Indian Vibes 1: Luke warm in Ooty

It all seemed like such a good idea at the time. Skinful of Ale, sit through Slumdog, wistful memories of being there as a child - and plenty of travel shows on the box - with the Clarkson trio galavanting across Indochina on motorbikes. I mean, to a chap-about-the-empire travelling around the sub continent ought to be child's play.
So with heady dreams of walking the trail of the mutiny and chuffing steam trains, punkah-wallahs and palanquins, Dear Northerner and I strolled into the Leeds branch of a well known flight brokerage and bought ourselves a couple of return flights. Into Bombay and back home from Madras.

There are many tales of this trip - all quality blog fodder so I am shall reminisce of them from time to time to share with my readers - and I hope both find it entertaining.

The South of the Sub-c appealed to us both. I could swelter in linen suits and a pith helmet while DN wafted in and out of scented bazaars regaling herself in Ill Fitting Ethnic clothing and acquiring a taste for curry a life in Leedshire inexplicably deprived her.

We had been in the true tropics for about a week and were plotting the break-out into the ghats. The brochures all waxed lyrical about cardamon scented groves and chirpy tea stalls - but after a week away from the more cosmopolitan Bombay the image had been corroded away into the filthy grime that is, frankly, the third world.
As both in our 40s, and reasonably well travelled, the sort of gaffs that would appeal to the average wide-eyed gapper or earnest Guardian reading teacher desperate-to-prove-how-down-they-are-with-the-desperately-poor (Ill fitting ethnic clothing again) would certainly not do. No sharing of rooms in railway retiring rooms - inside loos a must unless in some tree house or boat and a source of bottled water or a container I could sterilise was a must.
This part of the world does back-packer or four star - not a lot in between.
So we had abandoned ideas of strolling into towns and finding clean and tidy accommodation and had to do some serious planning in Ernakulum.
Our destination was Ootacumund - Ooty for short. Weeks poring over the guide books had told us of a fine hills station with classical architecture, pleasant parks and lakes and the like. All sounded a bit like Sussex in the tropics.

The problem was getting there. With Christmas fast upon us we had a reservation in the hills and we really had to get there.

Ernakulum station dealt us the sort of arranging one has to make with the lesser spotted station guard in Penge we found - except rather than sullen ignorance, the fellows here are only too eager to please. They will assess you for what you want and tell you precisely what they have calculated you wish to hear - with no relevance to mere reality. Which is why buying a train ticket in India is worse than getting your name off the Reader's digest mailing list.

Desperate questioning and refusing to accept the first head waggling answer giving to us by railway staff revealed a new horror to add to the amoebic discomfort.
Our route to Ooty was not there.
Gone.
Ceased to be - Doctor Beeching's revenge on the empire and all that.

The rains had come and washed away the railway and the fast coach route to the station.
No steam trains for us. No canteen bearing char-wallahs to while away the hours bartering with.
We had to negotiate a way from Ernakulum via Munnar across Via the road-head at Coimbatore to Ooty itself.

I shall share with you the delights of Munnar another time - suffice to say what lay ahead was not the genteel rail journey to the junction across into the Ghats and across the nature reserve and finally up to our end destination but 300km across the most dangerous roads in the world.

The last 90km was forecast to take 4 hours with the roads open. More as we couldn't go the direct route.

So after a five hour drive to Coimbatore (losing camera on the way - another story) we sound ourselves at the rat infested sewage spotted eastern depot in Coimbatore looking for an Ooty bus.
The journey may have cost us 50p each but the ramshackle vehicle and bus driver urinating against the wheel said we may be getting value for money.

Oh how us mighty have fallen!

However we took heart from how they drove. Buses in India are notoriously dangerous - mostly as their drivers drive extremely fast. They over-take on blind bends and race each other in the face of oncoming traffic fearlessly.
It's only 90 odd K we said - surely we will be ok.....!

The bus was busy - DN and I were separated. A fruit seller cam about selling sliced pineapples - a sure source of worms but we were hot, and thirsty. I chanced it having already suffered at the hands of Shiva's Revenge and therefore reckoned I was used to it. Two minutes later fruit wallah is back demanding more money.
I damned his impudence and sent him on his way. Blasted wallahs cant be trusted.
He came back immediately - white lady sent him. Turned out DN had bought herself some too and sent the boy forward for me to pay. She didn't want to get her money out as the old lady next to her was coughing and eyeing up her watch. No doubt hoping diphtheria would flatten DN and she would have the watch away.
Oh well - I handed his coins over.

