Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
one between me and my showdown with the 'Axis of Evil Twins' on my return, was welcome
to stay awhile.
I sat in the ante-room in the Sous-Préfecture sweating profusely, not because of the spring
heat, but because of the atmosphere in the room, the impending meeting and nerves. It was
busy, people obviously preferring to get their bureaucratic dealings out of the way first thing
so that they could either spend the rest of the day getting on with their lives or, more likely,
drowning their sorrows.
An elderly man walked in and offered his greetings.
'Messieurs et Dames'
he said, without
hope or genuine geniality, took a ticket from the machine and stood in the corner as there
were no seats left. Immediately the man sitting next to me shot up cursing and went to re-
trieve a ticket for himself, clearly having forgotten to do so initially. Heaven knows how long
he'd been there, certainly longer than me and I'd been waiting twenty minutes already. I was
beginning to have doubts about this whole situation - the idea that I could finally put an end
to this bureaucratic nightmare by playing the dumb foreigner was all well and good until at
some point the authorities realised that I wasn't playing at anything, I really am that dumb
foreigner.
I reflected on what we'd had to go through to get this far just to get the car registered, it
really was Dante's Nine Circles of Hell; seven of them had been the various agencies and de-
partments we'd shuffled between, all of them contradicting each other, none of them giving
a damn about it; the eighth was the permanent state of limbo and the ninth would presum-
ably be the driving of the car itself. For years the French have been pilloried for their driving
but now I see that it's a product of the licensing system; like a mistreated Rottweiler puppy
they've come through a desensitising process and so, once behind the wheel, drivers are prone
to unpredictable, sometimes violent, behaviour. The authorities have recognised this and a
few years ago apparently introduced a 'courtesy' module into French driving lessons - and I
think it's fair to say that it hasn't yet caught on.
Driving in the UK is almost a team sport, in France it's an individual pursuit. I've sat at junc-
tions here trying desperately to wave someone out - not because I'm inordinately polite, but
because it would make it easier for me to turn - and they sit there staring at you like you're
insane! They have a look on their face like, 'What do you mean you're letting me out? Why?
What do you want?' Eventually, when you've lost patience and start to turn anyway, they'll
pull out and then start waving their arms about, incensed at your obvious idiocy.
The melancholy silence was broken violently as a woman stormed out of the office, clearly
upset, while one of the 'public servants' shouted after her, 'I told you! Electricity bill!' The
glass doors shut quietly behind her and we all sat and watched the impassive expressions on
the two Valhallan Ice Warriors left within; there was no triumphalism but nor was there any
contempt, in fact there was no emotion at all. They were deadpan automatons serving the
bureaucratic machine, doing it by the topic, albeit one they seemed to make up as they went
