Things I Miss About The UK: My Overprotective Smoke Alarm…

Tags

annoyances, cultural differences, France, funny, Humor, technology, uk

 

 

One day in the kitchen…

 

My Smoke Alarm: ‘Aww hey there Phil, how you doing today, say, what’s that you’re cooking hon?’

 

Me: ‘Oh nothing special, just a bit of toast’

 

My Smoke Alarm: ‘To..toast? Did you say Toast?! FIRE FIRE FIRE CALL THE FIRE BRIGADE FIRE GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!’

 

Me: (wafting tea-towel desperately, to halt the piercing noise) ‘Stop! Stop! It’s not a fire it’s just toast!!!!’

 

 

 

 

Another day in the kitchen…

 

Me: (Stretching and rubbing sleep out of my eyes) ‘Mmm think me and the kids’ll have a taste of France for breakfast’

 

My Smoke Alarm: ‘Morning Phil, what’s that you say, fancy something different?’

 

Me: ‘Yep, just slid a couple of pain au chocolats in to the mini oven, don’t take but 30 seconds to co..’

 

My Smoke Alarm: ‘PASTRIES! PASTRIES! FIRE FIRE!!! GET OUT CALL THE POLICE!!! THE HOUSE IS GONNA BURN DOWN!!!!’

 

Me: (going deaf in one ear due to pitch of alarm) ‘Where’s the tea-towel gone? stop making that noise!!!!’

 

 

 

One day in the garden…

 

Me: ‘The sausages are nearly done, who wants some first, hey son, don’t open the kitchen door you’ll let the smoke insi…’

 

My Smoke Alarm: ‘OOOOOH LORDY LORDY!!! WE ALL GONNA BURN!!! FIRE FIRE CALL THE POLICE!!! FIRE!!!’

 

Me: ‘Son, just close the door, she’ll quiet down soon enough’

 

 

 

One day in the living-room…

 

Me: ‘Okay kids, that’s the pumpkins all carved up, now lets put some candles inside th…’

 

My Smoke Alarm: ‘SAVE YOURSELVES!!! FORGET ABOUT ME!!! RUN, RUN FOR YOUR LIVESSSSS!!!!’

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kitchen here in France is lovely…but it’s awful quiet…

Cultural French/UK Differences: Brocante vs Car Boot Sale

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Brocantes, Car Boots, cultural differences, ex-pat, France, French, fun, funny, Humor

No, it’s not a scrap yard, It’s a car boot sale

For the uninitiated a car boot sale is an English tradition where people take their cars, full of things that they no longer want, to a venue where they then display it from said car’s boot in the hopes that it will sell.

A Brocante is exactly the same but set in France, not the UK. There are, however, several differences, I will do my best to explain these.

START TIME

UK: 3.45 a.m (sometimes earlier)

France: After coffee + croissants and having read the paper, walked the dog, chatted to the neighbours, had another coffee and cut the grass a.m (sometimes later)

ARRIVAL TIME OF FIRST CUSTOMERS:

UK: 2.55 a.m (sometimes earlier)

France: Generally just after it’s opened (unless the croissants haven’t been cooked in sufficient quantities, then everybody is delayed).

CHANCES OF HAVING ALL THE CONTENTS OF YOUR CAR BOOT STOLEN BEFORE YOU EVEN HAVE A CHANCE TO GET THEM OUT OF YOUR CAR TO SELL THEM:

UK: high

France: Low

IF YOU SUCCESSFULLY GET YOUR ITEMS OUT OF YOUR CAR BEFORE THEY ARE STOLEN, WILL PEOPLE HAGGLE WITH YOU WHILE YOU ARE UNPACKING AND PAW AT YOUR THINGS, EVEN IF IT IS DARK*?

UK: Yes

France: Unlikely

*They bring torches

LOCATION:

UK: Always, always close to a sports facility. Either a rugby pitch, football pitch, or cricket field. I suspect this is because the organisers detest sport, and so hope to destroy the pitches, so they are unsuitable to be played on.

France: Side of a road, through the main street of a town, near a lake, up a tree, on the roof of a building. The French will hold a brocante ANYWHERE.

WEATHER

UK: If it isn’t wet, cold, windy and/or snowing the English will refuse to hold a car boot sale.

France: Generally gloriously sunny, if the slightest breeze picks up, or 25 ml of rain falls, everybody leaves.

CHANCES THAT 95% OF THE GOODS BEING SOLD WILL BE AGRICULTURAL TOOLS:

UK: low

France: High

CHANCES THAT 95% OF THE GOODS BEING SOLD WILL BE RUSTY AGRICULTURAL TOOLS:

UK: Low

France: Extremely high

DEAD ANIMALS?

UK: Not many

France: Loads

WILL FOOD BE AVAILABLE TO BUY?

UK: Yes

France: Yes

WOULD YOU EAT IT?

UK: Yes

France: Yes

COME ON NOW, BE HONEST, WOULD YOU EAT IT?

UK: No

France: Yes

WILL THERE BE MANY OF THESE VANS THERE:

UK: No

France: Every other vehicle will be one of these.

IS HAGGLING ACCEPTABLE:

UK: If you don’t haggle they chase you off the field with pitchforks, screaming ‘Not one of us, not one of us!’

FRANCE: Not as prevalent, you will receive some glassy-eyed stares when you attempt to negotiate a better price for Spiderman AND Batman’s secret hideouts. Also they may hide behind the excuse: ‘I’m selling it for my daughter, and she said I can’t sell it for any less than 35 euros’.

IS THAT WOMAN REALLY SELLING USED UNDERPANTS?

