It ain't all courgettes and sunflowers!

If you read one of my earlier posts this summer, you will recall I was bemoaning the surfeit of courgettes with which my neighbours were keen to supplement my diet.

However, dear readers, I am here to tell you a few things about the fertile soils of Nowhere-in-France. I will tell you the tale of the Mystery of the Disappearing Marijuana..

Towards the end of my summer stay, I was (as in the courgette story) invited to dinner with my friend Karine. She, and indeed I and many others, have known for some time that her neighbours have a small area of their large back garden dedicated to the cultivation of recreational drugs which, I should add, are entirely for their own consumption and mainly for medicinal purposes. Nobody minds, except when the Gendarmes take their helicopter up for a spin. But then, the Gendarmes don't seem to mind, either. They (the Gendarmes) may make an appearance later in this tale, however, for another reason.

So, on the evening in question, I arrived at Karine's and let myself in, calling out a "Hello!" to which there came no reply. I wandered into the back garden and saw her far down the garden, deep in conversation with a man I didn't recognise. She introduced me to her neighbour, and together they explained that he had come over to tell her that, during the previous night, someone had come into her garden, and, using a stepladder that was already set up under a nearby tree, they had scaled the fence between their two properties and helped themselves to a couple of dozen cannabis plants.

Despite the indifference of the local Gendarmes to the existence of these plants, this is clearly not the sort of theft that is easy to report, but the neighbour, in a very pleasant way, had come to see if Karine might know of any visitors to her home who might have taken a shine to the plants and hatched a plan to steal them. We laughed together at the thought that a hotch-potch of mostly septuagenarians or under twelves would be able or willing to carry out such a dastardly plot, given that most of the former have had heart operations or hip replacements, and that any such scheme would probably make good material for an episode of "Last of the Summer Wine". And, talking of wine, we all had a glass of rosé whilst wondering aloud what the world was coming to when a person couldn't cultivate something a bit more interesting than courgettes without having it stolen. How anyone could have found them and carted them off in the dead of night seemed destined to remain a mystery, but Karine and her neighbour were both unsettled by this, although for different reasons. The neighbour was doubly miffed, because, as he explained, the plants weren't even ready for harvesting! That let me even further off the hook, as I wouldn't know a ripe-for-harvesting cannabis plant form a courgette.

Anyway, the neighbour left, we had dinner, and I took my leave of Karine at about 9.30. It's a short drive home, passing through the village, round the square and down the road to my house. As if the evening hadn't been eventful enough, I was just turning into the top end of the square when, suddenly, a man in uniform jumped out of a shrub opposite the boulangerie. A Gendarme, no less. No, wait, there were two of them!

We often joke that the centre of our village is so quiet after 9 in the evening that you could get arrested for having squeaky shoes. Well, I guess that the Gendarmes must feel the need every so often to make their own entertainment. What better way than to lurk in the bushes (on an evening when the local bar is closed, as well) and stop unsuspecting motorists and breathalyse them?

It came as a bit of a shock to both of us, I can tell you. Me, because I had recently consumed a glass of wine, them because despite my French licence plate, I exited the vehicle on what they assumed was the passenger side, so there ensued a brief moment of confusion while they checked that my car wasn't being propelled by a person of restricted growth who was hiding because they'd been drinking all evening. Once we'd all taken stock, I blew into their machine as requested, produced a negative result ("Nickel! " proclaimed the Gendarme) and was allowed to go about my business. If only I could have said "Look, instead of stopping innocent drivers and doing random breath tests, why not go and solve some real crimes, like the theft of a quantity of recreational drugs! " but discretion is, etc., etc..

There is a popular misconception among many Brits abroad that rural France is an idyllic place, where there are no drugs, no crime, and everyone can leave their doors open without fear. I am here to tell you that there's a lot more going on than meets the eye. It really isn't all courgettes and sunflowers, you know!

Getting connected.....

So here we are in the land the Internet forgot.
Week 1, and the attempt to get online begins....
Before leaving Nowhere-on-Thames, I had been pleased to see that Bouygues Telecom had launched a new 3G Internet offer for a very reasonable 9.90 Euros a month. On a contract with no tie-in period, this seemed like the perfect solution to my needs whilst in Nowhere-in-France.

