The three most depressing words in English

I was awoken yesterday morning by That Nice Lady Decorator swearing at the bidet. “Bidets”, she announced loudly, almost as loudly as she had proclaimed the music at Jimmy’z, the uber trendy nightclub in Monte Carlo be “shit” the night before, as we sought a taxi outside this swanky establishment , “are for the French to wipe their arses”. So that’s settled then, now I know for what they are used. They are rare now in England but alive and well and still satisfying French posteriors as we live and breathe.

Her point was that it took up useful space in the bathroom of our billet at the Meridian Plaza hotel in Monaco, where we stayed on Saturday night. We left the Principality under glowering skies, and, by the time we reached Nice, rain, and in a classic example of role reversal, arrived in the afternoon into Gatwick in bright sunshine. The terrible weather on the Côte d’Azur is beginning to worry me. I shall expect it to have improved significantly before we next venture down there later next month for Otway The Movie and the Cannes Film Festival.

I heard yesterday that the three most depressing words in the English language are “bus, replacement and service” and I can tell you that any good will towards other men generated by some sunshine, a couple of Bloody Mary’s and the sabbath evaporated as soon as I was to encounter this wicked triumvirate. Track repairs were to blame but it never seems to happen on the continent, where there are at least as many miles of track, that the whole rail network is replaced by buses every weekend. Why is it that in the UK, just when I want to travel somewhere on a Sunday, that god decides deliberately to impede me from so doing? Would it make any difference if I promised to go to church? So, after travelling over 2000 miles for a party at the weekend, we were subjected to a bone rattling uncomfortable journey down utterly unsuitable country roads in a scabby bus. It may have been a little less hard to bear had it been 9 months hence as I believe I may have been the proud holder of a free bus pass, in which case It would have been a delightful free journey through the picturesque Sussex countryside. Come to think of it though, I had already paid for a rail ticket so in fact I would have been even more disgruntled, if that would have been possible.

South Downs at Kithurst Hill

Regular readers may recall my coverage a couple of months back of a mythical city twinning between a town in Texas and a town in Switzerland. Happy and Wankdorf would seem to go err…hand in hand so to speak, and so I was happy to get an email from the lovely willowy Leslie (Poly) Bufton, currently touring Sardinia with husband Roly (well, touring its periphery) in their fab boat. They made contact from a Sardinian town called Buggerru where she said she had thought of me. She suggests that a good cultural twinning with the town where she was might be with Longdong in China, but I think perhaps the town of Arsebandit in Patagonia might be more appropriate. Anyone out there have any further ideas?

More bright sunshine is promised today and the omens are good. I have just looked out of the windows and it is sunny so I think we are “omen dry” for a stiff walk up the hills of Sussex to begin to shift the effects of some very rich food and drink in Monte Carlo at the weekend. I feel that then I shall be sufficiently refreshed to delve once again into the world of rock and roll and foreign exchange. Currencies Direct does exactly what it says on the tin.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News