Travel Reference
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rizo juice; I looked like I'd been shot. Of all the potential Christmas calamities that could
have befallen me - like undercooking the turkey, dropping the champagne, leaving the cats
in charge of the smoked salmon - there is absolutely nothing worse for a mod than gaudy
coloured sausage juice on your new sweater.
Now, I like swearing and I think there's an art to it; those who say that it's neither big nor
clever or that it shows a lack of vocabulary haven't heard it done properly and are also cut-
ting themselves off from the most vibrant and organic parts of language. Badly timed, un-
necessary swearing is crude and jarring, but when your best jumper has just been covered
in spicy oil there is an opportunity for some really inventive expletives. I prefer the use of
alliterative word plus friendly word juxtapositions and Christmas time offers a whole range
of opportunities for the switched-on potty mouth. I was in the larder for a good couple of
minutes, giving it the full invective, and eventually emerged to find everybody standing there,
open-mouthed, staring at me. The look on their faces was a mixture of shock and awe, like a
particularly well-endowed streaker had just skipped through the kitchen. Most of them wer-
en't even aware of what I was saying, but when such venom and poison are spouted, clearly
the actual language element is no barrier. So I scurried back to the vegetables and pretended
nothing had happened.
Personally my favourite part of Christmas Day has always been the turkey and stuffing
sandwiches in the evening but that's not really an option in France, not unless I eat them be-
fore we actually finish dinner. The meal lasts all day and it's not difficult to see why: firstly,
there are about ten courses, each demanding a different wine, and each course is ambled
through - there is no rushing here. Each new plate seems to set off another philosophical de-
bate or moral dilemma which must be debated at full volume. Nothing passes at the Christ-
mas table without comment or counter-comment, nothing. And just when you think things
may be flagging another course is introduced (the turkey was the sixth course to arrive) and
if conversation gets a little dull, things are always easily livened up with a cracker.
The French, unsurprisingly, don't do crackers; it's a distraction from the important job at
hand, which is eating. Most of Natalie's family are aware that Christmas at our house is an
Anglo-French affair, the Anglo bits are Stilton, Christmas pudding, crackers and the music,
and the French bits are everything else. Watching a novice Frenchman having a cracker ex-
plained to him then by another equally sceptical Frenchman is a bit like watching two Amer-
icans discuss the rules of cricket.
'We pull these things as we sit down to eat.'
'Why?'
'Er…'
And you know that at this point he wants to say, 'Because it keeps Ian and his kids happy.
Just do it, for God's sake, don't set him off.'
'And we have to wear this paper thing?'
