Adventures in Paris
Hi James, and everyone else,
I'm worried that you didn't receive Friday, James. I wonder if I emailed her to the wrong person by mistake. If any readers have received a small, cruel, but very beautiful cat as an email attachment, please shove her into the socket in the back of your computer and email her back to me pronto! If I have to tell Lottie that I've emailed her cat to a stranger, she'll be livid.
Sorry to hear that you were so short of money in Paris, James, but glad to hear you had a good time there anyway. Your story reminded me of the time I first visited Paris. I was nineteen years old, and I was spending a month travelling around Europe on the train with a group of my friends. Of course, like most nineteen year olds, we were pretty skint. Paris was the first city we visited, and we soon realised that we didn't have enough money for a meal and a bed for the night; we had to choose one or the other. We chose to spend our money on food, and after our meal we decided to spend the night at one of the main railway stations in Paris, the Gare du Nord, because we had to catch a train from that station the next morning. Admittedly, spending the night on a railway station was a pretty stupid plan, but we were nineteen-year-olds from a provincial English town, and we were quite naïve. Of course, I woke up in the morning to find that my rucksack had been stolen, with all my clothes and other belongings inside it. It was a pretty bad moment. But the rucksack and its contents were insured, so I just went out and bought a new rucksack and some new clothes, and we continued our trip and had a wonderful time.
In fact, every time I go to Paris, terrible things happen to me - either I get robbed, or I have terrible transport problems, or something like that. These days I avoid Paris. Note to Parisians: please don't misunderstand me, I don't dislike your beautiful city at all. However, for some reason, your city dislikes me. If anyone can explain this strange phenomenon, I'd be very grateful.
Ana Paula, I'm glad to hear you're enjoying 'Waiting for Godot' so much - it's hilarious, isn't it? You and Leila both asked a question about a particular word which appears in this book, and I'll try to answer it, though I'll have to be careful as this is the BBC and the word is a little, ahem, salty. The word is 'ballocks'. That's actually the Irish spelling; in Britain, we would replace the 'a' with an 'o'. Normally it's a plural noun; a man has two of these items, and a woman doesn't have any. However, like most salty words in English, it can have many many different meanings, and I can't say exactly what it means in the sentence you quoted unless you give me a bit more context. If you write the whole sentence in a comment, I'll try to give you an accurate definition.
By the way, Leila, there’s no need to apologise for your question. It’s important to learn this kind of English too!
Romana from Italy asked about my use of the phrase so I shall. This is another example of one of the slightly old-fashioned turns of phrase which I sometimes like to use. In contemporary English, the word ‘shall’ is really only used for making offers or suggestions, in questions such as,
Shall I open the window?
or,
Shall we go to the cinema tonight?
However, in my last blog I wrote this sentence:
Well, I promised to tell you about ‘Dans le Noir’, the pitch-black restaurant, and so I shall.
In this rather antiquated usage, ‘and so I shall’ means something like, ‘and I will do that.’
Ruth from Jilin in China asked me what I ate at ‘Dans le Noir’. The starter was some kind of shellfish, the main course was also fish (I think it might have been tuna) with vegetables and rice, and the dessert was a little bowl of ice-cream. Amazingly, it all went into my mouth, and none of it ended up on my suit.
Alexey from Russia asked about other strange places in London – sadly, Alexey, there aren’t very many. For our next night out, my friends and I are planning to go to a ‘Punk Rock Karaoke’, where members of the audience can get up on stage and sing (or scream) old punk songs in front of a live band (I’m planning to sing ‘Ace of Spades’ by Motorhead – do any of our readers know that sweet and beautiful song?). I liked your idea of ‘swimming pools with strange water’ very much, Alexey. What do you think they should put in the water?
Once again, I’d like to say thanks to everyone for all your comments. Please keep ’em coming!
All the best,
Alex
Vocabulary
To shove means to push.
Pronto is a word we’ve borrowed from the Italian language. We use it to mean ‘immediately’ or ‘very quickly’.
