petite anglaise

Try as I might, I can’t even picture what an 600 m2 apartment would look like. It would be a whopping ten times bigger than the compact and bijou little flat our household currently rents. Of couse Mr Frog and I do not have eight tadpoles (for which my hips are pathetically grateful), let alone a maître d’hôtel, two maids, a chef and a nanny to accommodate.

The now ex-Ministre de l’Economie, Hervé Gaymard, considered housing his extended family in two 300 m2 apartments on the avenue Montaigne (home to the most exclusive fashion boutiques and the Plaza Athenée Hotel - you know, the one where SJP stayed in the final episodes of SATC) and adding a lift and stairs to connect the two floors for a further € 150,000, was eminently reasonable. At a monthly cost to the taxpayer of a mere € 14,000 (£ 9 000), the apartment in the exclusive Triangle d’Or district costed a little over twelve times our annual rent, and the equivalent of Monsieur Gaymard’s monthly paycheck. Oddly, Monsieur le Ministre did not feel this to be in any way inconsistent with his stated policy goal of introducing spending cuts in the French public sector.

Soon after the satirical weekly the Canard Enchaîné broke their story about Mr Gaymard’s rather extravagent lifestyle, revelations which were compounded by Gaymard’s string of gaffes and indeed shameless lying about the extent of his personal fortune to the press, Monsieur Economy Drive was forced to tender his resignation after fleecing serving his country for only three months.

Now the infamous flat is up for grabs. And this, my dear readers, is where you come in.

Click on the handy button above to make your donation to the petite’s posh new pad fund.

Because I’m worth it.

I reach into my bag and give my Ipod a little stroke to turn up the volume a notch.

I’m still not completely over my paranoia about taking a gadget which is worth as much as my PC on the metro with me every day. Even if I didn’t actually pay for it. I should probably purchase some different coloured headphones, for my own piece of mind. Right now the only people I trust are fellow Ipod wearers. They get a covert nod; it’s like VW Beetle owners honking their horns at their peers.

“Your favorite innocence,
Your favorite prize,”

CLIP!

“Your favorite smile,
Your favorite slave.”

CLIP!

“I’m hanging on your words,
Living on your breath,”

CLIP! CLIP!
Did something small just fly past, missing the end of my nose by mere milimetres?

“Feeling with your skin.
Will I always be here?”

CLIP!!

I ease the volume down and take a look around.

There is a man, approximately my age, attractive in a scruffy, academic sort of way (brown corduroy jacket, one of those narrow, stripey, many-coloured scarves that men are wearing this season coiled around his neck, tufty brown hair), sitting across the aisle to my right on a strapontin. In fact, on closer inspection I decide that this person makes the grade and shall be added to the “Top Ten Foxes I Have Spied In The Metro” list. An honour which he remains blissfully unaware of, as he seems to be inspecting his hands. He has rather nice hands, I note.

The unkind neon lighting, which gives all metro travellers a sickbed complexion, regardless of whether they are wearing expensive MAC foundation or not, glints off something metallic in his right hand which I can’t quite identify without craning my neck a little…

CLIP!!!

Nail clippers.

That man is clipping his fingernails on the metro! Tiny, jagged pieces of him are flying in all directions! I suppose I should be thankful that he doesn’t remove his shoes and socks and start on his toenails. I wonder whether this is the sort of thing which you are allowed to sound the emergency alarm for, but dismiss the idea, as there is a fine for misuse.

Mr Métro Manicure is ejected unceremoniously from the list he never knew he was on as I caress the volume up again and close my eyes.

As a precaution however, I keep my mouth tightly shut.

The snow creaked pleasingly underfoot. For once I was glad of the pushchair, because it’s actually rather difficult to fall flat on your face when you have a four wheel drive Italian stallion Peg Perego buggy to steady yourself with. The waterproof poncho, source of much Christmas woe, got its first outing today and I silently thanked the EVILs for their foresight. Quite the chic Parisienne was I this morning sporting my sensible flat shoes, poncho drawstrings tied tightly under my chin.

Tadpole finally got to see some live snow, something that until now she had only seen in the illustrations from ‘Maisy’s Christmas Eve‘. A muffled chanting “no-ing! no-ing! no-ing!” could be heard from under the buggy’s misted up plastic raincover. What I wouldn’t give on days like today for a bit of role reversal. Oh to be pushed to work in an upholstered cocoon.

Ideally, we would have taken a detour through the Buttes Chaumont on the way to the childminder’s house and built a little “no-man”… However this was not to be. Parisian parks close their gates at the first hint of unclement weather (intempéries). Especially the Buttes Chaumont, as it is on a very steep hill, and therefore highly perilous when slippy. Presumably the powers that be at the town hall are paranoid about their liability should a jogger or dog walker accidentally break their neck. It’s a crying shame though, as those slopes were made for sledging.

Whenever it snows in Paris, vivid memories surface of the strikes of December 1995, and my spell as an English teacher at the Sorbonne Nouvelle (poor relation to the photogenic sister faculty of the Sorbonne, housed in a 70’s monstrosity, its ugliness matched only by the faculty website.)

