In France, the saying goes that “le client est roi”. But in fact, the customer is anything but a king: at best he is an idiot, a minor annoyance in your day. As this funny article on “How to play the French service game … and win” explains: “The customer is king. But we all know what they did to their royal family. The guillotined head of Louis XVI bounced across the Place de la Concorde as a few thousand Parisians laughed at it”.

The more I attend classes at university, the more I feel like I belong in a museum. The big museum of failed and forgotten ideals. Move along, nothing to see here.

After shooting the torch relay, I decided to stay downtown and to have a look at the night festivities on Parliament Hill. By the time I got there, I learned from two ladies (pictured below) that they would only start after sunset… I wasn’t going to sit on the cold waiting, like them, for a few hours. I headed to Chapters and grabbed a hot coffee.

Today, the Olympic Torch of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics arrived in Ottawa and it traveled all over the city. I walked to Bank Street and waited patiently with the next torch bearer for the current bearer to arrive.

When I stepped outside the house for a last smoke, right after midnight, I caught sight of a shadow on the sidewalk. A young woman was standing there, looking in my direction.