The adjective livid means furious or very angry.
Skint is also an adjective – this time an informal one. If you’re skint, you don’t have money.
Provincial is another adjective. The word ‘provincial’ is often used to describe towns, and it means that this town is far from the centre of a country’s cultural life. It’s rather a negative word; it suggests ‘unsophisticated’ or even ‘small-minded’. We can also describe people as ‘provincial’.
Naïve is yet another adjective. If you are unrealistic, and you believe too easily that the world is a sweet, happy, friendly place, then you could be described as naïve.
Your belongings are the things which belong to you.
Salty is, of course, the adjective related to the noun ‘salt’, and we can use it to describe taste. However, when we describe language as ‘salty’, this means that it’s rude or impolite. I believe this is because, in the old days, sailors had a reputation for using bad language.
A turn of phrase is really just an alternative way of saying ‘a phrase’.
The adjective antiquated means very old, or old-fashioned.
Finally, ’em is a common informal abbreviation of ‘them’.
Comments
Hi,Alex.Thank you for all the vocabulary. I can't imagine what happened to you nineteen boys back in paris,which must be a hilarious and fantastic adventure.
Hi Alex! Oops! My face turned red while I was reading your blog, and luckily you weren´t here to see my face, haha, I was looking like a beetroot! However, yes, yes, yes! The book is hilarious indeed, and I´ve loved reading it, and thank you for answering my question. Anyway, despite of all the embarrassment, I have to confess that my curiosity is still strong about the word meaning, so, I´ll tell you about the context. Pozzo and Lucky fell, then despairigly Pozzo starts to cry for help, and Didi and Gogo are the only people around who could help them. However, they both pick an argument to decide whether or not they should help Pozzo. I´m going to write few lines,and I hope that could be helpfull to find the word meaning, and I also hope that I´m not violating any copyright law: "Didi: That seems intelligent all right. But there´s one thing I´m afraid of. Pozzo: Help! Gogo: What? Didi: That Lucky might get going all of a sudden. Then we´d be ballocksed." Err... Hmm... Don´t you think a bit strange I finish my comment with "best wishes" after this salty quotation? Well...hmmm I only wish you a good night so. Ah! By the way, Friday didn´t appear here, uh... What a pity! Good night, Ana Paula.
Hi Alex, Two days ago, I suddenly found this blog when I was totally lost in the BBC Learning English website. I read a lot of articles of your blog which really interests me. I bet that people come to this website partly because they want to practice and try to improve their capability of English, and I also do. In fact, I have been studying English for more than 4 years in a language school that is called GVO, a possible abbreviation of " Global Village Organiation", which is really well-known in Taiwan. I have to mention that I am so proud that I have participated in every level of English class, sometimes I went to Japanese class as well. As far as you might notice, I have to confess that although I've put so much attention, I didn't learn well. So far, it's almost 20 minutes that I've spent on writing this comment. In this long period of studying, I have to be convinced of my shortcoming in lack of talent for language. My English teacher once told me that it's improbable to use English as native english-spoken people. Is that a truth, what do you think, Alex? Kindest Regards. David
hi Alex i have problem with the grammar i dont know if its right and say ( has the doctor been here) is it right if i ask a secound person if a third person has been here???
Yeah! I`ve got it! `Sailor´- is the term which suit to you as you sail across your ancient language well and learn us in this astonish way to love it too! Keep so doing, we are gratefull!
Hi Alex, it’s so good that there are still some stunning places which are more friendly in terms of money, but in general the traveling has changed for the better; cheap airlines are rather approachable and if you manage food on your own you can go even to Paris. Yesterday, I spotted a note on ‘Objective tone’ placed on ‘Ask about English’ subpage and found it really interesting, among others what you said about using evaluative words. This is particularly important in social sciences which seem to be vulnerable to that kind of words or expressions. I also followed your suggestion to take a look at the style guides and the one edited by the Oxford University Press occurred to be very useful, though referring mainly to the natural sciences. So a big thank you for the comprehensive note. Best,
Hi, Alex. As for 'swimming pools with strange water’, I think water with just bright red color would be fine. It seems to me that you are a kind of 'hit the road' person. Correct me, please, if i'm mistaken. If so, what about a journey, for instance, from London to Vladivostok (Russian Far East, if anyone of blog's readers doesn't know) by train? It's a great challenge to body and unforgettable effect to mind. Have a nice day.
