A scene from many decades ago was called to mind yesterday. I was a young man living in Paris and invited to dinner or maybe Sunday lunch by a middle-aged woman I worked with. I was introduced to her family: two teen-aged daughters and the husband. Asparagus was served. I had never eaten asparagus before and didn’t know which ends to eat. After a minute ot two I heard the husband say about me ‘he is eating the asparagus in an incorrect way’ (‘il mange mal les asperges’) refering to me in the the third person as if I wasn’t there. He would have known that I spoke French. This was rather humiliating for me and very unpleasant behaviour on his part. When I recalled the incident yesterday I was furious at his behaviour even though the incident went back almost four decades. In my mind I have been trying to find responses to his unpleasantness that I should have produced at the time. I would say ‘Et vous , Monsieur, vous utilisez mal la troisieme personne’ (And you, sir, are using the third person in an incorrect way’). That would tell him. And then, having thrown my napkin down on the tablecloth, I would storm out.

There is such a lot of etiquette and protocol involved with the A vegetables (aubergine, asparagus and artichoke), so the rebuke cuts deep. It is like saying, you are an uncivilised barbarian. Brought up on Mancunian vegetables, and all being relative, my table manners with carrots and turnips are, of course, unimpeachable.

http://www.peoplearerubbish.com

I don’t drink much wine these days. There was a time I used to buy pretty good bottles from a fancy wine dealer and put them in a couple of wine racks in my living room. Gradually, I have drunk less wine. Nowadays, I may have a glass or two of wine four or five times a year. On holiday, when friends offer me a glass or two, or when I’ve bought some nice cheese from the expensive cheese shop. In France, wine still figures. If you don’t order wine in a restaurant the waiters whip away all your nicely laid out glasses as if to punish you for the austerity of your tastes. There is an implicit irritation that you are not doing what you are supposed to. Part of this is that it is in the drinks that their margins lie and if you aren’t partaking, they aren’t making a profit out of you. I remember a few years ago the story of an Air France flight where an American passenger wanted milk with his steak and the stewards refused. . I don’t know if that would happen today. Still, the atmosphere of seething resentment remains when you don’t order a bottle of bourgogne with your meal. If they really want you to drink the wine, they should look at their mark-ups.

http://www.peoplearerubbish.com