Food – English Vs French

As the millions of you who regularly read my blog will know, I visited my aunt who lives in Broadstairs, last weekend. We ate out 4 times during that period and it gave me a perfect platform to compare English and French restaurant food.

On the Friday lunchtime we all met at a Harvester which was located just off the main road into Broadstairs. I used to be quite a fan of these chains so I knew what to expect. Despite the fact that it was lunchtime and they were busy with reps and office workers having an end-of-week lunch, they still had an ‘early-bird menu’ which was fine by me as one of the items was a cheese-bacon burger and as I hadn’t had a decent burger in quite a while, I looked no further. My brother had a pasta dish as did my cousin. I can’t remember what my cousin’s husband had but as this is my food comparison, that’s not too important.

The burger was – well just ok. Nothing special but not bad value for £6.50. It came with fries and an unlimited salad bar so all in all it was quite good value but of course, the restaurant itself was just like any other Harvester and had no atmosphere whatsoever.

On Friday night we went into a small village called St Nicholas At Wade, not more than 5 minutes drive from Birchington where my cousin lives. The Bell Inn looks like a million other small village pubs which do food and inside, it’s just like a million other English village pubs which do food – no surprise there. We had a semi-private room which was nice but unfortunately, the food was average – well mine was. I chose the Steak and Ale Pie, which when presented to me looked great. That is until I took off the puff pastry and had to search for the steak! It was served with chips – and that’s it. Just a half-empty (no I’m being generous – a 2/3rds empty pie dish) and some soggy chips. My brother had chosen the Paella for One which is quite unusual (it’s normally served for two) and had just started it when my cousin Sue, decided that her Crispy Fried Beef was actually, Well Dried, Crispy Fried Beef. Being regulars they didn’t want to complain and neither did Robert as we were guests but we did tell the waitress later on it was ‘not very nice’. At £13 it was a poor deal.

On Saturday lunchtime we were in Broadstairs itself and there was no lack of sea- front restaurants but Sue had booked one she’d wanted to visit for a while (Posillipos – see URL below). I have to say, it was the best meal of the three we had, by far. I had chicken wrapped in ham and at £11 it was a good price until I realized that nothing was served with it. Robert and Sue had linguine with sea food (Sue’s is pictured above) and it was all delicious. I tried to get my brother (a real sea-food fan) to order the Sea Platter for Two but I think he was deterred by the price (£36) and the fact that we might all think he was just a fat git who could eat two lunches!

On Sunday I was desperate for some traditional roast-beef and we returned to the Bell Inn on the basis that if any pub within 50 miles cooked a roast-beef lunch then the Bell Inn would be it. We were in luck, with a choice of beef, lamb or chicken. Luckily my roast beef came with all the normal bits and pieces including two Yorkshire Puddings, one of which disappeared down my brother’s neck before I could pin his hand to the table with my knife. It was ok ish – maybe I’m now used to French beef which seems to have more flavor but for £8 it was not bad value. Just for comparison, my brother said his lamb was delicious, but as he’s from Glasgow, what would he know?

And that was it but being the pleb that I am, the best meal of the weekend was the bacon butties which Sue served up on Saturday night when we felt we could not do justice to a proper dinner.

So what do I think – England Vs France? I reckon that just popping into a restaurant ad-hoc in France, you would be rewarded with a higher quality meal but the price might be slightly higher - somewhere between €10 and €15 (£9 to £13.50) for a main course. The service would be crap and you’d have to wait 20 minutes for your first drink and another 30 minutes to get the bill, but you would get tastier, better cooked food.

http://www.posillipo.co.uk/

Who’s An Idiot Then ?

Yup – it’s the week where I castigate myself. Leave myself wide open to universal ridicule and horrify all those people who thought I was well adjusted and quite sensible. I’m an idiot. There’s no getting away from it. When I think of all the stupid things I’ve done I just want to go somewhere quiet and lie down for several months to see if my brain can sort itself out. And the problem is that the number of stupid things I do seem to be rising on a logarithmic scale.

Idiot Number 1 – the first week I was in France J and I went into the local bar for lunch. J had to go to the bank for something, but before she left me I asked her the French word for a light. Looking at me quizzically, she said ‘lumiere’ and dashed off. I then started wandering around the bar asking people for a lightbulb for my cigarette. Needless to say, the bar was in stitches. A light for a cigarette in France is ‘un feu’ – a fire!

Idiot Number 2 – more recently, in fact within the last 2 weeks I’ve proved to be a class 1 dope. When I bought my Alfa Romeo six years ago, it had a slight tear in its plastic rear windscreen. Having visited various garages etc, I was left with the view that it would be better to fit a complete new soft-top costing around £700! My roof was in fine nick (apart from the windscreen) so I left it and over the 6 years it got worse and worse and eventually just caved in. A couple of weeks ago I had to close the top because of a shower of rain when I was driving, so upon reaching home I looked up the problem on the internet and lo and behold, there’s a zip and you simply unzip the window and take it out! It was finally fixed last week for a tenner and to think I’ve been running about for six years with a taped up window, through which I could see nothing!