As is oft the case, the road to connection was to prove long and rocky...

Before we set off, I had tried very hard to sign up online. I would probably have derived more satisfaction from trying to extract one of my own teeth with a cocktail stick. Firstly, the dongle I was offered to accompany the deal was priced at a sum similar to the current Greek national debt. Some judicious button pressing revealed that there were other choices, but Bouygyes - without knowing my "needs" had chosen for me a dongle which best met them. Or, in other words, they'd offered me the most expensive one in their range. I felt quite smug that I had managed to circumvent their dastardly plan. Until I tried to proceed with my order and found that the one I actually wanted, together with most of the others, was out of stock.

I tried many ways to contact Bouygues with a few other questions, but, to be frank, I would have had more luck with a Ouija board than any conventional method... Undaunted, I decided that the personal approach might be more effective, and so decided to leave things until we arrived, and then to visit a shop and do the deal in person.

Monday morning dawned. Now, I know that Monday morning is not the best time to get things done in France, but we had other business in the local metropolis, so I decided that I would try a visit to Bouygues. And it was then that I found that whilst Orange and SFR were open on Monday morning, Bouygues had stuck a notice in their window to the effect that from July 11 to August 20, they would NOT be opening on Monday mornings...

Thursday. I thought that by now I had given them ample time to ease into their working week, and that it would be a good day to try again. They were, at least open, which was an encouraging start. I joined the queue in the shop. It goes without saying that the queuing part took some time. However, eventually my turn came. I explained to the assistant that I wanted to subscribe to their 9.90 Internet deal, and that I required a particular dongle, which I believed might be out of stock.

"That one isn't available on this particular offer"said the assistant. "we only have this one at 69.99". I managed not to swallow my teeth.

"But on your website I am sure it is available on this tariff" I replied "although I think it might be out of stock"

"Are you sure it was this one?" she asked, having gone into the back of the shop and returned, carrying exactly the one I wanted.

"Yes" I said "That's the very one!"

"Well, I can't sell you this one, because it's the only one we have and it isn't available on this offer" She said, waving the object of my desire tantalisingly under my nose. "You can only have this other one and it's 69.99"

"But" (I tried not to sound too pleading) "But....it IS available on this offer according to your website!"

And so, in an attempt to prove to me once and for all that I was a pathological liar, she logged onto the website, found the page, and triumphantly announced "See? It's not there!"

"No" I agreed, "But if you scroll down to....there...and press....that....." and the dongle I wanted was shining back at me from their web page. It might as well have had "England 1 France 0" inscribed on the side. I tried not to sound smug.

"Yes, but look" she said "here is a list of the shops that have that one in stock, and our shop isn't on it" I felt that she might be trying a bit too hard to regain the upper hand, or else she had forgotten that she had just shown me one that they clearly DID have in stock. "And anyway, it's also 69.99"

"I think you might find it is cheaper than that" I said .

She clearly felt by now that reinforcements were needed, so she called upon her colleague. Unfortunately, the colleague quickly confirmed that yes, she could indeed sell me the dongle I wanted under the terms of the offer, even though it was the last one they had in stock, and that no, it wasn't 69.99, but that the price was (smugness was now starting to ooze from my pores despite strenuous efforts to disguise it) 39.99.

England 2, France 0....

Cutting a long story short, I lost round 3 on a technicality, as they refused to complete the sale without a RIB and I had forgotten to take the cheque book. Or, to be strictly accurate, I wanted to complete the transaction using my credit card...still a surprisingly alien concept in France, along with the idea that a non-resident might want Internet access without necessarily going to the lengths of opening a French bank account. Not to worry, though..I made sure that I had agreement to put the thing aside for me until I could pop back with the cheque book, a notarised certificate confirming my shoe size, a copy of the family tree going back to the 17th century and my last 85 utility bills.

Tomorrow, limited Internet access will be mine, and I shall publish this small insight into the joys of life in a strange land. At least, that is the plan.....

And here I am...but I have to go back tomorrow with proof of my shoe size...

If the future IS orange....then we're doomed!

