SNACK ATTACK - PART III

It is a strange feature of the French employment system that once somebody has been engaged for permanent work, it is almost impossible to get rid of them, no matter how terrible they are at performing their duties. Thus it was with some alarm that the future then husband and I met the new addition to the team of managing agents we had engaged to let out the apartment we had bought here in Nice.


This 'woman' (let's assume for the purposes of this piece that she emanated from this planet, and was not, as I really suspect, hatched in another universe) had a highly-memorable name.  I won't publish it here, but it contained both the word for a beautiful celestial entity, along with a very delicious liqueur. Thus, we'll call her Tia-Maria Seraphim.


The FTH (future then husband, keep up!) ambled into the immobilier one day in order to sort out some details relating to our property.  One employee was talking very fast into a phone, whilst the proprietor, JR, rushed towards the FTH looking worried.

'Monsieur, could you come back zeeze afternoon?  We 'ave a probleme a ce moment.'

The FTH's gaze wandered to the back of the office, and there sat Tia-Maria, seemingly on the floor, with her chin resting on the desk in front of her.  Was she in distress?  Was she cocoa; she was waving to everyone, a wide grin on her angelic face.

The pompiers were on their way, explained JR, they were having to close up for a while.

The FTH had no option other than to leave the place.  When he later returned calm had been restored, and there was no sign of Tia-Maria, who was doubtless in the back of a bright red pompiers van enjoying the dedicated attention of the hunky French resuscitation team.  

Subsequently, every other occasion we had cause to encounter (or tried to encounter) Tia-Maria was fraught.  She arranged to meet with us at an appointed time, but only appeared an hour and a half later, with no explanation for her extreme tardiness. We consulted her about an aspect of French property law, she burst out laughing in response. We began to think that a Tia-Maria by any other name would still be as inebriated...

One day a letter arrived in the mail.  It was from JR and was - as is the French way - a very formal apology to all his clients.  It ran something like 'the performance of late in our rentals department has not been of the level to which we strive, but this has now been dealt with.  From this moment forward I personally assure you that normal service will, once again, be provided.  Your new representative is Gaston Perriere-Wateur.'

So, somehow they'd got rid of batty Tia-Maria! [Do they still have the guillotine here???  Mental note to research.] But this is very rare. Frankly, many businesses would benefit more than a little with the ability to shove a few employees onto the plank...

...all of which brings me to the star of this part of the column.  Having lured you into a false sense of security with a tale of benign French eccentricity at its best, here now is something so horrific, so gruesome, you will be reading this page from the (comparative) safety of the space behind your sofa. (So that's where the sex toy went when Auntie Brenda came to stay. Knew you shouldn't have written to her asking if she'd packed it 'by mistake'.)

DRUM ROLL.  DUH DUH DUHHHHHHHHH  MUSIC.  LIGHTS. CAMERA. ACTION.

[Author of this blog starts to tremble]

Yes, it's the one, the only...Cruella Naziani!!!

Are you sitting comfortably? Well, you won't be in a minute.

Our story begins around seven years ago, when the FTH and I purchased our property in a lovely area of Nice.  (Not every area of Nice is nice. Which is why certain parts of it should be named Not Nice.) Naturally, we had to open a bank account to accommodate our mortgage payments, and one particular bank was recommended by someone who had nothing to gain, other than some large chunk of money for so bringing our custom to this establishment.

At the time of the completion of the purchase (buying places in France is a WHOLE other story) the FTH couldn't attend the ceremony to sign the forms due to work commitments, so we'd had all the relevant papers notarized - at great expense - so that I could sign by proxy the millions of sheets involved in the transaction on his behalf.

I came over for a few days with my friend Jamie.  She's a woman.  (I know you can't see from that angle).  We were driven to the bank - it's not the Banque Populaire, but let's just call it the Banque Unpopulaire - by the charlatan gentleman who recommended such a den of iniquity, whose name is Monsieur Swizzelle.  (Gosh, another coincidence!) Jamie and I were told to wait outside Mme Naziani's room, and she would, we were told, greet us very soon.  And greet us very soon she did.

Forget the Peggy Spencer formation dancing teams of yesteryear, Jamie's and my reactions were so in sync with each other we should have been sporting sequins we'd been up all night sewing on ourselves; for we both had a sharp - highly audible - intake of breath, and both moved backwards one step at the very same time.  (And plie!).  For there, standing in front of us, was...well, I don't think there's a word for it...

