Le Franco Phoney

For anyone considering a move to La Clusaz, please note that these foods are not available when dining out:

• Chinese
• Mexican
• Greek
• Indian
• Japanese
• British fat chips (from a fish’n'chips shop)
• basically, anything else that doesn’t revolve around cheese, potatoes and meat

Thankfully, England is well-stocked, and I took full advantage. The food was great, and so was the shopping. However, the queueing was not. When buying a bikini and a sun dress — both of which, ironically, I’d rarely wear (if ever!) in England, I spent more time waiting in queues to try things on than I spent looking for them. I queued for tables at restaurants, toilets, changing rooms, to speak with literary agents and even when picking up a pizza (it went cold). Normally, at least two toilets are vacant. Nobody notices. Similarly, the changing room attendant will watch the people line up, wait for someone finished to exit a changing room, count the rejected clothes, hang them up to be returned to the shop, and — oh, wait a minute: another person has come out so there are now two vacant changing rooms but nobody is allowed in yet because the attendant is still checking the exiting people’s clothes and hanging them up, and has not thought about giving those waiting the correct token for the number of items they’re taking in so that the queue can move without these hold-ups. I guess I’ve lived away from England for long enough now for this to bother me once more. It’s needless queueing, but the English have grown up with it, so they seem far more tolerant than me. And don’t even get me started on the restaurant that couldn’t seat us, nor take a booking for an hour’s time, nor call us when a table became available since they couldn’t reserve it an hour in advance.

So, my suitcase is stacked with new clothes and lots of Haloumi cheese (unavailable in my region of France). I will not miss the queueing in England, but I’m already missing the food.

Apologies for not writing sooner: I’ve been working in London recently. And boy, have I noticed the differences between London and La Clusaz. They might begin with the same letter of the alphabet, but they’re at opposite ends of the scale for population, cleanliness and food. Upon arrival at Gatwick Airport, I bought a bottle of water. The guy who served me wiped his snotty nose with the back of his hand, then touched my water to scan it without any sort of greeting, then sneezed without covering his mouth before handing me my change. Okay, it wasn’t a great start to my trip to London, particularly considering the swine flu concerns in the media, but it can only get better, right?

Not so. I was slightly bolstered with a Krispy Kreme donut — something impossible to find in La Clusaz. The happiness incited by the tasty treat was as short-lived as the donut thanks to the bus journey to my accommodation. A man was wandering around the bustling bus stop, ranting about the Polish and the Russians and “people!” in general. He walked up and down constantly, and I was glad when my bus arrived. Unfortunately, he was waiting for the same bus. For the entire journey, he shouted things such as: “When I’m alright, you’re alright, but when I’m not alright, I want to KILL, and I’m NOT ALRIGHT right now.”

Things did improve however, when I realised how technologically advanced London is. Not only can you top up your mobile phone credit at any cash machine, but you can use your mobile phone to pay precisely for just the time you spend in a parking spot, saving you any money lost to overestimating your stay on the old coin-printed style of ticket. I felt like a complete country bumpkin at my own surprise at these technologies. That, however, was days ago, and after a quick trip to Cambridge, I’m now in Brighton. There’s a whole separate blog entry right there! I do miss France and patisseries, but what’s not to love about fry-ups and Cheddar cheese.

In a bit of a role reversal, I went to England for the weekend with a French man. Hearing his observations about London and Cambridge — the two cities we visited — brought a smile to my face as I remembered thinking some of those same thoughts when I first moved to the UK years ago. The full English breakfast, or ‘fry-up‘, was a big hit, as was Camden market. The new, funky Stables area of the market, complete with wi-fi café and private stables for each group, decked out with chairs and tables, impressed us both.

A low point was using the Tube. I asked why. He said it was the smell. I no longer notice the smell and I had forgotten it had one. He noticed a tube stop called Ealing Broadway and said: ‘Ealing. Does that mean you can go there and get better?’ If you add an ‘h’ to the front of Ealing, you will see what he was getting at. French people don’t pronounce ‘h’s, so he had figured out that Ealing Broadway was a place you could go to for healing.

Once in town, he didn’t understand why people queued when there was room further ahead or why nobody in the shops replied to him when he said ‘bye bye’ to them on our way out. In France, it’s polite to say hello and goodbye, and even nicer to thank the shopkeeper whether you buy something or not. In England, shop staff don’t bother making eye contact with you, let alone greet you on your way in or out! Regardless, he could not break the habit and I heard ‘bye bye’ followed by silence many times over the weekend.

Walking in central London, the French man was weary and he wanted to stop for a drink in a ‘traditional English pub’, so I took him to the first small, dark pub we came across. ‘No,’ he said, ‘this is too dark.’ So, I took him to a trendy wine bar. ‘But this doesn’t feel like a pub,’ he said. I explained that English pubs were traditionally small and dark, but he wasn’t happy until we found a less-dark pub. He tried a half-pint of London Pride, commenting that it was warm before falling asleep in his chair with a few drops left in the glass. I was on the phone arranging to meet a friend and hadn’t noticed his closed eyes. Within minutes, the pub landlord was hassling me to wake him up or get out. The sleepy French man felt refreshed from his few minutes of respite and we continued on to Trafalgar Square. Any beer he consumed after that point was always something marked as Extra Cold.

In Cambridge, he wanted to find out more about a product created by university students. We split so that I could shop while he went to a college for more information. We met an hour later and he looked dejected. ‘I see that British red tape is as bad as French,’ he said, explaining that he had been told from one college to go to another college, who then told him to go back to the first one. He was, however, given a course outline for post-graduate studies! He has no intention to study in Cambridge, but it’s good to see the British staff are on the ball for luring in foreign students. Highlights were, apparently, the Mathematical Bridge on our punting trip, bacon, and brown sauce (thanks to the lovely Railway Lodge, where we stayed). Speaking of food, Marmite joined warm beer, the Tube and British weather as elements of the UK that the French man hopes to avoid on his next UK visit. Fry-ups and Krispy Kreme donuts will, however, be sought out!