It was the same on my teachers' course in Lyon a fortnight ago-I was roasted on all the transport but on arrival, it was so cold and rainy,I was forced to don the contents of my suitcase. I looked around indignantly and exclaimed loudly, confident in the knowledge that since I was in France, there was no point in concealing my disgust. The French don't bother to hide their feelings so I have given up. This is one of the main differences between us and foreigners, at least of the European variety; they lack our mania for being liked. They are just about civil with no smiling, if you are lucky; and NOT ONE BLOODY BIT NICE if you are not. I used to go about grinning maniacally at them with accompanying nodding and eyebrow raising. It never got me anywhere and they probably thought I was a Marcel Marceau fan, such was my animation compared to theirs.
We had the unspeakable art of the mime in one of our lessons-I still don't know how this could be used in teaching people to speak French but it was useful for getting me all riled up in time for being ignored in the cafes at lunchtime.
Real French food is most peculiar-there we were, degrees up to our eyeballs and we had to revise with each other in order to achieve a decent cup of coffee or a beer. These things become highly complicated with specialised vocabulary; 'un demi', 'une serieuse'-this is a pint;note the whiff of disapproval,for the coffee,'un creme'or 'un allonge' if you want more than a thimbleful. They are even keener on meat than we are, too. At one point we were taken to a place calling itself 'jardin du' something, which specialised in salads but I reckon the organisers were just messing with us. The dinner consisted principally of lettuce on a plate the size of a riot shield. This in a country whose attitude to vegetarianism is akin to that of Queen Victoria to lesbians; simply unable to process the idea of people wanting to get up to that sort of thing.
The French are mad about offal too and consistently try to pass off the sweepings from the abattoir floor as delicacies. Everywhere you go, there is 'andouille' which is made from pig's rectum, 'gesiers' -bird's windpipe, and a new one on me; 'tablier du sapeur' an organ the waitress tried to explain by indicating its position on her own body. Since she could have walked right on to the stage as the innkeeper's wife in Les Miserables without changing costume, we all had the chicken.
Thank God for the drink-they're very good at that and so were we. Hence I missed my flight, tired and emotional I believe it's called. Also I maintain time shifts uncontrollably in airports, one minute you're far too early and the next it's touch and go if they will let you on the plane because you appear to have passed two hours eyeing up the Chanel. All the employees I then had to deal with, each more beautiful and soignee than the last, remained impervious to sobs and stammers.'Ca va aller?', they kept asking. That was it. Here you'd have been taken home and made a toasted soda. No wonder all those rock stars get ushered about in first class by minders-means you can get away with being permanently drunk or hungover while circumnavigating the globe.
Speaking of which, French TV is so unbelievably dull and puerile that I switched it off and didn't hear about poor Amy for a day or two. Nobody chooses to be an addict and almost everyone has tried some kind of drug even if it amounts to a couple of drags of a B and H behind the bike sheds. Mind you clean and sober or off her head, the girl clearly had her own micro-climate; sleeveless through 8 pages of Google images-not a coat in sight, not even a cardigan. Much has been made of her individual style based on her love of 50's and 60's girl groups and so on. And what a tragically retro end it was. Alone ,in bed, like Marilyn Monroe, at the same age as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
