Spider Man

I've just been watching tv and they've been reporting about a guy dressed as Spider Man who keeps scrambling up the sides of tall buildings in Paris illegally. Naughty Spider Man! I rather like him. He used to operate in La Defense when I worked in France myself. His favourite conquest was the block we called The Dark Tower, that loomed over Paris's business district, reflecting back the grey clouds and sheets of rain that often fell upon the office workers scuttling past its base. It was the tower whose lifts whooshed eerily into the ether, transporting immaculately groomed staff to landings filled with turnstiles and No Entry signs. Every week I turned up in my shabby attire, handed over my passport, and muttered my purpose of visit miserably to the receptionists. They would raise their eyebrows as they repeated back 'La professeur Anglaise' and announce my arrival to the waiting Madame Dupont, my pupil.

Madame Dupont herself would appear and lead me to her office, an operation that was no mean feat. Corridor after corridor of be-suited young men greeted us, filled with handshakes, kisses and old-fashioned charm. 'Ah Monsieur Boucher and Monsieur Fournier. Good day to you...' Madame Dupont would say, followed by a most startling display of attentions from the young men. 'Ah, but what a beautiful necklace you are wearing, Madame,' one would say. 'And what elegant trousers,' would add the other.

Inside Madame's office, the lesson would follow its course, filled with teasing exclamations of 'You bring zee bad wezer wiz you!' as we stared out at the persistent rain. Listening to my own dreary voice struggling to keep Madame's attention, I used to long for a Diet Coke break, complete with hunky man flashing cheesy grins at us from outside the window. But it never happened. Instead I would correct repeated utterances of 'What a dommage!' or undo unfortunate confusions about foreigners being 'strange' in place of 'etrange'. But then one day, we had just been doing conditional sentences where my example had been 'What would you do if Spider Man appeared?', when who should swing past the window, clutching a rope, but You Know Who. Madame shot out of her chair and shouted 'Zer iz ze Spider Man!' and we burst into peals of laughter and jollity for a whole thirty minutes, rendering my usually dismally executed English lesson a positive joy. Thank you, Spider Man. Keep on climbing!