Saturday 5 March 2016

A veritable enigma


Remember a couple of posts ago, when I said that the word, 'FRANCE' had been written on the art gallery wall in red lipstick? Well this man of the road was standing right next to it, gabbling away to himself and others, a few minutes ago.

I have only been aware of this gentleman in Bath for about a month, so I am guessing that this was when he turned up. Through the half-open window I could just about hear him talking and mumbling over the noise of the traffic, but could not make out the words, so I fully opened the window and listened harder to confirm my suspicions - he was talking in French. He is from France.

He does not look like a rugby supporter, let alone a rugby supporter who would wear (or carry about) women's cosmetics, so I think this little tableaux may be yet another example of the sort of serendipity which God amuses himself with when slightly bored. I am no closer to solving any mysteries. If anything, this one has become even more shrouded.

Then again, I may be making the sort of assumptions that Inspector Le Strade regularly jumped to. He could - for all I know - be a highly talented Burlesque dancer in his spare time.

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains - however improbable - must be the truth."

27 comments:

  1. Speaking of the enigmatic... The mysterious 'other' occupant here has been playing up a bit. Another two dimes have been left in odd places and two nights ago a pot of vegetable beef soup went hurtling toward the edge of the induction surface of the cooker. It stopped so abruptly, just as it reached the edge, I could hear the contents splashing about.

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    1. Hmm. Do you have a youngish girl in your household?

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    2. My daughter, who is 25, has her own household. There was a very young girl killed in this house in the '20's.

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    3. How was she killed, do you know?

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    4. From what my elderly neighbour has said, (the girl's cousin) she was attacked by three men and handled in a brutal fashion which her body was too young to survive. She was five. I don't think more detail is necessary?

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    5. I don't suppose the mother is still alive is she?

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    6. No, she isn't, according to Ms. Graves she died several years ago. (Ms. Graves, the older neighbour, is the chatty sort.)

      If the other occupant gets too active, I sing. Not terribly well but things seem to calm down when I do.

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    7. Oh well, it doesn't sound as though the other occupant is too bad to live with - at least they pay, and don't actually spill the soup.

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  2. He's an ex public school boy who's hit hard times.

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    1. An ex public schoolboy who hit hard times after opening up a restaurant and losing Micheline stars, maybe.

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    2. And perhaps he came to Britain to milk the benefit system.

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    3. Perhaps he's on the run from the French Foreign Legion.

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    4. He is of an age whereby he must have been running for at least 35 years. Even the Legion gives up after a while, unlike the Mounties.

      I have an ex Paratrooper friend who though he could handle being a Legionnaire, and he is on the run. He has been on the run for about 30 years as well, most of that time as a drug-dealer in places like Ibiza.

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    5. Even Heron has been blaming me of Graffiti.

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    6. Have you been in Ireland for a week too?

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  3. A truth which you will probably never know for sure.

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    1. If you say it's a truth, then that's good enough for me, Weave.

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  4. He's got luggage, he is smoking a Gauloise, he is mumbling in French, he is standing next to a sign that says France ..... God forbid he thinks that this is a bus stop for a bus to take him back to the land of crepes and fromage.

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    1. We have taken over in the Fromage stakes now. Maybe that's why he is here. Anyway, Gauloise are not longer the stinking wonders that I recall from early visits to France. The EU have taken all the fun out of French tobacco.

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  5. Not long ago, in Italy police found a 70 year old French man with no identity, in a confusional state, writing scientific formulas on a town wall. Could be the same man. Greetings Maria x

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    1. Ah... he looks very intelligent, but then people say I do as well.

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  6. You don't think it is Cro do you .... it looks a lot like him ?!!!!!! I told him that it was lovely and sunny over here and he is fed up with the French rain !! XXXX

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    1. Keep up the good lies. He needs to be punished for the good life.

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  7. Why don't you go down and ask him his life story next time you see him?

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    1. Years of experience tells me that this may not be a good idea, but also my French is not good enough to hold a conversation. I may send Cro.

      But wait, my hero, Samuel Johnson, used to carry back crippled tramps on his back home for his wife to cook for and feed. I wonder how H.I. would respond to that..... (heh heh heh...)

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  8. By the way, I'm in Bath for a week; I'll be wearing a grey hoodie.

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