Apologetic milk
Grandad September 11th, 2011
There are some things the French do exceptionally well.
They maintain their roads to the highest standards.
Everywhere, from the remotest country lane to the heart of a city is as clean and fresh as an entrant in the Tidy Towns Contest. You would be very hard pressed to find the smallest scrap of litter anywhere.
The people [in the region where we are] could not be friendlier if they tried.
Why then are they crap when it comes to the simple act of buying a carton of milk of a Sunday? Not one fucking shop open, and we traveled for miles. I got petrol all right but that was at an unmanned automatic place. Back home in Ireland, just about every shop in the village is open all day Sunday. For fuck’s sake, I can buy milk at any time, night or day, on every single day of the year without traveling more than a few miles. 3AM Christmas morning? No problem. As much milk as I want. Here? No fucking way. Not even on an ordinary Sunday.
The French have a funny thing about milk. If you do manage to get inside a supermarket you will find a whole aisle of the stuff. Dozens of brands, types and flavours, and all of it UHT treated so that it tastes shite. You have to make your way to a cold cabinet [usually at the other end of the shop] to find a very small sample of bog standard fresh milk. There will be about eight or nine bottles of the stuff tucked apologetically at the back of the cabinet as if it’s hoping no one will find it.
Very fucking strange.
- Holidays
- Comments(12)
Subscribe to audio
We are talking about the french here. Has anyone surrendered to you yet?
I find it cool – shops should be closed on Sundays, full stop. Everybody deserves a Sunday (well, ok, maybe not everybody, but keeping a shop open is not crucial in any way).
Also, Brian, that’s a very sad cliche you present here.
Agree with Jedrzej on the principle of shops being open on Sundays. The opening times of shops here take a bit of getting used to. Where I live the baker and butcher are open on Sunday mornings, as is the supermarket. But nothing opens on Monday, apart from the supermarket.
Now try looking for a tobacconist on a Sunday …. that’s a challenge!
Also, milk on its own is not a big part of the French diet, so they tend to buy it in bulk, for sauces, coffee etc.
And the cliche about the French being surrender monkeys, though funny, is not true. A visit to any town or village square will give you a sense of the losses the country suffered in both world wars (almost 200,000 in WW2, believe it or not). We were neutral and so weren’t put to the test, so we shouldn’t be so quick to throw stones …
Jedrzej – I agree. Shops should be shut on Sunday. But only if I don’t need anything. How do the French buy Sunday newspapers? Just wondering………
TonyS – I tried three towns. The only town that had anything open had an 8 a Huit which had closed at twelve thirty. Could I sue them under Trades Descriptions?
And please ignore Brianf’s prejudices. He’s just a reactionary cranky old Mercan.
Like a lot of European countries, France has no Sunday newspapers that I know of. Saturday and Monday papers are pretty comprehensive in terms of analysis and take care of that market.
Us? We have the Sunday Independent … I rest my case …
Shops close on Sundays here as well, however have ‘Katy & Anna’ who are Albanian and have a shop the size of a garden shed and they are always open. Well they do close on Christmas Day…….
Heathen – Why weren’t you resting………..eternity in hell for you.
I’m a Francophile. I said FRANCophile.
TonyS, Whats’ wrong with The Sunday Independent? On the hole its very good.
If you want the French lifestyle – it costs. Part of it is closing the shops on Sundays. It’s alright when you get used to it – but, granted, a nightmade until then.
There’s usually somewhere open briefly near the church after mass – cunning priests trying to lure you in.
Church? Mass? What’s that?
something to do with Jeebus or shamrocks.