SMOCKING KILLS

PORTE DE ROBE INTERDIT A Chamonix Mont-Blanc, France: Ladies, Scots and cross-dressers are from 2007 liable to a 68 (?) euro fine for smocking inside the public areas of ski lifts belonging to La Compagnie du Mont Blanc. It is offensive to trouser wearers and we should surely be doing our utmost (€68) to protect our children from exposure to smocking, it is, after all, pretty outdated. Indeed, like the smoking ban that has hit Europe, I'm sure that within a matter of months people will quickly adapt to the change and do all their smocking outside in the cold. To non smockers, this represents a victory for them and their proches leaving keen French smockers curiously proclaiming that this sign and this blog is, and I translate "is euh ridiculisation off ze new legislation". No idea what they're talking about.

Maybe in the two years they have to prepare for the ban they can stop and actually talk to a Rosbif before writing such entertaining stuff. Hopefully not.

While the public have been banned from smoking cigarettes in public places and indeed ski lifts, no one has ever had to suffer the whopping €68 fine which sees a few exemptions in extenuating circumstances. a) when mixed with marijuana. b) at the end of the season where children are hotboxed by hippies, freestylers and even lifties inside the ski lift c) lifties who are of course allowed to have a fag hanging out their mouths (it couldn't be classed as working otherwise though could it??) while transporting fuel on the ski lifts, so long as their are no (American) tourists aboard.

It does beg the question: who is going to extract that €68 fine from offenders? The answer is of course, a liftie who is being nagged by an American tourist to do something while realising that on his salary alone, he cannot afford the extortionate prices demanded by the local smockists.

MINITEL MACHINE TRANSLATION

At the end of a drag lift in Tignes, France: A common mistake on the part of the French exemplified here. No, not their haphazard use of the mighty(ly confusing) English idiom or the fact that the English is second on the list when clearly it is mostly La Famille Rosbif frequenting the beginner run drag lifts. It is their clear and apparent lack of comprehension of the whole concept of giving way. Those of you who have ever driven in France and managed to make that turn out your hotel's driveway onto the autoroute and back to civilisation routiere will surely understand. Ok, maybe I'm being harsh and it was a genuine mistake by someone who just could not find the translation on their minitel. I suppose it's better than 'Give Up Here' which would further demoralise La Famille Rosbif into reneging on learning to snowboard on French soil and stick to driving ranges and sports that are played on the telly, putting their cigarette-smoking, skier instructor out of his snowboard-beginner-group misery. As it stands, proudly in second place on the sign, perhaps it is specifically designed to humiliate the Rosbif snowboarder/skier who the francais knows fine well, will obey the signs on the piste, just as he would stop on the road for an old lady or young mother on a zebra crossing. Ha! what imbicility! He would say as Mr Rosbif's leg 'Gives Way' right under his big nose in a heap, just as the sign suggested him to do, before proceeding to clutch the old knee which becomes the target of a cacophony of guffaw from 4 year-olds before calling on the dreaded blood wagon to take him all the way to Bourg St. Maurice, off piste. So, by not letting go as he should, he went to give way to any other traffic of which their was none, so all he could do was to collapse his whole body as indicated by this professionally made signpost. That €40 euro a day ticket certainly paid for itself in good advice.