Monday, August 07, 2006

Still standing... le vikend

Rather dissipated, I think. Inexplicably, although I don't drink the fruit of the vine, the hop, the barley, the malt, the potato, the sugarcane, the date, the rotting palm-fruit, the wormwood, the old tyre, and so on, I still feel vaguely hungover/lethargic two days later. And I think I broke my air guitar.

Personally, I blame the idiot frenchmen who were doing their level best to single-handedly reverse the national stereotype of centuries by avoiding even the slightest hint of sophistication and savoir-faire in their behaviour in favour of acting like marauding idiots. Toes trampled in drunken efforts at "dancing": 793. Limbs ashed by flying cigarettes: 7 (one twice).

If they really were French… They seemed to have difficulty understanding or even speaking that language too. Favorite gem of conversation, "You are your friend's nose." I'm still bemused by that one. Because there must be meaning in it. Somewhere. Then there was the 'Meurican who claimed not to have known the name of this country before he arrived. All well and good, but I'm not sure this is the sort of thing in which I'd take pride. Or advertise to passing strangers.

He also produced this little snippet of conversation with Californian flatmate:
"Hey, your friend doesn't speak English, right? Where's she from?"
"England."
"Hey, they speak English good here, don't they?"

Sadly I missed the opportunity to chat with this fine speciman of manhood owing to the complete impenetrability of my dialect. Luckily I normally wander around with a portable subtitle machine or heaven knows how flatmates and I ever managed to negotiate a cleaning rota.

But a most entertaining evening in all. Hopefully, 'twas the chocolate ornament on flatmate J's birthday French lemon tart covered in seasonal fruit. And besides, if we hadn't gone to this particular 80s/90s night, I would have lived without ever seeing a hen party from Essex dance around a crutch to the Bangles (though I could have happily lived without ever seeing the middle-aged male belly-dancer from Pinner, music optional.)

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