It was l'anniversaire de ma bien-aimée yesterday, and I treated her in romantic fashion with a trip to Gerland to watch OL's latest struggle. Followed by dinner at the Ninkasi. What more could a girl want?
Actually, the dinner was rather nice. Steak, foie gras and Côte du Rhône. It was a freezing night, with a sparse scattering of snowflakes drifting down the whole evening. In the half-empty stadium the atmosphere was even more frosty. Fed up, the Lyon fans decided to demonstrate their discontent by either not turning up, or not singing or chanting. It was a somewhat bizarre experience, a bit like a pantomime, as la bienheureuse commented. The baddies were roundly booed. Normal, except the three principal bad guys were two particular home players (for no real reason other than that they aren't very good), and the coach.
On the pitch, the players eventually responded by eking out a victory against the team 2nd from bottom, with two late goals. Relief of sorts, first league win in 6, first home league win since September, up to 4th from 9th. Elsewhere Bordeaux stretched their lead at the top to six points...
We got home to find yet another rejection from a literary agent in the post box. However, for once there was some encouraging personal feedback, scribbled on my introductory letter. Started off well - "This is entertaining..." - but then came the criticism - "takes too long to get going though... strange glitches in the writing...", etc, etc. And finally a suggestion to "let me know if you work this up". Whatever that means. The barely legible writing conjures up an image of an old-school agent, sitting in an office piled high with manuscripts and books, fag in mouth, whisky bottle in filing cabinet, clinging stubbornly to pen & paper or a battered old typewriter for communication, rather than one of those new-fangled computer things which everybody else uses to churn out form rejection letters. If only they were all like that...
