New Orleans - named after the french city of Orléans - is one of the oldest settlements in America, is famous for its food, architecture and jazz music - and its ability to have a party.

Party central in NOLA is based in the French Quarter of the city, in particular - Bourbon Street - itself named after the House of Bourbon - the French Royal family ruling at the time of the cities founding.

I wonder what they’d make of it nowadays, as I ruthlessly break down the businesses into four simple categories: 1. Bars 2. Clubs 3. Strip Clubs and 4. Souvenir Shops.

Actually there are often little tiny ‘hole in the wall’ bars too - but often attached to the main bars that want to sell you cheap $1 beers, and then rather expensive iced daiquiries too. If you’re out on the town on Bourbon Street, you’re not having a good time unless you’re drinking from a green coloured, foot long glass shaped like a bong, containing its sweet rum based drink.

The strip clubs remind me of those in Soho in London. No actually sex is allowed to take place, so instead the best looking girl of the business attempts to lure you in for what sounds like an impossibly good price, only for you to discover that the prices inside are somewhat more inflated than what you expected, and the calibre of cute girls drops dramatically as apposed to the one that enticed you in. As my friend Dan once astutely pointed out, “Strip Clubs? Why would you pay just have to have a nice juicy steak dangled in front of you that you can’t actually eat?”.

The souvenir shops sell T-Shirts with a similar theme. “I got Bourbon-Faced on Shit-Street”, “Hello, I’m here about the blow job”, and once that simply read “Oh, fuck off”. Although I did raise a laugh at one which simply read “This time … let’s fuck it up my way”.

A man inside an inflatable hand-grenade costume attempted to entice people in to try one of their ‘Hand Grenade‘ drinks on another bar. People tipped, er … it … (him?) to have their photo taken, and then there was the noise.

From almost every other business along the eight block road designed for a good time out came the music … thumping … loud … foot tapping music, rock, blues and jazz. And suddenly all the sleaze and drunk people didn’t matter and you got a vibe from deep down inside that NOLA still knows where its roots are at and it knows how to jam.

It was busy enough for a Friday and Saturday night that I went down it. Simply heaving with hundreds of people. Goodness knows what it must be like come Mardi Gras when thousands more pack to the streets.

I found myself thinking about Live and Let Die - the Bond film with the opening sequence shot on Bourbon when an agent is shot as part of a funeral procession. I found myself feeling sorry for the Christian Preachers who had set up a giant cross, and were handing out paraphernalia to ‘repent’ - and a woman forlornly spoke into a megaphone to preach her message - yet you couldn’t hear her from a few feet away such was the noise from the nearby clubs and bars, and I found myself having one overall endearing image of party town USA … drunk uninhibited people.

At first I thought it must be a street entertainer - a magician or musician - something that had caused a circle of people to gather round in the middle of the street. I squeezed my way through the crowds (checking my camera, phone and wallet as I went, thinking it would be the ideal place for a pickpocket to do their work, and I refused to be robbed twice on this trip), but instead … a sight greeted me that actually made me double to check to confirm if what I was seeing was what I was seeing.

An extremely drunk - and only somewhat cute - girl in a white dress was standing, legs apart leaning with one arm against a lamppost, whilst a guy sat on the curb beneath her, had his head up her skirt … going down on her. Although from that angle, you’d have to say really that he was going up on her.

I looked round the group of people gather - men and women, cheering on, many taking photos and video on their cell phones, as - presumably - some oral pleasure was dished out just a few feet in front of us.

At one point another girl in the crowd stepped forward and lifted up the back of the white-dressed girl to check if she was sans panties - she was, because we all got see her bare arse. And a few seconds later - task complete - the guy emerged with a smile on his face, licking his lips, and with a cheer from his friends the girl was led away - visibly wobbling - by her more slightly sober friend and dissolved into the crowds on Bourbon.

Nice shot.

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