So, there I was one day, addressing my class with long words and deep meanings when it became apparent to my absynthe soaked self that I had only half of my normal number of students in front of me. Where were my star students? Then again, where were my half-arsed students? As I took time to take my first inventory of my audience it became clear that the fairground was in town and that one of the rides was excessively generous in the G Force zone. Everyone had neck supports on. I was perturbed for a moment but then I remembered that we were all in Paris and almost anything can happen here. It was only as Jean-Pierre asked my opinion on how to best cook garlic bread, at the culmination of my class, that I had the opportunity to ask exactly which ride was so akin to a rocket taking off. He looked non-plussed at me for a second as the resonances of my question sunk into his thick French skull:

“Ah non monsieur. Il est en raison des vampires.”

“Oui? No shit?”

“Oui professeur, pas de merde.”

So, vampiric feet were apparently afoot in Paris. I was only slightly perturbed. A man would have to be a fool to think that we were alone on this earth and this mother’s son had never been classified such. Therefore, after I had run home like a lunatic on speed I took the precautions that I deemed necessary in such a circumstance. In a foreign land with foreign bodies wanting a bit of my body, I decided it was time, once more, to open The Trunk.