Cruella, an Italian, is around 5' 3", of stocky build, and was, on that occasion, wearing a tent fashioned out of shiny deckchair material (HUGE black and white vertical stripes), which sat on shoulder pads so enormous, a seasoned member of the All Blacks would have burst into tears if he thought he'd have to carry those around with him for an entire 90 minutes.

And her hair!  How can I describe her hair?  Well, just imagine a dead, petrified, sabre-tooth tiger, back-combed to within an inch of its life (yes, yes, I know it's already dead, the coroner ruled it was back-combed to death) on top of her head, fur fashioned at the front into a large, curved, upsweeping overhang so that she could eat a fromage et jambon baguette in the rain without any part of it getting wet.  The smart money invests in Elnet, folks.

To complete the look were   g  r  o  s  s  l  y   e  l  o  n  g  a  t  e  d   false eyelashes, so beloved of transvestite performers at Soho's Madame Jojo's, along with the talons of a somewhat mature Golden Eagle.  This, dear, frightened Reader, was the apparition that was confronting us.

It's a good job Jamie and I were offered seats, because we would have ended up sitting down anyway.  But worse (if there could be such a thing worse than this worse) was to come.

For Mme Naziani (40 years Unpopulaire service) was not satisfied with the notarized documentation that was completely acceptable for that well-known amateur set-up, the French Government, oh no.  She expressed complete horror that the FTH was not present, and told me she would not be able to open the account without first having clapped eyes on him.  This threatened to put in jeopardy the whole apartment buying thing.  I tried to explain, I cajoled, I almost begged, but she would only capitulate after she had spoken to the FTH on the phone that instant, and satisfied herself that he really, really fancied her.

[AUTHOR EXCUSES HERSELF TO DASH TO THE BATHROOM.]

The rest of our history, Cruella's and mine, is equally as bizarre.  I naturally went to the Banque Unpopulaire when I moved permanently to Nice and needed a current account.  She didn't order my Carte Bleue, which was supposed to arrive in 10 days, but which took 6 weeks.  (I was living in Antibes at the time, and made several useless train journeys before it became clear she was telling me lies about it having arrived).  And then she called me to tell me it really HAD arrived, so off I trekked to Nice from Antibes on a Friday afternoon.  Only Mme Naziani would not give me my Carte Bleue because my salary - paid to me by the Nice Chamber of Commerce, not exactly a fly-by-night outfit - had not yet arrived in my account.  I entreated her to call them on the phone - which she did, when they confirmed it really would be arriving in my account that very afternoon - but still she would not let me have the card.

No amount of explaining to her that I couldn't withdraw what wasn't in my account, now could I, persuaded her.  I told her I had 10 euros in my pocket to last me the weekend.  Still she wouldn't budge, and so I left the bank looking forward to a hungry few days.

A couple of hours later, well after the banks had shut, I noticed a missed call on my phone.  It was Cruella, who had left me a message shortly before the Banque Unpopulaire (hey, what an apt name!) closed its doors for two days, telling me that my money had indeed landed in my account, and if I could somehow get from Antibes to Nice in the ensuing 2 minutes, I could have my card after all!

There was my money, then, sitting in my account, safe from any untoward access from me.  How on earth was I supposed to buy a string of garlic to hang around my neck whilst burning an effigy of a short, podgy Italian bank woman with a back-combed lacquered dead animal on her head???

Other instances of appalling service include the time she called me on the phone at 3.30pm last Christmas Eve in order to bark: 'There is 30 euros in your account, 'ow you goin' to pay your rent on 1st January?!!!' I told her that she could undoubtedly see from the screen in front of her that my salary always goes into my account on 27th of the month. In England, Mussolini's Ugly Sister, the 27th comes before the 1st.

'Well, don't go overdrawn!' she shouted charmingly, before hanging up so swiftly she completely missed my entreaty for her to enjoy a lovely holiday period.

'appy Chreestmas.  (That was not the entreaty in the exact words I used).

The last straw was when she kept sending the PIN code for my online banking account to my UK address - where I no longer live! - instead of my Nice address (where I now reside!)  It took several, abortive attempts - in writing, sitting across the desk from her - for her not to remedy this.  


On one occasion I asked her on which date the bank statements were sent out.

'I don't know,' came the reply.  


She has worked in that branch for the past 40 years, and she doesn't know???