That winter, two million French public sector workers elected to go on strike for the best part of a month. If I wanted to go anywhere at all during this turbulent time, it had to be accessible on foot, and using a route which avoided the pancarte-brandishing manifestants. There are few things more tedious than having to wait half an hour to cross a road as the demonstrators trundle past, from the enthusiastic ones at the front who wave their banners energetically and have mastered the day’s special chants, to the very last stragglers bringing up the rear.

At Paris III, the majority of the teachers, students and admin staff downed their pens for the duration. However lectrices like myself were not permitted to take industrial action. So for several weeks I was supposed to turn up to classes - a good forty minute trudge from my little bachelorette pad on the rue de la Roquette - never knowing whether the building would even be open when I arrived. There might be a single student, or five, or more likely none at all, awaiting my ‘expert tuition’. And I remember snow. Copious amounts of it.

My deux-pièces had a tiled floor, big, draughty windows and miniscule electric heaters were positioned under the windows. One day I awoke to the sight of ice on the inside of my bedroom window. When I had no classes at all, I took to hanging out in cafés and cinemas to keep warm. I was pathetically thankful for the fact that if you buy one coffee in a French bar you can sit there for as long as you please.

After three weeks of teeth-chattering, isolated boredom, I packed my bags and went back home early for Christmas.

The very next day, naturally, the strikes were called off.

I’ve got butterflies in my tummy.

This is because I’m going to meet a fellow blogger for lunch today. For some reason I’m as nervous as a fifteen year old getting ready to go on her first date. I think we both are. She summed it up really well, saying she is nervous of falling victim to the ‘I preferred the book to the movie’ syndrome. I’m worried about not living up to whatever expectations she might have, based on my blog. And I suspect that in her presence I’m going to feel rather old. Nerve racking stuff.

But I also feel that we expat bloggers have a lot in common. A love of writing, a love of France, shared frustrations, similar experiences of trying to find our niche in this city, of coping with living in a foreign language. It seems a shame not to get together and see if some of the virtual friends we have made on the interwebnet don’t have the potential to become ‘real’, three-dimensional friends.

It would also be an excuse for a bit of proper anglo-saxon style drinking.

So, I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a suggestion.

A get together. In Paris. For expat bloggers (and anyone they want to bring for moral support). If you like this idea and my proposed date works for you, please comment or drop me a line on petite.anglaise at gmail.com. The date is just a handy Friday I have when Mr Frog and Tadpole will be at the EVIL’s and I won’t need a babysitter. It can be changed if necessary. Offers of accommodation for any of our non-Parisian expats who can make it will also be gratefully accepted. And suggestions for a venue (I think this will depend on the number of people planning to come along).

There should be ground rules of course. No writing about each other afterwards. Or at least, no specifics which would compromise anyone’s anonymity. And definitely nothing like this: “I know petite said that her bottom was of J-Lo esque proportions but I wasn’t expecting…”

What do you think?

Update: are there any male expat bloggers in Paris I should know about? Apart from Jason? I don’t mind this being a (sh)event, but I never realised before how overwhelmingly we outnumber the blogging males… Iain - be worried.

I woke up this morning at 6.30 am to the sound of Fun Radio. Tadpole had evidently been re-tuning the radio again. I don’t know which is worse, shouty disc jockeys playing French RnB (pale and rather dodgy imitation of American RnB) or Mr Frog’s preferred news channel. Someone should conduct a scientific study into the long-term effects of waking up to the word “war” or “corruption” every morning.

I realised that Mr Frog was now beside me, although he hadn’t been when I fell asleep shortly after midnight.

“T’es rentré à quelle heure, finalement?” I mumble.

“Vers deux heures trente” he replies, sheepishly.

I open my eyes. He looks terrible: pale and drawn and ten years older.

I choke back tears of pure rage and bury my head in the pillow. I realise this reaction is not going to make the poor guy feel any better, but I can’t help myself.

I have never been introduced to any of Mr Frog’s bosses at the Agency, even if they are English speakers and we could well have a lot in common. This is, I suspect, because Mr Frog is worried I might bare my teeth and growl at somebody. Or launch myself at them, fists flying (ineffectually).

I simply cannot stand to watch the client walk all over their team, making demands which become ever more unreasonable, basically amounting to “can you just bend over a bit more - yes, that’s right, the angle’s just perfect - so I can shaft you more thoroughly”. (Pardon my French, but I did warn you I was angry.) No-one dares to stand up to the client, to defend their right to a life outside work, to say, “no, what you are asking is just plain impossible, and we cannot do a U-Turn this late in the day.” But no, instead they just line up and drop their trousers.

For the last two weekends Mr Frog has worked. Both in the office, and using a borrowed laptop at home. Almost every morning he has been long gone before Tadpole and I awoke, returning hours after Tadpole’s bedtime. The way things are going this week, he won’t see her until Friday morning. Five days later.

It tears holes in my heart when I wake Tadpole in the morning and one of the first things she says is “Va voir daddy?” in a hopeful little voice. I explain, sighing, that daddy had to leave early today. She nods, but toddles off in her pyjamas to check the bathroom and the bedroom anyway. Once she’s sure I am telling the truth, she says flatly “Daddy gone. Office.”