Some months ago, France Telecom became Orange. Now, for various reasons I've just concluded my divorce from Orange in the UK, so this news did not fill me with confidence. However, over in France, my dealings with our telecoms provider consist of activating and deactivating our telephone landline during the periods I'm in residence over the summer, so there's not too much to worry about. Or so I believed!

As we're about to sally forth to la terre promesse, I needed to ensure that we have contact with the outside world via a landline, and so I set about going through the process to get ours reconnected.

Now I've got another of my heads.

I started last night, thinking it would be a 5-minute job. Which was my first mistake.

Step 1: Créer votre Espace Client

What could possibly go wrong?
Enter name and address: OK
Enter e-mail address: Your e-mail address is not valid. YES IT IS!
Your e-mail address is not valid...GRRRR!
Your e-mail address is not valid.....OK, try this: it's the one I never use for anything.
(It works fine)

Step 2: Ajouter un compte fixe

Now this is where it really started to go wrong.

Enter your phone number: OK
Enter your account number, which you will find on top of your bill.

Slight problem there.  You see, we opted for online billing. Which, of course, means that I can only view my bill ONLINE. And I can't see my bill online until I've added my landline account to my Espace Client. Which I can't do without my account number. Which is on top........

But, hold on a minute! Surely the "Ref. Client" which appears on the top of each letter I get from FT confirming they've activated my phone MUST be my account number? Of course it must!


It isn't.


And the "No. de contrat" isn't it, either. Nor is the reference number which appears next to any of the direct debit payments on our bank account.

By now, I've been locked out of the Orange website 3 times for 30 minutes each time because I've exceeded my number of attempts. I have a feeling it's a sort of blessing, designed to prevent angry punters from throwing laptops from upper-storey windows.


AHA! but not to worry, I can do this by phone.

Not exactly......

Plan A: Phone the automated helpline, pronounce the words "Activer ligne résidence secondaire" and Robert est ton Oncle.

Unfortunately, since the advent of Orange, you need a four digit PIN code to do this. Which I haven't got. Apparently, however, this is not a problem, as I can simply phone the number and, provided I have the total of my last bill, I can set one up. Only my bill, as I may have mentioned, is only available online.....

Plan B: Phone the English-speaking Helpline.

Cue a recorded message, lots of Muzak and an interminable queue. When I got through (bang on opening-time, so I would not have imagined there'd be a queue) there was a queue. "Your waiting time is estimated at less than 2 minutes" they said, encouragingly.

NINE minutes later, I was greeted by the lovely Sarah, who was going to help me. In English. Although a close look at Orange's website reveals that, if you phone Orange France from overseas, this is the only number you can call, irrespective of whether you speak English or not.

Anyway, Sarah was more than happy to organise activation of my phone line for me. But I wanted more. I wanted my account number, so that I could set up my Espace Client, and do all those other things all by myself like a big girl.

"Can I speak to you in French?" I asked. I just prefer it...I sort of feel more in control of both sides of the conversation then.
"Well, we're not supposed to, because this is the English Speaking helpline..."
"Look", I said, " I just need to get some information". And I explained. In French, because I'm paying for the call and, like Frank Sinatra and Sid Vicious, I'll do it my way.
"No problem" said Sarah, after slightly misunderstanding my question and trying to explain to me how to get an internet account with Orange (or was it a cunning marketing ploy?).

"Here's your account number" she said "Have you got a pen?"  I assured her that my writing implement was poised and at the ready.

At which point, she began reading the account number that had already got me locked out of the Orange website 3 times. I completed the last few figures for her.

"But that one doesn't work!" I wailed "I've been trying it for ages!"

"Well, normally, you just need to put a zero in front" she said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world and I was clearly stupid not to have though of it.

Marvellous.

I wonder if I can get a carrier-pigeon on ebay?

Meanwhile, in a mere 4 hours from now, the Olympic Torch Relay will be jogging around the local castle. If only I had a copy of my Orange bill, I would jog along and try to set it alight on the flame.

Let them eat steak

When we first set up camp in Nowhere-in-France, we put up for a night at the local bar/hotel/resto, having a distinct lack of furniture in our new abode. It was thus that we came to know the patron, the lovely Yves, who has remained a close friend ever since.