Idiot Number 3 – two weeks ago when J was away, I threw some clothes in the washing machine, switched it on, noticed that the digital read-out wasn’t working but pressed a few buttons anyway and off it went. When I was hanging the clothes out I was aghast – they’d all shrunk, in particular my favourite pair of cotton shorts. Given the seriousness of the situation I did not do any more washes just in case the same thing happened – the problem was that the kids were hunting around for clean clothes to wear, particularly last week when they returned to school after the summer break. Guy was retrieving boxer shorts from the linen basket and Kitty was hunting around looking for semi-clean knickers. When J returned from her trip, I told her what had happened and she just laughed – the clothes I’d been hanging out were Guy’s, not mine – he’s a 29 waist and I’m a …… well let’s just say I’m quite a bit bigger! Wot a dope!

On a general (idiocy) note, I always seem to get caught in the garden hose when I turn it on. I always seem to drop my glasses into the pool when I’m cleaning it. I take things which appear not to be working apart only to find I’ve not actually switched them on properly!

Is there any hope or should J start to look for a Care Home (maison de retraite in France) for me?

Idiots (Or Egos) in Power

A few weeks ago I read about a particularly unlikeable Labour minister called Liam Byrne (I won’t pander to him by putting a capital ‘M’ for minister). I say unlikeable because I disliked him the moment I saw him on TV. He looked an arrogant little **** before he even opened his mouth and I reckoned I was justified in my opinion when he did open his mouth – a completely unlikeable person. The sort of guy you might spot at a BBQ or a party and promise yourself not to get stuck in a corner with him.

Anyway, castigating myself a few weeks later for being too quick to jump to an opinion about people, I sat down and watched him make another appearance on lunchtime TV and was curious when the interviewer said, ‘I’m sorry minister, you won’t be getting your soup at 12.30 on this show’.

I did a bit of research and found that when Mr Byrne reached the giddy heights of power when Gordon Brown (a fine judge of character don’t you think?) promoted him to Cabinet Minister (ah – I forgot – I’ve given him a capital ‘M’) he issued his civil servants with a book/manual telling them how he wanted things to be run. Have a look at the following excerpts:

Coffee/Lunch. I’m addicted to coffee. I like a cappuccino when I come in, an espresso at 3pm and soup at 12.30-1pm.

The room should be cleared before I arrive in the morning. I like the papers set out in the office before I get in. The white boards should be cleared and if I see things that are not of acceptable quality, I will blame you.

Brief me not on what you think I should know but you expect I will get asked and briefing notes should be in size 16 point and should take up no more than one sheet of paper.

Never put anything to me unless you understand it and can explain it to me in 60 seconds,

We need to produce a grid . . . outlining the story of the week. Once something has been slotted into a grid, my expectation is it will be delivered. Moving something from a grid slot is a very, very big deal and key messages must be set out in ‘big speeches’ and repeated at every, repeat every, opportunity.

It’s your job to keep me to time. It’s rude for me to draw meetings to a close. I like 10 minute then 5 minute warnings. You need to know what I’m doing next.

Now, Civil Servants are well used to this sort of egomaniac. They tend to get a new ‘master’ every 18 months or so, but Mr Byrne has been widely ridiculed for actually setting down his list of ‘requirements’ on paper. It reminds me of an idiot when I was in IBM. He’d just made his first managers job, had been given his BMW and his free petrol card, had been shown into his new glass-walled office and was then left to get on with ‘running the show’. He wandered (or should I say swaggered) out into the body of the office and called over the secretary and asked her to come into his office. He invited her to sit down and the conversation went as follows:

Manager – thanks for coming in Lynn, I do hope we’ll get along fine. There’s a few things we need to discuss so we know how to run things.

Lynn – but ….. (interrupted by manager)

Manager – so, as I was saying. I don’t need you to get coffees for me I can do that myself unless I have clients in my office and then it would be great if you could get the coffees and maybe get some biscuits as well. If we run into lunch maybe you could book a place at the restaurant across the road.

Lynn – but ….. (interrupted again)

Manager – and I don’t want you to print out my e-mails, or filter them. In fact I’ll keep control of my own e-mail account and I’ll also not want you to do my expenses – I can do those myself. And if I find myself out with the sales guys for a long lunch you might want to concoct some stories to keep the director at bay.

