The Bug begins a series of extracts from travel editor Don Gordon-Brown's latest award-winning book, Any Chance of an Upgrade Under the Circumstances?, due out soon.

What a gaul!

How could a day that started so disastrously get any worse?
Simple, really, when you lob at Charles de Gaulle Airport and forget to don the one item that will give you safe passage to your eventual destination in the City of Lights.
Your "I'm not English" t-shirt.
Speaking that particular tongue to the arrogant airport bus driver had obviously dumped us deep into les poo in the first place.
"Pardoooonnnn," the driver said in fluent French, rather arrogantly to my mind, as I tried to explain the urgency of the problem.
You see, most of my luggage and arguably one of the world's great travel writers had exited the front door of the bus.
A sweet thing by the name of Carol who I'd got to chatting up on the flight over had agreed to accompany me to my quaint but reasonably not underpriced quarters in the old part of the city. I fancied my chances, but they were sinking fast. She was stuck even faster at the centre door with the rest of our luggage, her exit forward barred by scores of multicoloured backpacks, clinging devotedly to their host species.
The middle door remained firmly closed as I again used a mixture of simple English and international sign-language to alert le driver to our predicament. He glanced in his rear-vision mirror before turning again to me with a quizzical look. "Pardoooonnnn," he sneered again for good measure.
At this stage, I'd like to thank Miss Booth, for this unfolding crisis proved the spark needed to dredge from the hidden recesses of what's left of my memory the French she so caring imparted back at Aspley High in 1964-65.
And if you're still with us, Miss Booth, I wasn't among the rabble that gave you such a hard time to the extent that you walked out mid-je-verbs to-be, never to be seen again, apparently ending your teaching career on the school of the air, once removed.
"Could vous a vous unfemetre les port derriere," I volunteered when it became clear that the driver had decided, courtesy of my pasty face and beer belly, that I was English and therefore deserved no help whatsover in being extricating from this particular deadlocked French connection.
Considering this arrogant Frenchie was slightly older than the Eiffel Tower – and France presumably is no different from any other country in not giving jobs to anyone over 40 – we had miraculously managed to encounter the only French airport bus driver who in 50 years of dealing with foreigners had not picked up the bare essentials of English.
Knew diddly squat of the mother tongue of the one country that, over the centuries, has consistently spanked their derrieres in world championship warmongering, not to mention the chosen language of much of the rest of the sophisticated world ... and Australia.
"Pardoooonnnn."
"Unfemetre la porte, mercy backcourts," I pleaded. Then pleadingly and subserviently: "please!"
The driver looked me up and down and then somehow miraculously flicked a perfectly shaped Gauloise from the crumpled light blue back on his dashboard. He let the cigarette dangle arrogantly from the corner of his mouth before tipping his head slightly, forcing his black beret onto an even sillier incline. "Police?" he asked quizzically. "Police?"
That was the final straw. He knew very well I didn't want the police.
"Unfemetre la fucking door, les cunt!" I though I heard someone very close nearby shout. Look, it might have been me. And if it was, I wouldn't have blamed me one little bit under the circumstances.
The driver's eyes popped and he almost dropped the bread stick he was waving menacingly in his spare hand.
In the glare-off that followed, you could tell he was desperately trying to work out how this this very foreign man from a very foreign, faraway land had come to know his name was Les.
As this hiccup in Ozzo-Franco-Busso relations was being played out, the backpackers, eager to be on their way themselves, had come to our rescue, ferrying my travelling companion et luggagement to the frontavouz of the bus.
The driver clearly tried to close the door on her and the bus trundled off, rather arrogantly to my mind. We made our way slowly down to Les Train Station to await our VFT (Very French Train) to the heart of gay Parreeee.
The train disgorged us at a tile-infested station called Chatelet les Halles, part of what this seasoned tubist now knows at the RER (French for Regional Express Retwork).
It was here, deep in the bowels of this ancient city, that we first learned of this city's enormous contradictions.
In an underground pedestrian tunnel roughly equal in length to all the tunnels ever hewn under Mt Isa – and with no light at the end of the tunnel at that – one of us, under the weight of a half-tonne of luggage, arthritic hip joints, heavy cold and bruising from passenger exit gates designed to hinder Karen Carpenter, had began to sob quietly, rather embarrassingly to my mind.
In fact, come to think of it, it may have been me. If that is so, I wouldn't have blamed me in the least. With all those additional burdens, an adventurous man's very first jet lag is a terrible, terrible thing to see, let alone experience.
It was at this stage that a young local man - the gauloise, the beret, the breadstick were all dead giveaways - turned back from his own young family, includingment deux biters les ankles, to offer us help.
"Tu est australienne," I said out of the blue, just in case he got too close and guessed wrongly we were just a pair of English folk who bathed regularly.
It's since been explained to moi that you've got to be very careful saying you're Autralian in French, because the word for a little girl is much the same. This probably explains why his eyes lit up and he came over toot sweet, if you get my drift.
Regardless, in the space of an hour, we'd gone from un-called-for outright arrogance to unsolicited offered aid.
Rich contrasts must just be what this beautiful old city is all about, we thought some time later after depositing our gear at the Hotel Le Loiret in the La Rue des Bonne Enfants Morte or some such thing and walked out onto a bridge not far from The Louvre. Strange name for a place that doesn't appear to have a single one along its entire facade.
As the River Seine meandered its inky way westward under our feet, we gazed back upstream at what was arguably the most amazing European city we'd ever seen in all our lives. The gold dome of the Invincible Men's Institute to our right. The majestic spires of the Cathedral de Maurice Chevallier off to the far left. Sandstone and slate everywhere.
"Shit, it's old!" I exclaimed with a shake of the head. "Wouldn't old Bjelke have had a field day with this lot?"
A Brisbane boy myself, I reckon that if I'd been one of the Deen brothers, I surely must have died and gone to heaven.

Left: the author checks for louvres. Right: the woman who agreed to accompany the author back to his charming quarters.

The author wishes to thank Cathay Pacific, but only for getting him to Europe in one piece with some nice tucker and nothing else. Sadly, he paid for the trip himself.