Re: A funny thing happened to me.....

[mint]

well, no NOT on the way to the forum (didn't there used to be a TV programme called that?) but in the supermarket.

Seeing as it's coming up to Christmas, the weather is dreary, the Forum is quiet, how about a thread to tell some amusing stories related to actual experiences?  So, not jokes as such because there is already a thread on that.  I was thinking about the sort of thing we'd post a few years ago and lots of people contributed or made comments and we had a few giggles and it sort of helped pass the time?

So, I shall start the ball rolling....

This morning I watched "Saturday Kitchen" (or whatever it was called) only because it was too cold to eat on the veranda and we had our toast and coffee in front of the telly.  The man was making madeleines (now I'd like to find some moulds and make those but that's for another thread perhaps).

So, with those delicious things in mind, I picked up a pack at Lidl's this afternoon and dropped them in someone's trolley, thinking that OH was right behind me (well, he was there only 10 seconds beforehand [:-))]) with the trolley.

Ooops, you know that feeling of foolishness you get when you put your purchases in someone else's trolley and not your own?  Pardon, monsieur, j'ai pensé que vous etiéz mon mari!  The poor man didn't quite know what to say.  So, in order to lighten the situation a bit, I said, vous êtes sûr vous n'êtes pas mon mari?  Mind you, he was very good-looking, about 40-ish, greying hair, tall and slim...  At that he started to smile and denied being my husband.  Reluctantly, I took the pack of cakes back and found our own trolley to put it in.

Then, in the next aisle, I came across the same man again.  He sort of grinned and I was still feeling a bit of a fool, so I said à plus tard?  à la maison? he responded.  I felt there was only one reply, so I made it, oui, pourquoi pas?

There you go, please, somebody, write about something funny that happened to you and we can go on from there?[:)]

[YCCMB]

OK then, I’ll

bite. This is an old story, or at least it happened just a year ago, so not too

old, but at least the scars have healed !

I got an

e-mail from someone wanting French lessons, so I arranged for the person to

call me to discuss what he wanted and so on, and he rang for a chat. He

explained that he was moving to France as his relationship had broken up and he

had met an old flame who was French, and they’d got back together, so he was

hoping to move to Paris and be with her. All fine, so I explained that, whilst

I would be happy to meet for an initial chat, if he was looking for evening

lessons I would be struggling to help as I had no free evenings. No, he

explained, he was fine with daytime lessons because he was an actor. Yeah,

right, I thought.

Anyway, a

day or so later, he turned up on the doorstep, and I didn’t instantly recognise

him, although he had a familiar look about him. I quickly dismissed that, and

dismissed it still further on the grounds that Googling his name had produced

no results (because I’m nosy, and, well, you would, too, wouldn’t you?).

He turned

out to be an excellent student, a quick learner and with a great grasp of

grammar, good accent and very enthusiastic. After a few lessons, he told me he’d

started trying to read books in French, and had started with “The Picture of

Dorian Grey” because he knew the story well in English. Now, he’d told me that

he had a young daughter, so for no other reason than that, I said that reading

books in French – any books, really – was good, and at that point I said “Even

Harry Potter in French would be good”.

A few days

went by, and he rang to cancel a lesson, leaving a message on my voicemail. For

some reason, he used his professional name, rather than his real name, which he’d

given to me at the start. Oh dear. A million pennies dropped all at once.

“Read some

Harry Potter” I had found myself saying, to an actor who has actually appeared

in a fairly prominent role in all but two of the Harry Potter films. Oops!

I’d better

not name names. The biggest embarrassment is that he also has a small role in

my favourite film of all time, and I hadn’t recognised him at all. Even though

at about this time last year he had roles in three other films apart from Harry

Potter which all came out at around the same time… Very red-faced Betty….

[idun]

At the supermarket checkout, a friend on the checkout and my husband with me. Now for some reason he reckons that he can empty the trolley onto the tapis roulante quicker than I can, so I left him to it and as our friend put the stuff through, I started packing. Only, as a few things went through, I realised that most of the stuff wasn't ours.

So worse than you sweet17, I had actually started wheeling someone else's trolley round topping it up with a few of my things.

Trouble was that I didn't want the stuff that wasn't ours and our friend became quite distressed by the complete mess up and had to get the manager to annuler everything.  I was so embarrassed, that I didn't dare start shopping again, and just left with nothing and shamefaced went back alone the next day to shop.

 

That is the only time I have ever done that, I pay a lot of attention these days. The worst thing that happens to me these days and I do get upset if someone nicks stuff from our trolley, which has happened when I have had say the last packet of powdered almonds..... in January, and someone else has obviously found an empty space where they should have been.......... and taken 'mine' when my back was turned.

[Kitty]

Let us out of the agony, Betty.  Who is he?  You gave a clue about him appearing in 5 Harry Potter films.  Not having seen even one HP film (or read any of the books), I googled "who died in HP's fifth film" and up came Sirius Black.  But then it said that Sirius had been played by more than actor.  So I am none the wiser.  Aagghh...

Can you give us another clue?

I met someone on the roof of an Athens Youth Hostel in the late 70s.  I was staying on the roof (with a fellow traveller) because beds were cheaper there than in the hostel bedrooms. He was strolling around, taking in the sights. I asked "don't I know you from somewhere?". He groaned and replied "probably", to which I tried to guess where our paths had crossed - for a long time. Turned out he was on "That's Life", a popular weekly television programme at the time, but hadn't wanted to let on and played along with my guessing.  I then was grafted into programme he was making but that is another story for another day...

