Mr Bright Side

Today, a lot of people said their last goodbye to a friend. For many of us, it was a "my first funeral" kind of a day (I've been to one before, but it wasn't someone I knew closely, and I was too young to go to my dad's funeral). It looked like some surreal school reunion where the theme was black tie. Seeing a bunch of guys I grew up with, having been used to seeing them in school uniform made me feel like we were only playing dress-up and that the friend we were seeing off was going to pop round the corner at any minute and tell us we were dickheads for believing his silly joke.

The atmosphere was not how I expected it to be. People were pleased to see each other. It's not often that most of my school year gather in one place. There was a lot of joking and catching up as we waited for the ceremony to start, just like how it is on the annual boxing night festivities most of the school attend every year when they've come home for Christmas visits. The only difference here was the sudden jarrings in conversation as everyone remembered where we were and why we were there.

You can always of course rely on one clown to break some tension, for which I was hugely grateful. Today's clown had us howling with laughter as he

1. Walked in on and sat five minutes into the wrong funeral, only realising he'd made a mistake when the person leading the ceremony informed the room that they were there to remember Ethel.

2. Got drunk later in the evening and stumbled from group to group asking inappropriate but hilarious questions like some pesky drunken uncle.

The ceremony was perfect. The twin of the departed lead the speeches, which was pretty fucking brave. I hiccoughed and sniffled throughout the whole thing out of angst for him, the untimely loss of one of our number, and the fact that I knew that if I were in his shoes - if one of my sisters were in a coffin, I simply could not cope. Screw being brave and respectful. I would go to pieces. I can't even entertain the idea for a second.

We entered the crematorium to The Lord of the Rings theme, and left to Monty Python's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. The stories told during the service were about the our friend's misadventures, the harmless trouble he would always get into, and the fact that the majority of us - if we were to put a bet on it, would never have put our money on him doing something so mundane and unspectacular as slipping away as he dreamt. The quirky exit tune summed him up brilliantly.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in a pub that he used to work and drink in. It was lovely seeing so many familiar faces and hearing about how their lives after school are flourishing. People are climbing the career ladder, hooking up and sprouting children left right and centre. It made me happy to learn that the people I know and love are all getting along just fine in grown-up land. Seeing everyone together in one place, brought together by one person alone made me feel lucky to be part of such a web of caring, fun people. It was a shitty thing that brought us there, but it was also reassuring that no matter how far apart we've all drifted that we are all still connected.

I promise my next post'll be a silly one. I just needed to get today out of my system.

Here's a song for you to enjoy. I loved it before, but now it holds even more meaning for me:

Monty Python - Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

Je Suis En Retard

Ooh! I forgot to tell you about my Frenchman experience from the other night, didn't I? It's not nearly as funny or risqué as it sounds, especially when I refer to it as "The Frenchman Experience", but I feel we've bonded, my anonymous Internet peepsters, so that means that you are now subject to my every waking thought. Until you stop reading, anyway.

Please don't stop reading me! I love you! I can change!!

As a reminder to write about The Experience, I've been walking around all day with the word "French" scrawled on my arm. That in itself amused me. I found myself wondering what people would think if I suddenly died on my way home, and when they found me I would just have this word and no other explanation on my body. Would they think that I'd decided to take up learning the language of luuuurve, several years after taking my GCSE in it and immediately forgetting most of what I'd learned? Maybe they'd see it as a request for a French themed funeral. I hoped for the latter. They could serve everyone baguettes, and all my friends and family could mourn me in kicky little berets and drawn on curly moustaches....sigh. I might go home with the word French written on me every day now. Just incase.

So, The Frenchman Experience... Anyone who's ever learned French in school and not bothered to take it any further that that knows that the sentences they teach you are pretty much totally useless, unless you are in very specific situations. Here are some of the scant sentences I recall from my teens (nobody is allowed to pick these apart - accuracy unlikely here):

- Je suis maladroit: I am clumsy (actually, forget that one. Quite useful).

- Je porter mons pantalons: I wear my trousers. When will I ever need to tell a French person I'm wearing my trousers? This should be a given, shouldn't it? If you have to inform people that you are wearing trousers, then maybe you need to re evaluate your life...

- Ou est la gare?: where is the train station? I don't intend to get lost in France anytime soon, so doubt I'll require this one.

My personal favourite by far, though is "Je suis en retard" - "I am late". Not especially funny, but when you're twelve, and your classmate is being forced by the teacher (who knows what she's doing, she knows!) to tell the class that they are sorry that they are "retard", nothing is funnier.

But, but! On Monday night, I actually got one of these phrases used at me! I had the opportunity to communicate in basic French! I was traipsing down the dark, creepy alley between the gym and my car, behind a lanky and unthreatening looking gentleman with a backpack. In a world of my own, probably fantasising about food (note: I'm never not fantasising about food), I very nearly had a coronary when my tall fellow perambulator suddenly stopped and whirled around to look directly at me. I had such a fright that I didn't hear what he'd said.

"S-sorry?" He smiled, amused at my baffled lady-shock of been suddenly turned on in a dark alley.

"Ou est" he repeated amicably "la gare?"

YES!! I knew this one! I understood what a French guy was saying! And I knew where the train station was. Today was a good day! I beamed at him triumphantly.

And then remembered that I don't know the response to that question in French. Only how to ask it. Trying not to let my inner turmoil show, I continued manically grinning and gestured dramatically up the street we'd just turned off. I think it was my visual equivalent of that speaking in English VERY LOUDLY AND SLOOOWLY that us Brits like to employ when faced with foreign language speakers.

I've never seen a person move so quickly. I didn't even get a "merci". Spose I'd do the same thing in his shoes, if I'd asked him a sensible question and just got mad grinning and flapping in response. Ce'st la vie.