In metropolitan London so many languages are being spoken that are unrecognizable for us country boys, but there is always fun to be had in the listening. Occasionally a familiar word gives you a clue, and sometimes the way people dress helps a little, but sometimes not.
At four in the morning, at the opposite bus stop, four lovely girls are standing; long silken hair, picturesque limbs, very high heels on beautifully made shoes, and wonderfully well-tailored high-waisted overcoats. Their musical voices, never stopping for breath in loud conversation, are unmistakeably Italian.
Then, two minutes into my bus-journey to work, two heavily built men come aboard, unshaven, wearing scruffy coats over scruffy jackets, misshapen woolly hats, badly worn boots. Their loud gruff voices, never stopping for breath in loud conversation, are unmistakeably Italian.
Tired and losing concentration towards the end of a frantic day, I make a delivery to the wrong one of a pair of French restaurants about five miles apart in Sutton and Croydon. The next day I return to what had been the wrong one and ask the chef ( old joke ) if the French have a word for “Deja-vu” ?
“I wouldn’t fucking know”, growls the morose Danish all-in wrestler with a big Sabatier knife clenched in his massive fist, “I’m not fucking French !”