There are some things that just shouldn’t be translated.

Humour is one; obscenity another. If you must – not to the parents. And if it’s an awful joke, one that only raises a grimace rather than a giggle – don’t persist with it. Especially not with me, because before you know it, you’ll have created a monster.

Introducing dans ton cul (“in your arse”), the most infuriating answer to any “where?” question asked. Hilariously funny (or at least a humour staple) in France, I found that dans ton cul is the most infuriating answer to an oft-voiced question.

Guillaume points it out to me every time it’s mentioned in a film, just to confirm that it’s so widespread. Even in the French lessons of American film 10 Things I Hate About You, it’s there.

It’s particularly annoying because when you’re looking for something and asking someone else if they know where it is, you’re not really concentrating on anything other than the search, and quite possibly not realising that you’re issuing forth the vague question.

- Where are my keys?
- In your arse.

You see the problem? This guaranteed answer, delivered deadpan, was driving me crazy until I realised that the approach was not to get mad, but to get even.

These days, there isn’t a quicker dans ton cul slinger this side of Francophonia, and I’m not afraid to use it with accompanying pantomime. My first hesitant attempts to bring the phrase outdoors with a few unorthodox examples at a party weren’t such a rip-roaring success though.

For instance, on hearing our group’s conversation in English, a guy approached us with a shock-mock accent and asked:

‘Ecks-q-ze me for eh my bad Freench hacksent, but where iz ze eh oranzh zhuce?’

I couldn’t resist. ‘Dans ton cul?’ I quipped. Went down like a dead weight.

So I thought I’d try again when asked by a girl, incredulous that Guillaume and I didn’t speak French to each other, what exactly he had taught me to say.

Always believing honesty to be the best policy, I replied ‘dans ton cul’ and her jaw dropped.

She muttered, a little stunned, ‘ummm… I don’t think I understood you… What has he taught you to say?’

I had to hastily explain that my French education was also “cultural”!

I was recently reading a continuous chortle of an exploration of French culture through vocabulary. Entitled Pardon my French: Unleash your inner Gaul by Charles Timoney, it outlines all those little essential facts and factors of establishing a life in France.

But one particular entry comes to mind frequently (although I wish it didn’t because Guillaume and I then kill ourselves laughing for no externally discernable reason) and I’ll include it here to taint any future experiences in French cafés for the rest of you!

Timoney writes:

If you listen carefully the next time you go to a café or brasserie, you will hear the double coffee order… [the waiter] calls the order to the barman who will then get it ready and set the cups on the bar. What is interesting is that the waiter repeats the number of coffees ordered just after the word ‘cafés’. Thus, instead of calling out, ‘Deux cafés!’, the waiter in fact shouts, ‘Deux cafés… deux!’

As I was rolling around in stitches reading out the rest of the passage to Guillaume, we reflected how true (and ridiculous) it really was. I mean, it’s not really a vote of confidence to the skills and perceptivity of the bartender now, is it?

Maybe the bartenders are a breed of their own, prone to dozing off and forgetting what they’re actually doing behind the bar. Slowly nodding off into a counter-top coma, perhaps they are only jolted to attention by the cry of ‘cafés’ but are at a loss to the quantity.

Did he say one, three or even four? That’s when the repeated number comes in to play, and he can happily prepare the daily caffeine fix for the clients.

Listen carefully next time you order your coffees and just try to suppress a smile.

With all my thanks to Jonathan Li for these wonderfully expressive espresso pix!

The bureaucratic process in France still continues to amaze me. Maybe this is because I thought that I had experienced it all when trying to get a last-minute Russian student visa in Mongolia without the appropriate documentation (it ended with an strange grilling / interview by the Consular in between the highlights of a Moscow Spartak football match… and a visa for me).

But – in my naïve world view – that was almost to be expected with dealing with two post-Soviet states in the wilds of the steppes. Silly me. I should have known better. Of course it’s exactly the same wild goose chance in enlightened and rational France – long live equality for all in painful hassles and ingratiated fawning!