Yesterday she blew some kisses at the front door. For daddy. Wherever he might be.

This morning was the last straw. Mr Frog had worked from 8.00 am until 2.30am. He was taking the 07.55 Thalys to Brussels, to give a powerpoint presentation about strategy to the client. On four hours sleep, after working 16 consecutive days. I heard him coughing this morning in the bathroom in a telltale way . Nerves.

I have to get him out of there, whatever it takes. Forget buying a flat, forget financial security.

Otherwise they will chew him up and spit him out and I’ll be left picking up the pieces of my broken frog off the floor.

Tadpole suddenly started speaking in phrases this week. French ones mind, which are not nearly half as gratifying to me as English ones. I am not yet ready to admit even to myself that French will be her dominant language, while my mother tongue is likely to be relegated to second language status.

Overnight, everything she pointed at was suddenly accompanied by a “c’est … ça.”

“C’est mummy ça”, “C’est daddy ça”, “C’est teddy ça”, “C’est quoi ça?”.

Or with a triumphant “there it is”: “Il est là daddy” “Elle est là mummy.”

Accompanied without exception by exaggerated finger-pointing and arm-waving. As far as gesticulation levels go, Tadpole most definitely qualifies as a French person.

Pushing Tadpole plus wobbly trolley around the supermarket (no security harness, this is France) on Saturday evening, stocking up on edible provisions for the week, (which now include various additive-laden but child-friendly snacks that I hitherto swore I would never feed my child, including fish fingers, which I am currently rediscovering), Tadpole gets it into her pretty little head that a complete stranger, who looks absolutely nothing like her father, and is at least a decade older than he is, is her daddy. The only plausible explanation I can find for this is that she was confusing the word “daddy” with the word “man”.

“C’est daddy ça!”, shouts Tadpole, loudly, with extended arm and pointy index finger.

“Er… no sweetie, that’s not your daddy. It might be someone else’s daddy though.”

We turn into the next aisle, and I begin my search for a breakfast cereal not containing ten times the recommended daily intake of sugar. A toss up between porridge oats and cornflakes, again: Rice Krispies are like gold dust in this city.

“C’est daddy ça” cries Tadpole earnestly, volume turned up a little higher. I start and look up hopefully from the packet of ‘Honey Smacks’ I am examining, wondering if daddy has actually deserted his powerpoint presentation and elected to join us in the supermarket. No such luck. Just the same man, who is not, never was, and never will be Tadpole’s father.

“Don’t be silly, it’s not your daddy,” I repeat firmly, wishing that it was, because I’m unsure how I am going to get both shopping and Tadpole home on my own, even if it is only 200m from the local Franprix to our own door.

I swing a hasty left, and pounce upon a packet of Jacobs crackers. Not because I actually like them, you understand, but because they are a brand from home, and Franprix don’t usually stock them, so I feel I have to seize the opportunity. I have an unopened bottle of HP sauce in my cupboard, also purchased at Franprix. They can keep each other company.

We take up our position in the queue.

“C’est DADDY ça, il est LÀ daddy.”

I lose my patience.

“Good grief [Tadpole], give me credit for some taste! That man is not your father!” I snap.

Tadpole is stunned into silence by my tone.

And I spend five minutes in the queue praying that the man in question isn’t an English teacher by profession.

If you have eagle eyes you will note that this site has travelled back in time to approximately 1am Friday 17 February. This was due to a little glitch in my upgrade to the newest version of wordpress (which I didn’t need to have, but it has so many new features how could I not?) A tiny little problem that with my heavy handedness I managed to turn into a major fiasco, deleting my blogger posts from July to September in the process.

The good news is that it has been rescued and my old posts are back where they belong.

The bad news is that I need to fiddle a bit to make it look right, and I lost all your comments from today on the last 3 posts. Sorry about that. I might paste some of them back in again later, I saved them in a cunning word document and I especially liked the anonymous declaration from a ‘mystery admirer’. (I have your IP address anonymous, and I’ll track you down eventually!)

I will be tweaking a bit this weekend. I’ll try not to break anything this time, promise.

And thank you podz. I don’t know if you go around rescuing damsels in distress like this all the time, but in any case, this one is truly grateful!

As the main problem I was trying to solve involved comments, I’d be grateful if when you stop by this weekend you could drop me a line to show that you can! I can’t test this function myself, because as site admin I am treated differently to you mere mortals…!

The main reason for my erratic posting this week is that I have been busy ‘negotiating’ with the childminder. A fraught process which has left me a couple of kilos lighter (a not unwelcome but sadly temporary state of affairs) and cheated me of many hours of beauty sleep.

It all began when we learned that a new Convention Collective (collective bargaining agreement?) covering Assistantes Maternelles had been brought into force on 1st January 2005: a booklet outlining the childminder’s rights, our rights, what should be in our contract and on her payslips. It was supposed to simplify our relationship and bring employment law for childminders into line with the rest of the French workforce.