And so in 32 degree heat we bounded and crashed and hooted our way off the road to Ooty.

It was all going swimmingly until the climb up the hills. Unable to read due to sheer terror the hilly landscape proved a welcome relief to watching the repeats of one's life every five minutes.

A road sign! Ooty 65KM....looking good.

It was now getting dark  - not that seemed to indicate to the driver we needed any lights.

Hairpin bend....over-take tuk-tuk.
Hairpin bend....over-take tuk-tuk.
Hairpin bend....over-take tuk-tuk.
Hairpin bend....over-take tuk-tuk.
Hairpin bend....over-take tuk-tuk.
Hairpin bend....over-take tuk-tuk.
Hairpin bend....over-take tuk-tuk.
Hairpin bend....over-take tuk-tuk.
Hairpin bend....over-take tuk-tuk.

It started to rain and get cold. The bus heaved and groaned and I was marvelling at the strength of the chap throwing the wheel around - arms like popeye.
Two buses stuck on hairpin - neither giving way, much hooting anf shouting.

Half the road gone - much hallooing and hooting shouting and comings and goings.

Another sign: Ooty 65KM

And another: Ooty 70KM.

We had already learned the numbers on the road signs are merely there for the amusement of the sign writers and bear no relationship to actual distances, directions or locations.

Ooty 55KM

Police Check point. Lady behind me is sick into hanky, tries to hurl it from the window - rebounds and covers window with a fruity tang. Shivaite next to pees himself. Women weep, men curse, children sob and still we climb on into the deepening night.

And lo five hours into the now freezing night we round a curve and we see lights in the valley to our left - not miles away but close - could this be Ooty at last? We get stuck again. This time going down hill for the first time in the journey - so near yet so, so far.
We speed up into brighter still lights....bone shaking terror as we scream past goats and pariah dogs.
All desperate for the loo as we bounce and shake into a town ahead - it's now 9pm - we have been under way since 3.

Now Dear Northerner had arranged this part and after all manner of woe in the Munnar Fawlty towers we had a reservation at the Taj. Comfort, safety and civilisation would be restored at some point. The challenge of course is getting there in one piece.
Our experience of the Taj in Bombay was one of genteel elegance, refined civility and all very pukka and up our street.
We had had enough of rip-offs, dirt, filth, rickety transport and appalling roads and driving.

We were deposited at Piccadilly Circus in Ooty. The rain was leaving rivulets in the dust and brake grime on our legs as we shivered to extract waterproofs from our packs. It felt very much like Yorkshire in November. We were supposed to have escaped this. Garish neon winked through the stinging drops as tuk-tuk drivers hawked inflated prices. When we first arrived in India we laughed up our sleeves at rickshaw drivers ripping off prickly-heated coated indignant Sahibs for a pennies in our money. After a week since Aleppy being charged a pound still felt expensive - but we paid it all the same.

This was a chap reduced the status of some awful back-packer. No howdah to carry me forth, just rain, shit and slowness. Not to what I was accustomed at all. But resolution is all in these matters and a stiff upper lip and a stern resolve works wonders with the natives I have found.
So spattered we were as we chugged up into the mist past lights and cows sheltering from cold in doorways.
Down a dark unmade road. We read of tourists being taken up back roads and robbed - and fearing the Northerner's life and my manly virtue we clung to one another - mostly for warmth mind.

The road opened up to a gate house and a uniformed and turbaned guard peered into the back and stood smartly up and lifted the barrier.
Dropped by a door way in a car-port from the rain we collected our things and trudged into the reception. Soothing yellow lights and a huge vase of lillys adorned the desk. Mustachioed white jacket at the desk looked up and beamed.
'Mr D? We have been expecting you.'
We suddenly felt dirty, ragged and not at all well heeled in such salubrious surrounds.
'Welcome to the Taj, sir - please I will get a boy for your bags - you needn't carry anything here, sir."
A warm glow not unlike peeing yourself on a wetsuit came over us both.
'Table for Dinner sir and a drink at bar first perhaps while the boy runs you a bath and lights a fire in your room?'