At that time (and still) the premises, as is so often the case, belonged to the local commune, and the fonds de commerce to Yves. It had been a stipulation of the commune that the person running the business should live “over the shop”, but Yves has his own home, wife and children in the village and didn’t want to move into the then rather cramped accommodation at the bar.

Back then, the place was a thriving village bar, with baby-foot, billiards and an excellent menu du jour (or soir), where locals and a few of us non-locals would congregate for coffee, lunch, New Year and other occasions. Yves is a wonderful cook, and his pronouncement that he would knock up “something simple” for New Year’s Eve resulted in one of the best evenings in terms of food and company that we have ever enjoyed in France. The whole place was “proper”. Slightly fading, full of various characters from around the village, and, simply, a centre for life and exchange of gossip.

Yves, however, became tired of having to keep the place going whilst not living on the premises, and his family life and free time was suffering. So, some five or six years ago, the place was sold.

The new owners, a couple, fresh from running a catering operation at a seaside camp-site, clearly had delusions of grandeur. Over time, the menus became more and more pretentious, the prices more and more ridiculous, and the number of cheesed-off locals increased exponentially with each change. Gone was the homely atmosphere, replaced with transparent plastic chairs in shades of bright orange and green. The local youngsters were banned, along with the billiard table and the baby-foot, and vegetable accompaniments were served in minute Kilner jars whilst the meat was garnished with a floral tribute. The whole thing was a real triumph of style over substance.  The local building firm, whose workers regularly numbered a good 12-15 people, moved to a Routier some 10Km distant to take lunch, and the waitress suddenly had to wear a radio microphone to liaise with the kitchen.   Just about everyone in the village had a tale to tell about how they had been upset by the chef-patron.

There was thus a current of excitement running through the village last week, as the couple from hell packed up and left, and a new couple moved in. The Grand Reopening (well, just a very low-key opening of the doors at lunchtime) was scheduled for last Thursday, and along with a group of friends, I went along to see what was what.

The new owners (the wife of the partnership is English, from Newcastle, whilst her husband is French and the chef – of course) seemed very pleasant and welcoming. She seemed genuinely surprised to see so many customers wishing to eat there on their very first service, but maybe they reckoned without the natural curiosity and optimism of a village deprived for so long of a convivial place to enjoy lunch.

We were a table of seven. Other tables were occupied. Since my recent car accident, I cannot set foot outside the house without bumping into the woman who hit me, or her husband, and they were seated at the adjacent table! Yves also joined us. He never got on with the previous incumbents, and I think he was hopeful that “his” bar would slowly become a more pleasant place again.

Oh dear. Somehow I’d sort of forgotten how very little it can take to annoy the discerning French. Never mess with a Frenchman’s lunch. You may as well go round to his house and immolate his family.

1. The prices had gone up (not much, but too much for some)

2. The set menu price was one where the choices were Entrée/Main/Dessert or Entrée/Main or Main/Dessert (let’s face it, first day of opening..they had no idea whether they’d be catering to the masses or watching tumbleweed rolling across the village square)

3. The helpings were deemed too small

4. THE WINE WAS NOT INCLUDED IN THE MENU PRICE

5. WINE WAS BEING OFFERED BY THE GLASS OR BY THE BOTTLE (the latter only came to light later) 

During the meal, small mumblings of dissent could be heard. By the time we walked outside into the afternoon sun, there was the start of a local revolt. 

“Well, we won’t be coming back for at least a month until they’ve got their act together” said my car accident woman’s husband “the helpings are far too small” (I can see his point: he’s built like a Sumo wrestler and half a small cow could well be too small for him)

“I’m not standing for this ‘glass of wine’ business:  it’s absurd having to call a waitress every time your glass is empty” said one of my party “I think we should tell them! They bought the 'fonds' so they must still have the pichets!"

“And what’s happened to the idea of being able to have just a Plat and wine?” wailed someone else “I had to have a dessert, because I was going to have to pay for it anyway”

The thing is, I suspect that the outgoing tenants had intimated that the village yokels wouldn’t recognise haute cuisine if it came up and smacked them, and that a pretentious, overpriced restaurant is just what the village needs, whether they want it or not.

