The Honesty Of Kids…

Tags

children, English, French, fun, funny, Humor, kids, languages, school, Teaching

 

Teaching English today.

Little girl looks at me quizzically.

‘You talk English?’ she says, sat in my English class, blinking her eyes in confusion.

‘Yes, because I am English’ I reply.

‘But you talk French too’ she continues (blink, blink).

‘Yes, but I speak better English than I do French’ I counter.

(Blink, blink) ‘But you speak French well’ she says, making my day.

‘Thanks, I try my best’ I reply, feeling quite pleased with myself.

‘But not too well’ she adds (blink, blink).

I don’t think there’s anything quite as honest as a 7 year-old child.

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I Don’t Care What Time Of Day It Is, I Hate Clowns….

Tags

Clowns, Family, fear, food, funny, Humor, Life, Phobia, Scary

They all bloat down here…especially if they have TWO Big Macs

We go to McDonald’s now and again. I might have mentioned it. People will frown about that. They will say things like ‘Consumerism’ ‘Frankenstein food’ and ‘I hate McDonald’s’. And to them I say ‘Yes, but have you tried the bacon double cheeseburger?’.

Now I have the kids full time on a Wednesday (thanks to French president Mr Macron, and I really do mean that) we often head there, especially if it’s raining.

It was raining on this grey and miserable Wednesday, so guess where we ended up?

Our trip to McDonald’s today was made more memorable as we were ‘entertained’ by the real-life, in the flesh, French Ronald McDonald, walking around saying bonjour, cava etc.

In case you didn’t notice the picture at the top of the page, he looked liked this:

Note suspicious glare from kid in bottom right of pic

He was walking around chatting away, smiling/grimacing at and cuddling people, with a balloon person accompanying him, making balloon animals for the kids, as if this would in some way alleviate the sheer terror that his form brought out in them and the adults as well. Especially adults like me.

It’s broad daylight, in a busy restaurant, yet this clown, squeaking around in his big red shoes, has got me quaking in mine. I hate clowns, yet have a perverse fascination with them, and have watched every horror film featuring them.

Some of the kids lapped it up, but some reacted like me and so there were plenty of scenes like this one:

I can say, with hand on heart, that he was at least 200% more sinister than the already-creepy-as-fuck UK ones that I used to see from time to time. I can also say that I have never seen my daughter turn away from something as quickly as she did when he approached our table today and tried to engage her in conversation, she was having none of him, his red shoes, his balloon animals or his ghastly painted face.

It was a pity, as the kids really did want one of the balloon animals – my son specified a dog, any colour but pink – but they were not prepared to endure having this painted creature interacting with them in order to get one.

He left half-way through our meal, probably had other venues to terrorise. We did not mourn his passing, and are not looking forward to him being there again.

Shame about the balloon animals though.

The Fog Of Awwwwww…

Tags

Family, France, French, fun, funny, Humor, Humour, photography, stay-at-home Dad

I’m taking a gamble today trying the kids out at a new place. Always a risky choice with kids, deviating from the norm. Plus I wasn’t sure if the village I’d decided to visit had a park. I knew what would happen if I didn’t find one. That would be all I would hear about for a week. I saw promising signs on the way into the village, and pulled up at the local lake. Parks and lakes go together like fish and chips, right?

The kids were not initially impressed by my risky gamble…

Me: ‘Look at this, what a great view, all that fog’

Him: ‘It’s all white daddy, look! Everything is white!’

Me: ‘Yes, this is a reaction caused by the cold weather’

Him: (a rare moment of parental concern) ‘Will you be warm enough daddy? You don’t have a thick coat like us on, yours is thin, you might be too cold’

Me: (tear rolls gently down face and almost freezes on cheek) ‘It’s OK son, I’ll be fine, thanks for asking though’

Her: ‘Awwww….there’s no park here’

Me: ‘Yes, but there might be one on the other side, and look at all this fog, doesn’t it look great?’

Her: Blows air out of her mouth and makes a negative ‘Pfffffft’ noise that you would  expect to hear from someone in their forties. This ‘Pfffffft’ effortlessly conveys and encapsulates her disappointment with the location, the scenery, the weather and me.

