A war has started...

BATTLE stations people. A WAR has started.

In a quiet corner of the 20th arondissement of Paris, a fight to rewrite the pages of history is raging. It's a battle between wrong and right, between good and evil, between rich and poor, woman and man, ying and yang, between space and time.

Ever since living in our apartment, we have been under the menacing glare of two evil eyes from the balcony of the apartment across the street. Those eyes be frightening eyes. Those eyes be haunting. Those eyes- belong to an inflatable horse.
Yes, indeed.

This rotund weapon of admittedly-drawn-out-but-nevertheless-quite-damaging-destruction is awkwardly perched on the railing of the balcony of the flat across the road from us. It stands there, waiting for us to break, waiting for us to crack and display our weakness, its weird fricken legs splayed outwards in defiance of physics, its head frighteningly-tilted to one side, its bulging eyes glaring at us, questioning our resolve. "Do you feel lucky, punk. Well? Do ya?"

You may think I'm being over the top, but I swear to you that every person who has stepped into our apartment has commented on the horse - no mean feat given that it is a good 70-80 metres away.

The horse has only ever moved once: the occupants of the flat had a party. Jerome and I watched on with glee as a bunch of drunken-revellers interfered with the beast, wrenching it from it's throne and waving it about like a pool floaty. It is safe to say that Jerome and I were exstatic. The war was over. The people would no longer have to ration their butter. But the next day, upon opening my bedroom door, there it was, IN THE EXACT SAME POSITION, head tilted, legs splayed. [If it were a film, there would have been three still shots zooming in on the horse, accompanied by the sound of Garth killing Mr. Donut man - "Ree! Ree! Ree!"] At some point during the night, it had freed itself from the drunken grasp of the now somniferous party-goers and had managed to resume its haunting watch over our lives.

Bravo inflatable horse I thought. First, you give us hope. And then, with rapidity belying your lethargic, bulbous chassis, you swiftly wrench it from us again. I take my hat off to you, sir. In you, I recognise a worthy opponent.

However, two can play at this game of psycological warfare. So meet Copers, our counter-horse specialist.
Jo bought him in the airport in Copenhagen. (Yes that's right! People are so affected by the inflatable horse that they see things in their own lives and think, "James could use that to fight the inflatable horse across the road from his apartment!" This is bigger than you and me people! Can't you hear Bob Dylan? He's writing his anti-war song as we speak!) He is actually meant to be a doorstop, but by chance, he is also awesome at buffering the inflatable horse's eternal psyche out. We salute you Copers - brave, brave little horse/doorstop.

Look at him go!