Image via WikipediaJean Paul?
Is it safe?
Quickly.......that's it. We can put the light back on now, Clement....
What's the situation Jean Paul?
Bad, Maurice, very bad.
The rosbifs are in control of the area...they've welded the gendarmes into their barracks......they've occupied the mairie...they've put up a notice...
What does it say?
I don't know. It's in English.
Isn't this typical! We get invaded and where are our leaders? Where are the gendarmerie? It's all left to us poor buggers on the ground to organise something to protect the soil of France!
Reminds me of 1940.....three weeks I spent in trains, being sent here and there...anywhere from the Alps to Lorient...while the Germans were rolling over the border in their tanks....
Yes, all right, Victor, but that was then and this is now and it's not the Germans, it's the English.
Worse! At least the Germans paid for what they took...you can't be so sure with the English...look at poor Valentin!
Four times he repaired that window he put in...four times...and when it still leaked and he had to put in that stupid Velux the godon had originally given him to put it when any fool would have known that it wouldn't work and put in the bill for his extra time the bastard wouldn't pay him!
You wouldn't get that with the Germans. No, no...you knew where you were with them...
Yes, Victor...probably shot.
Don't get him started, Clement...before you know it he'll be singing 'Marechal, nous voila' and painting 'Travail, Famille, Patrie' on the walls.
And what about the security services? Running around after everything in a turban and missing all this under their noses.
It's not as if there wasn't plenty of warning....
Yes, but be fair, Maurice...with all this terrorism about they've probably been recruiting Arab speakers....I don't suppose many of them understand English.......let alone look at the internet forums for the English in France.
And anyway, who'd take it seriously,anyway....the English taking back their old provinces! It's a joke! And you know how the English like their jokes! No one would take it seriously....
Well I'm taking it seriously! Having your country over run by foreigners....
Not all of it....be fair, Maurice. We're just unlucky enough to be living in one of their ancient possessions....
I suppose you think that makes it all right!
No, but look.....they're trying to be reasonable.
Given all the legislation on equality, they have a point when they say that Salic Law should not have been applied in 1328, as France did not form part of the Salic lands, and so Edward of England should have been King of France and the whole country should belong to them now....excluding Roussillon Languedoc, of course, and Nice ...and Savoy...and the Jura...and Alsace Lorraine...
So they're being quite fair in only wanting back Aquitaine, Maine, Anjou, Normandy and Calais...
Fair! I've had enough of fair!
Look at them and their 'fair play'...their cricket...
What's 'fair' about trying to hit someone in the family jewels with a leather ball at one hundred kilometres per hour?
What's 'fair' about eleven on to one?
Look how sneakily they bottled up the chasse...the very people who should be out shooting them now...
Yes, where are the chasse?
Welded into their dog runs...that's where. There was a co ordinated attack on their houses with tear gas....they took their shotguns and welded them into their own runs...took the dogs too....left the poor buggers shut up with only a bowl of water and some stale crusts..
No, Victor...not the dogs...their owners...
Tear gas, Maurice? Are you sure?
Yes, look. Arthur brought round one of the empty bottles....look....
M A L T V I N E G A R.
They threw the bottles through the windows and followed up. The chasse didn't stand a chance...
How did they get hold of it?
Ah, that's where they're sneaky....the authorities should never have let them start bringing 'shopping' from England in those white vans....you must have seen them in Benitierville.
They come every week or so and all the English pick up their goods from them rather than going to Super U or Leclerc...that's how they smuggled the tear gas through in such quantities...under the very noses of the gendarmerie.
What do you mean, Victor..it's all the fault of the Tourist Board?
Well, putting up those posters on the road
'Route des Rois d'Angleterre'
Gave the rosbifs ideas, didn't it?
Fifth columnists, the Tourist Board......if it wasn't for them we'd never have had the English here in the first place.
What's that noise?
Put the light out, Clement.
Who's there?
It's me...Jean Francois.
Oh, come in then. O.K. Clement, switch the light back on.
What's the news?
I've got a copy of the notice they put up at the mairie...the fish and chip van is giving them out...
The 'what' van?
The 'poisson frites' van...my son has translated it.
Well?
They've declared UDI...
No shame!
Fancy trumpeting from the house tops that you have a sexually transmitted disease!
No, not SIDA...a Unilateral Declaration of Independence. They've declared independence from France....and from the European Union.
They're going to open a branch of Tesco....the English version of Carrefour....and 'Chez Antoine' will be turned into an Indian restaurant...
Curry!
They go too far....
But there's something else, Maurice...