Civilisation indeed. After the tribulations of even getting alcohol at all in Kerala let alone any without formaldehyde preservatives - a wine list at all had me soaring to elysium. A cigar humidor with burning embers to light it, a half decent red, a soak and a fire with which to warm DN for bed and you know - it might even have been worth it. The very mention of a bath had the Dear Northerner pink with delight.
Oh the water wasn't as hot as she would have liked - but it had a plug, some salts in a glass jar and our suite really did have a fire. Christmas at last............

Ooty, through a hole in the clouds

From the shadows he will rise

Okay, okay.

It has been two years since I have written anything here largely because I have been frightfully busy.

Busy with the Dear Northerner.

Busy with cleaving myself twain from the yoke of Big Grey, setting up my very own boutique consultancy dedicated to earning filthy lucre.

Busy moving house to North of the 53rd Parallel and inveigling myself in James Herriot country.

Busy acquiring suitable tweeds for hearty strides across the moors.

Busy buying 'gay' car but with a whale skin interior, baby seal eyes for headlights and huuuge V6 engine.

Busy not knowing what to write and finding out that the Dear Northerner was reading this with alacrity and searching the archives. Not Good. Especially when I said things about her

Anyway - my dear readers have spoken and they want more.

Better get cracking hadn't I? And there is so much to go on now..........

Trawling the Net

Claiming her 'find love, your money back' from Match.com.

Some of you know that a while a go Chap went 'net dating. It was pretty paltry clench, if you ask me.

One recalls that the vapidity of the things the 'gels 'put of there.

Is it the medium, one wonders? Or those driven to use it? There seems to be an ongoing air headed cheeriness of those that use this - the saccharine smile of the end of pier beauty queen transcribed into two hundred easy words.
If you are considering it - here's a handy primer to help you decipher the sinister wiles the phillies use to try and convince you that they are not desperate heifers who's clock has gone off:

Translation into chap in italics.

I'm an optimist

The pills have kicked in.

I like to treat my glass as half full

or I would cry

I love life!!

I'm desperately boring

I love my alone time!

I have three-alarm PMT

I enjoy everything life throws at me!

The most interesting part of my day is reading the Metro over someone's shoulder

I have a colourful character

I will cook your pets when you leave me

I love Yoga,

Every woman puts this in her profile - they will think I'm weird if I don't

And Pilates,

I have no life

And Keeping fit,

I really have no life

And going to the gym,

save me from the interminable boredom of my own company

And going out for coffee

I have no imagination to invent a lifestyle beyond last night's Sex in the City

I'm active in Politics,

I voted Labour last time and regret it now

I Love environmental issues,

I once signed up to Greenpeace at Glastonbury

I love live music

I listen to Chris Moyles

I love seeing my friends

to cry

I have a travel bug

I went to Australia once

I enjoy my food

I weigh 16 stone

I have a few extra pounds

I am the walrus

I enjoy a drink or two

I will drink lighter fluid

I'm a social smoker

Fag-ash Lil.

I don’t do recreational drugs

My face is on the Bolivian banknote

I'm considering children

I will use a turkey baster if you are not careful.

Any others from my readers?

A blatant attempt....

The Northerner has stated publicly that she will convert me into being a Northerner such as herself.

Tricky, as you know you can take the Chap out of the Colonies, but not the Colonies out of the Chap.
My moral aversion to whippets runs deeper than a Cornish tin-mine and no matter what she may wish to persuade me is the done thing north of the 53rd parallel - the bathroom is no place for Amyl Nitrate.

Watch this space, reader. If 'Eckie-thump' becomes currency, let me know, what?

Two weeks since I posted?

Criminal I can hear you say, dear reader.

But why?

Well the Northerner has been keeping me chained up in the Frozen Wastes and away from my usual sources of inspiration.
In fact, inspiration has been a bit dry of late - I have been doing a fotherinton-tomas and skipping about going Hullo Clouds Hullo sky.
The only thing worthy of any kind of comment was the my espying a bottle of what appeared to be Amyl Nitrate next to the candles in her bathroom.

Turned out it was aromatherapy bath oil - sparing my imagination the joys of juxtaposing said believed content with limitless hot water and 'wet-room' fittings.

The aviating has been a bit pants of late too. No decent thermic activity leaving me desperate to do my Silver distance - despite having picked up my licence to fly to the scene of my own demise at a field other than mine own.

Got some Uncle Chap requests to deal with - but they are pretty thin stuff, frankly.

More Uncle Chap

Dear Uncle Chap,

I have increasing begun to notice that some of my circle have not been able to find new jobs (after redundancy). The credit crunch has rendered others unable to re-mortgage & are presently selling their properties.

