People-watching in Paris - and eavesdropping

The weather here in France has been fair to middling recently with the odd rainy hiccough, which anyway has to be good for the garden.

It's probably just as well, given that we're about halfway through Spring, Easter has been and gone and we're well into May.

And this past weekend was another long one in France as Friday was May 8 - Victory in Europe day or the date back in 1945 when the Allies formally accepted Germany's unconditional surrender to mark the end of war here in Europe.

It's a national holiday in France.

May 8 - a national holiday in France with towns and cities up and down the country marking Victory in Europe day in 1945

So combining the weather, the long weekend and living in the capital, it was a chance to partake of one of those typical Parisian practices - the lazy pastime of people-watching.

After having spent some time in France, you can get drawn into a number of habits - not all of them always entirely desirable.

One of them is undoubtedly sitting in a café watching the world go by looking at those around you and "wondering".

Simple observation of course only gives a part of the picture and allows the imagination to run riot.

If you also happen to be able to eavesdrop on the conversation at the next table, it can provide some juicy titbits and some unexpected surprises.

Whatever the case, the cafés were full to bursting point and a Saturday morning spent doing very little apart from poring over a couple of coffees provided happy hunting for the inveterate eavesdropper - that's me in case you were wondering.

Oh yes and "Paris in Springtime" and all that - brings the tourists flocking in.

There are bound to be more than a few clichés in what follows - I apologise ahead of time - but it seems that sometimes tourists - where ever they may be - forget simple manners and resort to behaviour which I would hope they would not practise back home.

There again as Fats Waller said, "One never knows, do one?"

People-watching is probably not uniquely French, although their manner of practising it is somewhat (offensive) to the milder-mannered, more polite British variation.

It amounts to unashamed staring with no pretence of anything other - rather than surreptitious glancing.

Many has been the time I've been forced to point out to French friends that what they're doing could be considered rude. But the response has always been that famous Gallic shrug and the accusation that I'm just being a hypocrite.

There might be something to that of course. I'm blessed with excellent periphery vision and can "pretend" that I'm not watching as intently as my French friends thereby apparently taking the "moral" highground.

Sure looks like hypocrisy to me when I face it - better make sure friends and family don't get to read this.

So hands up I people watch too - and probably what is worse I eavesdrop.

Let out the collective tut.

Anyway back to the café and a morning spent drinking coffee and remaining bravely hidden behind my newspaper.

First up as I spent far too much time over my first cup and seemingly engrossed in the culture section of Le Monde, was a British couple - Bob and Margaret (I've taken the liberty of changing their names).

They were apparently just over for the weekend, having arrived on the Eurostar, cooing over how quick it was from London to Paris (they're right - just over two hours) but complaining a little too loudly that, "The French don't seem to understand a word we're saying and all in all are downright rude."

Er memo to Bob and Margaret, "Try avoiding the clichés. Parisians aren't representative of the French - in the same way that London isn't Britain, Berlin isn't Germany and so on."

Oh yes and rather than complaining about their apparent lack of English, how about trying a few words of French? Polite manners breeds - er polite manners. And there's nothing the French (Parisians included) respond to more than at least trying.

Next up a group of Italians - actually several groups of them - dotted around at tables facing the street, talking 19-to-the-dozen and to each other across the rest of the clientele.

Roll on the hackneyed phrases.

Maybe they didn't realise there was someone around who actually understood what they were saying or perhaps they were all rather caught up in their own cacophony but I, and anyone else "forced" to listen and able to understand were treated to some rather graphic descriptions of the women passing by and what they thought of them.

"Signori, show a little sensibility please and a lot less chauvinism." I didn't say that of course (otherwise it would have indicated that I was listening - a cardinal sin) but perhaps I should have.

Oh and then there was a trio of more Brits who arrived, whose conversation left me almost spluttering into my coffee.

They were rather well-spoken in that "hot-potato-in-mouth" sort of genteel English way. Rounded vowels, clipped consonants and the stiffest of upper lips, which seemed to remain motionless when they spoke.

Imagine then how much of an eye-opener and ear -raiser it was as these three seemingly fine specimens everything that is best about being British broke into raptures as they animatedly discussed...horse breeding.

Eyes agog and ears agogo, I was treated to a rather graphic description of the "act" and the "aftermath", which included the words "stallion", "broom" and "hose". Enough said perhaps.

First coffee finished, second ordered and along came an American quartet to replace the equine English.

They didn't need to open their mouths to reveal their nationality, it was clear from the way they were dressed; checked trousers, caps and Burlington sweaters. "Had they just stepped off the golf course?" I wondered.

I warned you that clichés abounded.

They wanted lunch. "A typical French lunch," one woman said rather loudly to the man who sat next to her, and then they summoned the waiter in a way they must have thought appropriate from watching too many comedy sketches and bad films.

A click of the fingers and a hearty "GARSON" (I swear that's exactly what they did) left me almost choking once again and my ears were running riot as I heard them dissect the menu, request salads without this and that and order a round of drinks that included coke and cappuccino. "Oui très français," I muttered in a superior fashion under my breath. "The whole experience."

Coffee in a café - the best part of French life, any time of the year

Finally there were the German speakers - only the two of them, who sat down in front of me just as I was about to leave.

I use the term German-speakers judiciously because they were in fact Swiss, and in spite of having lived in Switzerland for three years and before that Germany for seven, I've never been able to get my lug holes around or get to grips with the dialect that is Swiss-German.

It's just too - um - incomprehensible, even to someone with a good grasp of the language, and takes practice - plenty of it.

Sure I understood every fourth word but that really wasn't enough to be able to make heads or tales of what they were actually talking about.

Maybe they were passing comment on me!

It would have served me right, I suppose.

Knowing then that my spot of people-watching and eavesdropping was over, I settled my bill and I headed off to take in some more of the City of Lights, rather exhausted from my listening but itching to get back home to write it all down.

The couple of hours in the presence of some rather over-loud tourists had provided me with plenty of entertainment, whether I had wanted to listen (I did) or not.

Now don't get me started on mobile 'phones.