I sincerely hope that someone takes the newcomers aside and explains that they can be as upmarket as they like in the evenings, or when there’s an “R” in the month, but that the lunchtime core business is predominantly the steak-frites-and-a-pichet brigade, who need more than a couple of miniature new potatoes to sustain them until dinner.

They seem like lovely people. I so badly want them to make a go of things and to have our local bar-resto back as a pleasant place to be. I suspect, though, that no-one will step up and actually voice these concerns to them, and that they will plough a lonely furrow, trying to drag the locals “upmarket”…

I have to say that my lunch was extremely enjoyable. I had a delicious pork dish with a rich and flavourful sauce, followed by a café gourmand. No wine problems, as I stuck to water. Maybe I’m too easily pleased? Or is this one of those times when Not Being French is a real problem?

The Magic Roundabout

One of the best and most surprising bits of news from Nowhere-in-France last week was the arrival of Our Very Own « feature roundabout » !!

After my earlier blog post extolling the virtues of these local landmarks, I was very surprised to find that we now have one on the main road at the entrance to our village. Even more surprised, as it literally appeared overnight!

Having been to dinner with friends the previous evening, (via the roundabout which, at that time, sprouted some rather sad brown grass and a rectangle of earth) I was driving into the village to join them again for lunch in our local bar-resto (which, incidentally, is Under New Management – more of which anon…) and, as I approached the roundabout, I saw a whole host of people, cars parked all over the verges alongside, and this:

It’s a replica of the main doorway to our XII Century local church and, although it looks a little stark at the moment, I am assured that it is to be landscaped in the coming weeks, so I look forward to returning next month and seeing the finished article.

I later discovered that our neighbour can claim a certain responsibility for the success of the project thus far. Apparently, it was too heavy to lift into position, so he was summoned with his tractor to winch it upright. Very splendid it looks, too.

Shalalalala means "I Love You"

And "Ohlalalalalalaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" means "no".

The people who both installed and have subsequently, year by year, opened and closed our swimming pool, disappeared last year. No, not an odd choice of words, they just went. In the much-vaunted style of French customer service, they were there one minute and gone the next. No warning, no "we're retiring/closing down" no message on the answering machine or any kind of e-mail reply.

So, this year, I have had to start hunting for someone to open our pool. TH can't come to France right now, and there are all sorts of electrical/mechanical/technical things to do which are beyond my ken, so I need a man who can.

I was given the name of a man who could by my neighbour. They know him, their son knows him, and, as is so often the way in La France Profonde, dropping the right names is the key to getting people to come and do work. I learned this once, when trying to locate a plumber over the Christmas holiday period on behalf of some friends who had a serious water leak. "Do I know them?" He asked, when I phoned "I don't know" I said, "but they live just round the corner from you". "I don't know them" he went on "and I'm on holiday. Can't they get the person who installed their plumbing to come?" "Well" I replied "He may no longer be with us. The plumbing came with the house, and the house is over 100 years old". He wouldn't come. He didn't know them, and that was that.

Yesterday, then, I called the pool man. "Could you possibly come and open up our pool?" I asked.
"Oh la la la la la la la la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" he said, laced with all the gravitas and intonation necessary to convince me that this was impossible. "Look, it's not urgent" I said "I'm still in the UK at the moment, and I'm not arriving for a couple of weeks" "Oh la la la laaaaaaaaah" He said again " I'm snowed under for at least the next month"

I can't face any more Oh la laaaa- ing, so TH and I have agreed that the pool can stay closed until TH can open it in another month's time.

Swings and roundabouts!

Just back from a week in Nowhere-in-France.  It’s received wisdom that everywhere in France has its own microclimate. At least, that’s what just about any Brit living in France will tell you. It’s like a sort of competition. It just takes one person to say “ooh, we’re eating on the terrace in 28 degrees and it’s only February 3^rd!” and suddenly they’re all at it…”It’s 40 degrees here, we’re all in swimwear and the rest of Europe is snowbound, but of course, we have our own microclimate…” Well, last week we came out quite well in the competitive microclimate contest, with almost none of the predicted rainfall. Good for us, but not for the general wellbeing of the surrounding countryside.  It IS amazing, though, that you could drive 100 metres in any direction away from our house and find that suddenly it was raining – or conversely, that it was raining chez nous but sunny in the next hamlet.