[YCCMB]

[quote user="Kitty"]Let us out of the agony, Betty.  Who is he?  You gave a clue about him appearing in 5 Harry Potter films.  Not having seen even one HP film (or read any of the books), I googled "who died in HP's fifth film" and up came Sirius Black.  But then it said that Sirius had been played by more than actor.  So I am none the wiser.  Aagghh...

Can you give us another clue?

[/quote]

You started at the wrong end...he wasn't in the first two...I think.[:D]

[idun]

I reckon that I have worked it out Betty. And if it is who I'm sure it is, then he is a very good actor and I've seen in some very good things.

 

 

[YCCMB]

He's a very good actor, idun, with some good films to his credit. And a few turkeys....[:)]

[Gardian]

A couple of years ago, I had to make a day return trip to Lille. I took the TGV up from Avignon in the morning and was booked to return mid-afternoon from Lille.

At Lille Europe station, I boarded the train and went to find my seat. There was an elderly lady sitting in my spot, so rather than disturb her I just sat myself in the seat alongside her. The train moved off and for the next hour, no words were exchanged and I was more than happy with my book. The lady was fretting to herself, continually getting documents out of her handbag, checking them and putting them back. Then she decided that she'd tell me her life story!

She had lost her husband a year or two before and was clearly still mourning his loss: "he was a handsome man, had a very responsible position", etc, etc. I think that we were on the 2nd iteration of her life story (my book long since abandoned) when the ticket inspector arrived on the scene. She couldn't find her ticket. "Where are you going Madame?" She couldn't remember. The inspector was brilliant - he took her name and address details from something that she managed to find and told her not to worry and that he'd be back. Sadly that consigned me to a further run-through of her life.

The inspector came back 20 minutes later and said that everything was fine, that they'd been able to establish that a ticket had been bought in her name for travel to Avignon and she was OK. "I've pre-warned Avignon to have someone there to scoop her up" he said, "but just make sure she gets off will you?"

At Avignon, her daughter and a posse of SNCF bods were there to greet her. I was left (like a domestique) to bring up the rear with all her baggage, including her purse which she'd stuffed down the seat squab. "These old dears shouldn't be let out on their own" said the gruff Frenchman who'd been sitting right behind me and had also had umpteen run-throughs of the lady's life story. 

It was a sort-of tragi-comedy. I'll never forget her: Mme de Roubaix, a very aristocratic lady with a very aristocratic name.       

[Cendrillon]

Brilliant Gardian, you couldn't make it up could you! Obviously you are not called Gardian for nothing[8-|]

[mint]

Now that Betty's started off with an actor story, I feel that I have to up the stakes a bit and tell my own actor story.

A score or so years ago (yes, doesn't the time pass quickly?), we were invited to dine with some friends for Christmas.  It was quite a grand, old house and there were about a dozen or so people.

The hostess was making much of this man sitting next to me.  He'd brought, as far as I could see, some old brass trough as a present but the hostess was exclaiming over this object , admiring it with extravagent praise, and it turned out it was bought at auction in some old fusty, antique place.  Had I lived in France then, I'd have maybe guessed that he bought it at his local vide grenier.

There was nothing remarkable about the man, except that he was very well-spoken and was a wonderful table companion as he was endlessly entertaining.  He was totally nondescript and was short of stature.

Dinner (or possibly they'd call it lunch in that house) over, we sat down to watch the queen's speech.

The queen said something or other (which of us do pay attention to what she says on Christmas Day anyway?) and there was a sentence in which she used the words "to CONtrol" (with the stress on the first syllable).  My table companion immediately corrected in stern tones, "ConTROL, madam, ConTROL" (emphasis on the second syllable) and went on to mutter about the state of the world when the queen herself couldn't speak her own English properly.

As we were house guests, I helped our hostess with the clearing up afterwards and she told me the man was a Shakespearian actor who had a prominent part in the war series that was popular at the time and whose name has completely escaped me.  It was the one that went on week after week, where a group of British airforce officers planned different escape routes out of the prison camp in which they were confined.

As with Betty, I feel I'd better not say what his role was.  Suffice to say that he had a holiday home in France, was not "trop grand" and wore a very precisely maintained moustache.

Anyway, that's wasn't such a funny story as Gardian's or indeed as Betty's but I WAS amused at his correction of the queen's pronunciation!

[nomoss]

In the early hours of a morning I was walking home in London, in about 1958.

I had just come out of a small side street into a much brighter area when I saw a taxi crashed into the main entrance of Whiteley's on Queensway.

I ran up to it through a lot of broken glass and bits of debris, and saw the driver slumped over the wheel.

In those days taxis had an open luggage space to the left of the driver, and the driver's window to this was open, so I could see him quite clearly.

I leaned in and shouted "Are you alright".

He sat up, turned towards me, and said very calmly "My name's Eddie Constantine, and we're trying to make a movie here, do you think you could get off the set?"

By then several people had run up, including a couple of policemen, who escorted me outside the area where the film crew, cameras and floodlights were.

I had come out of a building which was within the area which had been cordoned off. I thought the main road had been a bit brighter than usual[8-)]

I never found out what the film was called until just now, when reminded of the story, I eventually found it via Google. It was a bit difficult, as it wasn't listed on the lists of Eddie Carradine's films I found, but was mentioned in his obituary in the Independent in 1993 as one of the few he made in England.

Anyway, the film was "Passport to Shame", aka "Room 43", with Herbert Lom and Diana Dors. I never saw it, but have just ordered a DVD. Maybe I'll see a shot of myself in 1958[:)]

[mint]

I really enjoyed your story, nomoss.  Thank you for telling it.  It's certainly made me smile very broadly....[:D]