BOG STANDARD

Last visit to France yesterday. It’s only a short drive up t’road and yet - as soon as you cross the border - you know it’s totally different from Spain.

How can you tell that you are in France? There’s the neat little villages with ‘over the top’ municipal flowers and the sexy language which involves moving your mouth into seductive pouts even if you are a disgustingly ancient pig farmer.

You find pavement cafes with indifferent service where rare and possibly extinct tracks by Peter Tosh or John Lee Hooker are playing. Then there’s the boulangerie where you buy a baguette that’s stale before you get it home and the person who serves you says ‘Au revoir m’d’m’m’sieu’ as though she’s talking to a two headed person.

You could weep when you see the slim women in tight coordinated outfits and the blokes with dark glasses and crumpled jackets looking so stylish and desirable.

But the picture above sums up what it really means to be French. After lunch in a rather posh restaurant in Amelie les Bains I sought out the ‘ladies’. That’s where I took the photo.

You would not see this nostalgic sight in Spain with their perfect ceramics and faultless instal.lacions (Catalan for installations).

French women, high heels, tight skirts …strong bladders.
KAZ