Why the angst? Well after living in Paris and working as an au pair for over six months, I’ve finally collected enough documentation to apply for health cover. I went proudly to the social security today with my collected treasure trove (birth certificate, passport, bank account statement, documents that I’ve needed my diploma to apply for, first toe nail clippings, the Golden Fleece… you know, just the norm) and after waiting for my number to eventually grace the neon display was duly ripped to shreds by the woman working there.

I should have known. I was once told by a friend to play your documents against bureaucracy like it was a hand of cards – ie. never show your trump card until absolutely necessary. But I just went and laid it all on the table…

She barked at me what was wrong with my documents (bugger! I had forgotten to write the name of my employer!) and then sighed a few times whilst looking through the other papers and expectantly at me.

I thought that meant I should show some initiative (she wasn’t offering a pen, that was for sure), so I took one out of my bag and demonstrated how simple it was to rectify the omitted detail.

She waited till I had finished and then scolded me for filling it out… ‘and you’ve done it with a red pen!’

A rapid fire tirade followed. She obviously wasn’t of the “speak slowly and the foreigner will understand” school. Turns out I had filled out the entire thing myself in error, including the signature at the bottom. I’m sure last time I was there I was told to fill it out, and I’d shown it to both French boss and boyfriend without them picking up that it wasn’t me who was to sign.

So after the fuss and the sighs, a little indignation on my part (which is very difficult when balancing diplomacy with a limited vocabulary), and then me sitting there thinking forlornly that I would have to return, she took my phone number, photocopied a page and filed my documents.

I sat there still, wondering what to make of it all… ‘and now…?’

‘Three weeks’ she replied.

I’m back in Paris, only to find out that I’ve brought the Swiss alpine weather with me. There’s recently been quite a bit of hail, and I’ve just received word that it’s snowing out near Paris Orly airport. Needless to say, I have one eye on my computer screen and one eye out the window, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to get any of the white stuff in our ‘hood.

Not that there was any shortage of it in Switzerland. Even though the first few days were warm (and the melting wasn’t just confined to the plethora of fondue pots in Crans-Montana), there was a steady stream of heavy snow for the last few days of my Valais vacation.

So I’ll just have to remember fondly all the natural beauty of the slopes and the surgically enhanced “beauty” of the skiers…

It was also fun to people-watch at après-ski leisure activities, because Crans-Montana seemed to draw all sorts. From the adherents of mountain glam to the wild-eyed, ruddy cheeked alpine types, it was like an exhibition entitled ‘Mountain Mode: Over the Ages’, as there were still a lot of lurid 1970s jumpsuits being proudly modelled. I fell into the latter dishevelled category of course… through preference as much as necessity.

My main regret on returning to Paris is that I have to resume brushing my hair. I love ski (and surf) holidays for just being able to hand-sculpt your hair flat!

I can’t help but feel that my ski holiday has been scripted straight from a film. Not just any film, mind you, but a French cult classic. If you’re not on holidays, you may as well laugh at others who are. Move over Chevy Chase, it’s National Lampoon French-style…

Learn a few lines from Les Bronzés font du ski (1979) and you’ll be the life of any French party. Watch the film in its entirety and you’ll have an unnerving feeling of holidaying in one huge ski stereotype.

Les Bronzés font du ski is the second of the three Les Bronzés films, in which the characters take on the Val d’Isère Mountains in the late 1970s height of skiing vogue when any forecasts of global warming would have been greeted with a raised bottle of coconut oil and welcomed as a prospect of a year-round golden glow tan. The first, simply entitles Les Bronzés (1978), introduces the oddball acquaintances at an Ivory Coast Club Med and satirises resort vacations.

The recent third film Les Bronzés 3: Amis pour la vie (2006) reunites the characters after a 27 year absence in which they have all immersed themselves in civil life and are older, wealthier and with a change of tastes for the luxury Prunus Resort hotel, but still the same capacity for corny jokes.

