On the way in…..A photo of the towns name, directly opposite on the far side of the road was the exit sign for the town.
I didn’t do much more than cycle in and out and do some shopping at the local supermarché. I tried doing a few arty shots at the local abandoned SNCF station more of that on the fotoblog.
On the way out….with one stop off here….which had the odd name of Le Mutant, the wine was cheap and the clientèle were all giving me the “who’s the foreigner with the camera bag” look. A few eyebrows were Gallically raised as I said “cheers luv” to the check out girl. I heard later that the Mutant was a really mega discount store that normal people usually didn’t frequent. I wonder if they mean their customers are Mutants or that the prices are mutated or they sell lots of GMO which will turn you into a Mutant….is this the opposite of ECO shopping? €2 for a Bordeaux Superior says it’s OK for me anyway!
A genetically modified customer pushes a trolley…..
Another crazy night on the VHF radio, the appaling standard of spoken English on the radio is so bad that it’s a wonder there aren’t more collisions and groundings in European waters.
There is a story going around about the “Sea Empress”that went aground a few years ago in Milford Haven that the Salvage Tug crew were Chinese and couldn’t speak English so they had to enlist the help of a cook from a Chinese Restaurant in the locality. Could be true, correct me if I’m wrong!
I heard a few classics on the radio, one of the signal stations asked a ship what the cargo was, the guy replied “gasoline” then they asked him what kind of ship he was, the radio went silent, he had to ask them to repeat the question as he like me could not believe the question, and sure enough they asked what kind of ship are you. He should have said “have a guess”, but he just replied “tanker, with gasoline cargo” .
The weather conditions at the moment are fine with high pressure, so the VHF signal travels further than normal and all the VHF stations from France, England and Ireland can be heard at long range, the normal messages are being broadcast on top of each other leading to all sorts of confusion, ships answering the wrong questions and wrong stations being called up. I heard Valentia in Ireland, Falmouth in England and Ushant in France all at the same time. That on top of the normal lack of English skills from people, who have difficulty saying “North” or “West” and the numbers are anyones guess.
I think that the ships should have English voice simulators, you speak into the machine in your own tongue and out the other side comes the best BBC English, then we wouldn’t have to listen to “Allo, allo”, from the French, funny and all as it is. Otherwise they should invest in importing a few English speakers for their VHF stations. Although the Falmouth operator sounded distinctly Norn Iron….oh well I better stop here before it gets totally confusing.
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