Anyway, it wasn’t just the weather that was up and down. So was fortune. I had my first French car accident. A woman in one of those Toyota 4 x 4’s that looks like a total eclipse on wheels executed an overtaking manoeuvre on an empty road, and managed to practically sever my wing mirror from the car. I had to give chase for a good few Km at speeds I normally only travel on motorways, all the while flashing my lights at her, before she finally pulled over. Ironically, the place she chose to come to a stop was right outside the cemetery. Considering I was the one whose car got damaged, she was almost apoplectic with rage, accusing me of just about everything from deliberately swerving into her..(er…hello?) to not pulling over to give her room (on an empty road where I was already on the correct side of the road and she could have got TWO of her total-eclipses-on-wheels past me without scratching the paintwork: if she’d really tried), finally tailing off into accusing me of making her late for work!  By the following day, when we had a rematch to sort out the insurance claim, she’d had a personality transplant, and agreed to pay for the damage to my car without claiming on the insurance. Good call. 

Over the Easter weekend, we took a little drive up the road to the coast. It was a bit windy, but otherwise a glorious day, and we took a route which allowed us to bypass some of the local sights which always make me smile: the roundabouts.  I don’t know why, or how it started, but France seems to excel at creating fantastic, interesting, clever traffic roundabouts. Given my experience above, and the general quality of some of the driving, I’m not sure I should be applauding this inventiveness: it can only serve to distract drivers from what they should be doing.  However, I do love the roundabouts around our coastal resorts, and it’s fun to tell people that they should “Carry straight on at the massive boy pulling the little boat”, or “take the second exit at the big paper boats” or “go past the giant fir cones and bricks”.

Have a look: 

Once upon a payslip...

Well, I don’t quite know how I got myself into this, but it’s too late now.

Some months ago, a client asked me if I would take on the task of becoming their translator. They’re in the midst of a French acquisition, they’re an American company, and in-house French speakers are thin on the ground. I said yes, because I quite enjoy the cerebral challenge of doing translations and because…well…because I need the money.

Anyway, it all started off quite gently, and I was pleased I’d agreed. Pleased, that is, apart from when I went off to Nowhere-in-France for the first time in forever without my laptop, and got an e-mail whilst I was on the way to the airport with an “emergency” translation. This meant that I firstly had to acquire a notepad.

I don’t know if anyone has ever tried to buy a notepad in WH Smith at Stansted, but let me warn you. They have two. One is £15 and is leather-bound, and the other is slightly larger than a postage stamp. And there was me thinking that WHS were famous for stationery! With the help of a friendly assistant, I managed to find something suitable on the shelf stacked with games to amuse the under-twelves, and parked myself in the coffee shop to set to work. It was all fairly straightforward, and I arrived in France with my carefully-written translation, where friends lent me a spare laptop, neighbours gave me internet access, and the job was done.

A few other little jobs came my way, and then, last week, my contact sent me an e-mail. It started off by saying “Here is a lengthy translation for you (sorry about that!). It's also a payroll tender document, so it's not even something exciting.” Well, a more accurate assessment of the situation would be hard to find. It’s actually 120 pages of minutiae about the French company’s payroll software, and I’m not yet halfway through and already I’ve lost the will to live. I’ve also got a frozen neck, a bad back and an overwhelming urge to grab Nicolas Sarkozy warmly by the throat, but I am pretty sure I won’t be alone on that last bit.

It’s so boring that bits I’ve already translated just don’t ring a bell when I come across them a paragraph later. It’s also so chock-a-block with acronyms that I am beginning to think they’ve just added them in to make my eyes rotate in their sockets.

So, here’s a little quiz for you. No, I don’t know all the answers, but I will have written them down somewhere.  It starts gently enough, but then it gets worse and worse…

ASSEDIC, URSSAF, CDD, CDI  (easy, huh? Just you wait…) 

DADSU, PERCO, CSG, CRDS, AED, N4DS, DIF, STC, AGS, ARRCO,AGIRC,GMP,AGFF,APEC,CIPS,CIPC R, DUE,CIX, TA, TB,CCNSA,CE,DP,IJSS…….. 

And I’m only on page 20 of 45 in the second of three documents…

I may be some time.