All & all, I am find my life depleted through their sudden lack of means to socialise. I was wondering if you could advise how I can begin to quickly generate some new friends?

Anon

Dear Anon (I know who you are AND where you live...)

I have found the following to be most advantageous:

1. Improve your personal hygiene routine.

2. Give away vast amounts of recreational pharmaceuticals and lascivious sexual favours.

3. Never mention the pustules.

4. Avoid underwear and especially in your case, admitting that your are (or have been) a socialist.
Such admissions draw derision outside of a few remaining pockets of idiocy in Hampstead and student common rooms.

Follow these simple rules and your will find yourself popular at Yacht clubs, Rubber Balls and opium dens all over London.

RIP Plumbo Jumbo

Students of Chapsticks and my existence will be vaguely aware of my rather cynical take on the world of drainage.

As the recently-promoted-from-prospective-paramour-to-status-of-Miss-Chap once bemusedly asked of a chumrade - 'Why give him a drain-rod for Christmas?'
Chumrade commented - 'you haven't known him very long have you!'

My drains have been a source of both material for this blog, modern art coverings for parts of my house and a regular pensionable income for the likes of Plumbo Jumbo.

But this would now appear to be at an end.

I have recently reached into my pocket and shelled out for some horny-handed sons of the soil to re-lay my patio and block pave my drive.

No small feat this - and a Augaen stablesque task beyond the means of the local pikeys.

In the removing of the 40 tonnes of concrete and rubble form the old drive I received telephone call from my clerk of works who was somewhat excited by his find. In true Augean fashion they had discovered the source of all my drainage woes.
My main drain had collapsed a while ago. rather than a clean hygienic flow into the sewerage there was a festering pit of quicksand revealed from 'neath the concrete crust.

I arrived home at high speed and in a state of what can only be called High Dudgeon.

There was a spongey depression in the middle of what was my drive. A glance down the hades pit of a man hole cover revealed horrors beyond description. All backed up and oozing away.

There then followed a two-day long rant at insurance company, loss adjuster, drainage contractor, driveway contractor, more loss adjusters and the insurers again.

Best thing to do? I slunk off to stay on a yacht for a long weekend.

Instead of running around fretting about things in the 'danger area', I spent the time gunkholing on a boat - tiding oneself into a pool off well named Brownsea island getting 'anchored and wankered'. Instead of sitting at home surrounded by sewage, I decided to sit on a boat in a tidal pool. Surrounded by sewage.

And now a full week later I can report that all is done.

My builders? Honest and good workers.
Workmanship? Excellent - everything is done.
Drains? Flowing freely for the first time in years.

What will I write about now?

Oh - forgot - I'm off to T'Races soon. Expect essay on 'The Glory Of Debt'.

Sigismund is in Thailand. He will doubtless come back with a rash and a sore bum.

Uncle Boris

What can I say? We are looking at the end of municipal-Marxism in London, at last.

I'm hoping that the usual Gaurdianista commentariat lefty scum who were happy to keep the vile Livingslime in office because he wasn't a Tory - are now writhing with self loathing. Why don't you all move out of your Islington and Hampstead homes and practice your benighted champagne socialism elsewhere?

First step - London. Next step - the country. Labour will be reduced to a rump of the whingeing bunch of failed social workers, second rate comprehensive teachers and chippy unionists they always were.

Who was it from Labour two years ago saying that Conservatives will be reduced to a small rump in a New Socialist Britain? Choking on your Leninflakes now aren't you.

In the words of Bozza himself to tinsel-tits on Today: 'I think the media have been denied a target today.'

And to the rest of the apologists for the left - watch out.....your time is coming.....your hegemony is at an end. Blue Britain will be back - and your cosy do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do nannyistic views will be crushed. No more jobs for you lot.

Going Native

Ahhh....the fresh fragrant air of the moors.....

Like Macavity - I have been nowhere to be seen….

Some of my detractors assume that this chap has been languishing in a police cell following an incident with a statue and some KY jelly.

No, I have been getting ever terser notes from my tailor about my bill there and notes from my flying club regarding overdue landing fees.

Not, as it happens. Because of poverty - but because a young lady of not inconsiderable pulchritude has been distracting me in the frozen wastes of T'North.