This was not intended to change how much we actually pay her for her services, as she earns far in excess of the minimum wage as it is, but it does alter, on paper, the calculations used to reach this amount. She is now to be paid over twelve equal months, for example, whereas before she got a bit extra every month and was not paid during her holidays. We also have to come up with an hourly rate for a nine hour day, as opposed to paying her a daily flat rate under the previous system. On paper this all looked fine.

Of course two people can read the same document in many different ways, and human nature being what it is, the childminder sought to inflate her salary as much as possible by interpreting the document in bizarre and illogical ways. Tata (short for tante or auntie, which is what most children call their childminder) demonstrated once again that she can be a formidably tough negotiator. Her tactics are very simple: talk at the same time as your opponent until they get flustered and lose their thread, pretend not to understand any reasoned argument, and use a smattering of meaningless phrases like “but everyone else does that” and “at the meeting last Friday they definitely said that was right”. She also brandished various bits of paper (of obscure origin) at me showing ever increasing “recommended hourly rates”, when ultimately the rate was supposed to be something we agreed upon, based on what we paid her under her old contract.

On Monday she presented me with an amended version of our contract, which she had drafted, using the highest rate I’d seen to date. I went home and did the maths. And realised that she had managed to find an hourly rate which gave her exactly the same monthly salary as before, but paid over twelve months. A whopping € 700 per annum rise, equivalent to a month’s salary.

The panic attacks started again (and I’d only just thrown off the computer-related ones). You see, it’s a very delicate situation when you have to negotiate with the person who looks after the apple of your eye, in a city where demand for childminders far outweighs supply. On the one hand, she loves Tadpole and has been looking after her for almost a year and a half. Of the childminders we interviewed she was the only one we warmed to, the only one who seemed to genuinely love the children she helping to bring up. So we can’t afford to lose her. But, if we refuse to pay what she demands, there are ten children queuing up to fill Tadpole’s shoes. On the other hand, I do not want to be held hostage by this woman, who is seriously pushing her luck and, deep down, knows it. There are times when you have to stand firm, stay calm, and try to beat her at her own game.

On Tuesday I spent hours crafting the mother of all spreadsheets to demonstrate in the simplest possible terms (because she plays dumb, even if she isn’t) that what I was proposing to pay her was fair, that she wasn’t going to lose anything, but she wouldn’t be getting a huge pay rise out of us either. I also cast some doubt on her odd interpretation of the clause stating that her daily allowance (for food and equipment) was payable for each day the child was present. She had decided that this was payable for each day the child should theoretically be present. I had to spend a great deal of time hanging out on French nanny internet forums asking questions and sifting through reponses littered with an indecent number of smilies (there should be a legal limit in my opinion) and signed with hideous animated signature gifs to do battle with her assertion that “in the meeting that was what they told us to do”. A painful process, but one which eventually bore fruit as a member of the nannies’ union replied that what we were being asked to do was both wrong and illegal. I printed it out.

I took my sheaf of papers, asked her to look over my sums and played the role of ‘concerned mummy who is worried about putting something illegal in the contract’ . She promised to call her local representative to clarify a few points.

The next morning she backed down.

I still can’t believe I’ve managed to out-barter a North African nanny. But I’m left wondering what is the point of the unions thrashing out a collective bargaining agreement if the result is that we then have to go through a new round of bargaining of our own?

“Labouche”, says Tadpole, pointing at her mouth.

“Yes sweetie, it’s your mouth”, I say, in my best educational voice, showing that she is correct but that mummy has a different word for this.

“Mouth”, she repeats.

“Well done darling!” I say, thinking how similar child-rearing techniques are to those used by Barbara Woodhouse on dogs. All that is missing is a little dog treat to hand out as a reward when I say “well done!”, and possibly a firm, congratulatory pat to her rump.

It occurs to me that if I were able to train Tadpole to obey dog-training commands like “sit” and “stay” then I might be able to prolong my life expectancy by several years. At the moment, I get to see her life flash before my eyes several times a day. Every time she manages to work loose her hand and dart towards a car/bicycle/the gap between the metro and the platform my heart does a little somersault. Which can’t be healthy.

I don’t discourage her from bringing me my slippers when I get home either.

Dog tangent aside, what I have noticed about the way Tadpole acquires French language is that for her “labouche” is one entity. As are “lesoreilles” and “lenez” or “lafourchette”. Aha! So that’s how French people instinctively know what gender something is. They learn the gender and the noun as one indivisible unit of language from the beginning. And separate it all out later on. None of that puzzling over whether a table leg ought to be feminine or masculine, or trying to get their head around the illogical concept of a breast being masculine (le sein). I imagine it won’t be long before Tadpole starts correcting my gender bending tendencies. In fact, soon I will have my very own walking, talking dictionary.

Similarly, in English at the moment there are a few words that she never uses in isolation. “Hat” is either part of the phrase “haton” or “hatoff”. “Light” is “lighton”. Her lasting fascination for lights is actually getting quite tedious: almost every single shop in France has a neon sign outside the front of it, and Tadpole feels the need to point at each and every one of them to show me that the light is indeed on.

It occurs to me that I should probably curb my language a little going forward to ensure that she doesn’t pick up any of the following phrases and decide that they are indivisible language blocks:

“sillydaddy”
“soddingcomputer”
“bloodywashingup”
“evilinlaws”

I also hate VD.

