Bon weekend from funny France!

Bonjour,

I hope that you and yours are well.

I’m just back home after a fabulous cruise on the Seine – I’ll share an article about it in the next issue of The Good Life France Magazine which will be out in September. If you’re not already subscribed – it’s free – you can pop your details here and I’ll send the magazine direct to your inbox! It’s almost ready to publish and I think you will like it – it’s a beautiful edition!

And in a few weeks time I’ll head to the Loire Valley where I’ll be exploring castles, vineyards and historic towns and villages like Sancerre and Bourges – and of course you are welcome to come with me via Instagram!

I read that 16 August is National Tell a Joke Day (in the US) and it reminded me of a time when I told Bread Man (who delivered the bread to our village, he’s not made of bread!) an English joke about the French.

“Why do French people like snails?” I asked him. And in all seriousness he said “because they taste good with garlic butter” and laughed. “Nope” I said. “it’s because they don’t like fast food.” He didn’t laugh.

“That’s not funny” he said. “Many French people like fast food.” Which is actually true, there are apparently more McDonalds branches in France than any other country apart from the US.

“What is funny” he told me, “is that I deliver bread to a British couple in a village near here, and she’s called Jenny and he’s called Brian. And when I go there, she always says, come in and join me and Brian in the kitchen for a coffee!” And he roared with laughter, setting my dogs off barking, which sparked off the dog next door and created a chain reaction of woofs throughout the village.

Now it was my turn not to laugh. ‘Why is that funny?’ I thought to myself, racking my brain for what I’d missed. Bread Man eventually pulled himself together, gave a Gallic shrug at my confusion and headed off to deliver Madame Bernadette’s baguette as she was waving impatiently from her gate at the bottom of our road.

A bit of investigation revealed that when French kids learned English at school a few years back, they chanted phrases by rote “Where is Brian?” “Brian is in the kitchen.” “Where is Brian’s sister Jenny?” “Jenny is in the bathroom.” And French kids, who are also taught philosophy at school, wondered if Brian ever came out of the kitchen and why Jenny was always in the bathroom. A famous French comedian made a hugely popular stand-up routine about the ”existential question” all French people relate to: “Where is Brian?” which is now a well-known cultural catchphrase in France!

If you go to France and get chatting to a French person and they realise you’re an English speaker – you may even be asked “where is Brian?” And if that happens, the reply is always “Brian is in the kitchen” – I guarantee you, the result will be absolute hilarity.

Bon weekend from funny France
Bisous
Janine
Editor

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