Photo Shopping No.1

The first of an occasional series featuring shop names that make me smile. 

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).

Buttered Up

(She has gone home now so am safe to post this one)

Confused Parent (licking fingers): That was a lovely bit of battenberg. Ooh, I have just remembered, "Last Tango in Paris" is on BBC1 tonight. We can watch that.

Me (spluttering cake crumbs): Don't you mean "Last Tango in Halifax"? The one with Judi Dench and Derek Jacobi?

CP (blithely): Oh yes, sorry.

Coffee cream

First thing in the morning, yawning in the bathroom, I plunge my freshly-showered hand into the cup of hot coffee I have just poured instead of the open pot of body cream on the washtand next to it. Ow.

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.

Almost an armful - more, in fact.

Imagine my surprise* when, worn out after a long day at work, I scramble** up the steps of the antiquated tram home, grasping the nearest pole to steady myself amid the rush-hour surge, only to realise I have in fact grabbed hold of the tanned and muscly forearm of a nice young man sitting down and resting his chin on his hand.




*shock, swiftly followed by horrified embarrassment, slowly followed by growing interest
**crawl

No freakin' Ikea

(Looking doubtfully at a pile of parts for an elderly, flat-pack chest of drawers)

Sardine: Are there any instructions for this, or is it just freestyle?

Mercury rising..maybe not

Suave Frenchy: Do you want to hear a joke?
Me: Always.
SF: In France this summer, the only way you are going to see a thermometer showing at least 37 degrees is by sticking it up your a**e.

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.