Me: (Looking up at the chateaux shrouded in fog and pointing it out to the kids) ‘What a great castle eh? Look at the height of the walls, I bet this was a good place to defend and look (pointing at ditch that runs along the base of the wall) I bet there was a moat here once too, what do you think?’

Her: ‘There’s no park here’

Him: ‘What’s that daddy?’

Me: ‘It’s where we put naughty kids’

Him: ‘Can you open it?’

Me: ‘No’

Him: ‘Ha, ha! Daddy can’t put us in there, he doesn’t have any keys. Ha, ha!’

Him: ‘Why are you taking pictures of a toilet? Why daddy? Why?’

Me: ‘It’s just in such a great location, look at it, surrounded by all the trees and leaves’

Him: ‘Weecee, it’s a Weecee’

Me: ‘No, it’s a ‘WC’

Him: ‘What’s that mean’

Me: ‘I don’t know’ (I’ve remembered now, without the aid of Wikipedia, and I think it means ‘Water Closet’)

Me: ‘Come on, I’ll take a picture of you both under this little house’

Her: ‘There’s no park here’

Me: ‘There’ll be one round here I’m sure. Now why don’t you both get under the house for a nice photo for mummy?’

Him: ‘No, I want to hug a tree instead’ (Hugs tree)

Her: ‘Weeee! A park!’

Him: (disappears in a puff of air and reappears on the see-saw)

Me: (thinking: ‘Everything looks wet – where are the swings?’)

Me: (Now bored of the park – quickly done) ‘Let’s have a look over here kids, I think I can see something’

Both: ‘What is it?’

Me: ‘I think it’s….

Me: ….another toilet! And look, it’s got a little heart-shaped hole, how romantic’

Him: ‘I am getting really annoyed at you daddy, why do you keep taking pictures of toilets? Stop taking pictures of toilets daddy!’

After venturing inside and using the ‘facilities’

Me: ‘Why is the lock on the outside? How strange…and a little bit worrying’

Her: ‘Can we go back to the park now?’

Me: ‘Let’s have a look over here, I think I can hear something, can you hear the water?’

Both: ‘Yes!’

Me: ‘Maybe it’s a waterfall?’

It’s NOT a waterfall….

Me: ‘Well, it’s not a waterfall, but it’s close’

Her: ‘No it isn’t’

Me: ‘Let me take a picture of you in front of the foggy lake, and promise not to stick your tongue out’

Him: ‘OK daddy, I promise’

Me: (takes photo knowing exactly what will happen)

Him: (is seven-year-old boy, therefore sticks tongue out anyway)

Both: ‘What’s that daddy?’

Me: ‘It’s a little island, do you want to live on it for a couple of weeks and give me and your mum some peace?’

Him: ‘No!’

Her: (launches a series of physical attacks upon my person, primarily focused on the groin-area)

Him: ‘What are you doing daddy?’

Me: ‘Just taking a nice photo’

Him: ‘Shall we play a game? It’s where the first person to speak loses, so everybody has to be quiet’

Me: (nodding so eagerly that I develop neck ache later in the day) ‘Yes that sounds like a good game’

 

This is now my favourite game and one that is unfortunately short-lived, but lasts just long enough too get us back to the car, whereupon it’s business as usual and I drive home with what appears to the casual observer  – and sounds exactly like – two wild animals in the back of the car.

It could have been worse though.

At least there was a park eh?

Excerpts From The Front Line…

Tags

education, France, French, funny, Humor, Language, Learning, school, Teaching

 

I’ve started teaching* English in my village to a group of French retirees. The lady who usually does it is the town-planner, so she’s often called into meetings, and for this reason my services were offered – not by me, but by one of her students – so I now take on her duties once every three weeks. Tuesday night was my first time in charge, here are a few excerpts from that evening.

 

I asked the group to tell me something they had done that week that they didn’t like. Three people said the same thing:

Denis: ‘I had to make some jam, but I didn’t like it’

Michelle: ‘I made jam, but I didn’t like doing it’

Francoise: ‘I made jam, 50 pots, but I didn’t like it’

Me: ‘Do you sell this jam?’

All: ‘No’

Me: ‘If you don’t like doing it, why don’t you just stop?’

