homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Battle of Britain + Battle of Britain II Here's what happened (Continued)

Folks,

Dux:

Your French is every bit as impeccable as is your art.

Of course our resident linguist must be acknowledged. MG seems to be conversant in several languages. He is definitely fluent in English and Danish, and perhaps in that order. I on the other hand am fluent in no language, not even my native tongue. I am however rather conversant in both English and Pig Latin. AnCay ouYa alkTa igPay atinLay?

Of course when hard pressed and we must have the perfect curse word for a particular occasion in most any language and dialect our domestic help and former Beefeater LeRoy can always be relied upon. After a few stiff shots of Vodka, just to set aside his inherent modesty, his somewhat narrow but rather useful linguistic skills fairly boggle the mind.

Way to go Dux. Nothing impresses the Frogs with one's artistic flare like throwing up in front of one of their five-star restaurants. I have no idea why, after your doing so, they would expect you to enter said restaurant and get stuffed.

The last time I visited the Louvre I ran afoul of the hoity-toity curator. Apparently he took offense when I politely suggested that they had hung a Jackson Pollok painting upside down (who can tell?). Words were exchanged. I remember something along the line of "Vous avez le go�t distinctif d'un buffle de l'eau." Roughly translated I believe the gist of it is comparing rather favorably my taste to that of a water buffalo.

Just to show the stuffy Froggy bastids I was not the phillistine they supposed I was, I whipped out my handy Benny Hill sketch pad and thumbed to what I considered to be my best work. Thrusting the masterpiece right under the prissy little mustache of the dainty little man, I waited several long seconds for my rightful praise. As I recall it now instead of praise the little man smoothed back his long, glistening, pomaded black hair, combed back and parted precisely in the middle, straightened his pink bow tie, adjusted his floral, hand-painted under water waistcoat just so, then he sniffed the air as if he smelled something disgusting tracked in on my shoes.

I checked, there was nothing but a hole on the sole of my shoes and I smelled nothing beyond a rather pungent cologne drifting my way from the impeccably dressed man's location. Lifting himself rather indignantly to his full height of about 5 feet, he divided his glare from the colored drawing then to me and then back again to the sketch pad. With a wrinkled nose that I thought made his thin mustache appear more worm-like, the dapper little fellow let loose a veritable torrent of French expletives that I certainly will not reproduce here lest LeRoy read this and either be terminally embarrassed or add several choice words to his extensive vocabulary.

I remember pieces of what was said after the initial swearing. I definitely recall something like "Ressembler au d�jeuner d'un chien" Now it was I who was indignant. I slammed shut my sketch pad, spun on my heels and storming out of the Louvre. Dog's breakfast indeed! Vowing vindication, I left in a Huff.

A Huff is a German-Russian built motor vehicle similar to a rather squared off Volkswagen with only 3 tires and a stick rather than a wheel for steering. There are no brakes. You drop your feet down through the holes provided in the floor board and drag them until you slow or come to a complete stop. Yes, if the car could muster more than 4 MPH downhill that might have been a problem. Ok, maybe it is dangerous, uncomfortable, hideous to look at and poorly constructed. In its defense, it is deucedly easy to park.

I was not licked yet. Like John Paul Jones, I had just begun to fight. At my hotel I grabbed up the best painting I had ever managed to paint without numbers and rushed back to my rented car. No way that frame was going into the Huff. I hailed a taxi and at my direction we drove back to the Louvre as only a French taxi driver has the courage, disregard for personal injury and total indifference to pedestrians to do it. No wonder they used French Taxis to get the French soldiers to the front in the Great War in defense of Paris. Just the sight of those taxis careening at breakneck speed down those unpaved roads must have instilled great esprit in the breasts of the French Poli. The ones who survived that is.

Back at the Louvre, I found I had arrived just in time to enter my painting in the annual "Peinture d'amateur, Sculpting, faire du crochet et concurrence hollandaise de tailleurs de chaussure" I rushed to sign up confident I'd win first prize. First prize was an 8x10 photo of Maurice Chevalier's custom dog house suitable for framing. Turns out everyone who enters receives some sort of prize. So after the judging, an event noted for much oooing and ahhhhing and the occasional scratching of heads by the elegantly dressed judges; the prizes were announced.

Imagine my dismay and utter surprise when I did not win first, second or even third prize. In what will surely go down in the annals of art history as yet another travesty of justice I was last to be called to the rostrum to receive my due recognition. I received a nicely inscribed piece of aged parchment attesting to my masterful ability to both ignore my lack of talent and negotiate safely the traffic of Paris in showing up for the event.

Complaining in my best cookbook French that I did not deserve the prize, I took the scroll from the hands of the impeccably dressed curator. He seemed to reluctantly hand it over, saying as he apparently struggled with his conscious to do so. He said in a loud and grumpy voice something to the tune of " Non, ce n'est certainement pas le prix que vous m�ritez. Malheureusement il n'y en a aucun inf�rieur nous peut donner."

Having forgotten to bring the taxi fare, I walked back to the Hotel Escargot carrying my painting and clutching the crumby scroll. I felt I was disgraced and I was feeling quite depressed. Fortunately it had just then begun to rain heavily so no one could see the tears....