1.) Local French roads are the maddest thing ever. The French seem quite happy to spend hour after hour whiling away time in local traffic jams on the N and D roads (the equivalent to our A/B roads) when there are perfectly acceptable old roads that will get you there quicker by virtue of being empty. They have a definite herd mentality.
2.) Bar service is frankly appalling. In Spain a waiter will whisk his or her way over to you, take an order, whizz it back and then give you an option to pay then or later. In France its a case of get to the bar you lazy bastard (like we do in jolly old Angleterre of course), or eventually a waiter may wander over after finishing his Gauloises and chatting on his phone, take your order with a 50% chance of getting it right and then take the money on delivery. I thought "manana" was a Spanish thing, but the French seem to do it with a more laissez-faire attitude if thats possible.
3.) Rap - if you thought the centre of world rap was new York, think again. This appalling drivel fits the French language perfectly and there is barely a radio station or car full of French "yooves" that isn't pumping this bollocks out all day and night. Oh yeah, and the french youth, unlike its UK counterpart, hasn't worked out that driving down the road pumping out bollocks music with the windows down makes you like like pricks and not like fanny magnets.
4.) French motorways - a weird one this because they will also feature in the things the French do well. For the first 2 or 3 Saturdays of August France adopts a collective holiday madness whereby the North departs to the South. How the country doesn't tip up I don't know. Anyway, the point is this, the motorways which function excellently all year round suddenly clag up and the exits/entrances are to blame. Some of the peage points have 50 toll booths spread across the road, but at holiday time they have to deal with thousands and thousands of cars, manned by idiots who don't have the right money or are completely incapable of using an automated debit/credit card system which takes around 7 seconds if you're prepared....peage ticket in, debit card in, press receipt button, drive away.....just how fucking hard is that?. Its a bottleneck and there's no way round*
*Unless you have Sat-nav with Trafficmaster....in which case my advice is learn to trust the bloody thing and not ignore the polite woman who says "there is stationary traffic on your route", kindly works out a detour which you then ignore and then silently fume over for 2 hours! It was a lesson I learnt very quickly and now Sally (as my Sat-nav is affectionately known) rules the cockpit. Her advice is unswervingly right every time even if some re-routes require a leap of faith.
5.) French signposting - a complete and utter fucking waste of time. Utterly untrustworthy, utterly confusing and mostly utterly missing.
6.) French children, from baby through toddler until about 8 years old - noisy, screaming, shouting annoying little bastards who despite the lack of E numbers in their diet seem to be on a permanent sugar rush. And yes, I am getting old but the days when a screaming nipper filled me with delight went out the window the day that Baby grew up.
7.) Dog shit - a plague upon France for her peoples total acceptance of dog shit on grass verges and some pavements. Now I know some ignorant gits in the Uk are the same, but in some towns and cities, despite valiant efforts by the local Mairie office to supply turd-bags on lamp posts there is a mentality that says its OK to allow their frankly annoying yappie little Fou-Fou's and Fi-Fi's to lay a steamy whipper wherever it fancies and leave it there until SOME UNSUSPECTING HAPPY TOURIST WEARING LONG BAGGY TRENDY JEANS WITH HIS FAVOURITE TRAINERS STEPS INTO IT AND DOES THE RIGHT FOOTED DEATH SLIDE AND TRIES TO MAINTAIN BALANCE WITH DIGNITY WHILST NOT ENDING UP SITTING IN THE PILE WHICH QUITE FRANKLY SEEMS BIGGER THAN THE FUCKING YAPPIE LITTLE KOREAN DELICACY THAT LAID IT!
Oh yeah, one was even laid on the grass verge outside The Money Pit as well....good job I never caught them because I'm not sure how a Stamford Bridge kiss would help the "entente cordiale" when combined with their dog being thrown on my red hot barbecue coals.
However, when one compares this to some of the good things then maybe the good outweighs the bad. Coming next..........
Later, Grocerjack
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