Lessons from B movies
*Never trust a man wearing a smoking jacket.
*Never trust a woman wearing clothes that look like they were made by a couturier. She is most likely a scheming hussy. Nice girls knit their own cardigans.
As taught by Brian McFarlane, co-author of this book. I want this book. And just for the record, I knit – so draw your own conclusions about my character.
Lawbreaker
Charles Bremner just informed me that I repeatedly broke the law in high school and onwards. By pilfering my father’s and brother’s closet and borrowing their clothes.
I quote: ‘France has never rescinded an old law that prohibits women from dressing in men’s attire without permission from Monsieur le Préfet.‘*
So will I get tackled next time I go through Customs to make up for years of civil dressing disobedience?
*Read the article here.
(And you can buy that pretty shirt here).
Tapenade
I would kill for a tartine of you tonight.
Of note, I am also in the mood for seriously kicking in the shins anyone who is nutty/deluded enough to add/advocate anchovies in tapenade*. And anyone who calls it ‘Olive pâté’ or ‘Olive paste’.
*But I probably won’t: I’m fairly non-violent, and too tired.
(Image from here)
Removing lentils and the art of being understood
There have been many things to adapt to for me since moving from France to Australia, and this is the beginning of an attempt to explain.
Some misunderstandings at our house are epic. Most of the time, Christian knows what I’m saying – I might construct my English sentences on a French grammar model, invert the order of things, use strange expressions, but he still manages to get my drift. He corrects my inversions, or sometimes yelps for mercy with a ‘That sentence was way too long!’, and explains for the millionth time that English is about brevity (I still don’t get it).
But one time, goodness, I innocently hit the cryptic mother-load and got a full minute blank stare with matching frown – by saying the most natural thing in the world to me: ‘I need to remove my lentils because my eyes are feeling really sticky.’
What do you mean you don’t understand lentils? Those transparent things you put in your eyes to correct your vision? And they get sticky at the end of the day, so that is when you take the lentils out?
Now he knows, so he is no longer concerned about my sanity when he hears me mentioning my lentils and my eyes in the same sentence. But he still reminds me they are called ‘contacts’ in English from time to time. I think he has disturbing mental images of me mushing legumes onto my eyeballs he’s not telling me about.
(Puy lentils – my favourite – from here)
The sun roulette
There have been many things to adapt to for me since moving from France to Australia, and this is the beginning of an attempt to explain.
I have horrified a few people here by confessing I don’t wear sunscreen everyday (or at all). In my mind, why would I since I’m not going to the beach? Ah, but because the Australian sun is harsher than the European one I am used to – one of my friends explained by comparing her skin with mine (mine supposedly ‘gorgeous European’ – what?! I think she meant pasty – hers tanned and freckled and ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie’. Tanned and freckled I tell you! Swap?).
I have had the spectre of old and sun-damaged skin dangled in front of me more times than I can recall by concerned friends in an attempt to scare me straight.
I have conceded by using foundation with an SPF8. Which is still such a bizarre concept to me (not going to the beach, remember!).
And since I don’t go to the beach, I don’t go in the sun (if you saw how vampire-pale I am it would be abundantly clear) I think it’s a safe bet I won’t turn into a sharpei by the time we move back to Europe. I guess if I do, the joke’s on me…
(Image from here, and pretty funny Obama dog options run-down to go with it).
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