really generous natured. They help me when I'm lost. People carry my suitcase up and down the stairs when I'm trundling through stations looking like I don't know where I'm going, which is frequent. So, no, I agree with you. Parisians are not what they seem on the surface. 

Stephen Clarke No, I mean that there are snooty areas, you know, in the 6th (arrondissement), maybe the 7th and people are a bit snooty and they're not so pleasant. But, you know, I live up in the north of Paris in the 19th, and here everyone is really, you know, helpful if you're looking lost. They always find someone to help them. 

Janine Marsh What do you think qualifies the 6th and the 7th to be so snooty? Just the amount of money in the area, do you think? 

Stephen Clarke Yeah, a lot of money in the area. The 7th is very old money and the 6th is more new money and I'm generalising vastly. But kind of it's the it's the old, you know in the 7th there are lots of very posh government buildings, the Prime Minister lives in the 7th. The Prime Minister’s house in Downing Street is a beach hut compared to the French where the French prime minister lives. I'm not talking about the presidents. The president of course lives in the presidential palace, the Elysee, just behind the Champs-Elysees. But the prime minister lives in also a palace called Matignon, which has the biggest private garden in Paris. I think it's something like, I might be exaggerating 30,000 square metres. , And that's just the Prime Minister. So that is the kind of area that you’re in and there are other sort of ministries… and there's the Assembly National parliament building there. And even if the French think they're a bunch of revolutionaries, the MPs live a life of luxury, I can tell you.

Janine Marsh Oh, of course. And I very much doubt the French prime minister is out there on a Sunday afternoon planting tulip bulbs in his very big garden. 

Stephen Clarke I shouldn't think so. No, no. You had a series – an army of gardeners working for him. 

Janine Marsh It's a nice thought, though, isn't it? Can you imagine Macron and the prime minister out there. maybe sitting around with a cup of coffee in the garden just saying, what colour tulips are you going to put in? And you going to put in any narcissus this year?

Stephen Clarke Well I think with times being what are, they're probably planting leeks and cabbages. Yes. 

Janine Marsh Yeah. Well, actually, that's not a bad thing either. I quite agree with that. I'm doing that myself at the moment. So have you ever decided that one day you want to live outside of Paris? Have you ever considered living anywhere outside of Paris, or are you properly full-on Parisian and feel that there is no life outside the capital and that's it? 

Stephen Clarke No, I'm not that Parisian. I mean, it's true that culturally a lot of Parisians think that nowhere else on the planet exists. Yes. You know, I'm no, I'm not one of those. Probably I mean, probably because I'm an immigrant. Paris is a kind of endlessly fascinating place. And I find Parisian attitudes to things fascinating - everything from everyday life, to history. That's why I've written so many history books. It's because I have these wonderful arguments with people about French history, where, you know, when I tell them I wrote, you know, a book with ‘A Thousand Years of Knowing the French.’. And I regularly get insulting emails from French people, some of them famous and they're more insulting. In that book, I explain that Joan of Arc, ye, ok, she was burnt by English soldiers, but she was actually captured by French soldiers because it was during a civil war and she was put on trial by a Parisian bishop. They convicted her of witchcraft and blasphemy for wearing men's clothes. They made her promise not to do it anymore. And they tricked her. They said, if you put on a dress, we'll take you out of the military prison where you are, though she was scared of getting raped, and we'll put you into a nunnery. So she wore a dress, signed the document which she couldn't read. And you can actually still see the document. Then they put her straight back in the military prison - where she was scared. So she put on men's trousers again. And so the French said, okay, blasphemy. And then they gave her to the British soldiers to be burned. Now, my book, A Thousand Years of Annoying the French contains loads of debunking stories like that. Seriously researched, but told in a sort of humorous way. So I love going outside Paris. I love nipping up to Dieppe, where they have a fantastic outdoor seawater swimming pool that's open all year. So we go up there for a swim now and again in winter. It's fantastic. I love that France is such a wonderful country for travelling around. You know, outside Paris the countryside is really pretty, you know, these huge forests and of course the coastline is wonderful. But living here in Paris, for me, looking for material for my books, living here is what I know best. And you should always write about what you know best, I think. 

Janine Marsh Absolutely. I didn't know they had an open-air swimming pool that you can go to all year round in Dieppe. But I'm not actually sure that I'd be tempted to swim in winter I mean it gets a bit cold in Normandy doesn't it? 

Stephen Clarke It is fantastic. The water’s heated up something like 26 degrees or something. So you get changed. You then walk as fast as you can without slipping and falling over, in your swimming costume go outside, absolutely freeze for about 20 seconds. And then you're in this heated sea water and you're swimming along and, you know, being in the warm water, in the cold air and the swimming is wonderful. 

Janine Marsh Ah now I could definitely go for that. 

Stephen Clarke Yeah, no, it's what I recommend Dieppe. Since you know town, the castle, the museum in the castle is really beautiful with great paintings of Dieppe. 