One girl at my school, Z, received four or five anonymous cards, year in and year out. Along with several red roses and boxes of chocolates. She somehow managed to meet and go out with mysterious older men, in addition to holding most of the boys in our school year enthralled. I was sweet sixteen and still waiting for that elusive first kiss, which wasn’t forthcoming until I was almost seventeen. How insanely jealous I was of Z at the time: what was it that she had that I didn’t? How unreasonable of her to monopolise the attentions of at least five boys at once!

All I had come to expect from Valentine’s day was a Thorntons’ chocolate heart-shaped lollypop (anonymously posted with a Dundee postmark, where, by a stroke of coincidence, my father had been working the previous week.) And a feeling of bitter disappointment that there was no hopelessly romantic (New Order fan) and potential soulmate harbouring a secret crush on me.

Going through some odds and ends that I left at my parents’ house (safe from my own tendency to ruthlessly throw things away only to regret my haste once the dustbin men have been and gone), I happened upon three diaries written by a teenage petite. I re-read a few sample entries, cringing at the melodramatic tone, but strangely nostalgic for the intensity of adolescent emotions. I was also flabbergasted at how much I had since forgotten, given how earth-shatteringly important the events seemed to me at the time.

I re-discovered, for example, that when my first ‘proper’ boyfriend asked me out, he did so on the last day of comprehensive school before we left for Sixth Form College. The end of an era. Everyone was autographing one another’s school uniform shirts with felt-tipped pens and the large-nosed, undeserving object of my unrequited affections for the entire school year signed my white shirt, adding ‘will you go out with me?’ I let him sweat a bit, before adding ‘yes!’ in the space below. He walked me home after school that day. But I was too shy to let him kiss me straight away: embarrassed and worried that I’d be no good at it.

I turned my bedroom upside down after reading that entry, eventually to emerge triumphantly brandishing the shirt. There it was, written orange on white for the whole world to see. I’m amazed that I could possibly have consigned a landmark memory like that to my personal recycle bin.

I read on and learned that my first ‘proper’ kiss ever occurred in a graveyard, at night. I do have a vague recollection of a clumsy clash of teeth, tongues and noses, and that this occurred outdoors, but I had no memory whatsoever of that graveyard.

Which is why I’m consigning it to the interwebnet today, lest I ever re-forget.

As for Valentine’s day 2005, suffice to say that I received my Thornton’s chocolate heart (York postmark). And Tadpole even got one too.

I sent one of these. Can you guess which one?

A text message arrives from the babysitter in response to my grovelling apology for not having been in touch since December 2004. It is written in barely comprehensible teenage misspellt abbreviated stroppy French texto language. And all in shouty caps.

“JE ME SUIS BEAUCOUP INKIETÉ PASKE VS M AVÉ PA DONE 2 NOUVELES DEPUI LONGTEMP C PA TRÉ SIMPA KAN MEME JPENSé KE J AVÉ FÉ KELKE CHOSE BREF C OK PR SAM C KEL HEU”

High maintenance doesn’t even begin to cover it. I think I’d rather stay in than nurse her wounded little ego back to health via a series of 10 word text messages.

And all because the lady probably has her sights set on a new handbag and we haven’t been providing her with the means to purchase it…

I think it’s time for a change of subject as my google contextual ads seem to have become fixated on dating websites: www.meetic.fr, www.cum.fr (which I hope ‘comes’ from the Latin for ‘with’ and does not have any other implications) and even an ad for a site I didn’t click on which seemed to be offering to import Russian sirens. I derive no income from these ads whatsoever (27k page views with 8 clickthroughs = an astounding $ 1.85), but I do find the topic-matching mildly amusing.

Yesterday lunchtime I went to pay my respects to Mary Magdalene (aka The Holy Grail) in the underground Carroussel du Louvre shopping centre, as told in the gospel according to Dan Brown. I found it disconcerting, to say the least, that Jesus Christ’s spouse’s final resting place is located not 50 metres from Virgin records (which, incidentally, was my real destination, as I’m desperatedly seeking a protective sheath for my ipod).

The French Ministry of Culture - only to happy to cash in on the success of the bestseller - have agreed to authorise location filming in the Grande Galérie of the Louvre for the screen adaptation of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ to star Tom (last time I thought he was good, he was in ‘Splash’ and I was too young to know any better) Hanks as Harvard “symbologist” Robert Langdon, Audrey Tautou (Amélie Poulain) as Sophie Neveu and Jean Reno (Léon) as policeman Bezu Fache. I only hope Tautou is being paid an indecent amount of money if the script decrees that she must tongue Tom. The Catholic church, understandably less keen on Mr Brown’s work, have not given their permission for the Sainte Sulpice church to be used in filming.

“Da Vinci Code”, as it is called in French, (why not ‘Le Code Da Vinci’? Wake up immortels!) sold over 800,000 copies in France last year. The most pleasing description I came across of the book in a French magazine was: “Le Club des Cinq en Terre Sainte.”

