Hop Off You Frogs

No, I haven't suddenly become a Francophobe. That would be rather absurd, given the consumptive extent of my personal intake of Bordeaux's finest fermented grape juice. It was, of course, the headline in "The Sun" back in 1984 - echoed a few years later by the splendidly poetical "Up Yours Delors". The reason I raise this now is that readers of tomorrow's edition of "The Groveller" will be greeted with the news that Hackney Council's annual booze cruise to the commune of Suresnes in L'Île-de-France has been cancelled after Mayor Christian Dupuy finally lost patience with Julian.

It's a shame that the French should take such an attitude just because the tight financial constraints that have allowed us to peg Council Tax for a second year running mean that we can't afford to invite a delegation from Suresnes to come here and sample our Châteaux Shoreditch and our Entre-Deux-Canals. That hardly justifies Deputy Mayor Jean Louis Testud referring to "the stupidity of the position of Hackney town hall", does it?

The real truth is that they are still p****d off about not having won the contract to refurbish the Hackney Empire. I mean, what did they expect? We were going to allow them to hang garlic from the upper tier and play La Marseillaise after each performance? Je crois non! And they never really got over the amount of ruby liquid that Councillor Patrick glugged down while on an exchange visit a few years ago, before she uttered a profanity, removed her teeth and fell asleep at the Marie banqueting table.

Oh well, c'est la vie. There's always the beer festival in Göttingen and the rum carnival in Granada, even if I don't much fancy the falafel festival in Haifa.