And so I wrote a letter of complaint to the bank manager (le directeur). He passed it on to Naziani, who sent me an indignant reply not covering at all the points I had raised, and extremely comic in its logic. (For instance, explaining to me that the law forbade her to open the bank especially for me on a Friday evening just so that I could collect my Carte Bleue.)

I wrote another letter to M. Manager, telling him I was extremely disappointed that he had not replied to me himself.  This he ignored completely.

A registered letter was duly received by Head Office in Paris, which demanded the 95 euros I had paid for a year of this sort of abuse (I may have been married 3 times, dear Reader, but I'm really not that masochistic) to be returned to me, and (eventually), return it to me they did.  Some 6 months after having first requested a PIN number for my internet banking account, it still has not arrived.  And so I have closed my account.

My passport is being renewed at the moment, meaning I cannot open another bank account anywhere else for the time being.  Which gives me time to think about where next I would like to take my overdraft.

I think the Bank Manager is scared of Mme Naziani. She has a big, big office, piles of assorted papers on her desk (probably torn out pages of Style magazines for the blind from the early 1970s), and successfully spends her days calling up lone women customers on Christmas Eve to shout at them for it being Christmas Eve. But she's been there 40 years, she can do what the SWEARWORDing well she likes.

Nor does it help that her English is appalling, and that she peppers her conversation to me with the word 'Missus', as a translation of the French 'Madame', which makes her sound like Les Dawson in a pinny, chatting over the fence to another man in a dress in a northern back yard.  Yes, it has comedic value, but she is a nasty piece of work. 

But she knows it doesn't matter.  The French Government is behind her (which is by far the best angle from which to view her).  

Here endeth my three part rant about having the temerity to be a customer who has the gall to offer  money to assorted businesses.  It's not smart, it's certainly not clever, but you do get a decent few posts on a blog from it.

***

No. of mad French women in Nice:  I don't have enough noughts to relate

No. of needles you can stab into an effigy of an ugly, ignorant, vindictive, Italian bank employee:  I don't have enough noughts to relate

No. of fishfingers 95 euros can buy you if you stuff your cash under your mattress for a year:  582    Surely a no-brainer.

SNACK ATTACK - PART II

There used a be a Japanese restaurant in Paris to which people flocked - and, indeed, queued up outside (not a French hobby, believe me) - every night of the week.  Great food?  Cheap prices?  Nope, they went because the serving staff were famously rude to the customers.

I went there once, when I was living in the city in my twenties, thinking the time spent outside waiting to get in was a good investment towards what was going to be a memorably miserable evening.  However, I was to be sorely disappointed:  the waiters were perfectly polite, and couldn't do enough for us.

(It now occurs to me to have asked for my money back).

When I was a Music student (piano and comedy violin, since you ask), I worked for two evenings a week in a Wimpy Bar.  (It's a burger establishment, m'lud, a precursor to the American brands which flew over the Atlantic and virtually wiped out the indigenous terrible food). Friday and Saturday nights, there you'd find me in the Woodgrange Road in Forest Gate, East London, clocking on at 5.00pm, clocking off at any time around 1.00am (having first scrubbed the concrete floors out the back).  I earned 50p an hour and could eat a meal every time I worked there; as much as I wanted (though not the desserts:  the rum baba was particularly forbidden. Which was a bit rum. If not baba.) And so, starting out on my penurious journey through life (Arts and Media won't always feed ya) I learned quickly: double Wimpy (think Big Mac), double chips, double anything else I could pile on the plate (those were the only two nights a week I ate anything.  But hey, I was suffering for my art.) It was quite a good way to feed myself, in fact.

We could keep the tips, but had to share them between all the waiting staff. I was usually on with another girl, a very lazy specimen, who had worked out that she still got just as much money as I did even if she sat on her fat **** all night, so that's what she did.  But she missed out on a lot of fun...

...for that Wimpy Bar was where I first developed my bantering skills. The locals were cheeky, and I gave back as good as I got.  They loved me, and once a table of young people all contributed to a HUGE gratuity - it was pounds, not just the odd 10p most people were in the habit of leaving.  (Which obviously delighted Fatso).  At least they enjoyed the verbal sparring, if not the food.