Paris tour guides have found The Da Vinci Code a lucrative proposition: fans of the book seem to have an insatiable need to link the fiction to reality by making pilgrimages to the historic sites mentioned in the book. Da Vinci Code tourism is now big business in the City of Lights and is likely to go from strength to strength when the film version is released.

Paris Muse’s ‘Cracking the Code’ , for example, is basically a tour of the Louvre retracing Langdon’s footsteps in the company of “your own personal symbologist”, taking in the works of Da Vinci, paintings featuring Magdalene and goddess imagery in general. This “half day hunt for the truth” will set you back a mere € 110.

I think I’ll stick to the Famous Five. Anyone know where Kirrin Island is?

In the interests of preparing female readers for the inevitable harrassment they will encounter if strolling around the capital unchaperoned (or chaperoned only by a furry leopard), here is petite’s rough guide to common French chat-up lines.

“Vous avez de beaux yeux…”

The French equivalent of “Do you come here often?”. Although it might sound like a charming compliment the first time you hear it, it doesn’t age well. After about the twentieth re-run I found myself hard pushed to even muster up enough enthusiasm to bother responding with a sarcastic “Ah bon?”. However my real problem with this well-worn line is that the sleazy dragueur types using it very rarely look you in the eye while saying it. I don’t think I’m suggesting that the line should be changed to “what a lovely cleavage you have there mademoiselle. ” But a little eye-contact would be nice.

“Vous êtes américaine?” [or “suédoise” or “anglaise”]

Wrongly or rightly the French male seems to have the impression that all American girls are easy. So this line is likely to be delivered with a ‘hopeful’ intonation. Being more or less blonde (depending largely on the frequency of my visits to the hairdresser) and apparently non-French looking, I have been asked all of the above time and time again. The best line of defence seems to be to pretend not to understand a word of French. Either they give up, or the motivated ones start practising their dreadful Ingleesh on you. Which is likely to be good for a laugh if nothing else. And puts the dragueur at a distinct disadvantage.

“Vous avez une cigarette?”

Careful! There is nothing more bitterly disappointing than a drop dead gorgeous gentlemen requesting a cigarette, only to turn tail in disgust when no “clope” is forthcoming. Often French people who ask you for a cigarette are looking for just that: it’s a perfectly acceptable thing to do in this country. Similarly “vous avez du feu?” can be a genuine request for a light, or the oldest chat up line in the book. A vous de juger.

“Vous êtes charmante”

Thank you kindly. What a pity that you, Monsieur, are old enough to be my grandad and fug ugly.

Cutting through the Buttes Chaumont with the Tadpole - disguised as a leopard - I was surprised at how little reaction I got from passers by. You’d think that the sight of a toddler in full furry costume (you didn’t think I was in disguise, I hope?) complete with ears and tail would elicit some sort of positive response: a smile, a wave, a wink or a nod perhaps?

Nothing.

A couple of small children pointed. A gaggle of grumpy old folk did double takes, but without the merest glimmer of a smile. What a miserable lot. Instead of feeling rather proud of how cute my child looked and amused about the surreal quality of my walk home, I began to feel a little embarrassed that she had not been changed out of her costume.

“Vous avez l’heure s’il vous plaît?” called out a man loitering alongside the path, probably waiting for someone he was meant to meet.

“Oui, il est dix-huit heures moins cinq,” I replied politely after looking at my watch, which requires a manoeuvre of the wrist as it is kind of sideways on. Continental European that I am, naturally I use the 24 hour clock.

I realised that the man was also looking at my watch. In fact, all of a sudden he was uncomfortably close. And wearing a watch himself.

I’d fallen for the oldest opening chat-up line in the book. Now I’d have to tread the fine line between adopting a tone chilly enough to repel my suitor but not so rude as to rile a potentially barking mad and volatile stranger.

“C’est votre enfant?” he enquired, falling into step with the pushchair and I. I nodded, without making eye contact and accelerating my pace slightly, hoping that the fact of being a mother would prove to be enough of a deterrent.

“Vous habitez dans le coin?” he persisted, undeterred.

[Where on earth did he think this was leading? Do people ever actually say “yes, I do, why don’t you come back for coffee and some steamy extra-non-marital action while my daughter - disguised as a leopard - plays with her toys in the next room?]

“Ca ne vous regarde pas,” I replied firmly.

“Mais je ne vous dérange pas là ? Je veux juste discuter un peu,” he insisted. And there was me thinking I had made it perfectly clear that he was bothering me and I didn’t want to talk.

“Et moi, je veux rentrer chez moi, retrouver mon mari. Je ne veux discuter avec personne,” I lied through my teeth. About the husband bit anyway. Mr Frog is not my husband and wouldn’t be home for hours yet.

“Ah bon. Je vous laisse alors.”

Not. Before. Time.

I’m still amazed that he didn’t ask me why Tadpole was disguised as a leopard.

My Ipod is called Boris.

He is named after the ladybird in Paperplay. I couldn’t find a picture of him, so his playmates Itsy and Bitsy will have to do. All Boris requires now is a ladybird outfit. I particularly like the way a feather-light caress to his belly in the dark recesses of my pockets turns the volume up and down.

