The Champions League final is damned and doomed: part one

Barrie Davies' journey to the Champions League final takes a turn when he finds a dilapidated smelly flat bar and the 'Magic Messi Milk' between him and Paris. Part one of a two-part series.

Art by Shivani Khot

I remember the last time I was in Paris felt like yesterday.

Which is rather odd, because by right, given the sordid array of mind-altering and memory-dulling things I did the last time I was in Paris, I shouldn't be able to remember a man-jack or nipple neon strobe flash or absinthe-splattered panties or whatever sparkle that passes. Not even if a tea-soaked madeleine passed my lips.

By God's mercy, my fixer had done all the arduous ass work beforehand and got - or at least assured me he had "secured" - not just two tickets to the final of the Champions League which would be played in the City of Light but also a premium package of press credentials which included, as a secondary benefit, entry to a free bar before and after the game. I must tell you now, ladies and gentlemen, that my fixer - whom we will henceforth call "my associate" - has a very elastic and entirely malleable notion of what the conventional past tense meaning of the verb "secured" can mean. Let's just say, at this point and at the risk of baiting the hook and indulging in showmanship and foreshadowing, that my associate has a very elastic understanding of the term "secure" indeed; whose elasticity extends patience, credulity and peace of mind. In sum, my associate errs on the side of a particularly radical and unconventional look at what is considered "safe" in today's environment. Or, for that matter, in any conceivable context. But now, your appetite suitably whetted and your pants saturated with a puddle of drool, I'll leave the above tantalizingly hanging and get back to the meat of the knot.

My Partner liked to punctuate every sentence he shared with me before the Fateful Day in Gay Paris with this word, "secure", as if it were the Abracabra that revealed all the mysteries hidden until then. Another word my associate liked to exchange and generously seasoned every conversation in the days leading up to the fateful finale was "spectacle." It was an amorphous word that seemed to cover a multitude of sins when My Associate used it, which was blatant and frequent. He never once referred to the "football match" or, quite simply, for ea...