The One Thing: I Have Stockpiled this Cleanser and Je Ne Regrette Rien

I’ve been in Paris recently, which means I’ve turned into one of those unbearable people who pepper their sentences with Franglais. There’s nothing more enjoyable than wheeling out your GCSE French thirty whole years after you last properly spoke it - what an enormous sense of satisfaction to be able to creak open the coffin in your mind that contains all of the things you studied for years and never again used. The only thing that would feel more elating, I think, would be if I was attending a woodwind recital and the lead collapsed and they put out a call into the audience for “somebody, anybody who could possibly be able to step in and play London’s Burning on the descant recorder?”

I’d be in my absolute element. Anyway, until then:

Ou est la bibliotheque sil vous plait?

Absolutely bloody marvellous. I had a good conversation with the driver of the blacked-out Sprinter we were being shuttled around in, like VIPs, his side of the chat going pretty deep into things like (I think) the tragedy of the Notre Dame fire, new Parisian parking restrictions and something to do with vineyards and global warming. My side of the chat focusing almost solely on directions and items of furniture.

Allez tout droit! Il y a cinq chambres dans la maison, trois avec un lit!