Learning French

It’s a rum do, this learning French.

I can be sitting there silent for six, seven, eight minutes in a row, understanding everything that’s going on in the conversation, nodding like Churchill, until… someone asks me A Direct Question, and on cue everyone switches to Russian, the connards. There must be something loaded, some physiological weaponry housed in the Gallic shoulders, because as soon as I’m addressed directly, and all eyes are swivelling in my direction (“ah oui, it sometimes talks!”), my mind is flushed of all knowledge of the French language and I’m left gasping and mouthing like a stranded whale.

I had my first (French) French (in France) class last week. I surprised myself by managing to string several sentences together (possibly even comprehensibly), spurred into action by the total disengagement and embarassed desk-staring of my fellow “learners”. After about five minutes of nobody saying anything, I wanted to break the noses of each and every one of them. “We’re not kids any more, damnit! We’re even paying to be here! Why not at least try and take part?” So I sat and simmered some more, listening in turn to absolute silence and the elderly Brooklynite trying to explain about soy production in the weird patois of Noo Yoik English and Argentinian Spanish he seemed to think passed for French. Eventually, it got so bad I was compelled to open my mouth and slop out some vaguely Francophonic syllables, and it turns out it’s easier to talk in a class, when everyone takes it in turn and says one. Word. At. A.

Time.

Ve-ry slow-ly.

Tonight, we’re going for an apéritif dînatoire, which apparently is where you go for drinks at someone’s house and eat food at the same time but it’s not like a proper meal with an entrée and a plat and a dessert, because there’s no proper delineation between courses and you’re allowed to stand up and walk around if you like. Yes, I thought, we have these in England, with crisps and lager and pubs, but I have a feeling this may be slightly different. What’s certain is that I am going along (with my finest tin-foil hat for the Russian rays), and I will talk French with some French people. Here. In France.

Wish me luck.

Punning Cap’n Beefheart

Captain Beefheart says:

Like the idea of you keeping a frog blog – sorry, that one was just sitting there (Crouching there? Ribbiting there?).

Can’t believe I missed it.

“Remote worker” is not like “sex worker”

I wrote something on Magpie’s blog about working from home. I didn’t mention anything about the psychotic drilling clowns living upstairs. “When you live outside the law, you have to be honest”, and I’ve failed. I think that’s a nail through the ceiling.

Jerome the Musical Fun Phone Clown

A week and a half after moving in, our phone line started working. It was supposed to be ready for when we moved in, but France Telecom had apparently neglected to do something important and highly technical that required three line checks and a visit from The Mumbling Engineer to remedy.

I’m a bit of a mumbler myself (when not ranting loudly and incoherently), or at least, I was – I hereby pledge that henceforth, I will talk clearly and with a fully open mouth at all times, especially to non-native English speakers. Even if it means they must suffer my English teeth, I will at least give them a fighting chance to understand what the mothering nuts is tumbling from my chiphole. I think Mumbling Engineer was trying to tell me that a clown with a test-tube had done something extremely unsavoury to a difficult red wine, but I’m not 100% sure I got my tenses right. It may have been a threat. He was clutching that screwdriver very tightly, now I think about it. I didn’t get a good look at his shoes.

Yesterday, our ADSL equipment (the excitingly, if inaccurately, named “Freebox” – it costs 29.99€ a month) finally arrived, after trauma with ColiPoste that is still too painful to recount – a mere 11 days after the line was activated. And guess what? After plugging it in, it appears we need to wait another 48 hours before it will actually work. I am currently using (shamefully, without their knowledge) a mystery neighbour’s unsecured wifi connection (pronounced “wee-fee” here), and my conscience can’t stick it for long. Not to mention it gets crap in the evenings when they must be using it too – selfish so-and-sos.

And it appears that the neighbours upstairs (possibly in revenge) are killing things with hammers and drills, and generally just having big-booted construction-worker fun. The near-constant drilling and hammering nicely complements the roadworks outside – Cacophany in Brain-Mash Minor. Trying to hold a thought (in any language) is proving even more difficult than usual.

But these are minor gripes. Two nights ago, we saw ex-Ride (and Animalhouse!) shoegazer-turned-space-rocker Mark Gardener at a venue just down the road from us. When, about half-way through the set, he and his new backing band (who I think are all called Jerome) dropped the folk and let fall a massive slab of instrumental wall! of! noise!, I was transported. Since leaving Brighton and the Republic of Heaven two weeks ago, I’ve had less opportunity than I’d like to experience high-amplitude noises in a combination of frequencies that interests and thrills – there is work to be done here.

I will remedy this!

Like a britpop from nineteen ninety four

Three days ago, I saw the “Arte” channel for the first time. Six young, attractive men and women danced, swayed and groped in a sunny courtyard. Then they were on a beach in white cotton, delicately moving to some shared and fearsome rhythm. I cackled in surprise, and with the pure joy of watching stupid foreigners doing something clearly ridiculous. Enjoying dance! Without irony!

But of course, I am the stupid foreigner. Today, my eighth day in Paris, my television has shown me Sean Lennon, Lily Allen (how did I miss she was the demon-child of Keith?) and art-rock-post-whatever-bores The Rakes attempting (Sean passably, Lily endearingly, The Rakes laughably) to conduct an interview in French. When they struggle, our host (a kind of malevolant non-ginger Chris Evans) switches to English – except with Sean Lennon, who he appeared to have taken a dislike to. The “bonus” section of the program shows the acts rehearsing before the show is filmed – cut to Sean forlornly strumming his guitar in the corridor, trying to shake out a lost pick for about seven minutes, screwing up the chords on a busked Hendrix song.

Then we have The Blur Pistols Asyl, with their new single “Intérieur Extérieur“ (or “Song 2” followed by “Girls and Boys“ with the chorus from “Anarchy In The UK“). I’m getting old. Everything I hear sounds like something else. Oh, for those teenage days when Green Day sounded so new and fresh.

I need to see something live, something with energy and couilles (get me, a French word). That is my next goal, having mastered the art of French staircases, doors, lightswitches and toilets (remarkably similar to their English counterparts) and basic purchasing of goods (except if anything more involved is required than grunts and handing over of money). But first, tonight, it’s the cinema for “A Scanner Darkly” (version originale, of course). Everyone told me the first few weeks make you tired, as your brain tries to deal with all the words being different – and it’s true. I go to bed at 10.30, more tired than after a bank holiday weekend at Legends Of The Dark Black. I need a rest. Watching French subtitles, I tell myself, will still be beneficial. I need to sign up for the French course. I need to have a study timetable. I need to start reading French blogs.

Demain, ladies and gents. Good night from Paris.