All: ‘But the fruit will go bad’

Me: ‘So give the fruit to the animals, or people’

All: *blank stares*

 

On my teaching methods

‘Can you talk slower’

‘I can’t understand you, can you talk slower’

After saying a lengthy passage of text out loud

‘Can you write that on the board?’ (I do)

‘What is that? Is that a Russian character?’ (I’ve written my ‘h’s with a sloping bridge)

‘You keep dropping your ‘t’s, pronounce your ‘t’s’

‘Has he started talking slower?’

 

On my accent

Francoise: ‘Is he American? Are you American?’

Me: ‘No I’m from Yorkshire’

Francoise (frowning, turning to her friend Martine): ‘Is he American?’

Martine: ‘No, he’s from Yorkshire’

Francoise: ‘Oh yes, like the dogs, Yorkshire Terriers’

 

Apropos of nothing

Christine: ‘We had to get a new ram. It was having too much sex with the other sheep and would have messed up the gene pool. We bought another one’

On being asked what she did with the old one

Christine: ‘We killed it and ate it. Well, not all of it, most of it is in the freezer’

 

That’s just a snippet of the many things that were said that night. I loved doing it. Hopefully they did too. Can’t wait for the next class.

 

*The term teaching is used here in its loosest possible sense

French Bureaucracy: The Board Game!

Tags

Bureacracy, France, French, funny, games, Humor

 

I’m going to make a board game based on French bureaucracy. You can choose from exciting categories such as ‘Driving licence’ ‘Bank account application’ ‘Change of address’ and (the choice for extreme players) ‘CPAM application’.

The game will annoy you even before you start to play it. This is because the game’s box will come wrapped in 6 layers of that plastic stuff that they put headphones/cables/Micro SD cards in,  you know that stuff that’s responsible for 30% of all visits to A+E due to self-inflicted knife-injuries.

The only instructions provided will be in Japanese and ancient Mayan. They will also dissolve on contact with oxygen.

All playing pieces will be identical so that nobody knows whereabouts they actually are in the game. Even if they try and remember the board will come with a ‘shake’ feature that rearranges all pieces, at random points during the game.

The game will come with a free six foot by four foot section of brick wall for the participants to punch. And every time you hit it a French voice will say “‘Désolé mais vous avez oublié de signer le bas du formulaire'”

Every third roll of the dice will result in you starting again and having to resend all your original documentation.

There will be a battery-operated phone provided that, when you roll a six twice, you have to use to contact customer services. Nobody ever answers.

In a bid to reflect the way French life runs the board will shut down for two hours every day at 12pm prompt (or 11.48 sometimes). It will then stay closed for two hours and reopen at 2pm prompt (or 2.35 sometimes). It will close quickly but open glacially slowly and making a deep sighing noise as it opens, and then tut at you for ten minutes while you try to remember what you were doing before it closed.

Some people that I have shared my idea with have likened it to Monopoly. I disagreed with them however, as Monopoly only takes 8 months to complete, whereas this game will only end when all participants have died.

It’s going to be a bit like Jumanji but with less rhinos and monkeys and more paper and screaming at walls and pleas of ‘WHY GOD WHY? WHY CAN’T THEY COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER? WHYYYYYYYYY???’. 

There will be no arguments after the game because nobody ever wins. Nobody ever wins because the game can never be finished.

Doing Your Bit To Help Out With The Local School 2. The Museum Visit…

Tags

children, education, Farming, France, French, History, Humor, Humour, kids, Learning, Museums, school

 

I get asked to help the school chaperone the kids on a visit to the museum in a local town. ‘This will be a doddle’ I think ‘Just walking around with the teacher making sure we don’t lose anyone’. I am of course wrong in thinking this.

The day of the visit arrives. It is beautiful, it is sunny.

Let’s all go inside a stuffy building full of agricultural tools then. So we do.

There are another couple of parents there. ‘Oh good’ I think ‘Safety in numbers and all that’. The other parents start taking the kids off in groups. I realise that the teacher is dividing the kids up into groups of seven and eight. The implications of this are hammered home as I see eight children – my son amongst them – being herded my way.

‘Oh well’ I think ‘It won’t be that hard will it? walking round an old museum full of tools’. The teacher then starts giving out quiz sheets to myself and each child.