Anyway, I relate this here because I feel it's an extremely important thing to give good service to customers, whether or not you are being paid a pittance for your time (and which employment is delaying the third act of your next opera), whether you find your job demeaning, or whether the boss is shagging your girlfriend.  (Better than you do).  It's not the fault of the customer, and it's in everyone's interest for these customers to come back.  One would think.

This is a post of three halves, Brian.  Next installment of appallingly bad service (though not to do with food) is on its way...

***

No. of halves so far:  2

No. of calories Thursdays and Fridays:  48,759

No. of calories Saturdays through Wednesdays:  - 63

No. of Supersized waitresses:  1 (and it wasn't me)

SNACK ATTACK - PART I

When I lived in Brighton with my then husband (this was the last then husband, I have a pending then husband currently - oh, not to mention a then then husband...oh do sit up and concentrate for goodness sake! There's a test at the end.) Anyway, as I was saying, when we (whatever his name was, gets a bit confusing even for me) and our small child (who is still our child, only no longer small) were enjoying the seaside resort as our hometown, we went out to lunch one day on the beach.  

There are, of course, numerous eateries along the promenade, and we treated ourselves to fish and chips at one place, large enough to accommodate diners both inside, and outside at tables situated on the stones.  (Nice also has stones for a beach.  Go figure.)  We queued up for our food, and then, because the sun was shining (Nice also has the odd spell of sun, so come to think of it, I feel vindicated), decided to sit at an al fresco bench table.  Our son, Sam, was about 4 or 5 years old at the time.

We'd asked the person heaping crispy battered fish and steaming fat chips onto our plates for some ketchup, but he charmingly grunted they'd run out of sachets, so we tried to interest Sam in tartare sauce instead.  Well, I am a comedian.

However, once having seated ourselves outside, we noticed large plastic bottles of ketchup on the tables for diners under cover, so I walked into the room, picked one off a table (nobody was eating inside the restaurant), and carried the bottle out to my family.

Instantly a Very Offensive Woman Indeed ran over to our party and snatched away said bottle of ketchup, shouting angrily that THOSE BOTTLES OF KETCHUP WERE FOR CUSTOMERS SITTING INSIDE, and not for the likes of us, sitting OUTSIDE.  I think it's fair to say that our gobs were fairly smacked at this point.  We tried to explain that we had paid full price for the food and not the takeaway price, that it was resting on the establishment's crockery, and that our small son was plainly very upset that there had been no ketchup available.  To no avail.  And so we got up from the table, delivered the untouched fare to the serving counter and asked for - and received - our money back. Needless to say, we never ate there again.  (Technically an impossibility, I know, since we hadn't managed to eat there once.)

The other evening here in Nice I strolled along to one of the many restaurants along the Cours Saleya, home to the famous flower market, to listen to a couple of friends perform jazz for a few hours.    This is a regular gig and I'm there at least once a week, enjoying the music and drinking cheap, but over-priced (if you know what I mean) wine.  In fact, I have recommended the place to many others, publicizing it on a couple of social sites I'm involved with, and have met with friends for 'aperos' there on other nights when there is no live music provided.

The people I was with earlier this week split into various groups, there being not enough space to accommodate us all at a single table. We ordered drinks.  The other tables were swiftly served the usual complimentary snacks, but when our drinks came there were none to be seen.  Nor were we offered any the rest of the evening, even though every other table at the place was enjoying them.  As time progressed the people I was with were getting a little restive - not to mention peckish - so I asked our waitress, when we were ordering our 3rd round of drinks in the 2 hours we had been sitting there, if we could have something to nibble.  She was very curt with us and walked away, nose in the air.

After a while we reminded her, at which point the boss came over with a plate, setting it onto the table with a BANG! spitting an insult at me at the same time, whilst baring his teeth.  I said 'Monsieur!' and he immediately picked up the plate and took it away.  

I got up from the table (we were outside) and followed him into the bar, where I tried to engage him in conversation, but he would have none of it, even after several attempts on my part.  Nor would he let me talk to any member of his staff, whom he ordered to walk away from me whenever I was endeavouring to engage them in conversation.

So I said goodbye to the people I was with, threw some money down onto the table for my (nibble-free) drinks and stormed off.  Later on the waitress told my friends the drinks were on the house, and the next day one of the people at my table returned my money to me.

What does it mean when folk who choose to spend their hard-earned wages in a particular establishment (and there isn't exactly a shortage of places to drink in Nice) are regarded by les patrons as being completely beneath contempt?  

