Two Men In a Car (A Businessman, a Chauffeur, and Their Holidays in France). Mike Buchanan
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I had to admit that maybe he had a point. But this was France and you weren’t supposed – at least in more refined circles – to even think such things, let alone say them. You were supposed to find such buildings quaint. Whenever we passed a well-kept house, particularly one with a garden of any merit, Paul would remark cheerily, ‘obviously owned by an Englishman!’
Paul then suggested that the French state should allow in 50,000 East European immigrants a year, to:
-clean house exteriors
-clean windows
-clean cars
-strip and paint the wood on shutters etc.
-tend the gardens, or at least plant a number of roses
We arrived in Cognac around midday, and Paul wasn’t impressed that most of the shops would be shut for two or three hours – ‘Lazy tosseurs!’ But we sat down for a coffee and tea in one of the cafés on the main square. Paul didn’t like the tea – Lipton’s yellow label – and complained about not being able to order ‘a simple cup of English breakfast tea’.
Ten minutes later a short man walked by, whose eye level was barely above our own – and we were seated. A few moments after he passed, Paul and I exchanged a glance and burst into laughter. I mistakenly thought the man looked like Asterix the Gaul, but Paul got it right. The man was the spitting image of Super Mario, the computer game character. I wanted to stop the man and take a photograph, but couldn’t think of a reason for doing so, which wouldn’t upset him.
We both walked around the excellent Musée des Arts du Cognac which made me thirst for a tasting, so we strolled a few yards up the road to the Hennessy building. Paul wasn’t too keen on a tour but I was, and in a group of maybe 40 English-speaking tourists I was alone in paying the 20 euro price for the tour inclusive of a tasting of Hennessy XO (Extra Old) at the end. The French tour guide was a young lady and her English was flawless. The tour was interesting and really brought the subject alive, from growing the grapes to barrel making, distilling, blending, and all the rest. The tour included a visit to the warehouse on the opposite bank of the Charente river, where Hennessy holds stocks of cognacs from as far back as 1800, for blending purposes.
The lady explained that the cellarmaster decided on how to blend the many cognacs together. Since 1800 the position had always been held by a man, and kept within the same family for seven generations. But the current cellarmaster had ‘only’ a daughter, and it was long ago decided that only men had the fortitude to manage all the tasting that the job required. The current cellarmaster was training his nephew to take up the position when he retired. All this led to predictable groans from the tour members of the female persuasion.
At the end of the tour I tasted a sample of Hennessy XO and was most impressed. But it cost 110 euros a bottle and I decided to restrain myself for once, buying a bottle of VSOP (Very Superior Old Pale) for 32 euros instead.
On the way back from Cognac to Mirambeau we went into a supermarket where Paul – with his back to a huge neon Fromages sign 5 metres away – asked, ‘So where’s the fuckin’ cheese then? I want a normal cheese, like you’d find in Tesco.’ It transpired that by ‘normal’ he meant cheddar cheese, but we couldn’t find any. After a lengthy search Paul remarked, ‘Fifty varieties of fuckin’ goat’s cheese with fuckin’ garlic, but no fuckin’ cheddar. Wankeurs!’
While I was making dinner – rabbit fillets poached in white wine, onion, garlic and basil sauce, with sautéed leeks and potatoes – Paul was writing his postcards nearby, and something was clearly agitating him. All became clear when he said, ‘Even their stamps are shite! Thin cheap fuckin’ paper, with a gnat’s gob of glue on the back. They slide off the fuckin’ cards! It’s obviously all just too much for the French. Tosseurs!’ But he enjoyed the meal and remarked I should teach him how to cook such dishes, ‘because I’d get into a couple of women’s knickers, if I could cook something like this!’
TUESDAY 7 AUGUST
An overcast day, and we decided to go to Bordeaux. Over breakfast we realised that we needed a proper index to define our various terms of description of the French, and soon developed The French Helpfulness Index (Table 1.1).
TABLE 1.1 – THE FRENCH HELPFULNESS INDEX (1)
| Category | Points | Key pointers to identification |
| Un bon œuf | 9 – 10 | This person is friendly, helpful, maintains a well-repaired and clean house, a clean car and a well-tended garden. In response to a request for directions, this person will cheerfully point you in the right direction. We met a number of French people in this category, to our disappointment. |
| Un plonkeur / une plonkeuse | 6 – 8 | This person doesn’t clean his windows, nor his car, nor repair his house, nor tend a garden. Many French people are in this category. Will respond to the enquiry ‘Parlez-vous Anglais?’ with ‘Oui, a leetel’, and actually make an effort if in a good mood. Best approached after lunch, i.e. 3.15 p.m. |
| Un tosseur / une tosseuse | 3 – 5 | This person is unhelpful by nature, but more so once he / she discovers you are English, or you speak anything other than flawless French. Will respond to the enquiry ‘Parlez-vous Anglais?’ with ‘No, ah do nod spick a zingle wort of ze Onglish lonkwich, ah’m afret we shell eff to convorse in Fronch. Kandly prozeed wiss your onquerry.’ |
| Un wankeur / une wankeuse | 1 – 2 | This person refuses to accept the very existence of the English language. Responds to your cheery ‘good morning’ – or ‘good moaning’, if you’re willing to make an effort yourself – with a look of utter bewilderment. Responds to any enquiry with a fast torrent of French, in which no individual words could possibly be identified, even by a native French speaker. |
(1) Scale of 1-10 points, 10 points representing extreme helpfulness.
Paul then drove to Bordeaux, 50 miles to the south. On the way he recorded the following:
‘Aristocrats before the Revolution expected their windows to be cleaned every month, and shutters to be painted every year. The Revolutionaries saw window cleaners and shutter painters as establishment lackeys, and beheaded them along with their masters. The last French window cleaners and shutter painters were guillotined in 1789, and nobody has dared clean a window or paint a shutter in France since.
Except during the Second World War. After invading France the Germans – true to form – demanded that their commandeered buildings have clean windows and freshly-painted shutters, and they forced the French peasants to carry out the work.
But the French were a cunning lot, and it occurred to the French Resistance – which every French adult belonged to, at least after the war – that they could spy on enemy plans if they could see through the windows. So they took on the jobs of window cleaning and shutter painting. After the war things returned to normal, and the window cleaners and shutter painters were made redundant.’
The outskirts of Bordeaux were dingy and dirty but as we approached the centre the city suddenly became more pleasing to the eye, and we parked in an underground car park, ‘des Grands Hommes’. I jokingly said I hoped that this wasn’t a euphemism for a car park frequented by Village People lookalikes, so we were startled to see one very large man in full motorbike leather attire. But neither the native American nor the builder showed up, so we relaxed.
Paul parked in a disabled bay four floors below ground and commented favourably on the availability of disabled spots in France. We then walked a few yards to the lift, only to discover it was broken down. ‘Fuckin’ French tosseurs!’, he remarked whilst gasping his way up the steps to ground level.
In one of the very smart shops near the Grand