On French lessons

This year I am learning French.

I begin by buying the Michel Thomas Method box-set, he being the whisperer who taught the likes of Woody Allen, Priscilla Presley and Sophia Loren and who sounds exactly like David Suchet doing Poirot. His, he declares with terrific scorn, is a method with no homework, no memorising, no working things out before you speak. ‘You’re trying to remember again,’ he admonishes the student on the tape, who may or may not be a fake. ‘Don’t do that!’

By the end of the first session, you will be speaking full sentences in French, he promises. Yeah right, I think, while lying in the bath and exfoliating. But, lo and behold, I am! And not any old sentence either, but ones like, ‘What is your impression of the political and economic situation in France at the present time?’ (Of course, it’s not nearly so grand when you twig that almost all of those words are the same in French as in English.)

Présentement, I find I must use my new tongue in conversation with an actual French person and not my own feet: I need to phone a lawyer in Paris and ask him a question. I dial the number and say, in French, ‘I would like to speak to Monsieur Lesbancs, please. My name is Louise Candlish and I am calling from London.’

Well, it sounds so cool. Properly French; no stumbling; no illicit trying to remember. Then the person on the other end speaks back. Naturally, I don’t catch a word of it. I repeat my opener, she repeats her gibberish. I giggle. And so we reach the flaw in every language-learning system: since you can’t understand a bloody word of what people say back to you, wouldn’t it be more honest to admit your incompetence up front than to hoodwink natives into believing you are fluent?

Sadly, Michel Thomas died in 2005 and is not able to answer this question. Perhaps I’ll see if Woody, Priscilla or Sophia ever got to the bottom of it.

First published in SW magazine, January 2012 issue

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New cover, new setting

I’m excited to be able to direct you to amazon for a first view of my next book, The Day You Saved My Life, published by Sphere in July. The tiny little Eiffel Tower on the cover will give a clue as to the setting. (Or is it, as my eight-year-old daughter suggested, the transmitter at Crystal Palace?)

Now, perhaps I should have done this before writing the book, but I have recently decided to learn French. Coming next is the column I wrote about the experience, or I should say the beginning of the experience because the sorry fact is I have not learned very much so far. Oh dear. Tant pis. (I remember that one from school.)

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All I want for Christmas…

Here is my latest column for SW magazine. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight I would also like the end of the Euro crisis and shelter/fresh water for all, but at the time of writing what I mostly wanted was a bike…

“So, all I want for Christmas is a Pashley. Actually, I’ve wanted one forever, this being the quintessential bike and me liking quintessential things, but this year I’m not going to send letters to Santa or leave brochures in briefcases (do women do that anymore? Do men still have briefcases?). I am just going to go out and buy it.

‘How can you afford it?’ Andrew asks. ‘Pashleys are expensive and we’re still in a recession.’

‘I’ve had a tax rebate,’ I say. ‘I didn’t earn enough money this year.’

‘Hmm. Is that not a sign that you should be spending less money, not more?’

‘No, it’s a sign that buying anything but the best is a false economy.’

‘That old chestnut,’ Andrew sighs. ‘Well, at least try out some other sorts of bikes as well, eh?’

(The more longsuffering among you will remember this sort of nonsense from when I bought my car.)

And so I visit a friend in Surrey who owns three bikes, including a Pashley (outside London there are such things as ten-bike families). First she wheels out the other two, a road bike and a day bike, whatever that means. The road bike I don’t even mount since I’m not attempting the Tour de France and, frankly, the day bike feels ‘road’ enough, like my bottom is higher than my shoulders, even though it isn’t. I just know if I get a bike like that I’m going to ride into a canal or something.

Then the Pashley, a red Britannia, complete with lovely antique leather saddle and wicker basket. It just feels exactly as a bike should feel. More like sailing than cycling. Like you must gather children around you and glide through rural France singing your little heart out. Jules et Jim, The Sound of Music: all of it.

‘What’s the verdict,’ Andrew asks, when I get home. ‘Are we all getting Pashleys for Christmas then?’

‘God, no,’ I say. ‘They’re far too expensive. Only me.’”

First published in SW magazine, December 2011 issue

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