Janine Marsh Like you say, though, you know, you can just hop on a train from Paris and you can be in Annecy in the French Alps just a couple of hours later, or in Avignon, in Provence or in Lille or - I think it's only about an hour to Reims, and it's not much longer to Strasbourg. You know, it's such a diverse country, isn't it, from one side to the other. 

Stephen Clarke If you get on a train at the Gare de Lyon, sort of about 10:00 in the morning, you can actually have lunch by the Mediterranean. It's amazing.. 

Janine Marsh So when you moved France more than 20 years ago now, is there anything that you did or didn't do that looking back on now, you think, oh, I should have done that or shouldn't have done something that you might have done differently, bearing in mind that it wasn't Brexit then and things were, you know, we could travel quite a lot easier and you and you could take whatever you like on, on the Eurotunnel. 

Stephen Clarke I don't think in those terms because I'm very lucky with what's happened to me while I've been here. You know, my journalism job was fun. Then I had this novel which sold, as you say, a million. And so I was able to give up the day job and concentrate on writing. So I can't say, you know, really change anything because things have worked out really well. But I'm just trying to think. I mean, odd things, odd mistakes I made like gaffes, you know, even linguistic gaffes because I could speak French, but I wasn't entirely up on the nuances of spoken French. So I remember once going to some sort of party or other, and there was a woman there who I was sort of interested in, and her mother was there as well, and her mother was a bit of a vamp kind of thing, you know. And then I said to this girl, I said, I wanted to say, ‘your mum - you know, she's really well-preserved, you know, she's a sort of thing the her vamp side, you know, I was trying to be flattering. But what I actually said was in French “elle a gardé un côté salope”, which actually means like she's kept this sort of sluttish side to her and it didn't go down at all. 

Janine Marsh I can imagine. 

Stephen Clarke You know, I didn't realise immediately what was happening and by then it was too late. So, I mean, I made a few linguistic gaffes like that. This is one I put in one of my novels – Merde Actually the follow up to A Year in the Merde, the French pronounce the word for your heart is ‘le coeur’. And if you don't pronounce the ‘r’, you know, if you if you don't say coeur (emphases the r). Yes. Right now, there's something very different that means a man's willy. 

Janine Marsh I can't roll my r’s at all - I'm really bad at that. So I've probably been getting it wrong for a long time. 

It's quite strange, isn't it? I mean, you know, you often read and mostly British or American newspapers that the French aren't interested in the personal lives of their politicians, for instance. But I think that's kind of a something that the media perpetuates in France to a certain extent. And because French people admire writers, even journalists still in France, I think that that sort of attitude towards allowing people to get away with things is perpetuated. When actually I speak to my French neighbours, they're all terribly interested in what's going on. 

Stephen Clarke Yeah, there is a sense that in France kind of if you're in the in-crowd, you know, entirely untouchable, but you're kind of floating above everyone else. And sometimes it does need a bit of debunking, you know.

Janine Marsh Pretty sure that's the same everywhere, actually. 

Stephen Clarke Yeah, a bit less than here, because politicians always think they're sort of film stars. They’re always in the media. You know, even very minor opposition politicians who’ve hardly got any votes or, you know, voters, they all they're sort of in the media all the time. And you think why, why is this journalist or TV is giving so much time to this person. Right or left has nothing to do with the partisan politics. It's just, you know, this person is in opposition, has no power, we're not really interested in their politics. What we want to know is like, what is the government up to? 

Janine Marsh Yeah, I totally agree. A it's a cultural thing. And, and talking of culture, I mean, you are you live in one of the most cultural cities in the world. Do you have a favourite cultural place or an aspect of cultural life in Paris? Something that you just go, This is just so Paris, maybe a museum or something like that or a restaurant, that’s very cultural or, you know, something like that. 

Stephen Clarke I have a great affection for the Musée Carnavalet. It’s in the Marais.  Beautiful. It's in a beautiful, medieval former palace. And you go in there, it's free. You just wander in there as often as you want, and it's not usually crowded and you can wander around. They've actually refurbished it and they seem to have made it a deliberate policy to make you get lost when you're in there, I don't know what they've done anyway. It's a bit harder to find your way around, but they have a fantastic permanent exhibition, about what went on during the commune in the Siege of Paris in the 1800s you know, when the Prussians were besieging Paris and Parisians were reduced to slaughtering zoo animals for food. And they've got paintings from the time of, you know, rat sellers in the street and things like that. And they go into the minutia of Parisian history, which interests me a lot. And that's a great museum and it's not really crowded like the big museums like the Louvre and Orsay which you may have to book a long time in advance and wait for ages. Yeah, yeah. Carnavalet is a nice place to go, I find. 

Janine Marsh And what about French food? Do you cook or do you have a favourite restaurant in Paris or a favourite dish? 

Stephen Clarke  I do. I cook quite a lot, but usually it's a case of improvising, you know, what is there here? What if we go in the fridge? Something like that. 

Janine Marsh Are you near a market? 