Now that the computer is restored to its original fantastic, if rather sonorous splendour and I’ve just about got to grips with XP, I can now waste entire evenings transferring rarely played cd’s full of Napster-era mp3s on to my new friend. With the result that this morning’s metro ride included a musical voyage down memory lane to my 30th birthday.

It was a bittersweet ride.

My thirtieth birthday was to be the last time I drank (home-made mojitos on this occasion) in almost two years. Only a week later I discovered that I was ‘with Tadpole’. It was the end of an era. The freedom I had always taken for granted was already slipping away from me. And as is always the way, it was never fully appreciated until it was lost. The freedom to go out after work on a whim to take in a film or have a few drinks or dinner. To indulge in a spot of retail therapy when I needed cheering up. To decide I fancied a DVD or a snack and just grab keys and coat and leave the flat. To hop on a metro with only the contents of my pockets for company. To discover previously unknown areas of Paris, stopping in a random café for brunch. To improvise plans with friends.

If you peel back the layers of enforced adulthood, responsibility and obligation, that carefree girl still exists somewhere inside. She doesn’t care about mortgages and job security and sorting out the nanny’s payslip (because the rules have changed. Again). She wants to throw caution to the wind and spend an indecent amount of money shopping; she wants to flirt and dance and get tipsy and turn the stereo up loud. She wants to be alone sometimes. She wants to fly away in an aeroplane and explore the world. And she comes alive when I put my Ipod on.

I can’t help feeling that Boris is just a little bit dangerous.

extract from petite30 playlist:

DMX Krew: Good Time Girl
Chemical Brothers: The Test
New Order: True Faith
DJ Rap: Good to be Alive

The CSA (French broadcasting watchdog), which counts among its missions the responsibility for protecting and regulating the use of French on television and radio, has requested that television channels make more of an effort to give their shows French titles. If an English title is used, the CSA recommends an accompanying translation into French.

This is the latest manifestation of a futile ongoing battle against la surabondance de termes anglais ou anglicisés à la télévision et à la radio. In the firing line are a whole host of mostly Endemol-produced reality TV shows with names like ‘Star Academy’, ‘Loft Story’, ‘Popstars’ and ‘Fear factor’.

Oddly these do not have the same English names as their UK/US equivalents. ‘Star Academy’ is known as ‘Fame Academy’ in the UK. ‘Loft Story’ was the French version of ‘Big Brother’ (after three seasons of ever-declining ratings the format was scrapped and consigned to the audiovisual graveyard, although Loana - the pneumatic bimbo who got laid in the swimming pool during the first week of season one - seems to be a permanent feature of the Paysage Audivisuel Français).

Are we about to see a new tendancy emerging in French programme naming - the Attack of the Colon? Star Academy: l’Ecole des vedettes? Fear factor: le facteur de la peur? An amusing article in Libération points out that the literal translation of “Loft Story’ would give us the following catchy title: ‘Loft Story: Une histoire de local a usage commercial ou industriel amenage en local d’habitation’.

Probably not. The CSA is not actually planning to use its power to sanction TV production companies who do not toe the line. TF1 have already made a statement to the effect that Star Academy, the show responsible for inflicting Jennifer and Nolwenn on the French pop music scene, will not undergo a name change.

The English titling phenomenon is not limited to made-in-France reality/junk TV shows. Quality programmes imported from the USA tend to be broadcast nowadays using their original titles. ‘Nip/Tuck’, ‘Six Feet Under’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’ (coming soon on Canal+) are examples which immediately spring to mind. Personally, I’m thankful for this, as if they had been renamed I probably wouldn’t have noticed they were on at all. It took me long enough to work out that ‘Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir’ = ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Deux Flics à Miami” = ‘Miami vice’.

If these programs had been re-baptised, I suspect the result would have looked something like this:

Nip/Tuck - Les Docteurs Troy et McNamara: chirurgiens esthétiques
Six Feet Under - La famille Fisher: entrepreneurs de pompes funèbres

Unimaginative indeed, but you only have to look at the number of French programmes in circulation featuring the name/job title of the protagonist in their title (’Les Cordier, juge et flic’, ‘L’instit’, ‘Navarro’) to see a pattern emerging.

The CSA is worried that the use of English words in TV programme titles devalues French language and culture, making programmes with French titles seem inferior or old-fashioned in comparison.

Personally, I can’t help thinking that the CSA is missing the point. Perhaps more attention needs to be paid to the quality of French TV production itself, and not simply the language of titles. Why are so many shows and reality TV formats being imported, I wonder? Could it possibly be *whispers* that home-grown productions are actually Not Very Good?

Yesterday was Chandeleur (fête des chandelles) in France, a date on the Christian calendar which translates as Candlemas in English. I know this only because a well-meaning colleague has brought a stack of crèpes and a vat of chocolate spread into the office this morning. I’m on my fourth. It is 11am.

I decided, between crèpes, that I ought to have a look on the interweb to see why I was being obliged to put my New Year’s resolutions on pause (again). This is what I found:

Churchgoers celebrate this originally pagan festival of lights by bringing a special, blessed candle home from Mass. If the candle remains lit all the way home, this is taken to be a good omen for the year to come.