To be investigated further in Part II...

***

SUNDAY NIGHT, MONDAY MORNING

There's something about Sunday nights and Monday mornings.  When I was living with the Future Ex-Husband he invariably had a sleepless night before having to endure the heaviest day's schedule of the entire week.  And since I've been living in Nice, the 'Monday morning effect' has regularly given me reason to wish I could have stayed in bed until Tuesday afternoon at the very earliest.


I had quite a full day yesterday, for a Sunday.  I'd hosted an ex-pat coffee meeting in the morning (meaning I had to set my alarm and be down in the centre of town long before the last of the tourists were chomping on their chewy croissants, dressed, as these cheap travellers tend to be, in seasonally-inappropriate head-to-toe white linen). Normally the conversation flows easily at ex-pat events, but yesterday it was hard work, and I actually had to mingle more professionally than is often required, saving a succession of guests from the wit and wisdom* of one particular happy camper.  


Then a few of us sat at a local restaurant for a long jovial lunch, before ambling over to a small gallery, which was offering a display of giant colour photographs of A-List-famous jazz musicians, along with live music from a duo which included David Reinhardt, grandson of Django.  


A couple of hours socializing here (standing up all the while), and I was thoroughly done-in.  As were we all in my party; apart from my gorgeous American friend, Santa, that is, who instantly had men queuing around the block for a chance to chat her up.  (I told her she was being greedy, but did she share her conquests?  Did she hell.)


I somehow got myself home on my weary legs, cooked a simple supper, went to bed early and dropped easily off to sleep.


Yep, you've guessed it.  It was Movie Night in the bedroom next door! Don't worry about booking a seat, folks, you can enjoy it all from the comfort of your own bed!  All programmes start at 11.15pm or later!


I thought about banging on the wall, but - once again, like last time - I hesitated.  After five minutes, Monkey Woman (who was possibly still revising the colloquial English phrases I taught her last week) went into her bedroom and smacked her ignorant boyfriend around the head with a large haddock. (Well, a girl can dream.)  Off went the DVD.   But it had done its job well and already woken me up, so 1-0 to him.


Peace once again restored, though, I lay in bed inviting sleep to return.


Cue violent thunderstorm. Oh, and make it last an hour and a half. Thanks!


I got up and watched it from my living room window, which gives a floor-to-ceiling panoramic view of the area of the city in which I reside. Stunning, spectacular, SWEARWORD annoying.


Finally, finally, it blew over and I crawled back to bed.  It was 2.15am by now.  Down I snuggled under my (two) fluffy duvets.  


Visit her, gentle Sleep!
With wings of healing.  
And may this storm be but a mountain-birth, 
May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling,
Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth!

Cue Bin men.

For almost every night, the refuse collectors of Nice disperse across the city with their grindingly-loud waste-disposal vehicles and noisy conversation (they obviously have to shout at each other to be heard above the grindingly-loud waste-disposal vehicles) and this, now, was their time...

And so, I look like a panda this morning.  (It's my eyes, dear Reader, I'm really not clutching a pawful of bamboo to my bosom.)  

What do I have to do today?  I have to research material for three Health and Beauty articles. 

What will these articles say?  Yes, you've guessed it: forget drinking lots of water, eating organic produce and tiring yourself out naturally with daily gentle exercise, just down a bottle of plonk every night, swallow a fistful of sleeping pills and invest in industrial grade earplugs.  Invoice on its way, Melissa.

***

*  WARNING:  HEAVY IRONY

COMING SOON!

FISHFINGER NIGHT!

An evening in which various brands of battonets are enjoyed 
(or otherwise)

by a panel of selected experts (i.e. freelancers who can't always afford to eat real food).

Watch this space for their pronouncements on coating and crunch,

fish content and fingeryness.

(Chips optional).

***

RAMSAY STREET IT AIN'T

Monkey Woman came to my door last night.  And she wasn't looking for bananas.


Well, technically, it was this morning.  I was giving a small dinner party (that means not many guests, not a tiny plate with a single baked bean on it) for three middle-aged women.  Monkey Woman took exception to this.


How riotous can four Women of a Certain Age be?  


Mind you, a few years ago a group of us took a friend to Barcelona for the weekend as a surprise 40th birthday celebration.  (It was a surprise because she thought she was only 27).  There were 12 women in total, and we encountered all sorts of problems trying to book a hotel that would accommodate the entire party.  It wasn't a lack of available rooms, it was a prejudice against a giggle (rather than a gaggle) of 40-something females.  


