Deborah Ross: Our Woman in Crouch End

For my holiday I went to the French place called France which you get to through a big tunnel under the sea but you can't see no fishes or sharks or nothing like you do in the tunnel at the London Aquarium and this is big, big mistake because it is well boring and I won't be recommending it to nobody else in a hurry and at the end there isn't even a gift shop for a novelty pencil topper that is a squid and this is why the tunnel has such big, big money troubles, if you ask me. At the end all you gets is a long drive to a village in the Aqua that is Taine and it is a nice village, designed by Meddy&Evil, who I thinks have their practice in Paris, but so many British peoples from the class that is middle goes to this village it might just as well be called Muswellhill-de-Quercy and why it is not I just don't know.

And these British peoples goes off to the market with the baskets they have bought because they think it makes them look all "Frenchified" although "Arsiefied" do be nearer the truth and they goes on and on about how wonderful it is here and aren't the roads clear and aren't the tomatoes good and why can't we have tomatoes like this - as if we could if we only tried harder - and you can't say nothing bad about France, not even: "Isn't it maddening the way the shops do be all closed for hours in the mid of the day?" Then they all looks at you as if you are you are a terrible person who do not appreciate tomatoes or roads and so you feels you have to add something all cheerful like: "But so what if I do need the Tampax urgently? I'll just stuff my pants with kitchen roll and I loves your basket, by the ways." Deep down, though, you do be yearning for Boots.

They also comes with radios and that is the worst because everywhere you goes you can hear Radio Four which proves what I do be saying all along: however hard you try, there is no escape from that Liz Barclay and her concern for old people who get diddled. It isn't nice, the way old people get diddled, although the way I figure it, old people hold you up in the Post Office and hold you up on the roads by driving Metros really slowly and so maybe they just deserves all they get. In fact, now them guinea pigs has been set free, why don't we just farm old people and do experiments on them instead? Maybe we could even discover something to gee them on a bit.

Not many British peoples from the class that is working in this part of France, but one day we do goes to this lake where Mr and Mrs Chav and their two teenage daughters - Kayleigh and Ashleigh Chav, I thinks - puts their towels out next to us and then Mr Chav do say to Mrs Chav, not without affection: "Oi, Maureen, you farted again? Why don't you just go and have a shit, love." I do think yes, please, do go and have a shit, love, but Maureen just laughs and so do Ashleigh and so do Kayleigh but I tells you, if you were Directleigh upwind of Maureen, as I was, you wouldn't have found it a laughing matter and then it do start to rain.

Weather for ducks

And it rains and rains so we think this is a good time for a museum and so, having tied all the childrens to the roof rack, such do be their enthusiasm, we goes to the Musée de Fois Gras and we thinks we are doing this Musée a favour as how many people wants to see little duckies and little goosies being force fed though long metal tubes until their livers do go pop but then, maybe they has a Children's Corner where the childrens can have a go on a little ducky for themselves! But the Musée do be full and we can not gets in!

This time it is all Frenchie people as they do not blub over animals like the British people do and as for guinea pigs, they probably just puts them in the blender, whizzy them up, and then has them on toast and I think you'll agree that this makes a bit of shampoo in the eye or a fag every now and then look like pretty small potatoes and this is the trouble with British guinea pigs: they do not know they've got it made. Please don't think I don't like animals because I do. I once had a cat, Bert, who is long deaded but I still misses him as it's hard to judge the size of a room without something to swing. I would likes to know one thing though: how comes animals gets all those antibiotics? I has to wait ages just to see my doctor and then he do say I can't have antibiotics even though I wants them really bad and do cough phlegm onto his notes.

Depressingleigh

And so we don't gets into the Musée and then we has to come home via the tunnel that is crap and could do with a few duckies to force feed, as that do seem to attract the crowds, and then it's all the brown letters and one from www.lovefilm.com to say my credit card do be expired and I'm behind with payments and this letter starts "we are very disappointed in you..." which do make me want to write back with: "Well, join the queue." And this is my holiday essay and I hope you like it and that I get an A*, which does appear to be the going rate, and I also hope that Maureen got to do what she so Obviousleigh needed to do.