I look at the sheet. It is full of strange words – which is nothing new for me as all words at the moment are a bit strange (it is French after all) but these are really strange –  as well as room numbers that correspond to the confusing words.

We head off into the first room. There are tools here that I have never seen before, and whose names I do not know in English. Apparently I am supposed to search in this room for the correct implement as listed by its bizarre name on the quiz sheet, and then take one of the letters from that name, and then do this in every room till we have a full set of letters which we will then have to rearrange to form the name of something else.

‘This is going to be a long morning’ I think to myself.

Coupled with this headache-inducing quiz is the fact that children – funnily enough – do not seem all that interested in looking at 200-year-old farming tools, and so have started acting up.

Have you ever shouted at a child in a museum? How about eight children? I have. I would prefer not to have to do it again. I would have preferred to not have had to do it 36 times, but that’s agricultural museums for you – they bring out the worst in kids.

Realising that this quiz is a non-starter for me and my limited grasp of ancient-agricultural-implements-French, I corner the teacher. ‘I don’t get this’ I tell her ‘I’ve never seen these things in England, let alone France – how do you win this game?’. Evidently you win this game by cheating, because she whispers the answer in my ear.

Then she looks at the expression on my face and writes it down on a piece of paper and hands it to me.

The seven kids (one of them has been removed for constantly disrupting the group, not my son by the way, he’s still stuck to me like glue) and I continue on our way, now mysteriously being able to identify each clue in each room with alarming rapidity.

We do it so quickly that we arrive in the reception room on the ground floor of the museum, where we are met by another parent and her seven wards (‘Why did I get eight?’ I think to myself ‘Teacher mustn’t like me’ I answer myself, pondering if this is the first sign of madness). She looks at me, resignation written large on her face, and then pulls out the timetable. We have finished the quiz with plenty of time to spare. In fact looking at the timetable it appears that we have another hour to wait before we have anything else to do.

I look at the 14 kids milling around a room full of glass cases with farming books inside them, thinking this is going to be a long hour. I look at the other parent, inquiring as to how she got down here so quickly. She pulls out a piece of paper, the teacher’s scrawled answer unmistakable.  ‘Oh well’ I think to myself ‘At least I’m not the only one who isn’t au fait with ancient French agricultural tools’.

A Very Poor Reception – But On The Bright Side My French Is Getting Better…

Tags

France, French, funny, holidays, Hotels, Humor, languages, Learning, Tourism, Travel

 

There’s nothing worse than rolling up at your holiday location for the week only to find that A) there’s nobody home and B) the number you have for them doesn’t work. These were the unfortunate circumstances we found ourselves in at the start of our recent holiday, and so headed over the road to a lovely hotel/restaurant with commanding views of the local lake, to seek help.

Upon entering I looked around and saw a couple sat down enjoying their late dinner (it was around 2pm). I assumed they were guests and bid them a cheery ‘bonjour!’. They responded, in a slightly nonplussed way, and got up to see what I wanted, frowns creasing their faces.

They weren’t guests. They were the owners.

After digging and probing them for a few minutes they begrudgingly offered up the fact that the owners of the gite we wanted access to lived at the rear of the property, and we should head there.

‘I told you we should have closed that door’ said the manageress to her husband as they stalked back to their dinner. I exited the building – walking past the sign that read ‘Bienvenue, ouvert midi et soir’ – and returned to relay the information to my partner.

Following our successful entry, and much warmer welcome by the couple who ran the gite, we decided to put the earlier experience down as a ‘one off’ and headed back over the road to the hotel. We tried their take-out menu, however we hedged our bets and just bought three portions of chips – nothing fancy, just something to keep us going.

It turned out the chef was also the manager. I discovered this fact because as I waited for the chips to cook I took a stroll around the building and – through the windows –  saw him walking around in the kitchen, gesticulating wildly and swearing to himself loudly in French.

I was glad I’d only ordered three bags of chips, and not the roast chicken too as I was tempted to do. Who knows what his reaction would have been.

After paying for the chips (‘Haven’t you got any change?’ the manageress said to me, after querying my paying of the 4 Euro 50 bill with a ten Euro note) we headed back over and scoffed them down (My partner dismissing my suggestion that ‘We should use a blacklight to check for bodily fluids’ as an overreaction).

