Tray Bong

I've been told that the French refer to us Rosbifs as a nation of shopkeepers. I've never really been sure what that is supposed to mean except that it is derogatory. Well all I can say is it takes one to know one.

Last Saturday, Twisted Pines was the latest small market town to succumb to the curious spectacle of the traveling French Market. I had visited one when it came to a neighbouring town and I wasn't overly impressed but as the only alternative was laundry or paperwork I walked down to take a gander.

I had a Tony Bliar-type vision (cue heavenly choir and Vaseline smeared lens) of the Brits and the French trading side by side, working together on the free common market, each bringing trade to the other. However, clearly anticipating French embargo and tension between the natives and the visitors, the local council shrewdly set aside one of the car parks in town for the market instead.

Malheureusement it was a dozen stalls at the most selling goods that ranged from cheap Chinese-made belts to cheap Chinese-made straw baskets. Qu'elle deception! And this country just isn't ready for cured sausages, we like 'em plump and pink not turdlike! There was a stall that sold nothing but garlic - but zut alors £7 for 500g is too beaucoup de l'argent even for the likes of spendthrift gastronomes like myself.

My only hope of consolation for this blatant ripping off of the unsuspecting British public, is that the French traders had to buy petrol before driving home.