Hello everyone, you're listening to the Earful Tower podcast. My name, Oliver G. This show, the Earful Tower.

I think I already said that. And this week, I'm going to do something a little bit different. I feel there's a lot of gloom, a lot of gloom in the world right now.

And for the next half an hour or so, I'm going to switch you off from that. I'm going to take you to Paris through the streets,

meeting French people, conversing with the locals. In fact, that's the most important thing,

conversing with the locals. I'm going to share with you my top secret trick to starting a French

conversation. It's something that I wrote about in my recent book and it's the thing

that I get asked about the most in all the conversations I've had since. So that's going to be

the topic of the day. I'll also throw in a little bit about what's going on in Paris. The parks

are open. Things are pretty happy here at the moment. And if we're lucky, I think I might even read

a little bit from the book for you.

So let's get into it, the trick to starting a French conversation. Special guest, myself,

host myself. It's one of those episodes. Here we go. Let's get into it. Let's play the jingle.

Hello again, guys. So when I do these kind of episodes, I can take it a little bit more chilled because I'm not trying to promote some guests or whatever. That music you just heard it from Slim and the Beast, it's a song they made for our honeymoon. And the same music, well, not the same music exactly, but in the audio book I've just recorded for my book, it was Aaron from Slim and the Beast that did all the guitar all the way through it. But that's not what we're here to talk about today. We're

here to talk about the trick to starting a conversation with a Frenchman or a French woman according

to me. Now, I, so the book that I wrote, I mean, there are probably some people listening here

who haven't read my book, have no idea what I'm talking about. It's a memoir. And I actually met with Philippe from Secret Journeys the other day,

and he's read the book and he said, you know, when I heard you'd written this, my first thought

was, you need to be 80 years old before you write a memoir. But then I read it and I understood it. It's like a slice of your life at an interesting time in Paris.

And he's exactly right.

That's what this is.

So it's a memoir, but it's also my observations on French people as I've got to understand

this country and start this podcast.

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