How I Won the Yellow Jumper by Ned Boulting Page B

contents, which, to be fair to the production company, would probably cost close to £50,000 to replace.

    Because of the zero-tolerance policy on left luggage, the only thing to be nicked in my time on the Tour, from the back of an otherwise empty car, has been a crate of tinned mackerel and several bags of raisins belonging to Gary Imlach. For Gary, this spelt dietary disaster, and reserve supplies had to be freighted out from London.
    But banging huge, heavy flightcases up narrow, uneven staircases at ten o’clock at night while tired and hungry is not very much fun.
    On reaching a hotel, one of our number has to assume the role of designated spokesman, and ask the bewilderedreceptionist the same hideously repetitive question in babyish French every single night. Is there a chance, the merest of slim hopes, that there might just possibly be a secure ground-floor storeroom, where we can stow the gear without the need for lugging it all up to the fourth floor? No? I thought not.
    Every year before the Tour departs, I make a mental note to look up the word ‘storeroom’ before leaving for France. Every year I forget, and, therefore, every year we are reduced to making do with the less-than-adequate ‘
petite chambre
’.
    It’s always funniest, though, when it’s Woody who takes on the asking. Quite unabashed, and a little impatient, he throws in a loose smattering of English words to pad out the bald spots in his sentences, and to give the listener the impression of casual fluency without actually being either casual or fluent.
    â€˜Err. So. Yeah.
Bonsoir
.
Une
question. Um, just wondering
avez vous une
. . . (wait for it, here it comes) . . .
petite chambre pour
you know, um, all that stuff really.
La
.’ He would point at one of us grunting past him carrying a tripod, smirking a little.
    â€˜Non. Désolé.’
    â€˜OK.
Merci
.’ He’ll flash a tiny exasperated continental-style smile. ‘Bugger.’
    Cultural immersion, Tour style.
    And once the gear is stowed away, once the curtains are drawn, and the day is done, it’s time to find a flat surface to do some ironing.

FRANCE. AND THE FRENCH

    Faced with a sunset in Provence, perched on the warm stone of a ruined fort in a rare moment of calm, as the race swooped through the flatlands that divide the two great mountain ranges, a thought articulated itself: this really is quite a lot better than Bedford, isn’t it?
    I am not claiming that my Francophilia is even remotely exotic. It simply means that I conform to a determinedly middle-class stereotype. You just need to observe the long lanes of traffic queuing on any given day of the week to get on the ferries at Dover. There you will find the busy-looking couples of middle England, fretting in and around their Volvo. He is trying to affix the GB sticker without creating any airbubbles, she is organising the passports and reservations into a sensible folder. There are the mildly bored kids in their early teens gazing through the rear-seat windows into the quayside drizzle. France is the impassioned, year-on-year, genetically self-fulfilling love affair of the English middle classes. It’s in the script.
    â€˜Have you got the traveller’s cheques?’
    â€˜They’re in the glove compartment.’
    â€˜We should aim to get to a bank before eleven. You never know when, or how long, they’ll close for lunch. Where are the passports?’
    â€˜In the glove compartment.’
    â€˜Good. Excellent. All set then. There’ll be a
péage
coming up soon. Have we got some euros?’
    And so on. Beam deflectors, Michelen guides, nougat. The cricket on the World Service, crackling into oblivion as the Parisian Périphérique draws near.
    Back in the early eighties I had been just such a child, on just such a journey. The first trip abroad I ever made was through Calais, and down through France. I was astounded, the first