Ten full minutes later, Madame Scarf dragged herself away from the trainee and grudgingly served me. I explained my problem. She took the phone, tested it and told me that my recharge lead was probably faulty, and here was a new one. Twenty-eight euros, please.
As I paid, I looked into the recharge socket of the phone, and noticed something I hadn’t seen before.
‘Should that little shiny thing be in there?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ she said, giving me my change, wishing me a tetchy ‘bonne journée’ and turning to the nearest fluffy-neckwear-owning customer.
When I got home, instead of taking the lead out of its wrapping, I got some tweezers, poked about in the recharge socket, and pulled out a little piece of aluminium foil that had got in there, probably from a chewing-gum wrapper in my pocket. I plugged in my old recharge cable and the phone instantly began to charge up.
Oh, double merde, I thought. If I hadn’t caused a scene at the shop I could go back, play the stupid innocent and get a refund. But now I’m stuffed. It would be, ‘Oh, well, that’s not our problem, you should have checked,’ etc, etc.
I still have that lead unopened in its packet, and am patiently waiting for someone to say that they want a new Sagem recharge cable for their birthday. And all because I let myself be provoked by a typical French service situation.
I don’t want to suggest that service in France is always bad. It’s just that getting good service is often an effort. But that is what makes it so rewarding, too. You come across such great professionals. French shops, for instance, can be temples of good service. After all, this is still a nation of individual shopkeepers, so you can buy your stuffed olives, perfume, fish or lingerie from an expert. But the greatest service professionals have to be the ones with the worst reputation – waiters. Until you’ve been served by a good French waiter, you’ve never been served at all.
I once had lunch at the Jules Verne restaurant up on the Eiffel Tower. There I was, with one of the most beautiful restaurant views in the world spread out below me, being allowed to enjoy it by waiters who didn’t force me to spend half the meal scanning the kitchen door for signs of life. The service was swift and polite, and the waiter practically knew the name of every cow, sheep or goat that had provided the cheese on the trolley.
It was pure class, like playing a game with a champion and getting treated as an equal. Which is the bottom line of French service. In France, they have a saying – ‘le client est roi’, or the customer is king. But this is total nonsense, because you, the customer, are at very best an equal.
And if you’re tempted to get uppity and insist that you’re a roi, just remember what France did to its royal family.
Mots Magiques
Even if you’ve got the right attitude, you need the appropriate vocabulary to turn getting served in a French café from a chore into a plaisir. Here are a few magic words:
GARÇON (‘GARSO’)
First, one to forget. No one shouts ‘Garçon!’ in a French café. Unless they don’t want to get served, that is. To attract a waiter or waitress’s attention, just raise your arm and call out ‘S’il vous plaît!’, or catch their eye and say ‘Bonjour’ (or ‘Bonsoir’ if it’s the evening, of course). Remember that in the French service sector, saying ‘Bonjour’ and ‘Bonsoir’ is the accepted code for ‘Hello, I’m sorry to interrupt your phone call/racing results/nail-varnishing/cigarette/chat with your friend, etc, but I would like to be served eventually if it’s not too much trouble.’
EXPRESS (‘EXPRESS’)
If you like your espresso, this is what to order. You can ask for un café noir, or just un petit café, but un express is what the waiters themselves call it. Use this word and they’ll think, ‘Aha, this person has been in a French café before, no point trying to rip him/her off.’
ALLONGÉ (‘ALLON-DJAY’)
Café allongé is the waiters’ name for an express with extra water. It’s weaker than an espresso but less like bison pee than American coffee.
CRÈME (‘KREM’)
Waiters’ jargon for a café au lait. All too often I hear English-speaking tourists asking for ‘un café olé si voo play’ and I know they’re going to end up with a cripplingly expensive tureen of beige soup. For full effect, make sure you get the pronunciation right – ‘krremm’. Imagine trying to say it while dislodging an oyster that has got stuck on your tonsils.
NOISETTE (‘NWA-ZET’)
If you want an espresso with a dash of milk, this is what to ask for. It’s short for un café noisette, or hazelnut-coloured coffee. But of course you knew that.
DÉCA (‘DAY-KA’)
This is the waiters’ word for a decaf. Useful if you’re planning to get any sleep after a heavy dinner.
THÉ AU LAIT (‘TAYOLAY’)
If you want a drink approaching English-style tea, you must remember to ask for thé au lait, or you will probably just get a small teapot of hot water with the tea bag, still in its packet, lying on your saucer. Ask for thé au lait and you will also get a tiny jug of milk. Even so, unless the café does Earl Grey or Darjeeling, the warm liquid you receive will probably remind you of the description of Arthur Dent’s computer-generated drink in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – ‘almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea’.
DEMI (‘D’MEE’)
Ordering a beer is just as tricky as getting coffee or tea. The standard measure in France
