Paris Trivia

In France there’s a type of person which is similar to the antipodean ‘bogan’, which is a ‘bouf’. They like sport, cars, and beer.
There’s a type of wax/brazilian called a metro – the hair left is about the size and shape of a metro ticket, which is about 1cm by 3cm.
They have an air raid siren test every month on the first Wednesday of the month!
Often French words seem like obscure and/or old english words, e.g. puissance, interdiction, but I’m told that often their meaning differs subtly and that that’s one of the traps/challenges in becoming proficient in French for English speakers.
The metros often have wandering musicians/buskers passing from carriage to carriage, and metro to metro. So far it seems they mostly play accordions, and as far as I can tell there are only two possible tones for accordions – mournful or jaunty. Both of which must drive a good number of Parisians mad. Actually there’s a third tone: soundtrack to the descent into madness.
All the market stalls wrap your purchases in the same red gingingham paper so that the fridge is filled with differently sized and shaped but otherwise identical parcels – you pull out what you think is rouchefort but it turns out to be duck breast.
There’s an old slang phrase in French for masturbation that literally means “cleaning the leek vigorously”
Books are cheap! Because of their smaller size compared to Anglo publishing and also because they have a lesser tax rate.
There’s a French translation of the US lit mag ‘the believer’ and it’s present in most of the books stores I’ve been to.
They still have 1 and 2 and 5 euro cent coins! A whole pocketful of change can turn out to add up to less than a euro.
The cheapness and omnipresence of good food and booze is amazing. You can buy a bottle of red for two euros. Ok, it’ll leave a lot to be desired taste wise but its still drinkable. This has led to an on going joke about the ‘expensive’ price of some things e.g. “The ticket to some Musee filled with legendary art is eighteen euros each? But that’s eighteen bottles of wine!”
The ‘City of Lovers’ ascription really is true – people of all ages make out vigorously anywhere at any time.