Eventually we found an establishment that agreed to take the risk, and oh! What a total liability we were!  We visited the tourist sites, we spent money in the local shops, we ate out in nice restaurants.  We watched beautiful young people dance the tango on Las Ramblas, we took the tourist bus, we said por favor and gracias a few hundred times a day. Shame on us.


Anyway, back to Monkey Woman.  I think she was trying to get over to me that it's acceptable behaviour around these parts to watch VERY VERY LOUD sci-fi movies at one in the morning, with attendant SCREECHING FX and EARDRUM-BURSTING DIALOGUE, but it's a complete non-non to chat to your (three) guests - unaccompanied by any background music or one teensy little plasma blaster - in your own living room, which doesn't even share any walls at all with her cage. Hmm. Interesting concept.  Must ponder on that one.


Someone I forgot to mention the other day, in my post about the neighbours, is the woman in the apartment immediately above mine. She appears to be President of the Nice Women's Shouting and Stamping Society, in which role she is required, once a month, to host an evening during which assorted females all shout over each other for two hours before suddenly breaking into song (it's a bit like the Sound of Music, you're thinking), whilst accompanying themselves with out-of-time clapping and heavy clog stamping (it IS the Sound of Music!) rounded off with loud cheers in self-appreciation of their fine achievements.  This gaggle (and it IS a gaggle) generally dissipates around two in the morning (So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, piss off...) at which point the host's 8 year-old daughter runs around the un-carpeted floors in her mother's stilettos, whilst her mother is filling and running the dishwasher.  On the longest cycle.  


Meanwhile, in the street it's carnival time.  Our apartment block is situated on a crossroads.  Many of the tourist guides to the French Riviera have somehow forgotten to include information about the nightly competition to see whose in-car stereo can wake up the most people whilst sitting at traffic lights at 4.00am.   


Surprisingly, I don't see Monkey Woman taking issue either with Maria and the Von Trapps upstairs, or with these (entirely male) motoring enthusiasts.


Anyway, last night I endeavoured to interest her in the notion that turning the volume up to OVERLOAD when watching Demolition Man meets Robocop in your bedroom at one in the morning, when the person next door is sleeping, is perhaps not the best way to endear yourself to les voisins.  I then thanked her for her interest and wished her a safe passage back to her own front door.  Only being a writer, I managed to condense all of these sentiments into just two succinct words.


See what I told you?  A sense of entitlement.  Don't-you-know-who-I-am mentality.  And an appalling taste in movies.


(And yes, MW, your bum does look big in that tasteless dressing gown.)

***

F*CKING SHOPPING

I guess some of you have heard of Shopping and F*cking, the play by Mark Ravenhill.  (Get to the back of the class anyone who thought it was one of Brylcreme Br*an's.  Now.  And stay there for the duration of this column.  And stop doing that with your eraser. Thank you.)


Anyway, if I can continue, it's about consumerism, and uses violence and sex to illustrate graphically the moral paucity to which modern society has been reduced.


There are a few retailers in Nice who would do well to employ a little violence and sex from time to time.  It might help them elevate the quality of their service to customers.


Here's why.


Shopping in Nice (as you well know, I'm not qualified to talk about the other thing, thanks for bringing it up) is unlike shopping anywhere else on the planet.  You have to steel yourself mentally before you set out, harness your emotions and gird your loins.  (That is, if you can lay your hands on your loin-girders.  No idea where to get them here, don't think Galeries Lafayette stock them.)  For shop assistants - I'm sure they'd all prefer to be known as Executive Directors of Luxurious Style Advice (even for loin-girders) - are not only haughty, not only rude, but many have been trained to regard any potential customer as a downright thief.


Take my local supermarket, Intermarche.  (Please, take it.)  It's 30 seconds up the road and it's very cheap (well, according to the definition of what 'very cheap' means around these parts).  Hence, I occasionally frequent it.  (If you can frequent something occasionally). At other times, when I'm not sometimes going somewhere a lot, I avoid it.  Why?  Because life is already short and I don't like losing the will to live.


Should you happen to have gone into the store having previously shopped elsewhere, you have to hand over your bag to the woman on reception, who gives you a peg with a number on it.  This either gives you your bag  back when you leave, or a nice plate of ham, egg and chips. (I've eaten in Sainsbury's restaurants, I haven't always been exotic).


