We all have those moments when we really would like the ground to open up and disappear us whole! Well, I do, at any rate, with alarming frequency…
My latest was earlier this month in Paris, where I had gone to receive my award, Le Prix Coeur Noir. I was staying at the Plaza Athénée – one of the very best hotels I’ve ever stayed in. I liked it even more than the equally eye-wateringly expensive George V Four Seasons, because it feels more French, more Parisienne, whereas the Four Seasons, although wonderful, and very, very sharp, feels quite international.
Helen had given me a hand-held GPRS for Christmas, for use on my bike in London, and when in unfamiliar cities. So I decided to try it out in Paris, setting the hotel as my “home”, I went off for my morning jog. When I was about two miles away, I pressed the “home” button, to see if it would guide me back OK. Because of the heavy morning rush hour traffic I turned the volume on the machine up to max, then zipped it into my tracksuit pocket.
It worked brilliantly, shouting instructions to me every few minutes and delivered me back to the hotel’s front door. I entered the lobby and then the incredibly smart “salon” – a long, beautifully ornate room, lined with tables on either side, at which equally beautiful, ornate Parisiennes were having their breakfasts. I was halfway down the room when a voice from my pocket shouted out, loud enough to silence the entire salon: “MAKE A U-TURN”
As I desperately fumbled with the zip, which, typically, had now jammed, the infernal machine bellowed out: “IN ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YARDS TURN LEFT.”
I now know what the French for “wanker” is. They don’t even speak it, they just say it with their eyes…