Following a suitable rest we headed out to try the pool, something the kids had been harping on about since we arrived. We were shortly joined by the gite owners, who explained that they went for a refreshing swim every day with their guests, as it allowed them to have a chat and get to know them.

I swam down to the far end of the pool, which gave you a view of the hotel across the road and was probably about 15 feet away from it. As I paddled there the topic of conversation amongst us swung around to the owners across the road. I said that it was a shame that such a lovely building was run by a couple who were incredibly unwelcoming, and made you feel like you were an inconvenience to them when you went in. I did wonder if it was just us though, or maybe – more to the point – just me?

The gite owners both shook their heads and told us that it wasn’t just us and went on to inform us of many occasions when guests had been refused service, had been shouted at by the owners and how they had a low occupancy rate (despite the mayor of the village investing 800k Euros in upgrading the hotel in a bid to make it a ‘tourist trap’) solely due to the owners’ attitudes.

‘If they don’t want to run it’ I said ‘Why don’t they just sell it to people that would be happy with it and make it successful? You can tell they hate being there’. The gite owners agreed with me, then towelled themselves dry and headed back inside.

As I paddled back to the rear of the pool and my partner frolicked with the kids I heard a loud chirping noise, and looked over the rear edge of the pool to see the manageress of the hotel glaring up at me from the road.

‘I heard your commentary’ she screeched, before heading off back inside the hotel and slamming the door.

‘Hey’ I said to my partner, a smile spreading across my face ‘She heard my comments, that means she understood me, I guess my French IS getting better’.

‘Fêtes franco-écossaises d’Aubigny’ AKA The Scottish Festival…

Tags

Culture, France, French, funny, History, Humor, Humour, photography, Photos, Scotland, Scottish

Each year my village celebrates the ‘Auld Alliance’ that exists between Scotland and France. We are the last village in the country to keep this tradition going – I don’t know why the other slackers dropped out, maybe they fell out with Scotland?

So each year hordes of Scottish people (usually around 30, does that constitute a horde?) and various people from across the globe descend on our sleepy village to make a lot of noise to commemorate this historic link. The festival runs for three days and three nights, starting on the Friday and finishing up on the Sunday.

There are a variety of activities that go on – traditional methods of making shoes, tools and armour are displayed. Feats of strength such as caber tossing and wrestling sit alongside sword-fighting and archery displays.

There were even dogs pulling barrels full of booze this year.

I did not ask if the dogs drank any of it, this is France so they probably did though.

I always take loads of pictures, and that’s what this blog will feature. There will be lots of men in kilts, so if you don’t like that I’d stop reading now.

On the plus side though, at least you can’t hear the bagpipes. I could. They are bloody awful things if you ask me.

I kept that to myself though over the course of the festival…

So now you are thinking to yourself ‘Where’s the dog pulling the barrel full of booze? He said there’d be a dog pulling a barrel full of booze, but I didn’t see a dog pulling a barrel full of booze, did you Clive?’ ‘Eh…err, no I didn’t Shirley’.

So just for my imaginary readers Shirley and Clive here is a dog pulling a barrel full of booze:

Doing Your Bit To Help Out With The Local School 1. The Cycling Safety Course

Tags

cycling, education, France, French, fun, funny, Humor, kids, Nursery, Parenting, school, stay-at-home Dad, training

 

I’m trying to integrate into my new community here in la belle France. It’s easier when you’ve got kids as you can talk to the other parents and offer your services at their school. If you don’t have kids and you do that you just seem strange.

 

And when I’m not offering my services my partner is offering my services. Which is why today I found myself escorting a group of four and five-year-olds to the local park, so they could learn about the rules of the road. Except not actually on the road, because that would be madness, no we just set up a few obstacle courses that effectively mimicked things they would need to look out for when they did eventually ‘hit the road’.

 

As an example of what these obstacle courses amounted to I will tell you about the section I was in charge of. I was in charge of the roundabout, or ‘rond point’ as it’s called over here. This meant I had to stand there and make sure they went around it the right way. Which, depending on where you hail from as you read this, may actually be the wrong way for you. It used to be for me, coming from the UK where I went round it the other way. But I’ve adapted and now only occasionally go round it the wrong way. Which is the right way for the UK but the wrong way here. What was I talking about? I’ve forgotten…oh yes, the safety course.

