Risques et perils

Antibes always looked like a sleepy place, where, apart from the dangers of motor vehicles mixing with pedestrians, life looked pretty safe. A couple of recent events force one to admit, reluctantly, that Antibes is like anywhere else.

Last week, walking up the rue de la République with the BH, who wanted to buy me 'pantacourts', or calf length trousers (very comfortable, even for the Antibes 'older gent scene'), we witnessed a bagarre between various SDFs ('sans domicile fixe', aka homeless winos) in the Gare Routière, each armed with a defence dog. It looked like it was turning serious, so I told the BH to hasten away. Well, I now read in Nice Matin that two of the participants were sufficiently injured in the affray to require A and E attention. No mention of the canine casualties, though I suspect there must have been some. The locus was rather fitting, for those, like me, into Antipolitan archaeology. The chaps and their animals were fighting on the very spot of the ancient Roman arena.

Next morning, heading for the Marché Provençal, along the rue Sade, I noticed a lot of sand and sawdust strewn on the cobbles. When this was pointed out to the BH, she said she thought somebody must have dropped and broken a bottle of olive oil. My thoughts, I must say, from having seen similarly strewn material in Edinburgh's Fleshmarket close more than once, were more sinister. And, indeed, my hunch was right. The rue Sade and the adjoining Place Nationale had, in the early hours of the same morning, been the theatre of a major skirmish, with one of the assailants being armed with a sabre. The sand and sawdust were for the resulting, copious quantities of human ketchup spilled by the seven people who ended up in hospital, handcuffed.

Finally, on a more personal though less serious note, this morning, as I swam out of the Gravette to get a better look at a graceful three masted sailing ship, flying Dutch colours, I felt a violent jolt, half way between an electric shock and a bee sting. It was my first jellyfish sting in the Med. A cracker, with raised welts all down the inside of my thigh, and an actual incision, which bled quite profusely. Glad I wasn't skinny dipping! Returned to the beach, with some caution, we got the profuse but belated warning of the presence of jellyfish from an Italian woman, who had already destroyed quite a few in her mission to protect her little boy, a real Pierino del dottore. Next, an old man pulled out a veritable pharmacy from his beach bag, and from the various tubes, bottles and sprays, offered me a jellyfish sting remedy. Maybe we'll have to stock up, too. I'm told the welts will turn a nice shade of puce by tomorrow.