The Wrong Kind of French

It’s that time of year….you know, the one where someone from Network Rail  or some BBC reporter stands in a street full of snowdrifts and tells us we’ve got no trains/electricity/gas/sanity because of “the wrong kind of snow” (who knew?). Over much of the UK and Europe, people have been waking up (or even going to bed) to a blanket of white. Most of them seem to have eschewed the idea of grabbing a blanket, hot water bottle or extra firewood in favour of a camera. Facebook is a veritable winter wonderland of “views from my window” shots of whiteness. I am typing this very blog entry whilst gazing out onto my white-ish back garden. Spots of colour are peeking through, though, ‘cos it’s already melting. I’d add a photo but it’s already too late and one person’s snow-covered garden looks very much like another’s, so I feel I’m sparing you.

But I’ve just found out that the snow isn’t the only thing of which we can have a wrong kind. No, apparently, there’s also the wrong kind of French. 

My morning scan of some of the Internet’s vast number of Francophile forums revealed that a number of  people appear to be having problems mastering the French language because, back in the UK, they’d poured their hearts and their money into learning the wrong kind of French. And to top it all, the French haven’t been sent the memo, so they’re being most uncooperative and speaking some lazy colloquial version of their own language, showing no regard for those who have learned proper French as she is spoke.  In a typo sent from heaven, one person complained that her French acquaintances appeared to be speaking “patios”.  An interesting thought, but about as unlikely as a talking conservatory.

I’ve been to this place called Patios, though. And no, it’s not a Greek Island. People aren’t speaking patois as often as they are slang, and I well remember having to come to terms with the realisation that French slang has an alternative word for almost everything. On my first long-term stay in France in the mid-1970’s, I met so much slang that I was initially convinced I’d been sent to the wrong country. After a while, though, it does fall into place. And it’s not nearly as confusing as discovering that your college tutor, happily married to the same woman for a fair number of years, calls his wife “Vous”. Now, if that doesn’t fly in the face of what the textbooks say, I don’t know what does.

Now that I’ve become what might loosely be described as a “teacher” (I admit to feeling somewhat embarrassed to use the term in case a real teacher comes along and I get found out), I do see both sides of this situation. Of course, when we learn a foreign language, we are taught the correct way of using the grammar and of forming sentences with grammatically proper structures. But, as we know with our native language, rules are made to be broken. I’ve just counted the number of sentences in this post that start with a conjunction, for example, and if I was a better person, I might feel shame. But I’m not ;-)

With my adult learners, though, I seem to run into a regular problem. Many have a strong foundation in French, well-remembered from their schooldays. They also have the benefit of maturity and wisdom commensurate with their age. Why, then, do they so often seem to go into some sort of mental meltdown if I tell them that they MAY have learned to say “X”, but that the majority of French people say “Y”?? Sometimes, I will get as far as being able to convince people to use a more relaxed and informal turn of phrase, only to meet them again for the next lesson and find that they’ve reverted to speaking like Louis XIV because that’s what they learned thirty years ago.

There is a beautiful illustration of this phenomenon in one of my favourite French films ever, “Etre et Avoir”,  (To be and to have) the story of a teacher in a single-classroom school in rural France. Originally made as a documentary, it charts a year in the life of this school and its extraordinarily dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez. If you haven’t seen it, I encourage you to do so. Even with subtitles it’s well worth watching.  It contains the following scene, which goes some way to show that the French do try, very hard and from an early age, to learn the RIGHT kind of French, but unfortunately, the wrong kind of French is deeply ingrained. Meanwhile, this side of the Channel, we’re learning the right kind of French and, if numbers of British migrants to France increase enough, who knows, one day we might be able to save the French language from dumbing down…..

I can’t find a clip of this with English subtitles, and you’ll need to watch it from about 2 minutes 20 into the clip, but the children are using the word “ami” or “amie” (friend) to learn the difference between masculine and feminine noun endings. However, one small boy is NOT prepared to give up easily on using the word “copain”  (mate). He will probably be in his late teens by now (as the film was released in 2002), and actively engaged in confusing well-meaning British people who have learned all about “ami” and “amie”, but are blissfully ignorant of “copain” and “copine”…