 

So the teachers laid down the rules to the kids before we began, and ensured they knew exactly what they had to do. It boiled down to this:

 

The teachers said: ‘Children, this will help you understand the rules of the road and be better riders. The skills you learn today will set you up for now, and also for later in your life‘.

 

That seems pretty standard and straightforward to me, as it must do to you too. However judging by what I then spent two hours (they asked me to cover two classes, what can I say? I’m stupid) watching I don’t think that’s what the kids heard because…

 

The kids said: ‘This is our chance to get even with the other kids we don’t like! Smash into everybody! Run them off the road! THIS IS NOT SAFETY TRAINING THIS IS A RACE – AND ONE WE ARE GOING TO WIN AT ALL COSTS!!!!’

 

It was like Ben-Hur crossed with Death Race 2000 with a dash of Battle Royale. I felt particularly bad for the kids whose parents had forgotten to bring a bike, and so were relegated to using the school’s tricycles instead. They were slowly squeaking round that park like Danny in ‘The Shining‘. They did not fare well against the rest, and were picked off with ease by the larger predators.

 

My daughter was a keen participant in the ‘race’, I saw her take down two other competitors that weren’t actually competing but were just trying to navigate some bollards. She then discarded her jacket, ostensibly because she was too hot, but I think it was because it made her less efficient, as after that her hit ratio went through the roof. It’s very odd to see such a mad gleam in the eye of someone who is only four-year’s old, and is wearing  a pink Disney’s Frozen safety helmet. I won’t say no next time she asks me for a second story at bedtime, I’ll be too scared to.

 

I got away relatively unscathed in my position at the roundabout. There were only four collisions, and one child who needed to have plasters and cuddles applied. I did have to move out of the way a few times though as some of the kids seemed intent on hurtling into me, as well as their ‘friends’.

 

I’m going on a museum trip next. It’s a museum full of old agricultural implements, you know: scythes and things with points.

 

I need to stop offering my services….

I Hate Queuing In Supermarkets…

Tags

annoyances, Culture, funny, Groceries, Humor, Life, People, shopping, stay-at-home Dad

 

I bet the first thing you thought when you read that title was ‘Big deal, NOBODY likes queuing in supermarkets, but you don’t see me writing a blog about it, do you?’. And you’d be right, but I’m going to write one anyway because writing about it is cathartic and also because I’ve got a bit of time to kill before I go out for my run.

Plus because I REALLY hate queuing in supermarkets, I bet more than you.

I’m at stay-at-home-dad and as such I’m frequently at the supermarket. Because If I didn’t go my kids would use my t-shirts to wipe their bums, and would have to fight the cat for food….actually that might be quite entertaining.

Not the t-shirt thing, the cat thing.

I’m using bullet points, because I want to highlight each and every bloody annoying thing about queuing, but this will probably be impossible because NOBODY can fully encapsulate all there is to hate about this horrible thing we all have to endure….

You will notice all the annoying things are in fact people, because as a famous person once wrote somewhere, ‘Hell is other people‘. I would amend that to ‘Hell is other people…in a supermarket queue‘.

All the following have happened to me at one time or another…

 

• DON’T STAND SO CLOSE TO ME: You know the person, the personal-space invader who doesn’t respect boundaries and stands just a bit too close. As in so close they are literally touching you. Why are they trying to climb in my back pocket? Why do they keep touching my elbow? Do they think I want to smell their breath and thereby know what they had for breakfast? Do they like me, is that it? Well why don’t they ask me out instead of molesting me with their trolley? If they aren’t going to propose we go for a candle-lit meal for two then they can BACK OFF!

 

• I’VE ONLY BOUGHT A CUCUMBER:These ones look at you full of hope and despair and their face seems to say: ‘Look at my big sad eyes, I’ve only got this cucumber, and you’ve got that big trolley full of food. Look at my eyes, couldn’t you just let me nip in front of you? Please, I promise I’ve got exact change. Pleeeeeeeassseee!’

