Pierre is travelling around Europe by train. He plans to stay here while visiting some friends and brushing up on his English for a few days. His email informs me that he will arrive at 4.22pm. I tell him that I’ll have the kettle on and a cuppa waiting. He writes back that it might be better to wait until he arrives before making the tea, as he believes that it should only stay in the pot for three minutes.
He arrives at five looking very disgruntled. The train was five minutes late and the app on his phone told him that it would take 14 minutes to walk from the station. It took 20.
He tells me he has to take time very seriously indeed. He’s an air traffic controller in Perpignan. He says that it’s like playing three-dimensional chess while making a shopping list and talking on the phone to your mother at the same time. Any delay on time slots costs a fortune and every second counts.
He says he has an inbuilt clock and never has to use an alarm to wake up. I test him on the three-minute teapot rule and he’s bang on. He tells me that his English, though good, gets rusty and he has to constantly improve it.
“It seems perfect to me,” I remark.
“But what about Cockney rhyming slang?” he asks.
“Surely pilots don’t use that?”
Well, no, not exactly, but he likes to know. Last week, after a delay and technical fault, a pilot had said that it was all going a bit Pete Tong. Pierre figured that it just meant going wrong, but wasn’t sure. And why wouldn’t he just say that? What was the point of it?
I shrug and am tempted to offer him another cup of Rosie Lee but refrain. Pierre sets off to meet up with his friends, and tells me that they are going to a restaurant called Ruby Murray. I tell him that his friends are teasing him and he’s going out for a curry.
Why didn’t he travel by plane? Surely he gets discounts? He smiles and tells me that plane travel is overrated and the trains, especially in the UK, give him much more scope to have a moan about. Besides, he’s not really that keen on flying. Too much can go wrong.
He leaves and I tell him to get on the dog and bone if he gets lost. Phone, I say. Then add: “Or use your Uncle Toby.”
He’ll figure it out.
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