Foreign News: School for Landladies

If only English landladies spoke French, and if only their English cooks knew something of haute cuisine, Frenchmen with gold francs would be tempted in droves across the Channel. Last week, with this in mind, the progressive Mayor of Blackpool had drummed up 28 landladies, was having them taught French, with French cooking to follow. First question and answer memorized by Blackpool’s pucker-browed landladies:

Avez-vous des chambrcs libres?

Mais oui, nous en avons plusieurs!

It is but too true, sadly admitted the landladies, that in Blackpool they all have “several rooms to let.”