What’s French for ‘baguette’? I don’t know neither. Not that good at languages. Only Inglish. Fucking great at that I is. The rest? Don’t care. Don’t need ‘em. Cos really, Inglish is the only language you ever need, even when traveling the world. That and a bit of French- mime. I find that if you speak English to a foreigner and they obviously don’t speak the language, just speak it again but much louder and it’ll be fine. It’s a volume issue, not a linguistic one.

And that is actually true. That English is pretty much the only language you ever need. The only places where it becomes difficult are America and Australia, because they speak languages known only to their indigenous peoples. Airlines and flight controllers use English, The Queen uses English, I do, Lila does, kind’a, so that’s it really, the world is coming to the point where you really don’t need other languages.

Except in France. Quel surprise, non? Where they are really… really… ‘territorial’ about their language. They always have been. And yes, it is a beautiful language, never more beautiful than when flowing from the sumptuous lips of a Bardot (back then, obvs, wouldn’t listen to her tell me the time now) or a Leah Seydoux, all pout and pant. Such a beautiful language that from those lips it is something akin to aural copulation but I don’t wish to stress this too far.

The point is that the French passed a law in 1994 (they love a law over there, can never have too much bureaucracy or legislation for that nation) stating that all adverts, company names, anything vaguely ‘global’ (read: ‘English’) must have a French translation. Because words and phrases like ‘fast food’ had entered their vernacular in a most un-French way, ruining an entire generation!! Forever!!!! And now they’ve announced their new logo and phrase for the 2024 Olympics to be held in Paris and it reads: “Made for Sharing”. Which Macron, quite rightly, thought sounded like an ad for a pizza. A big one. And, like me, the little Napoleonic shit probably don’t share. So he’s annoyed that the phrase is in English as well as pretty stupid. But it has to be in English because the Olympics is International and as 98% of the world speaks English to some degree, why would it be in any other language. ‘Hon y soit qui mal y pense’ is just bollocks. ‘A la recherche du temps perdu’; good book (once translated) but you wouldn’t wanna use it as a name for the Olympics.

But the world is more and more globalised because the online bit of it, where most kids live, has no borders. Like Ireland. Currently. And is truly international and to the horror of Macron things like ‘BFF’ have entered France without a license.

Let them eat gateaux.

Happy Monday

A xxxx