This book reminds me of countless afternoons spent at the dentist's surgery as a schoolgirl. I was at boarding school and, at Red Maids at least, the custom was for the boarders to have their appointments (after the check-up which was carried out at school) on Wednesday afternoons. There would typically be five or six of us, and we'd go together either with a matron if we were all young ones, or in the charge of one older girl.
And there we'd sit, waiting for our turn.
In Germany, doctors and dentists have subscriptions to all the usual German magazines: Gala, Hello, Bunte, Spiegel, Focus, Auto Bild etc etc. Every week they get a new supply and it's a good place to catch up on gossip mags I mean, topical news stories.
I'm not sure what it's like now in the UK, but back then the surgeries were supplied with whatever magazines were donated by the dentist, his family and patients. Which, in the case our our dentist, meant toppling piles of Horse and Hound, Country Living, The Lady and - oh wonder of wonders - Punch. Which is the only thing that made my many visits (all my teeth are filled, and I wonder if it's a coincidence that my parents were never with me for dental visits...)
And the best column in the magazine: Let's Parler Franglais! by a country mile (whatever that is). But the book itself, a language course, is impossible to describe. So, first, here's the blurb from the back of my Penguin copy:
Maintenant en Paperback Pingouin! Le quick méthod de Franglais Comme parlé par M. Edouard Heath*, Valéry St John-Stevas etc...
Le Franglais est un odle! Parlez Franglais, et le monde est votre oyster. Après 10 secondes, vous serez un expert, un Belt Noir des languages - sans kidding.
Ici Miles Kington présente 40 lessons hilarieux en des situations d'everyday. Dans le stately home, chez le dentiste, eyeball-à-eyeball avec la traffic warden, dans Soho après dark. Toutes les phrases essentielles sont là, de 'Pas bleeding probablement' et 'Dites-ca aux Marines', à 'C'est une liberté diabolique' et 'Je suis malade comme un parrot'.
So, prenez un glass de bon plonk, light up und Gauloise et commencez l'aventure la plus exciting de votre existence!
Heady stuff. And indeed, the book is presented as a series of 40 situations. Reading it now, nearly 40 years after they were written they seem terribly dated and I couldn't get my 12 year-old (nearly) French-speaking daughter to give them even half a chance because she just didn't get it. And my Never Learned French other half also had a hard time, because contrary to what I had believed up to now: you really do need a little bit of French to actually understand the sketches.
But only a little bit. As the preface says: Un 'O' Level de French est normalement inutile. Un nothing. Un wash-out. Les habitants de la France ne parlent pas 'O' Level French. Ils ne comprennent pas 'O' Level French. Un 'O' Level en francais est un passeport à nowhere.
So there it is then. Get through this language course and you will be able to understand... er... Franglais.
*shows you how old it is... first published in 1979 but of course the columns were available from the early 70s.
4 comments:
This takes me back! I remember loving the Let's Parlais Franglais books years ago - you're right, it was probably back in the late 70s/early 80s. But even then I remember trying to explain them to a friend who just didn't get the joke.
I loved reading the book, just dipping in now and again - but it really brought back some weird memories. The smell of dentists, for example, and walking in our hated school uniform through streets where people would stare at us.
My plan was to get the next in the series but I don't think I'll bother. They haven't aged well and I don't think I'll need to have another look into it.
Moi Aussie! A last someone else who can appreciate just how funny "Let's Parlez Franglais" articles in Punch magazine were, while read in the claustrophobically, quiet atmosphere of a dentist's waiting room! How I actually wept with silent laughter as I read!!
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