La Belle France!

IN MY USUAL DEPRESSION LAST NIGHT I was casting around for ideas when suddenly one struck me that has struck me again and again: why don't I go en vacances? Usually I assume that a methadone script is stopping me ~ until I remember how very many folks I know who have indeed gone abroad with the methadone in tablet form (no way would I even consider exporting litre on litre of swilling green 1mg/1ml liquid...) What some of these people don't want to recognize is that the Home Office Letter they take for customs purposes permits only the export of methadone from the UK. Of course it is up to individual foreign countries to decide whether they will allow it in. Bue la belle france is our nearest neighbour in the ever-"freundlich" Europäische Union (not that I'm suggesting Germany's in charge). So that shouldn't be un problème ...

When he was younger, my Dad did a tour of the outlying isles of Scotland and indeed I tell myself I would like to see the more outstanding points of my own country. Then I think to la belle france and ~ hey ~ actually I'd far rather go there (and hop across the border to Germany, come to think about it.) I spent seven years torturously studying French under the wholly timewasteful British system of language education at school and five doing German. And doesn't it say everything that I actually speak German better than French? To be quite frank anyone with half a brain could attain the fluency I did in 3 or 4 years of concerted effort. I sacrificed all kinds of easier studies ~ I even had to give up chemistry to do this. Languages are hardly regarded as sacrosanct in the UK. Then everyone assumes I must be somehow genius-clever just because I attained what is really a basic skill for any citizen of the world. I think if I'd got to this age as a monoglot I really would have killed myself ~ from the shame of it, if nothing else. The British are no "worse" at learning languages than anyone else; it's just that they're taught to an execrably lower standard here than almost anywhere else on the entire planet (and that must surely be saying something...); plus when you go abroad you get less chance to practise, being surrounded by locals who want to practise their English on you!

I suppose this could have been a long entry on the glories of la république. My time in France has been limited to about three weeks or so I spent with a charity called Jeunesse et Reconstruction in the last summer of my teens when I joined a pan-European gang of youngsters on a river-pruning expedition between Clermont-Ferrand and Bourges. If you stuck a pin in the middle of the French hexagone; that's just about where we were... You only had to hack at the banks for about three hours a day then you got the rest of the time off to explore la campagne. To this day I know the names of basic farming and tree-surgical implements better in French than English. I also learned important phrases like bourdon (bumblebee) and nid des guêpes (wasps' nest!) Those are imprinted on my mind. I also learned that a lot of soft French cheese is like white horse manure but the local plonk is exceptionally cheap. The local mayor gave us lots of that as we were the cheapest labour around... Plus I learned to swear fluently and say a collection of obscene phrases in Polish. And I met some dodgy Lithuanian gypsies. The youngest one "looked like Madonna" (bear in mind this was 1990 or 91 when "Vogue" had just come out) and kept fluttering her eyes at me. Her brothers caught the most gigantic fish with their bare hands in a local stream. The local hôpital psychiatrique was just round the corner and we were haunted by a transvestit drest as a Red Indian sqwaw girl. And somebody caught diarrhoea in the communal toilets leaving an Everestine pile of steaming ordures like a molten Mr Whippy caramel king-cone on the famous French squat-down loos ...

I also became familiar enough with the grande métropole that when I came to London I spent a while wondering where to find that island in the middle with a huge cathedral opposite the courts of justice. Not realizing, of course, that that would be la cathédrale de Notre-Dame opposite le Palais de Justice ...

In general I would say that Paris is more beautiful than London (though in a preplanned and perhaps stuffily regimented way; and the statlier parts of London somehow outdo Paris in élégance ...), in my day London definitely had the edge over Paris in nightlife and clubbing though Paris would probably appeal more to slightly older people who were more into eating out and drinking. London and Paris seemed to be pretty much equal when it came to shopping. Being so near of course I had to see Galleries Lafayette, the French Harrods with its giant atrium above the perfume hall. Unlike Harrods this is one store in two buildings connected by a high-up open-air walkway. And I swear that as I crossed the bridge I passed the image of French chic: yes a woman with black Chanel bob, in furs, reeking of French perfume clutching a small dog ...

O! Those were the days! I'll keep you informed if I ever do go. (I'll probably be 57 by then...)