Industry

Gustave Eiffel was working with metal at a time when that was the new sexy thing. He put a small private apartment at the top of his tower, as you would. He used it as an office and to sweeten deals with the likes of Thomas Edison. The Liberty that stands in the bay in New York to remind people that the landgrab we call USA was largely pulled off by huddled masses of immigrants – he made that.

His tower still stands, monument to the optimism and fire of The Industrial Revolution. Guy de Maupassant, the French Chekhov, hated it. He ran from it in horror the first time he saw it. He was a humanist and a contrarian, a syphilitic social commentator, detesting the flock. Were he alive today he would have been happily using the word “sheeple” 5 years ago and now he’d be pretending he had never done so as he’d have realised it is a word for wankers. Like how the intolerant currently misuse “woke”. Clever clear human, Maupassant, but convinced he was the only one, perhaps as he was the only one at school or something. It happens to a lot of people.

He made a point of eating in the Eiffel Tower restaurant because it was “the only place in Paris I don’t have to look at it”. What a lot of discomfort for a soundbite.

His writing is dirty in the human detail. He taught me aged fifteen that fingernails and hair grow after death. Many of these curious voices push to the front through self-importance. He was one of them. Doctor Holland got me onto Bel Ami at school. I am very close friends with men very like the protagonist.

Anyway, the tower. The lightning nexus. Here in the electrical storm, I drove over the panels laid down over wet ground, not stopping until my back and front wheels both hit the concrete floor, carrying signage material. I slowly and carefully unloaded everything on my own as dawn broke somewhere behind the clouds.

Then back into the mangle until, at about ten past four, I emerged from Velodrome having brought some seriously industrial staples to make sure the signs don’t fall on the riders. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Thankfully that’s why Ffion is here, and even if she can’t get accredited she can take the driving. She took me home and then I chucked the key out the window down to her so she could give it to Ali to get in and I could pass out naked on the bed for three hours.

Now I’m up watching the boxing, which is at North Paris Arena – Tiny’s venue, which makes sense. He’ll like men hitting men. Lots of little things making a big thing.

I’m quite proud of myself for letting myself stop, and I’m happy Ffi saw it and immediately took the slack. It’s a calm before a storm right now, despite meteorology. It’s time to rest, having been on go go go. I’ll sleep a proper sleep tonight. And I really know this crap now, even if some venue managers and security are making it hard – the key is to handball over time. Very few deliveries won’t clear pedestrian security if you speak French, have Tools of Trade Sticker and don’t give up. Van entry is generally fucked as the local security team keep moving the goalposts and restricting delivery windows even though they are manned full time. I’m sure it’s because someone has decided that signs are never important, and that’s my Macguffin for being here on response. Tell Alexis at VEL that signs aren’t important, now he’s got a massive load of rapid staples and a gun that will stop them from falling on the cyclists. Tell Herless at DEF that they aren’t important when I found some sealant that will make damn sure nothing falls in the pool mid race. Prevention is always invisible. That’s the point. And I’m on a lot more than just signs.

The French security idiots can’t quite make sense of the fact that a man with a box of sealant and guns can be classed as an emergency delivery, so they’ve kicked us down priority as we are mostly anglophone. I had a security guard on his first shift today tell me before I had spoken but after he had seen my company name that he couldn’t understand a word I say. I immediately asked him if he was Polish, he responded in French that he was French but he couldn’t understand anything I said at which point his supervisor who knows me told him he should be able to understand me and I asked him how he had decided he couldn’t understand me when I had said very little if anything to him. It was an exposé of the fuckery. “The DW guys speak no French”. He’s learnt that. I had a security guy say in an undertone “You don’t understand a word I’m saying do you,” while smiling and nodding, and then looking surprised when I said “That depends on if you’re saying anything useful or not.”

I’ll keep doing what I do. Get the stuff to where it needs to be, learn the system, game the system, seek cracks, find them shored up. I can be like a white hat security hacker. I know enough to spot flaws in the system, and when I exploit them someone retrospectively closes the loop. But… it’s frustrating. I’m largely known to the gate managers. Some of them are helpful, personable, decent. Others are absolute twitbiscuits. Others are just being careful. The clown show music is reserved for ALX and INV. EIF/CDM/STE have been surprisingly helpful at security, perhaps to balance the arrogant venue managers. It was at CDM that the guy tried to diss my French, but that’s just detail – they largely treat me like a real person with a job to do.

I cover so much ground, it’s nuts. But the local obstruction is off the fucking scale. Ffi can’t even get accredited. They’ve closed it for the whole games. Absolute clowns. Still, I’ll hopefully give her enough info that she’ll be able to do the me for the paras, as I’m going home.