My name is.....

DD called me from her school trip to Arcachon where they eventually arrived. The coach, booked to leave collège at 6.45am on the dot finally showed up at 8.15am. I'm soooo glad I got up at 5.30am so she'd get there on time. She's having fun, having climbed up and rolled down the Dune de Pyla several times. This is the biggest sand dune in Europe.




They are staying at a place run by the nuns of St Vincent de Paul and so far haven't been beaten (as I told her they would be) or fed drugged spaghetti bolognaise (as DS told her they would be). When he stayed there he said they were given the most disgusting spag bol ever but they couldn't stop eating it. Proof positive that it was drugged apparently! She also reports that the nuns liked her nun jokes.

"Which ones did you tell them sweetypie", I asked nervously.

"Just the 'what goes black/white/black/white/black/white? A nun rolling down a hill. What goes black/white/haha? The nun that pushed her' one. "

Oh god, she's clearly inherited her mother's predilection for inappropriate comments! I can't pass a nun without swearing or blaspheming, neither of which I normally do. It's just something about being in the presence of one that sends it spouting forth from my mouth.

And not many can claim to have insulted a veritable British institution. I remember having lunch in the restaurant at Shepperton Studios while a certain Michael Caine was filming the Muppet Christmas Carol.

"God, how far has his career gone down the toilet? He's reduced to acting with puppets!" I pronounced loudly, swinging back on my chair and catching the one of the man sitting behind me.

"Oh, sorry.............Mr Caine"I apologised, red faced, and withered ever so slightly under the force of his glare.

"Do you think he heard me?" I whispered to my fellow diners.

They nodded in unison.

The Future belongs to ME! (apparently!)

6.30am saw me standing in the college playground waiting with DS, who is off on a school trip for two days. 6.30am is not a time that I usually see, except from underneath my duvet, or more likely underneath a cat which is asleep on my duvet, which is on me.

6.30am is also not a time that I find speaking any language, never mind French, an easy task but nevertheless, I found myself standing with one of the French Papas doing my best to get my half-asleep mouth around my vowels and my somnolent throat around the odd rolled 'r'. He was talking to me (and one of the other English mums) about carbon neutral insulation, and low CO2 boilers. This is a conversation I would struggle to have mid-morning after a healthy 8 hours sleep, never mind after about 2 hours at 6.30am. I have vague recollections of the mention of 'poil' (fur or hair) and Swedish boilers. Maybe someone call fill in the missing bits for me.

He did kindly e-mail me an old French proverb this morning though

L'avenir appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt!

Mais aussi:

L'avenir appartient à ceux qui ont des ouvriers qui se lèvent tôt!

The future belongs to those who get up early (that'll be me then!)
but also:
The future belongs to those who have workers who get up early (OK, OK, I'll share!)

J, the papa was obviously in philosophical mood as he cast his eye over the group of 11 and 12 year old children. 'This is the future of France' he said. McDonald's will be pleased, I thought. So many to choose from! We all know that égalité (equality) doesn't really exist in France except in the minds of the Government who force feed it to the proletariat in the hope that they won't notice that a ruling élite is still being groomed in the Grands Ecoles of Paris. Ooh er! What's happening to the Capitalist in me? That's sounds vaguely left wing to me!

One thing that will be different for them is their language. The Robert, the French version of the Oxford English Dictionary, has changed the spelling of over 6000 words to reflect modern usage and to simplify it for people learning French. From now on, foreign words which have entered the French language like Pizzeria and Kebab (see how international our cuisine is!) can now be written with an accent over the e (pizzéria, kébab) to frenchify them. Well, I guess if you can't beat em, join em! The Académie Française, charged with maintaining the purity of the French language, has long resisted the introduction of foreign words without success. So, if you can't get rid of them, make them sound French and everyone is happy.

From now on too, mots composés, words that are made up from two words joined together, like 'porte-monnaie' and 'pop-corn' can be written with or without the hyphen and words like 'évènements' (events) a long-time bête noire of children's school dictées (dictations - yes, they still do them) can now be written as it is pronounced 'événements'.

The media is in uproar, the comments page on Le Figaro's website has nearly 300 comments and climbing, most of them saying things like 'un nation de crétins' (a nation of cretins - doesn't really need a translation does it!), 'changer votre Robert pour Larousse à cause de trahison' (change your Robert for a Larousse (another dictionary) because of their betrayal), 'Paul Robert doit se retourner dans sa tombe' (Paul Robert must be turning in his grave), 'M. Alain Rey devrait prendre sa retraite. D'urgence.' (Alain Rey, the editor of the dictionary, should retire as soon as possible). He's also a gauchist apparently so that's why he's singlehandedly trashing the French language. Well, not quite single-handedly (!) as it appears also to be the fault of the presenters of the weather forecasts and of ex-footballers who've become sports commentators. Many commentators (as in those that comment rather than the commentators themselves . Boy can you tell I had an early morning!) believe that their prononciation of the language is so poor that the youth are starting to write phonetically. Oh, and don't forget texting!

Probably not the right time to remind them that up to the 17th century they spoke Latin in France.

Quisquis!

Personally it doesn't go far enough for me. When I'm President I shall dispense with all tenses except present, future and past - I mean, do you really need a whole tense just for the written word? How greedy is that! All nouns will take 'le' and there will be no agreement with nouns - no, not even if they go on strike. Better still, I'll make them all speak English.

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