Vive la télévision Française!

I had hoped given the hours invested in French language television during accumulated lockdowns that I might have acquired by osmosis some language skills but the only enhancement to my already limited vocabulary appears so far to have been: ‘Putain.’

An expletive that comes closest in usage - if not direct translation - to our own Anglo-Saxon four-letter favourite, ‘putain’ is to my mind one of the few French words that disappoints next to its English equivalent. With its innate gallic insouciance, pillowy initial and throw-away second syllable it could convincingly translate as something quite innocuous. Our own indubitable version by contrast requires some teeth and frankly there are times in a locked down day when only the voiceless labiodental fricative will do.

In other words...there’s nothing quite like a good: “F***”.

Anyway...French telly. Ooh la la. What sweet semblance of escape has been granted by subtitles and a foreign vista to those of us whose passports haven't seen the light of day for 20-plus months and who have barely ventured beyond our own neighbourhoods for weeks and weeks and weeks at a time. Cooped up and locked down in north-west London I have travelled afar by immersing myself for hours and into the night at times on TV from across the channel and beyond. Ensconced in the corner of a sofa or from the comfort of bed I have followed French spies to Moscow by way of Syria and Egypt (The Bureau - twitchingly thrilling), befriended a Scandinavian Aspergic detective in Denmark and Sweden (The Bridge - brilliantly different), eavesdropped on corrupt Italian politicians in Rome (1994 - super stylish) and most recently joined a Parisian talent agency with a full-on 4-season binge of the only fictional TV I can remember ever having provoked a case of work envy (Call My Agent - deliciously written, inherently sexy and so. much. fun).

There is a flip-side to all this gorgeous televisual gorging, of course. Grateful as I am for available-on-demand quality content there’s an episodic if fleeting sense of loss to endure as each series comes to its ultimate end. As a child of three channels and the test card (remember the creepy clown?) who recalls albeit distantly the now archaic concept of having to wait seven days between scheduled episodes of viewing pleasure there's still an almost keys-to-the-sweet-shop element to being able to indulge oneself at will. It invites excess! When you follow characters for hours and evenings at a time, when you become immersed in a narrative over consecutive weekends, then you literally give of yourself, so that reciprocally you get to know people, you become attached,...you have a fling! And just as when flings come to an end you’re left a little deflated, mildly bereft and wondering. What...happens...next?

Good telly like all smart things knows when and how to quit. And caring about characters in fiction is nothing new, of course. Who hasn’t turned the last page of a loved novel devoured over successive afternoons on a sun-lounger and sighed wistfully over the goodbye in its back cover. But during a year in which we’ve lived on and off under something amounting to a weird version of house arrest, when the people we clasped at the beginning of lockdown #1 are those we in moments have most longed to escape in lockdown #3, and when making tea for a plumber is the closest we’ve come in months to hosting company, the value of a well-drawn fictional 'friend' has increased manifold. Even more in my view if they speak a language not our own and inhabit locations a time-zone away.

I can live without knowing what Saga Noren did after crossing Øresund Bridge for the last time. Or how Guillaume Debailly fared following a life of skullduggery and espionnage. I am genuinely still coming to terms with the team at ASK in Paris having disbanded but I’ll get over it and wish them well in new endeavours.

As long as their likes keep coming whilst lockdown endures I can be magnanimous. And if they don’t, at a push, as since the days of the test card, creepy clowns and channel curfews - there are always repeats.

Putain!

Image by Anthony Delanoix.