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I found myself in the company of a fairly interesting collection of dunces and “hard cases”. It was one of the latter, a typical boarding school “big shot”, who ended up being responsible for the direction I took during the next ten years of my life. His name was Jacques, and he played the electric guitar, which quite impressed me. As soon as the Christmas holidays came, I got my grandmother to buy me a magnificent guitar, and Jacques taught me a few chords. Then I started setting my poems to music and noticed that it was apparently very pleasing to those who listened. As soon as the summer holidays came, I began to enter some radio singing contests, which I almost always won. It was also during that summer vacation that I discovered physical love for the first time - with a barmaid who had been enchanted by ow wd oud 1 my songs. She was twenty years old and did not teach me much apart from the effects that the guitar can have on women. The following year I was fifteen and wanted more than ever to live my own life. One day I took my guitar under my arm along with a small suitcase, said farewell to the boarding school with its uninteresting studies, and hitchhiked to Paris. I had two thousand old francs in my pocket and a heart full of hope. At last I was going to earn my own living, save up enough money to take my driving test at the age of eighteen and become a racing driver. By a stroke of luck a man driving a car that had tremendous acceleration hidden beneath discreet-looking bodywork picked me up. When he told me he was a racing driver and gave me his name, I was able to tell him which car he had driven and the awards he had won. He was flattered and surprised, little known as he was, to meet a young boy who remembered all his achievements. He told me that he had once been a clown, and that he now owned a garage in the southwest. When we arrived in Paris, he invited me out to dinner and even offered me a room in the hotel where he was staying. row 1 roa oa 1 In the lounge, we chatted a bit with two young women who were dance hostesses in a bar and had finished their day’s work. I sang some songs, and then we went to bed each with one of our charming companions. There I was truly initiated into physical lovemaking. 130 INTELLIGENT DESIGN: MESSAGE FROM THE DESIGNERS