 

• I’VE ONLY BOUGHT A CUCUMBER AND I’M GOING TO MAKE SURE YOU KNOW IT: ‘I’m not like big eyes, I’m going to stand here and huff, and look at your trolley, and make sighing noises, and keep looking at my cucumber. and then at your trolley, and look at my watch, and sigh, and huff, and……’

 

• I’M GOING TO TALK LOUDLY ON MY MOBILE PHONE RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR EAR: ‘YES!!! YES I KNOW, I SOUND LIKE A CLICHE, BUT EVEN IN 2018 PEOPLE LIKE ME STILL DO THIS! ISN’T THAT WILD!!! DON’T YOU THINK EVERYBODY WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT HOW WELL THE OPERATION ON MY PILES WENT? NO? WELL HOW ABOUT HOW I’M SLIGHTLY RACIST AND WILL MAKE THIS ABUNDANTLY CLEAR WITH SOME OF THE THINGS I SAY ABOUT MY NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR AND THE THINGS HE EATS. DON’T WORRY THOUGH, I HATE MYSELF MORE THAN YOU HATE ME‘

 

• I’VE GOT ONE TROLLEY FULL OF FOOD BUT IT’S DIVIDED UP INTO 32 SUBSECTIONS: Well, Clive at number 16 can’t get out so well anymore, and my brother David asked me to just get a few bits, and Sarah at the hairdressers is all out of cleaning stuff, and Louise and Alma’s car is in for an M.O.T and Dave at the pub needs some crisps getting in and yes, I’m shopping for them and I’M GOING TO PAY FOR THEIR ITEMS INDIVIDUALLY.

 

• CAN I SEE YOUR PIN NUMBER PLEASE? ‘Oh you’re paying for your items? Great! Oh you remember me don’t you? I’m the one who has been touching you for the last five minutes in a manner that may well put me on the sex-offender’s register in any other context. Well I’m still here now and have moved into a position (at your elbow) that gives me a perfect view of your PIN number as you input it. Aren’t I nice?’.

 

• I’M NOT GOING TO PUT THE BATON DOWN YOU PUT THE BATON DOWN: ‘I don’t care that the person in front of me put the baton down to separate their items from mine on the conveyor belt. This display of standard good manners will not extend to the person behind me, no. I will simply put my food down and then expect them to place a baton down for me. I’m that bloody lazy that extending my arm a foot is just too much effort. Oh what the hell? He’s shoved all his food close to my food and has put a baton down after his food but not mine! Right well I’ll take his baton and put it between my food and his. Squawk! He’s taken it back and told me in perfect French that that baton is his and I should get my own! Some people are so rude!’

 

• I’M PAYING WITH A CHEQUE: ‘What year is this? 2018 you say? Oh well, that chip and PIN business still doesn’t sit right with me. No, I’ll stick with my cheque. How much? £1.27? OK, let me just put my glasses on. How is your daughter by the way? Oh, that’s nice. Now where’s my chequebook. Ah, here it is. Now where’s my pen…no, no, I need my pen. Now how much was it again? Contactless payments you say? Ooh no, I’ll have no truck with that. No. £1.27 did you say? Oooh there are a lot of people in this queue now aren’t there, and to think it was only me twenty minutes ago….’

 

• I KNOW THE CASHIER PERSONALLY AND NEED TO TALK TO THEM IN-DEPTH DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY LIVE NEXT-DOOR TO ME AND I SEE THEM EVERY DAY: ‘…so yes, Deirdre was taking him to the cinema, you know for their anniversary, because she said it would be great for them tO get out, you know? And so they were going to see that new dinosaur film and – no love I’m paying with a cheque, I don’t trust cards – and so they got there and it was full, can you believe it? And so they decided to watch that other film with her out of those vampire films, you know the ones? It’s those ones with her from that thing with the guy from Harry Potter. Harry Potter. Yes the films with all the wizards and that nice lass from Beauty And The Beast. Oh she does have such lovely hair. It was the the third one I think, The Goblet Of Secrets. Anyway…..’

 

• I WILL QUIBBLE EVERY PRICE: ‘It’s how much? No, no. That’s not what it said on the shelf-edge label, is it Mary? No, check it please. And the tomatoes too. And also these are on offer, buy one get one free. Yes they are. It said it on the poster. The yellow one in the window. Yes they are. Could you check it please? Also I’ve got 58 coupons to use on each item’.