This Lord Worplesdon was Florence’s father. He was the old buster who, a few years later, came down to breakfast one morning, lifted the first cover he saw, said ‘Eggs! Eggs! Damn all eggs!’ in an overwrought sort of voice, and instantly legged it for France, never to return to the bosom of the family. This, mind you, being a bit of luck for the bosom of the family, for old Worplesdon had the worst temper in the county.From ‘Jeeves Takes Charge’ (Carry On, Jeeves)

Once again, Wodehouse gets to the nub of human nature. Many is the time that I have felt precisely as old Worplesdon did on this occasion, and I were as oofy a specimen as he, I’d have legged it to France myself long before now. Generally I have to be content with taking my passport with me on the bus-ride  to work.

But shortly, I shall be emulating Worplesdon as I have a ticket to France. I speak little French,  so I expect to experience the same ‘furtive shame’ and ‘shifty, hangdog look’ as Monty Bodkin, practising his French at the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes in The Luck of the Bodkins. With Monty’s assistance, I feel I have mastered Garçon‘ and l’addition, and I shall do my best with:

”Er, garçon, esker-vous avez un spot de l’encre et une piece de papier – note-papier, vouz savez – et une enveloppe et une plume?’

And if, like Monty, I meet a Frenchman wanting to practice his English, who replies with a ‘‘Right ho, m’sieur’ (or, unless I’ve omitted to wax my moustache, ‘madam‘) , I shall hug him like a brother. But after I have acclimatised and relaxed into the French way of life, I shall be speaking French like a pro, and will be muttering ‘Oeufs! Oeufs! Merde tous les oeufs!’ with the best of them

But I can’t sit here chatting to you all day. I have essential pre holiday research to do.

HP