3rd September 2008

Wasn't it 3rd September that war was declared? Granted: a long time ago. But I've just realised that if we look at the date numbers in the English style, the date was 3939. And, if we add these together, 24, then add these, we get 6 which was the number of years the war endured. Strange. There's something about numbers that give us reality in all its stark realism. Just look at how the terrorists used 9/11 in the U.S. to mirror not only the date but also the US 911 emergency service.
In France I'm finding the numbers quite difficult to deal with in French. The phone is the worst. It took us a long time to realise that the rapid dictating of phone numbers by a caller was in consequence of how they speak. Whereas in the UK we would recite a phone number singly (1-2-3-4-5-6......), in France they recite them doubly (12-34-56......). Bizarrely, le francais seemed to have run out of number names by the time they reached 70. Hence after 60 (soixante), 70 is 'soixante-dix' (literally sixty-ten), 80 is 'quatre-vingt' (four-twenty), and unbelievably 90 is 'quatre-vingt-dix' (four-twenty-ten)! And you think your life is difficult.
So it's just as well we're not millionaires then; we'd never work out all those numbers on our bank statement. Oh well, there's always Sudoku. I can't do French crosswords, so with Sudoku I don't need to speak French, and it's something to keep the old brain cells working while I work out how to increase the numbers in my purse.