Different Strokes

'I believe in a purer form of love, where sincerity of sentiment transcends all aesthetic beauty to create an overwhelming rush of blind understanding', my next-table-neighbour announces cheerily to his fellow diner, before delicately popping a rosy sliver of entrecôte au poivre into his eloquent mouth. Only some supreme in extremis control over my oesophagus prevents me from projecting a minor mountain range of deliciously buttery mashed potato onto the partition wall in surprise at this casual conversation opener. 'YOU WOT?', my mind screams.

Meeting this statement with a look of bored insouciance that betrays his nationality, his compagnon takes a slow, measured and savoured sip of his verre de rouge and remains silent. They can be no older than 20.

I am confused. These are multi-syllabled words being spoken here. Where are the Texa Fried Chicken drumsticks and cans of Tennents Super? What is this love that is being mentioned? Love is Tracy on Monday and Jenny on Tuesday and whatever her name was on Wednesday, who cares anyway?

All of a sudden, I remember that I am in France, and that these people are French. They think. Actually, they think. And they do it very well.

Even as I accept, understand and adjust to my new surroundings, I can feel the inevitable change come over me. I am becoming more introspective with every passing minute, as I always do when I find myself sitting alone at a Parisian bistrot with a glass of red wine within lazy reach. France does this to me: it rekindles a fire that has no right to burn in me.

Eight years of French schooling and a lifelong proximity to all things gallic have made me as close as one can come to being French without routinely pan-frying amphibians and perfecting the complex art of subtle retreat. Until the age of 12, I read the same comics, watched the same cartoons and stole the same 1980s additive-ridden sweets as any Thibaut, Luc or Guillaume from Brest to Biarritz. I know the French, I know them very well and feel myself inexorably drawn to their smooth and cultured ways whenever I set foot on Gaul.

And here I am again, in fair Gaul. Having left the safe haven of Queenie's noble shores, it is not long before vague after vague of existential questions batter my uncouth saxon morality: Am I a good person? Will I ever see the bigger picture? What legacy will I leave to this planet? And more importantly, did I really need that last profiterole?

I love France for doing this to me, for challenging the very core of my system of belief and how I function. I willingly give in to my masochistic urges and strip myself bare: here I am, the real moi. I can look at myself in a way I could not even imagine possible from the safety of my comfortable middle-class life in leafy South West London. I am.

But just then, as I prepare to hang my soul out to dry on the clothes line of purgatory, I am yanked back into the realm of reality and saved from certain think-too-much doom by a fortuitous glance at my briefcase. All thoughts of complicated self-improvement vanish in a genial flash as I see the beacon masthead of the Daily Mail smile at me in all its glory.

What truly matters in my life is not here, it is not introspection or even understanding. There are more important things in life than morality and humanity: it is transfer deadline day in the Premier League and the Villa were about to sign a central defender. There is nowt more existential than a change to your playing formation two weeks before the local derby.

I lean back into my chair and relax, gradually fading out the dull sounds of silent debate to my right. My life status improves from good to perfect as I turn to the games page and realise that I still have two Sudoku puzzles to solve.

Bliss...