Things I love About The French

THEIR ENTHUSIASM FOR CHEESE

I love cheese. People I know love cheese. I have seen grown men open the fridge with the same anticipation a child with its stocking on Christmas morning. I have witnessed the almost religious wonder with which a person can dip a lump of gouda into a pot of mustard. But nothing I have seen can rival the passion that greeted an innocent query from me about the difference between brie and camembert.

I’m dining al fresco on Easter Sunday (in April, yes, how fabulous?) and one of the party has brought some brie from Paris that is literally running off the plate. It tastes like heaven: yellow, with a crenulated skin, and a flavour that shakes up your taste buds and gets them dancing like they’re in the final of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. The pasty white camembert doesn’t even get them past the selection round. Apparently this is all wrong. It’s usually the other way round. Camembert, I’m told, is the king of cheese. This brie is obviously the Robespierre.

THEIR WINE SNOBBERY

It’s the same as the cheese thing. It’s not actually snobbery it’s about discernment. They don’t like bad wine. Or even mediocre wine. Or even good wine served in the wrong order. I’m with them on the bad and mediocre thing. I still can’t get with the order thing, I’m just happy to be drinking something that doesn’t come from Australia or California via Sainsbury.

THE POLITENESS

Bonjour. Bon journeé. The niceties of everyday conversation. I love it but I still forget and lapse into brusque foreigner mode without even realising it sometimes. There’s a kind of old-world gentility about my every day exchanges here. I’m told the Parisians are rude but I’ll bet you they’re not as rude as Londoners. And it’s true that northerners in the UK are more friendly but they’re still not in the same league as the people here.

Merci à vous versus Ta duck

See what I mean?

THE MEN WHO WORK ON THE ROAD

They are much better looking than in the UK. Much.