The following clip from Les Bronzés font du ski is a bit of a joke about all those mandatory requirements of a ski holiday (thou shalt eat equal to an annual consumption of cheese, ham and potatoes in one week; thou shalt indulge in some potent local firewater; thou shalt engage with eccentric mountain folk… and all surrounding décor – everything – must be wooden and kitsch).

The group is seemingly stranded at a mountain-top refuge and obliged to sample some of the hospitality offered by their impromptu hosts. Unfortunately for them, it’s a knock-your-socks-off strength eau de vie, with a frog pickled in the bottle. The liquor is shallot-flavoured with garlic added “for taste”. Even if you don’t understand French, the gag is universally comprehendible…

On airing my croque-monsieur complaints or quote unquote constructive criticism to Guillaume, it seems that a few essential ingredients were missing on my first foray into the world of French toasted cheese sandwiches. Firstly, and most obviously, France – but I was sure that the Swiss equivalent would have been suitable cheesy. Secondly, it seems that my café was a bit tight with their dairy products. I only had one slice of cheese, but as Guillaume describes it, there possibly should have been more:

‘First bread, cheese, ham, cream, cheese, bread, cream, cheese… no, wait, bread, cheese, ham, cheese, bread, cream, cheese… or even bread, cream, cheese, ham, bread, cream, cheese… eh, whatever you do, just top it with cream then cheese and the ham-cheese-cream combo in the middle is up to you…’

Now is it just me (or is there a general consensus) – but with that type of precise culinary directions, is there a market for him to launch his own cookbook? Celebrity chef in the making, I just know it!

It reminds me of a recipe from a Finnish friend for “Fashion Lady Academic Soup” which is complete with all the study and leisure activities in which you need to partake whilst waiting for the soup to cook and in between adding all the necessary ingredients over something like an eight-hour academic day and aperitif hour(s). Here’s to slow food!

Have you ever had a feeling of semi-anticipation about a glorified and/or typical national foodstuff only to find out that you’ve got the same back home under a different name?

Enter stage right the protagonist of this sordid tale, Monsieur Croque a.k.a Mr. Toasted Ham & Cheese Sandwich.

I had high hopes for my first croque-monsieur. This is because this is all we were ever taught to order in my first ever French lessons. We had it explained to us – ham, cheese, bread – but the way our teacher’s eyes glazed over in fond recollection made me think there was really something more to it.

There’s not. Ham, cheese, bread. Not even the most fantastic cheese or bread either (both fields in which France excels). More like primary school lunch plastic cheese and 15p a loaf Tesco bread.

Now I know that she just realised we’d never be anything more than students or budget backpackers…

Anyway, I do appreciate the sense of humour in the name. Not exactly the male version, but I did have a chuckle the first time I heard about the female companion version, the croquet-madame. But what’s the difference?

Well unlike French nouns, this is a little easier to determine gender. The “Madame” has eggs…

I’m skiing in Switzerland at the moment, away from my desk, but this is not an out-of-office automated reply. To tell you the truth, I’m lapping it up. I love pretending I’m glamorous enough to have a chalet on the mountain-side and regular ski holidays, but it’s so far from the klutzty, ice-bruised, rag-tag, borrowed-garments truth that I think I have “accompanying au pair” written across my forehead.

Oh well, may as well make the most of it.

The slopes I’ve had several very close, powder-biting encounters with are Crans-Montana, in the Swiss canton of Valais. I wasn’t familiar with the region previously, so I’ve been trying to do some research at the locally tourist bureau. This is difficult when, judging by the available literature, everyone else’s interested in the area hinge on skiing, golfing, Dolce & Gabbana puffy parkas, Omega watches, Cartier watches, Dior watches (oh yeah… Switzerland… it took me a little while to catch on!)

But anyway – here it goes – five things you possibly didn’t know about Valais.

