French newsreader's Borloo-Bordeaux mix-up

The leader of the liberal and centrist Parti radical (Radical party), Jean-Louis Borloo might have the reputation - deservéd or not - of enjoying a tipple or two.

Indeed his character in the satirical puppet show on Canal +, Les Guignols, is often portrayed as being on the rather jolly and incoherent side of tipsy as an even more dishevelled - if it were humanely possible - reincarnation of that scruffy TV detective Colombo.

Elise Lucet (screenshot from France 2 television)

So perhaps it was exactly that image that came to the fore in the mind of Elise Lucet as as the anchor on France 2's lunchtime edition of the news on Thursday gave a plug for a programme to be broadcast later in the day.

As she signed off, Lucet drew viewers' attention to the channel's political magazine A vu de juger, in which Borloo would be appearing in the evening and would perhaps she said, "Announce he was running for the country's 2012 presidential elections."

Except that wasn't quite what came out as you can see from the clip.

"Jean-Louis Bordeaux (as in the wine presumably) is what slipped out, quickly to be replaced by, "Borloo" and a smile.

Drunk in charge of a lawnmower

For one French man this year's May Day celebrations finished before they had begun after police pulled him over for being drunk in charge of a...motorised lawnmower.

May Day was last weekend - a day recognised in many countries as International Workers' Day or Labour Day if you will.

Here in France it's a public holiday even though this year of course May 1 fell on a Saturday.

And there's a tradition that unions take to the streets to demonstrate "solidarity".

There's also a much older and perhaps more quaint custom associated with the day, which dates back to the 16th century; that of offering and receiving a sprig lily of the valley, which is not only a symbol that Spring is well and truly here but is also supposed to be "lucky".

For one man though in the village of Le Pasquier in the eastern département of Jura, the celebrations never really got underway and fortune certainly wasn't on his side as the day before, after apparently having spent a couple of hours in the forest collecting flowers, he was stopped by police as he made his way home.

The 56-year-old was, according to the regional daily Le Progrès, happily driving along not in a car but aboard his motorised lawnmower when he was pulled over.

Hardly a chase reminiscent of those US action films probably as the thing barely goes faster than walking pace, but nonetheless, as the police reminded the newspaper, a motorised lawnmower is not a vehicle "authorised to circulate on public roads in France."

And it didn't take long for the two officers to realise that the man wasn't exactly fully in control of his "capacities".

"It was clear when we started questioning him that he wasn't in a 'normal' state," one of the officers told the newspaper.

"He was talking incoherently and smelled of alcohol."

Sure enough when breathylised, he was found to be well over the limit, and the police immediately impounded his unusual "mode of transport".

Not surprisingly perhaps he'll face charges on two counts when his case comes to court next month; driving an unregistered vehicle and doing so while drunk.

But although he's likely to face a hefty fine, he won't lose his licence, as he doesn't have one.

A royal cocktail almost stumps English cricket bosses

A potentially embarrassing clash of two Great British institutions was only narrowly avoided last week and, as has often been the case in the past, the culprit was in a sense French.

On Friday Queen Elizabeth II was a guest at Lords in north London, the "home" of cricket, to attend day two of the second test in the Ashes series between England and Australia.

And as is befitting whenever and wherever the Queen is invited, every effort was made to ensure that things were "just right".

Except the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), which owns and runs the ground had overlooked one particular regal request ahead of the visit - a bottle of Dubonnet, that ruby red, French aperitif with a spicy aroma, reputed to be one of Her Majesty's favourite (lunchtime) tipples.

When the Powers that Be realised there was none on the premises, an MCC committee room steward, Brian Levitt, was promptly dispatched to buy a bottle. But when he dropped in at the local off-licence he was reportedly told it wasn't in stock as nobody had asked for it for 30 years.

Levitt had better luck at a nearby supermarket and, bottle in hand, hotfooted it back to the ground.

But he probably hadn't reckoned on a notoriously over-eager gate steward zealously imposing rules set by the MCC itself; spectators are permitted to bring only small amounts of beer and wine into the hallowed ground, but certainly not spirits of any kind.

A right royal dilemma and all the potential of becoming an ignominious affair for the venerable MCC was avoided with a quick call to its chief executive, Keith Bradshaw, who gave the green light for the bottle to be brought into the venue.

So an "incident" was avoided, the Queen got her drink and, as should befit such occasions, never had the slightest inkling of the behind-the-scenes last-minute kerfuffle.

For those of you unfamiliar with the drink, after all it's perhaps not as popular today as it once was (although its manufacturer insists that it's "the number-one selling aperitif brand in the United States"), Dubonnet is a fortified wine-based aperitif blended with herbs and spices and created in the mid-19th century by the Parisian chemist Joseph Dubonnet.

It was originally used to mask the taste of quinine taken by French Foreign legion troops in North Africa to prevent malaria, but has also become a mainstay in cocktails and aperitifs.

Just for the record, the Queen apparently gets her love of the drink from her late mother, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and A BBC television documentary broadcast a couple of years ago "The Royal Family At Work" showed her butler mixing her favourite tipple, Dubonnet and gin.

Cheers.