Celui qui la rapporte chez lui allumée
Pour sûr ne mourra pas dans l’année

Crèpes are consumed on this day because according to old proverbs, this guarantees a good wheat harvest. Superstition also has it that if you hold a gold coin in your left hand while successfully flipping over the first crèpe it will bring you prosperity and good fortune. I’m not sure if a gold-coloured 50 centime coin would be considered good enough for this purpose, but in any case, I’ve missed the boat as far as this year is concerned. Probably a good thing as I imagine I would have spent a delightful evening scraping partially cooked crèpes off the kitchen floor.

Superstition and religious festivals aside, to my mind it would be more appropriate to rebaptise this ‘la fête du nutella’. Ditto for Mardi Gras (’Fat Tuesday’ where the French eat beignets and the English eat pancakes), which rather unfortunately (for my thighs) falls only a week later. Naturally I don’t observe Lent, which would help to make amends for all this gluttony, because I’m selective about which ‘religious’ festivals I celebrate.

Crèpes are one of those foods which I see primarily as a delivery device for naughtier things. Like popcorn, which I only eat for the salt or sugar sprinkled on top, or Pringles which are so much better with a dip. Sure, I could eat a crèpe with lemon juice, but where’s the fun in that, when I could be spreading several centimetres of chocolatey, hazelnutty melty goo on instead?

Fact: Nutella is sold in 3kg tubs. That should be illegal.

It occurs to me that I should have posted something especially for the folks surfing in from the bloggies site. Kind of a potted introduction to petite anglaise in 30 seconds. So, it’s a bit late in the day (voting ends tomorrow), but here is something I have cobbled together hastily as I rather unexpectedly got given work to do this morning.

Greetings! I bet you missed the very subtle link to my about this site page, located in the menu to your right. It has a blurred and slightly comical webcam shot of yours truly (not wearing satin pyjamas, but you only have yourselves to blame for that) and a smidgen of background information, should you want any.

Thirty two things will explain both why there are 32 things, as opposed to 100 or 56, and will give you a few more clues as to what I’m about. I’ve had lots of emails from boys who particularly liked number 17.

Below are links to some of my favourite posts:

• a post a day is about why I blog and what’s in it for me
• letter, is part of a three-post series on my search for my biological family (see post category: adoption)
• french kissing is about just that, but not with tongues
• métrétiquette is a part one of two posts on how to survive the Paris metro
• Wee Oui! is one of my posts on rearing a bilingual Tadpole (other posts about language and bilingualism can be found under the category ‘parlez vous franglais?’)

Question time:

I’ve never produced a FAQ because things tend to get answered in the comments box, but if you do have a burning question, fire away, today is your lucky day.

If there’s one thing that really makes me cringe, it is feeling obliged to pronounce English words with a French accent in order to make myself understood. I’ve been doing it with my surname for about nine years now. It never ceases to feel silly. It’s yet another reason why I’d quite like Mr Frog to pop the question someday in the not too distant future. (But not on Valentine’s day, obviously, because that would be nauseating.)

Last night, bad non-wife that I am, I sent out for pizza. When I got to the obligatory, non-negotiable dessert part of the order, I spied a range of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. And I was faced with a dilemma. How does one pronounce ‘Chunky Monkey’ in French? Or ‘Caramel Chew Chew’ for that matter? I’m guessing the latter would involve a ’shoe shoe’ because the ‘tch’ sound doesn’t exist in the French language. I opted for 500 ml of ’shunkay monkay’ in the end, cringing all the while, and sounding like Michelle from the British comedy Allô Allô.

I don’t patronise McDonalds very often, for precisely the same reason. I have been known to get Mr Frog to do my dirty work when a junk food fix is The Only Thing That Will Do. I challenge you to try and look someone in the eye and ask for ‘un ambourgeur’ or ‘un sheezbourgeur’ without blushing or smirking. But trust me, if you pronounce your order the English/American way, you are likely to end up having to repeat yourself, and you will inevitably end up Frenchifying it in the end, out of sheer desperation.

When I did my time as an English Lectrice at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, I remember finding it nigh on impossible to understand my students’ English when they tried to tell me about their favourite non-French pop star, or actor. The names of famous people, known the world over, get the French treatment to the point where they are completely unrecognisable. Meet Broooz Weeleez (possible anatomical abnormality?) and Tom Aunks (my least favourite actor and the person guaranteed, in my opinion, to make the screen adaptation of the Da Vinci Code truly unwatchable).

The French seem to be blissfully unaware of the fact that that their pronunciation of a person’s name or film title can actually change the meaning altogether. My favourite example of this is the computer game/film ‘Tomb Raider’. Oddly, this title has not been translated, as is often the case. Instead, the official French pronunciation is ‘Tomb Rider. I can never hear that without picturing Angelina Jolie surfing on a headstone in her slinky little outfit, pouting all the while with those luscious lips of hers. A nice image, but haven’t the French missed the point slightly?

Edit: there was a film title on the tip of my tongue all day and I’ve just remembered it. Speeederman. Sounds like he should be wearing speedos, non?