Alex, can I refer to Alexey comment? But it's going to be a bit personal and rather long – sorry about that. I think I know quite well what Alexey meant while saying about the experience of travelling the trans-siberian railway, the one destined to ordinary people (there is also totally different version for the foreigners). It happened that my elder son and one of his colleagues (both scouts) agreed to voluntarily transport something very precious and very heavy from Warsaw to Polish cathedral in Vladivostok (12,000 km) by an old 4X4 Russian truck. Can you imagine a huge, heavy truck at the route where there are very few service points along the way, in some places no roads, with mountains and plains to cross where you know no one, where there are no phones (they didn't have mobile phones or GPS etc.). They crossed Siberia and reached Chita in TransBaikalia. There were problems with the truck, and in the area ahead between Chita and Blagoveschensk there was mountainous terraine with no paved roads, and no roads at all in some places. They decided to put the bells (yes, they were 4 beautiful bells concecrated by the Polish Pope. The story behind it is rather painful and goes back to the II World War) on the train to Vladivostok and boarded a legendary trans-siberian railway themselves. They had an impression that they entered the Russian submarine with its complicated instalation supplying the samowar with hot water, narrow corridors, steel ladders ... and lack of ventilation.... But they made friends with very strange and very hilarious co-passengers, who revealed, among others, the secret knowledge of cedar nuts collecting. They recall it as one of the weirdest experiences. Best,
Hi everybody and hi Alex! First thing: thank you! This blog is very good to learn new vocabulary and improve our skills! I've got some questions about phrasal verbs: how do we use them? I mean for instance:should I rather say "I take off my shoes" or "I take my shoes off"? Is there a specific rule? Otherwise I'd like to improve my oral skills since I'm going to sit for the CAE (Certificate of Advanced English from Cambridge).Can you give me a piece of advice? Looking forward to hearing something from you soon. Arnaud
Hi Alex! I am pleased to post in your weblog! I am trying to read your day by day post with a lot of fascination. Let me tell you that I can understand the way you feel with Paris, because something similar had happened with me. I do not have problems neither with the country, nor with the people. It's just a matter of destiny that made me try to avoid visiting Paris again. Kindest regards.
Hi,alex..this is my first comment in this BBC website.Actually,i'm a new member.I have problems in english language,a lot.Sometimes i feel ashamed to write down any comment in english as i feel that every sentence that i wrote down,it must be wrong.But,when i read your column,i'm so interested with ypur writing..I'll appreciate if you can correct my sentence that i wrote down here...thank you.
Hi Alex, I am so happy to be here for reading your Blog. It is very interesting and useful.Thanks a million. I miss England very much.I really hope I may go there again one day!
hi,Alex Don't worry about Friday and she'll be wity you soon. we saw her with a hansome male friend.my son invited them for lunch.they looked exhausted. she said she's been very happy without you but thanked you for giving her a golden opportunity to see the world.my son grabbed the break to ask that you are a really hansome. She said you're a
Hi. It is such a wonderful memory in Paris. If you miss this adventure , you may not be have a hilarious story to share with us . Nothing gain,nothing venture . <Wisarut S.>
Hello, James. I am Nao from Japan. I really enjoy reading your weblog. You mentioned about other strange places in London. Have you heard the restaurant called “ Around the corner “ in West Hamstead? According to my friend, this restaurant has not the price on the menu. So that means that you can decide the price of the meal. It might not as “ weird” as you expected, but it will be useful when you are broke. You could have lovely meal for just fiver or nothing.
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