I am concerned that because of her fragrant charms and fine dining I fear I may be going native.
Once I would have shunned the Northern Breakfast for devilled kidneys, a dozen oysters, a bottle of champagne and a gramme of Bolivian - a fine breakfast that would set any Christian up for the day.

Now - I have been eyeing up Black Pudding and boiled ham with Piccalilli with glad rapture.
The final grim confirmation was when I saw a man with a terrier and holding a ferret I commented that it was 'reet grand'.


After our Anglo French dinner I commented on afterwards that it ' were proper belting'.

However, I draw the line at pretending York races are anything like Ascot. I fear that despite the fact we may going to one of the local race meets, she may be tempted to wear a hat more suitable for some of the gummier sloanes one finds in Surrey. I shall do my utmost, reader, to ensure she is restrained.

In the meantime I shall be perfecting the poise of a Northern gentleman - hunting tweeds, hearty breakfasts and rounding up the glowering small holders to have them flogged for the pettiest of misdemeanours.

Not for me the grubby commercialistic mill-owning with the inexorable slide into a gruesome paternalistic socialism!

A life on the ocean wave

I am blessed with the sense and taste not to enjoy motorboats but instead with the virtue of liking my recreational travel to involve mother nature providing the motive forms.
Namely - if a fellow is to go on a boating weekend, it is not going to be in a 'Hoseasons' rubbish skip landing craft but in a genteel yacht.
Unfortunately I lack the resources to be able to swan about in a teak and mahogany number but I am able to at least scud about the south coast entirely under my own power and not be entirely reliant on Wight link and Red Funnel.

One of the manifest joys is the culinary delights.

Recent trip saw myself and others with particular tastes in the foodage line other than the requisite bacon sandwiches.

I rather enjoy utterly disgusting my crew with what I serve them - it is nutritious but inedible to all but the hungriest mariners.

Sample menu:

Breakfast (served aloft and underway)

Pickled herrings and salted Greek yogurt

Luncheon

Chicken thighs roasted in lithium grease

Supper

Stewing lamb flash fried and served with duck tripes.

Oatcakes with uncoloured margarine

Wines

Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon (Bottled yesterday for freshness)

Belgian Chardonnay

Naturally I guzzled the above with glad rapture.
Unfortunately my first mate took one look and declared it all to be 'Scandinavian Insanity Suppositories' and threw the lot over the side.

Flogging is too good for them.

Das Wrong Bike

Awesome stuff - rest assured chap rides a triumph - fez doff to Dizzy

A new reader!

Welcome to my dear friend and new reader who is availing herself of my wisdom and vacuous scribblings.

Let it be sung by the angels that she is a most delightful and fragrant individual!

Nothing to see here, dearest! Move along!

International Chappism (again)

In the words of many a GI heard in the 70's - I'm gonna get me some R 'n' R!

Or in other words sample the fragrant delights of my old home soon...... chickens feet, boiled rat and rampant unfettered capitalism.

Joy.

UPDATE:
No scotty - this is Hong Kong, not New York. Prole.

More Uncle Chap

Dear Uncle chap

I have recently been meddling in the very fabric of the universe and have acquired knowledge that clearly man was not meant to know. As a result of playing god and meddling with forces beyond my control, I now have need of an army of robot slaves. My problem is this after my space station is fully operational what is to stop them turning on me in some form of cyber-rebellion? Should I build a more mobile battle station? Perhaps a cross between a star ship and a battle station? What should I call this?

Dear reader,

I share your woes - as it is nigh on impossible to acquire half decent staff. Your solution is elegant and noble - robot slaves do not complain about health and safety, demand workers' rights or vote Labour.
I was however concerned by one or two of your points. You are guilty, I'm afraid, of lethal hubris. If you are going to embark on plans of global domination then one should at least keep one's feet on the ground.
Any recently apprehended global evil genius will tell you that Space Stations, Death Stars (tm) or Orbital Laser platforms are very prone to invasion by misguidedly honest forces of some Intelligence services hell bent on 'liberating' the world from your boundless munificence.
In addition, it is a proven fact that radiation released while raining 'god's cleansing fire' on the cities of the world scramble the brains of these robot slaves leading them to rise up, burn the sky and generally enslave us.

My advice is simple - your base and therefore plans should be based around either a volcano and some scheme to cause the major powers to waste their missiles on one another, leaving the world yours - or something in the sub-aqua line. That will combine great views with excellent facilities for torturing special agents, detaining world leaders and capturing rogue ballistic missile submarines.

