Trick or Treat

Chorus of tiny zombies, skeletons, werewolves and vampires at the door: Trick or Treat!

Me (running out of sweets): Trick!

Tiny zombies, skeletons, werewolves and vampires (downcast): We've not thought of one.

Tiniest zombie (pipes up): I've got one. What's your name?

Me: Catherine

TZ (points to nose, hidden under thick green make-up): What's this?

Me: Your nose?

TZ (nods, holds out empty, cupped hands): And what's this?

Me: errr....nothing?

TZ (triumphantly): So - Catherine Nose Nothing! That's your trick! Give us a sweet now!

Misconceptions

Singing Man (walking along the road): LALALALALALALALALALALALAAAAAAA

Me (coming out of house): Oh God, he's a bit scary, better get into the car fast (scrabbles with keys, dives in). Maybe he's drunk. Or a bit crazy. OhGodOhGod. Don't come near me...please...

Singing Man stops behind car.

Me (heart hammering, thinks): Oh God, what's he doing? What do I do? Beep the horn for help? OhGodOhGod..

Singing Man (appears in car rear window, waves cheerily): I've just moved your bin for you, pet. You would have caught your wing mirror when you reversed out. Cheerio!

The A**e Of The Bag

Me (whining):...and so I have sent five emails now, and still no reply, and I have rung the office every day for a week but it just keeps being diverted to voicemail, even when it's not lunchtime, and then I finally got through by choosing an option I didn't want and the woman shouted at me so I shouted back...and then it was Bastille Day so no hope of any response at all for at least five days...I can't go on..it's too much...
Kik (not looking up from phone): Well, now you know where the "cul-de-sac" came from..

The bag of dogs

TC: I can't finish my croque monsieur. Can we have a sac-de-chiens?
Waitress (laughing openly): Zat is not what we call eet in France.
TC: How do you say doggy bag in French, then?
W (with amused irony): Le doggee-bag.
TC: Aha! Mercredi beaucoup!

We'll have nun of that

In some forgotten corner of a far-flung newsroom.....

Colleague: Have you got anything to munch?

Me (scrabbling in bag): Believe it or not, there's a Tunnocks teacake in here somewhere (whips it out with a flourish) Here it is!

Colleague (eyes gleaming): Where did you get that from?

Me: I stole it from a nun. Fact.

Just the ticket

(racing through France on the TGV)

SNCF ticket inspector: Is that your diary?
Me (scribbling furiously ahead of scary meeting): What? No.
SNCF: That's a shame.
Me (looking up again, scrunching up face in irritated, rodent-like grimace): Why?
SNCF: I was going to tell you to put dinner with me in for Friday night (wafts off airily).

Plopsaland

(At party)
Me: So, where did you say you were from, then?
Suave Belgian: Knokke, it's a tiny place on the coast.
Me: Yeah, I know it, actually. We often came on holiday to the Belgian coast when I was a child. Knokke, Oostduinkerke, De Panne, Koksijde. Isn't that where Belgium's biggest sand-dune is?
SB: Bloody hell (Flemish equivalent of), the Hoge Blekker. I can't believe you have heard of it.
Me: Mate, I tried to climb it with my cousins, but it was too big. We were much smaller at the time, though.
And Meli Park! Is it still open?
SB (stunned): Yes! But its now called Plopsaland. And the bees have gone.

Ex-ter-min-ation

- is what a Dalek says in French. I know because I have just heard one.

On the tiles

(In le petit coin/the smallest corner)

French tiler: What do you do when you are on the toilet?
Me (thinks: God, the French can be so direct at times): um, er, well...you know, same as everyone...er (shuffles feet, looks at floor, embarrassed)
FT: no, no, NO. Not THAT. I mean you look at the FLOOR. That is why tiling the toilet floor is an exacting job, because people stare at it a lot.
Me (faintly): Oh, I see.
FT: I know what people do on the toilet. I don't need to ask, you know. Oh là, là.

La Dame de Fer

Suave Frenchy (placing his hand on my arm and looking deeply into my eyes in what I can only imagine is an attempt at empathy): Hay am really sorree about Ze Hi-ron Laydee-uh.