Should you go into the store with an empty bag with which to carry home your purchases, the check-out assistant (always a woman) will stick her whole head into it to see if you've not tucked away 10 kilos of potatoes, which you are endeavouring to sneak out of the place without paying for.


This is, to be frank, completely ridiculous.  For one thing, I can take in a giant satchel, large enough for me to sleep in if I get stranded miles away from home because of the SWEARWORD STRIKES, with enough pockets to accommodate under separate cover each individual potato from that 10 kilos.  Nobody looks into my satchel.


For another thing, there are no fewer than 24 cameras positioned around the shop floor, pointed down every aisle, around every corner of the place, with live streaming displayed on V  E  R  Y   W  I  D  E television screens to amuse you when you're queuing for HOURS AND HOURS because the check-out woman is too busy sticking her whole head down people's trousers.  (That'll be next, you'll see).


For another another thing, there are ENORMOUS BURLY SECURITY GUARDS watching your every move.  One guy, who must be 6'5" (that's actually his height, but it could also refer to the width of his shoulders) is particularly scary.  Once, having discovered what I wanted wasn't upstairs, but downstairs in the household section, I tried to exit through the way in, by the vegetables.  He was on me like a shot, despite me being dressed for summer  (no jacket), a teensy little handbag which couldn't even contain a single potato chip, let alone 10 kilos of potatoes, and no shopping bag.


'WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!'   His head was very close to mine, despite mine being a full 4' closer to the ground than his was naturally.


I told him what I was looking for.


'IT'S DOWNSTAIRS!' he helpfully advised me.  'DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!'


I didn't.  But nor do I go in there much any more.


(Another excellent reason for avoiding the place is the strange spectacle at public holidays.  And I do mean strange. I went in last Christmas to hear the most awful jingly Christmas music belting out from the speakers. I know all jingly Christmas music is awful, really I do, but this was of an awfulness only the French could inflict onto their thieves customers.   The 'music' was periodically interrupted by what sounded like a very drunk, over-the-hill comedian with a big nose (honestly, I could hear the big nose), burbling unintelligibly into a microphone with a deep bass voice, before manically laughing WITH THE MIC VOLUME TURNED UP TO DEAFENING.

'camionpoissonneriebroderieangliasexceptionnelAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAperpetuellementgrosseurantipeeliculaireboucleeAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....'

Whilst I've always worked in the 'out there' arts and media, dear Reader, I'm actually, deep down, a woman of sensitive erm, sensibilites, and I had a fairly sheltered upbringing.  This horrible assault on the ears - I used to play the violin, I know what a horrible assault on the ears is - was already putting me off my shopping.  But I wasn't prepared for what was to come...

...for at the back of the store, adjacent to the fresh fish fridge (I hope I'm never asked to read this column out loud) stood the man (big nose, why didn't you believe me the first time?) with a microphone in his hand, wearing one of those suits which made him look like he was riding an ostrich.

Why?

Why, why why why why?????)

At heart, I'm a Monoprix girl.  Monoprix is a shop not unlike the Co-Op in the UK, but it's a bit of a more upmarket brand, especially when it comes to food.  Monoprix is owned by Galeries Lafayette, the very upmarket department store similar to House of Fraser in the UK.

But grocery shopping there has its own pitfalls.

In the store on Jean Medecin, the city's main shopping thoroughfare, you have to walk past the fish counter to gain access to the rest of the food hall. It's where the Mona Lisa fish are layed out for inspection.  What's a Mona Lisa fish?  It's one whose eyes follow you around whilst you're wandering up and down the aisles. You feel their gaze on the back of your neck - and when you turn around accusingly, sometimes you just manage to catch their eyeballs guiltily darting away.  

Favourite place to shop?  My local market in the streets where I live.  Set up every morning apart from Mondays, the produce is straight from the farms, vibrantly coloured, mis-shapen (so you know it's real) and cheap.  You just grab a plastic bowl, fill it up with whatever you fancy and hand it to the stall holder, who separates the items, weighs them and stashes them in a bag for you.  I've never been ripped off in change, and nobody is ever dressed as if they're riding an ostrich.  

***

Boyfriends to go sh*pping with (what did you think I was going to say???): 0

Ostrich Stock Cubes:  679

Money off coupons:  0  (It's a blog, for God's sake!)