In the meantime - one should consider the appropriate accessories for yourself to carry off the look with panache. White cats and Chairman Mao suits are very last century. The modern super villain should really only be seen in either a well cut Saville Row suit with a lining hewn from the skin of Japanese virgins or a traditional suit of golden armour.

Your tinfoil hat is entirely optional - but it may ruin your credibility when on the video phone to the U.N.

T'North - again...again!

I have been in the frozen wastes of the North a lot of late. By north I mean above the 53rd parallel.
Imagine my surprise in finding one or two natives friendly. Very friendly.

I may be spending a while up here until she realises the ugly truth.

Delight!

There is something uniquely chappy about devouring a plate of sauteed lamb's kidneys with toast, a shoulder of said lamb, fondant potatoes, kale and the most unctuous apple crumble I have ever tasted with light frothed custard - and then finding oneself so egg-bound from the custard that one is resorting to double-dropping senokot and a fibre tablets all washed down with a glass of fybogel to get it all moving again.

Thank god I have been laying off the Joy of Figs today as well.

I feel sorry for the Scot, who ate 10 eggs in a fish pie and is challenging the fellow who ate a box of dairy fudge with a bottle of cream soda for stickiness quotient.

More Chappy advice....

Dear Uncle Chap,
My husband has been taken away on business overseas for an extended period of time. The house is cold & lonely without a masterful male presence, could you provide a solution? (Your favourite …. apple crumble (with custard) is being prepared by cook as we speak.)
H

The problem dear girl, is that in your rampant and thrusting desire for status and external validation you have clearly neglected the fact that the epicurianism in matters digestif and sexual have been neglected.

If you have paid proper attention to one's onanistic methods - such as 'The hedgehog' then you would feel neither cold nor lonely ever again. Under normal circumstances I would only be to delighted to administer the discipline you require, indeed, and the masterful direction you so clearly require! Does not a woman such as you blossom under the smack of a firm hand?

However, the fact you require cook (Or in Your case what you really mean is Mr. Mark and Mr Spencer) to prepare your custard simply reveals the paucity of your spirit and the barrenness of your desire. Go back to Chiswick and hang your head in shame!

As a consequence I am no longer available to listen to you crow about the price of what some estate agent thinks your rabbit hutch in the garden is now worth. Apple Crumble or not, old girl. My head has been turned by a fragrant young beauty - or rather one who hasn't said no yet.

Above us the skies

OK not often I post before I fly - but time for a spot of seriousness.

Serious instability in the airmass tomorrow. Will over-develop into showers in the afternoon - but the models are suggesting the best day of the year so far. Cumulus developing hard from 3-4000 feet. Streeting all the way to the north-west.

Got my toy booked. Aerotow ready. Girl arriving later to hear tales of my aviating. With any luck will get the chance to climb aboard and take her to heaven and back too.

Fuck I love this sport.

Question

Am I the only one who uses the buttons on the steering wheel of the car as 'forward firing machine guns'?

'Shit, too close Mav! Switch to guns...'

Fleeing the continent

I've have been in Switzerland. Not filing the Swastikas of the ingots - but some tedious workshop with a squad of over eager antipodeans and Americans in a nauseating internationalist display of team work.

Two things amused me during my return to Blighty. And it is these I share with you.

One.
I was awaiting my train at a non-major Swiss railway station. I was suddenly struck by a sense of familiarity.
The low level platform.
Clock ticking.
A few uniformed conductor types pacing the platform.
Blond man in hat reading a paper seeming familiar but refusing to make eye contact.
Some people speaking German.
I could swear the chap in the hat reading the paper appeared to look like Ilya Kuryakin from the Men from Uncle.
A sense of unbearable tension. A few more types in hats looking nervous waiting for the train.

Yep. I was in The Great Escape.

Two.
Squeazy-Jet flight ex Geneva to Gatwick. French Crew serving over priced drinks and demonstrating kiddy-kraft dinghies.

I had a few Swiss Francs in my wallet and wanted to get rid of them.

The crew worked the aisles. A woman who looked like she had woken up from 1985 from her hairstyle alone - and two French waiter types serving with with aplomb, flair, style and flagrant homosexuality.

Monsieur?
I eyed the contents of my wallet.
'What can I get for Ten Francs?'

A shrug only a Frenchman could achieve.

Ze Stewardess Monsieur?

Have you got any change?