Lynn – but ……. (interrupted)

Manager – so I think that’s about it Lynn. I’m sorry you might not have so much work to do as with your last boss but I’m sure we’ll get along just fine. It might take a few weeks for us to work out how things work between us but I’m sure we’ll get there. Is there anything you’d like to say.

Lynn – Well Tom. That all sounds wonderful. There’s just one thing. I’m not your secretary. Heather is.

Aaaaagh!

Great Weekend In Broadstairs

My brother and I went off to Broadstairs (Kent, South East England) for the weekend to see my Godmother, Aunt Win, (my mother’s sister), and our cousin Susan and her husband Alan.

Amazingly, our respective flights landed at Gatwick at exactly the same time so I’d no sooner raided the first cashpoint of some readies, when Robert appeared. We picked up our hire car and headed south-east. The motorways were empty and so we completed an AA internet route which was scheduled to take 1.5 hours in just over the hour although we both thought we saw lots of cameras flashing from the overhead gantries as we roared under them.

It was great to spend time with our aunt and our cousin whom we’ve only seen a couple of times in the last 40 years and it was also nice to see some real old fashioned English seaside resorts. On our way from Birchington-on-Sea where Sue lives, we passed through Margate where I used to be taken on holiday as a child (aged about 7-9). It looked really tacky with many of the sea-front stores closed and the rest either ‘kiss-me-quick’ gift shops or really seedy-looking clubs. I couldn’t remember a single bit of it, but it has been about 50 years since my last visit so maybe that’s not surprising. Broadstairs was quite different though. It still retains its old splendor and is not dominated by shops on the sea-front which gives it an altogether more classy feel. The beach looked amazing, the sun shone and we had a great meal on the sea-front, in fact the best meal of the weekend as far as I was concerned – apart from Sue’s bacon butties on Saturday night, of course!

Sunday arrived all too quickly and after a traditional roast-beef and Yorkshire pudding lunch, it was time to depart back to that monstrous edifice of total inefficiency – Gatwick Airport. Having been fined millions last year for its long security queues it’s oddly reassuring to see that absolutely nothing has changed! Why should it? BAA are being forced to sell it and there’s no way they are going to make it efficient for the next owner to reap the benefit and so it took Robert just over an hour to complete check-in and get through security.

We had a quick drink, argued over who owed whom what and then went our separate ways. Well I did. I left Robert in the bar – maybe he never got home?

Picture – (from left) me, cousin Sue, her husband Alan, my Aunt Win and my brother Robert.

Nice Mrs Stopforth

I don’t think anyone likes dealing with (or paying) the taxman but because my place of employment and country of residence have been different, I’ve been dealing with them constantly for several years. Luckily at the start, BT provided some fancy accountants who did all the work for me but they soon dumped me when my ‘assignment’ to France (and their fees) ended and so I was on my own.

Initially, my tax was dealt with by a huge Inland Revenue office just outside Glasgow and so there was some sort of affinity given the accents involved but when I left BT my tax affairs moved to Cardiff or Wrexham or somewhere in Wales.

Of course, you never get to speak to the same person twice in these large offices and as my tax is quite complicated, I found myself explaining my situation over and over again. And then they let it slip that they’d lost my file in the transfer from Glasgow to Wales hence why I had to explain everything fifteen times!

And then I was moved again, this time to Liverpool where they have a special ‘ex-pats’ unit and are masters at screwing every last penny out of those of us who have left the UK, normally for sunnier climes.

So my explanations began again. I didn’t let on that they’d lost my file as I reckoned this was to my advantage but the downside was that they sent me a lather large tax bill, just when I was expecting a rather large rebate and so the discussions began. The good thing though, was that I had my own lady – a nice scouse tax lady (Mrs Stopforth) who I was able to call on her own extension – I still had to explain things several times but only because my tax was very complicated. But she was really nice and we got on just fine. I’m not at the stage of asking her about her family yet but we’re heading in that direction!

The tax discussions have been going on for about a year and a half now and eventually I resigned myself to paying the UK Government another wodge of my redundancy money on the basis that I either paid it to the UK or France – it didn’t bother me as long as I only paid it once!

And so we had another call last week but this time Mrs Stopforth wasn’t available. The lady who answered the call at one stage put the handset on the desk (instead of putting me on hold) and so I heard all that was going on in the background. I heard things like, ‘ooh – we must’ve lost his last letter’, and ‘he’s from France – says he’s been discussing this for 18 months’ and ‘ he’s an ex-pat – we’ll tell him to write another letter or fax it to us’, and then I heard a familiar voice in the background. ‘Oh – is that that nice Mr Cupples from France? We always have a nice chat – he’s such a lovely chap. Tell him I’ll get back to him’.

5 minutes later the phone went and it was that nice Mrs Stopforth apologizing for the inconvenience. She had my letter and not to worry about a thing – she’d sort it all out and she’d fix it for next year as well.

Result!