Clash of the Roulettes...

On Monday, I did one of those things so rare for us virtual people. I met one of my fellow Paris bloggers.

Laren Elkin, who blogs as Maitresse, is the sort of person who can use the word 'Hegelian' in casual conversation and is as witty and clever as her blog.

She's also completely teeny so she fits in well in the 6e where we met.

I never feel so English as when I'm with Americans. Far more than with French. Under Lauren's gaze, I seem to be morphing into some kind of dreadful Mitford parody, sprouting odd opinions and eccentricies all over the place.

I also find my accent relentlessly foregrounded. Somehow, because of the movies, American English sounds more standard to me than the sort I speak, especially when I haven't been in the UK for a while. After a few minutes' conversation, I get horribly conscious that I sound a bit like Elizabeth Hurley. My children don't help by precociously reciting poetry and then loudly singing a lugubrious old music-hall song taught to them by their grandparents. We seem to be divided by a common language.

Children: (sing) Your baby has gorn down the plughole!

Lauren:The French seem so much more 'pragmatic' with their children. Someone told me how he gives his children a belt!(horror)

Children: (sing) It ort t'ave been barthed in a jug!

Me: (some sympathy) Well, I don't know. Sometimes I certainly feel like...

Children:(sing) It won't need a barth any more!

Lauren: Maybe I'm just being very American. But a belt. Hitting them with an... accessory!

Children:(sing) No lorst but gorn before!

Me: Oh, erm, no, you're right,  That's very different! I just thought you meant... Well in England, giving someone a belt can just mean... um... giving them a slap... etc etc.

Great. Now I'm coming across as a child abuser as well as a tweed-wearing idiot.

Fortunately, Lauren doesn't seem to mind too much and we spend an idyllic afternoon at Guignol and the playground in the Jardin du Luxembourg where Lauren (on the child-free side of our other great divide) marvels at how much my children run about and how much they are capable of eating.

........

At the market in the Place des Fetes, there are also all kinds of cultural, and other, clashes going on...