Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2000/10/14/cheeky_bastard_of_the_week/

Cheeky bastard of the Week

Who ever said the French were arrogant?

By Kieren McCarthy

Posted in Bootnotes, 14th October 2000 09:09 GMT

This little story of journo arrogance takes place in the Swan Hotel in Orlando (you'll know it's the Swan hotel and not the Dolphin hotel because it has several 60-foot blue swans on top of it. The Dolphin has several 60-foot off-pink dolphins on top of it).

And so the Europeans journos, complete with bill-paying PR bods, settle down in the Patio italian restaurant after a tiring nine-hour flight. We're all a little weary, even more so because you have to walk for five minutes to reach an area where you can have a smoke.

But wine is consumed (and beer and water), food is eaten and people drift off to hotel rooms for a kip. On returning from a post-main course fag though, we were amazed to see the PR boys carefully studying the bill.

To add further mystery, one of them then asks the French representative, a man known as Jean-Baptiste Su, for a quick chat.

Now, Jean-Baptiste is a patriot at heart which is why he felt the need to temper every dinner table conversation with the fact that the French were in some way superior to everyone else. It was also the reason that he felt he had to demonstrate that French wine was also superior to another wine in the world.

Strangely though, the only two people to have a taste of his own bottle were himself and the only woman at the table, a sunburnt Swedish PR bunny. "Taste zis. Zis is a real wine."

We chose to ignore. Sadly, the PR boys had no such option as our Jean-Baptiste had plumbed for a $450 bottle of Chateau Fou de Plus Cher. He made no friends (although the journos did have a cracking good laugh) and the Swedish lady slipped through his fingers.

Unfortunately for JB, the PR lads also pulled the item off our bill and put it on his room bill. Will they make him pay, or are they just sweating him? We'll keep you informed. But you can bet that if they do pay for the bottle, this journalist for one will be insisting on his mini-bar bill also being covered (and it's already up to $50).