Tooth or consequences

French Dentist: You will need to be careful with your diet for a few days, so steamed asparagus, poached fish or grilled chicken instead of red meat.
Me (painfully):ok.
FD: And as for the aperitif, no red wine, only white wine or champagne.
Me (wincing): Not applicable, to be honest. What about Coca-cola?
FD: No. And no coffee either. You can have the occasional tea, but only through a straw.
Me (thinks ruefully): You would never get a foody talking-to like this in the UK.

Meek Shagger

(just heard this on French radio)

Presenter: So, you and Davvid Cammerron, you are a beet like Kees Reechar and Meek Shagger, no?
Boris Johnson: No. We are more like Wallace and Gromeet.

Boots on the ground

(struggling through a very snowy Brussels on way to conference)

Fellow journalist (Spanish): Holy communion wafers! Last time I wore these boots, I was covering the war in Bosnia!

Peninsula War

The Big Basque(reflective): Anyway, you have some very good-looking women in your royal family these days.
Me(gossipy): Well, I don't think you are the first Spaniard to think so. Apparently....I'm not one to gossip, but...King Juan Carlos...years ago...Princess Diana...I am sure it is absolutely not true at all but that's what they say.....
TBB(intrigued): NO! Really?
Me: Let's have a look (quick internet search). There you go.
TBB(looks, astounded, impressed,): Consecrated hosts!* If that's true, you can have Gibraltar!




*"Hostias", the Spanish equivalent of "bloody hell", I suppose. A Bad Word, in any case.

rouler une galoche

Can't believe I have just learned this phrase from the little old lady sitting next to me in the hairdresser's.

They may look small, frail and vulnerable but they are minxes, make no mistake.

(It is too rude to get past the Rosbiff censors, so you will have to look it up. Try Wordreference.)

Piles of fun

Me (chewing pen top thoughtfully): I don't have hemorrhoids.
French Banker: What?
Me (pointing at form): It asks here "Have you ever had hospital treatment for hemorrhoids? Or a nose job?"
FB (reading form upside down from across the desk): No,no, it means have you ever been in hospital apart from hemorrhoids or a nose job.
Me (giggling): I did wonder what that had to do with anything.
FB (tries and fails to pull disapproving Paddington Stare): You shouldn't mock, Rosbiff. It is a very painful condition.

The Good Pub Guide

(A multinational team of journalists look at video footage of floods in the UK)

Russian News Editor(exasperated): I have no idea where these shots are from, as you can see they were filmed at night and no information has been sent with the shotlist...
Me(squinting): Um...er...it's York, actually.
RNE(incredulous): How on earth can you tell? There are no road signs or anything.
Me(embarrassed): Um...er...well, I know the pub on the corner. It's the Lowther Arms.

Natural Born Killers

Imagine my delight, during the "Best Festive Shop Window" competition a few days before Christmas, to find an entire family of rabbits (Mummy and Daddy rabbits plus two tiny baby rabbits) playing happily in the straw in the window of the local butcher's, ignoring the raw meat laid out just above their little furry heads while delicately nibbling on carrots and daintily sipping water (with complete disregard for all environmental health recommendations, but there you go, it's Christmas in France). Endearingly cute.

Imagine, then, my horror when ONLY ONE DAY LATER AND AFTER THE JUDGING I meander past again to find said rabbits and straw have completely disappeared and the menu of the café next door is advertising a new dish-of-the-day...

(Camera Grunts: sense of horror amplified by Jaws-style foreshortening effect)

Honestly. This explains why the Nativity was never set in France;

1. The French would have eaten the donkey.
2. The heavily-pregnant Mary would never have made it to the stable.
3. Christianity as a belief-system would never have come into being.(Or not with the same prestige, at any rate. Christ the Saviour is born on the roadside doesn't quite have the same cachet.)

Yours disgustedly,

Rosbiff.

PS Happy Christmas to everyone

One for the Frenchies

(Notice on back of hotel room door):

Supplement pet      15 euros

I know quite a few people who would end up with a very big bill here.

For those who don't know...pet means furry animal in English, but FART in French...)

Itth all jutht too much

Me: I've got some bad news for you.
French colleague: Wet?
Me: Guess who is top of the list of nominees for the Nobel Prize for Literature?
FC: Dunno.
Me: Philip ROTH.
FC: Oh, whore.*




*This is a bad word in French and was not directed at me. I hope not, anyway.