Friday, February 11, 2005
Had Raclette last night at a French couple's house. Amidst all the communal jollity that such a meal often promotes, I found myself turning to the good lady and remarking in a purposefully loud voice 'God, first they invite us round for dinner, then they make us cook it ourselves. We've been had'.
And just as soon as the first words had left my brain, travelling down to the arse to pick up some baggage and then on towards the mouth, I began to realise the folly of such a joke. Not only was I deliberately misunderstanding the whole process and abusing their hospitality, i was committing the oldest of errors: a joke that must've been cracked a BABABILLION times before. To give you a more universal example, imagine sitting down tonight with some friends and playing Monopoly. Then, in the middle of an inventive and hilarious exchange of conversation someone at the table implores you all, in a revelatory voice, to 'imagine all this money was, like, REAL'.
So I did that, only with French people and their food.
And wouldn't this story be much more entertaining if...
a: JonnyB had written it
b: they'd looked at me and in all cruelty asked 'why, what on earth do you mean?'
c: i'd immediately shat my pants and was forced to do a famous Rabbi Dance as penance for dropping my cheese into the fondue
But instead, I have to relate in a surprising and entirely self-aggrandising way that I had the stunning good fortune to have picked probably the only two people on earth never to have been confronted with such a tired, weak joke. They laughed and didn't think any more of it. I was so shocked, even disappointed that I hadn't made such a twat of myself, that I even asked them 'isn't that the oldest joke in the book? havent people in the Savoie been making that joke for about 600 years?'
'No'
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And just as soon as the first words had left my brain, travelling down to the arse to pick up some baggage and then on towards the mouth, I began to realise the folly of such a joke. Not only was I deliberately misunderstanding the whole process and abusing their hospitality, i was committing the oldest of errors: a joke that must've been cracked a BABABILLION times before. To give you a more universal example, imagine sitting down tonight with some friends and playing Monopoly. Then, in the middle of an inventive and hilarious exchange of conversation someone at the table implores you all, in a revelatory voice, to 'imagine all this money was, like, REAL'.
So I did that, only with French people and their food.
And wouldn't this story be much more entertaining if...
a: JonnyB had written it
b: they'd looked at me and in all cruelty asked 'why, what on earth do you mean?'
c: i'd immediately shat my pants and was forced to do a famous Rabbi Dance as penance for dropping my cheese into the fondue
But instead, I have to relate in a surprising and entirely self-aggrandising way that I had the stunning good fortune to have picked probably the only two people on earth never to have been confronted with such a tired, weak joke. They laughed and didn't think any more of it. I was so shocked, even disappointed that I hadn't made such a twat of myself, that I even asked them 'isn't that the oldest joke in the book? havent people in the Savoie been making that joke for about 600 years?'
'No'
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