• Geographically, it seems to be pretty simple to navigate your way to Crans-Montana via Sierre. From France, just follow the Rhône valley up from Chamonix-Mont-Blanc and you could keep on until Milan, Italy, if you didn’t feel inclined to stop.
• Valais is two-thirds French-speaking, plus really “talks the talk” by being the largest wine-making canton in Switzerland.
• Raclette (the cheese) for raclette (the cheesy melting moments dish) originated from Valais. Not that you can forget that fact in Crans village. Every dining establishment seems to want to wow the passing trade with their raclette and the other famous Swiss staple, fondue.
• After his somewhat orchestrating role in blowing up the despised Vendôme Column during the final stages of the 1871 Paris Commune, renowned French Realist movement painter Gustave Courbet spent some of his final years of exile in Valais. While in my humble opinion he was lucky to have escaped the firing squad and with plenty of worse places in which to find himself displaced, Courbet apparently disagreed and essentially drank himself to death.
• And Wikipedia tells me that the canton’s central Rhône valley is one of the drier parts of Switzerland, but paradoxically receives some of the highest levels of precipitation. But that’s all due to the large amount of snow and rain on the peaks.

Well there you go!

Despite a vague impression held by many Brits, French film is actually amazingly diverse – and not just the clichéd label of porn as art, whereby “art house” and “French film” had become synonymous with dodgy B-grade (at best) titillation.

I had forewarned Guillaume about this stereotype, which was further confirmed by a lot of nudge-nudge-wink-wink from my brother when he and Guillaume met for the first time. Still, he didn’t believe us.

It was only during a wander through the aisles of the “foreign” film section at the Piccadilly Circus Virgin Megastore (no pun intended) and he saw that the available selection primarily consisted of Baise-Moi, Betty Blue and Swimming Pool.

He was aghast at the selection’s distinct shade of blue – there was nothing like the fun for all the family with the Chorists, not a glimpse of the hereditarily blessed Charlotte Gainsbourg, and not even corny Jean Dujardin spoofs on Riviera surfers (Brice de Nice) or James Bond (OSS 117).

I must admit though, my life has become all the more enriched since becoming acquainted with the films of Jean Dujardin, who is one of the best charismatic comedians “most in their element playing smarmy creeps” in France at the moment.

Sex sold for France… but it’s been a long time since the 1970s pornography boom, so I think it’s time for everyone to clear up the Anglo-Franco cultural misunderstanding of the cross-Channel connotations of French film!

I haven’t quite figured out the time management skills required to see an exhibition that isn’t in its final closing moments… so, true to form, I bustled through the Chaïm Soutine exhibition at the Pinacothèque de Paris with the rest of the last minute crowds.

Born in 1893 near Minsk, in the small Jewish settlement of Smilovichi, Soutine left the Russian Empire and Vilnius School of Fine Arts for Paris. Based around Montparnasse and living in the fabled artistic centre La Ruche (The Beehive), Soutine is a key figure in the Parisian cultural legacy of noble or artistic poverty, Eastern European émigrés and Expressionism.

The exhibition opened with the products of Soutine’s youth, predominantly from his wretchedly poor period in the 1910s. Using rich colours to give the works life, Soutine presents ultimately distorted visions of everyday life. It’s grotesque, yes (he even goes as far as entitling one of his works as such), but it’s no where near as horrific as the previous exhibition I’ve written about, that of 16th century Italian artist, Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Soutine treats his subjects warmly, and his depictions of the grotesque have not been undertaken with detachment.

Soutine left Paris in 1918 for Cagnes on the Côte d’Azur, and then settled in the Pyrenees town of Céret for three years. This was followed by a stint (1923-25) divided between Paris and the vicinity of Cagnes (the so-called ‘Cagnes period’). During this era, the works shift focus (reiterated by a descent into the Pinacothèque basement) and become muddled landscapes and muffled portraits. Soutine depicts villages all in a jumble, like hazy memories souvenired from Mediterranean towns, basked in a warm sunlight but lacking structure and foundation. It’s just like German Expressionism mixed with one too many beakers of pastis… with a bit of hanging meat and the odd suspended produce still-life thrown in for good measure.

A fascinatingly vivid exhibition in terms of content, but the layout and access to a logical flow of information maybe left a little to be desired…