122. England step up a gear

27th February 2011. What a cracking game last night..! ("What game..?") (Wake up at the back there!) The 'crunch' game between England v France in the RBS 6 Nations rugby tournament)

England came out 17-9 winners in a closely fought match, full-back Ben Foden having scored the only try that was allowed. Mike Tindall had a try disallowed which I still think was a good 'un but that's how it goes. Chris Ashton also had one disallowed for a forward pass which was impossible to judge from the TV picture. There were some mighty tackles being made all over the pitch and some very tired bodies out there at the end of the game last night but by keeping a clean sheet as far as conceding tries are concerned, England proved that they can shut out a strong attacking side like France- even if on occasion they needed a helpful bounce of the ball to do so. At the end of the match we were all exhausted from the nervous strain of watching! 

We watched it with A & V at their house in Biarritz. A made me laugh - he brought out two enormous bars of Nestle Crunch!! He took the loss very well considering and I managed to stay on my best behaviour!

After V's delicious post-match dinner, we settled down to watch a film that I doubt many Brits are aware of - "La Grande Vadrouille" - with French comedy greats Bourvil and Louis de Funès plus one of my all-time favourite English comedy actors - Terry-Thomas.. An RAF bomber piloted by T-T is shot down over Paris - & what follows is pure French farce! For over forty years, until the release of Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis in 2008, La Grande Vadrouille was the most successful French film in France, topping the box office with over 17,200,000 cinema admissions. We watched it in French but I found the humour and the French dialogue easy to follow.

I've been meaning to mention this for a while but the French have a habit of taking English words and using them in a different way. The one that always catches my eye when I go for a haircut is shampoing. (And yes, that's how they spell it) It's pronounced "shom-pwang". Another one I hear all the time on the car radio are the non-stop ads for hypermarkets where they describe shops like Lidl as 'Ard Deescoont' (that's Hard Discount to you & I!).