Stephen Clarke Yeah. Twice a week there are markets nearby which is great for fresh fruit and veg and fish and everything. I mean, I love going to fairly ordinary big French cafes, which have a handwritten menu, we I always try and go places with a ‘plat du jour’ a place which has the like the dish of the day, because then you know this means the chef has got these ingredients and decided to make this today. So I never go to places where there's a vast array of dishes because you kind of think that some of them are going to be microwaved. Always go for places with a handwritten plat du jour. Paul West's favourite dish is chevre chaud, which he think it means hot goats, but in fact, it means hot goat's cheese and salad on toast. 

Janine Marsh Fantastic. So is that kind of a local attitude of people that, you know, if you're not going out with clients or even not going any out anywhere, quite swanky, you would specifically look for that kind of bistro with a handwritten menu. And that's a local thing that Parisians do. 

Stephen Clarke It's a local thing. And I also I tell people, if you're going to go out for lunch, go to an office area for lunch, like go to the like the Grands Boulevards like Boulevard Haussmann and all around there, because that's where there are loads of offices and around Boulevard Hausmann there are quite a lot of sort of swanky lawyers offices and things like that. Not, not vastly sort of not very swanky, but sort of a bit upper class kind of thing. But yeah, are those people are very fine judges of cuisine, so all the cafes and restaurants around there will have an ever-changing menu with fresh food, you know, and you can go in there and you can they'll have it sort of dish of the day for probably under €15, which would be really good. Ideally, they want these people to come back every day. So they change the menu all the time and they're the best places to have lunch those neighbourhoods. 

Janine Marsh I'm going to look for these places when I come back next time. 

Stephen Clarke There are lots of them because you just have to go to a place like in the 9th, say, or the area where the Grandes Boulevards are, near the department stores, but not too close to them because things get a bit touristy. 

Janine Marsh I think Paris has so many hidden places doesn't it. I know when I'm taking the train from Gare du Nord there's a little market about 2 -3 minutes walk from the station and there's this tiny covered market and inside actually a really excellent like bar where they do food and there's an oyster bar. You can just sit and have a couple of oysters and a glass of wine. You would never know it to walk past. It just looks like an ordinary covered market. But you have to dig a bit deep sometimes with Paris, don't you? 

Stephen Clarke Yeah, you do. Yeah. I mean, and each neighbourhood has its secrets. 

Janine Marsh So if you were to suggest one place to visit in Paris, a tourist or the average expat haven would probably never find. Oh. Is there any way you'd recommend. If someone was just reading your average guidebook and, you know, looking for somewhere that might not be in a guidebook because it's just not considered big ticket enough. 

Stephen Clarke Yeah, well, I wrote a book called Paris Revealed where I gave a few these sort of things. It's a sort of insider's view of the city: Paris revealed and the I recommended taking a trip out to La Muette, which is in the west of Paris. You have to walk about half a mile even further west to a museum called Marmottan, and this contains Monet’s personal private collection of paintings, including loads of his own and loads of other expressionist paintings, including some really nice ones by Berthe Morisot. 

Janine Marsh I agree. I think it's an amazing place. And it sounds like your book is just the sort of thing that people who want to come to Paris and see a different side of it. I mean, we all love the Eiffel Tower. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore the Eiffel Tower and I never get sick of seeing it. But there's so much more to Paris that you can see and discover and explore. It's like an endless well of fascinating places, isn't it, really? 

Stephen Clarke Yeah. 

Janine Marsh I love Paris and the whole historic thing, but I'm thinking about your books. I don't recall that Paul West, our hero, was ever particularly into art! Coming up, I think you are writing the seventh book in the series at the moment and will he discover art in this book? 

Stephen Clarke I don't know. Well, I've just finished writing one in which he tries to become a French citizen in his latest adventure. So he has to go through the interviews, which I mean, I did this. I've taken French nationality now because, you know, since Brexit, British expats here in Paris were being told, you know, get citizenship, you know, make sure you don't get thrown out of the country if there's some sort of reciprocal thing goes wrong. So I went through and it was kind of tragicomic. It was very funny. So I've written it down in the novel. He's doing that and he's also working. He's also doing something which I won't reveal yet - for the Paris 2024 Olympic Committee…

Janine Marsh Surely not participating?

Stephen Clarke No no. Oh, no, exactly. But I don't want to give too much away. But you're right. He doesn't actually get much into art. Paul West is someone who has to work pretty hard to make a living because he keeps getting fired from all these different jobs! 

Janine Marsh Yeah, but that's what makes him so fun. 

Stephen, this has been absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for being on the show. Really appreciate it. And it's been a fascinating window into historic Paris and the life of a famous author in Paris. 

Stephen Clarke Thanks

Janine Marsh You Can Buy Stephen's books on Amazon and all good bookstores and support your local High Street bookstore shop as well, and ask them to order the books in if they're not in stock. And you can find out all about Stephen Clark and new books coming out on all of his books he's got out there by. His website is StephenClarkwriter.com

// End of transcript. The Good Life France's podcast is available on all podcast platforms, on TheGoodLifeFrance.com, and on ParisChanson.fr //