They're abolishing the Euro!
What? Abolishing the Euro!
Clement......give us all a glass of the Coteaux d'Aubance while we think this over....
Abolishing the Euro, you say?
Well, there might be room for negotiation after all...
Posts
Ah. Removal of the Euro and a bit of proper English culture, innit. Now that's what I call a Utopia.
ReplyDeleteHilarious, cracking yarn to ingest with my Earl Grey on this fine blue Sunday morning, just 60 miles north of the Normandy coast over here. Thank you, this is classic stuff!
ReplyDeleteJe pense Madame Fly is being very funny and satirical girly ‘ere’. Such a beautifully original and clever tale of malt vinegar tear gas (LOL), chasse’s incarcerated inside their own dog runs and Velux shysters! “Route des Rois d'Angleterre” – laughed out loud. Wonderful!
Maurice should get his son to re daub it ‘Le Ros Rois d’Angleterre’ in some bright blue paint after dark.
I so wish you’d really think seriously about developing this whole brilliant theme into a long running serial. The whole notion of a comedic, contemporary pastiche of the ‘old border’ day spats between our medieval ancestors on both sides of the culture fence, way down there in Aquitaine, is a joy, for which there is nobody in The Americas, let alone Angleterre, more qualified to write it than vous ‘Fly Rica’.
Presume you were the one who gave the casting vote in support of the building of the new Tesco’s store over there…by proxy, from your haven in the jungle out there?
Thought so.
And what does ‘buggers’ translate to in French BTY?
Steve, innit just!
ReplyDeleteBish Bosh Bash, 'connards' is about it..not a literal translation, but it's about as close as it gets in the way it would be used.
It was a tongue in cheek post on 'Survive France' that set me thinking...as it did about another aspect of expat life....you remember the French aristos fleeing the Revolution were said to survive by taking in each others' washing?
Well, that looks just like what is happening with the British expats in France...all sorts of 'services' on offer...
Ha Ha! Merci buckets pour ca Mme Flyrica.
ReplyDeleteNo, I've never heard of the 'taking in each others washing' part, post revolution. Ta for that.
"Merde et Connard's!!"...just doesn't have the same kind of 'Ummph and edge' to it that our rosbif version has does it!?
Think i'll stick with the Anglo Saxon version, next time I stub my toe in the morning.
Bish Bosh Bash...I blame it all on Cardinal Richelieu and his blasted Academie Francaise...took all the life out of the language!
ReplyDeleteI did hear one morning exchange over the breakfast table in a French hotel....
Wife arrives first and starts to order. Husband takes offence and gives tongue.
She replies, without looking up from her coffee,
'Ta gueule, connard!'
To which he responds with
'Viper!'
That was a cracking read Fly - very creative and funny!
ReplyDeleteI always loved the term rosbif...although I was never knowingly called one (behind my back I'm sure).
Keep up the good work.
Craig, still on for Tuesday at Calais, then?
ReplyDeleteDid you hear the other term..'godon'...supposedly from the english soldiery's habit of saying 'God damn'?
Très droll!
ReplyDeletelol very witty. Love the final thought.
ReplyDeleteSO funny - especially the end!
ReplyDeleteDumdad, I was thinking of introducing BHL...all bare chest, etc,..being apprehended by the Ghurkas as a yeti and being shoved into the Chize zoo...but decided against.
ReplyDeleteToo likely.
Sarah, one can but dream...
Magan (Best of Fates), thank you for calling by!
I think abolishing the euro is what every average european dreams of and no government will do...
Fabulous Fly! I see there is a new (and totally dreadful) 'Let's all move to France' programme on the telly - shall be blogging about it in the near future, never being one to miss an opportunity. This should be required reading.
ReplyDeleteWylye Girl, I'm trying to catch it to share in the horror...I think it's by the estate agents who sent out their local leg man....a more ignorant condescending prat it would be hard to find...I do hope he's in the programme...
ReplyDeletePriceless, Fly. The Norman conquest reversed :-)
ReplyDeletePerpetua, as I used to say to the occasional offensive French type who accused the British of buying up all the houses...
ReplyDeleteWe're abiding by international law...we're taking back what belonged to us...and paying fair and immediate compensation...as set by yourselves.
Somehow, you'd dropped out of my feed, but you are worth the wait!
ReplyDeleteI think M. Chevallier would have loved this. (I mean Gabriel, not Maurice...)
dinahmow, I think I've upset Blogger, somehow...
ReplyDeleteThe longer I lived in France the more I realised that G.C. provided the best possible guide as to how it really worked...