UK: Yes

France: Yes

No, it’s not a music festival, it’s a brocante. Note model of van in bottom right corner.

PASSIVE SMOKING OPPORTUNITIES:

UK: Not as high as it used to be

France: Everybody smokes. Even their dogs.

THINGS TO SAY:

UK: ‘Keep an eye on your handbag’ ‘Is that meat?’ ‘Why is that lady wearing a dressing gown?’  ‘Do people really buy this crap?’ ‘Where’s my handbag?’ ‘Where’s my child/husband/car?’

France: ‘Who is Titeuf?’ ‘Is that meat?’ ‘Why are there so many dead animals?’ ‘Who buys all this rusty agricultural crap?’ ‘But I don’t need a picture of Jean Claude Van Damme’ ‘Wow, you people really like ashtrays don’t you?’

WHAT HAPPENS AT CLOSING TIME?

UK: A huge group of people – up to 75% of those still in attendance – who have had no intention of paying for anything wait with baited breath for the remaining sellers to give up, look at all their unwanted items and offer it for free. There then occurs the ‘attack of the locusts’ as the group, en masse, descend upon the boot of the defeated seller. They can strip a car boot of all its remaining goods in five seconds flat. After the dust has settled all that will remain will be the bewildered seller, his underpants and, if he’s lucky, his car.

France: The remaining people will slowly head home, many of them may hitch lifts with the sellers as everybody knows everybody. They will then add up the day’s takings, put all their unsold animal heads and rusty farm implements back in storage until the next brocante. Which will be in a week’s time.

Unless it’s a bank holiday, then it will be tomorrow.

Cultural French/UK Differences: Coffee In Bowls…

Tags

cultural differences, England, food and drink, France, French, fun, funny, Humor

 

 

Yes you read that right. Coffee. In Bowls. As in bowls that you normally use for eating your cornflakes in. As in bowls without a handle. As in you will need to use both hands to lift the bloody thing to drink it. Unless you have huge, massive, gargantuan hands.

 

Or you are King Kong. Then you can drink it one-handed.

 

What is this all about? Am I wrong to react this way? Was it wrong of me, the first time I sat down at my French girlfriend’s mother’s table, to take one look at the bowl filled with coffee sat in front of me, push it gently but firmly away, and look at her questioningly?

 

Was it wrong to feel that I must have woken up in Crazy Town, and to expect a dog to then knock on the door to give me my mail. After all, if we’re drinking out of bowls then the canines must have taken over, right?

 

This is perfectly normal here, in France. They all do it.

 

Apparently.

 

I think it’s crazy.

 

They then add insult to injury by dipping all manner of items in said bowl of coffee. Making it even more strange and, weirdly, even more like some kind of meal/breakfast hybrid. Like breakfast with a main course.

 

I can’t get a ‘handle’ on this HA HA HA HA!

 

But I wish someone would.

 

They don’t ask me to drink it out of bowls any more, they’ve learned. They know that I only eat soup, cornflakes, porridge or cereals full of shockingly unhealthy chemicals that, nonetheless, turn the milk a tasty, tasty brown (so that’s OK then).

 

But sometimes they ‘forget’. They did it the other day, looking the other way while I was confronted by something several times larger, deeper and with one less handle than the required amount (i.e one). But they changed it for me.

 

And feigned ignorance.

 

They must look at me, as though I’m some kind of freak, with my hand savagely holding my barbarically small cup – or should I say ‘tasse’. Muttering under their breath about this flagrant display of anti-Frenchness. I don’t care. I’ll learn your language, I’ll love your culture, I’ll love your country but I will not now, or in the future, drink coffee out of a bowl.

 

 

 

Oh, and I also take milk in my coffee…

Cultural French/UK Differences: The Lollipop Man

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children, cultural differences, education, France, French, fun, funny, Humor, Parenting, school, stay-at-home Dad

 

For the uninitiated a lollipop man is a man/woman who stands at the side of a Zebra crossing, ensuring that vehicles stop so the children can safely cross the road. Lollipop men/women take their name from the brightly-coloured giant lollipop-like signs they hold, this catches drivers’ attentions and they then stop (or accelerate, depending on who’s behind the wheel). In the UK they usually look exactly as the chap in the picture above, generally retired and with an affable, approachable nature.

 

They do not look like this in France.

 

The lollipop man in our old village in the UK was called Paul.

 

I think the French lollipop man is called TK100016.

 

Paul wore a hi-viz jacket and whatever clothes he had decided to put on that day.

 

French lollipop man wears standard issue uniform. Standard issue for the riot police anyway.

 

Paul would always have a friendly word to say to you, and would ask how the kids were doing.

 

The French lollipop man shouted at me today because I slightly jogged over the crossing.

 

After his shift ended Paul could often be seen walking his dog around the village.

 

As soon as his shift ends the French lollipop man plugs himself in to recharge.

 

Paul liked gifts at Christmas, and would never refuse a bottle of wine.

 

I think if I gave the French lollipop man any kind of gift he would immediately, and violently, arrest me, considering it an attempt to bribe a government official.

 

Paul had a lollipop.

 

I’m 95% sure the French lollipop man has a taser. He definitely doesn’t have a lollipop.

 

Paul let us take his picture once, for one of my son’s school projects.

 

If I attempted to take a photo of the French lollipop man he would pick me up by my throat with one hand, with his other he would take my phone off me and crush it.

 

Paul used his lollipop to stop traffic.

 

French lollipop man uses his eyes.

 

I liked Paul.

 

French lollipop man scares me.