Over-confident and under cover of dorkness, the surprise new out-half on the Ireland rugby team finds out how to get the wrong result in France, writes Ross O'Carroll-Kelly.
There's no doubt, roysh, that when I've got the smell of fresh prey in my nostrils, I'm pretty much ruthless. Lucienne is, like, staring at Jacques - who until 10 minutes ago would have considered himself her boyfriend - and she's going, "Si vous êtes fatigué, allez à la maison", which basically means, hey, if you're tired, then hit the road, Jacques.
I know I ripped the piss out of Fionn for doing French grinds but those Friday nights in the Institute are really paying for themselves tonight.
Lucienne, I should mention, is an absolute ringer for Eva Green and every set of mince pies in The Connemara is glued to her. Except for Jacques's.
He's staring at me, giving me major filthies. He's under serious pressure here.
"Nous partons," he goes, grabbing her by the elbow and trying to steer her out of the battle cruiser and at the same time giving me what would have to be described as a wounded look.
Of course Lucienne's having none of it. She's like, "Je veux rester ici - je veux une autre boisson", in other words, "I'm having the night of my life. I want to stay here with this really good-looking Irish goy and his mates". So obviously Jacques is far from a contented temporary tent dweller when he hears that. He looks me up and down, roysh, then hits the road, stopping only to say something to me in French, which I wouldn't imagine is too complimentary.
But then he's just lost his bird to a goy wearing a giant leprechaun hat with a buckle on the front, so who am I to judge? I should mention that when I met Lucienne, I dropped into the introduction that I was a)the out-half on the Ireland rugby team, b)playing against Georgia today and c)driving a Maserati Quattroporte. Only one of these statements is actually true and, since it's pretty clear that I'm not Ronan O'Gara, you can take it that I've been tearing the orse out of the Irish Timescredit cord since me and the goys arrived in Bordeaux.
They cost a fortune to rent, these babies, but since I've been pretty much without wheels since the CAB took my Z4, I thought I deserved it.
I turn around to Lucienne and I go, "Your English is, like, totally amazing". That's one thing I've learned about birds - they love, like, little compliments and shit? "Sank you," she goes.
I shrug. It's nothing. I can bang out lines like that all night long.
I'm like, "I'd say you did pretty well in it in the Leaving - or whatever you call it over here . . ." "I got an A," she goes, at which point Fionn sticks his hooter in and goes, "Ross got an F - if you've any problem understanding him, Lucienne, we'll translate for you", which everyone finds totally hilarious. We're talking JP, we're talking Oisinn, we're talking even her.
I actually crack up as well, thinking, I actually have to lighten up, learn to laugh at myself.
I'll do a Donald Trump in one of his Dubes later on and we'll see who's the funny man then.
"Do you fancy, er, going for a drive?" I go all of a sudden. "See what that bucket of bolts out there can do?" She doesn't need to be asked twice. Five minutes later the old Rossmeister General is sending that little baby's rev count through the roof - and I'm also driving the Maserati pretty fast as well.
We're pegging through the centre of Bordeaux, roysh, and I'm learning that I can talk to Lucienne about pretty much anything - how much I hate my old dear, how much I hate my old man, how Wales are playing two of their pool matches in Cardiff, which I always thought was in Wales, not France.
A lot of cors coming in the opposite direction are, like, beeping their horns at us. I'm thinking, yeah, it is a cool cor, isn't it?
"You are driving wiz your lights on fool-beam," Lucienne goes, and quick as a flash, roysh, Slick Mick here turns around and goes, "I think I've earned the right to drive with my lights on full-beam, don't you?" and out of the corner of my eye I can see Lucienne looking at me and she's pretty impressed.
She's seriously impressed because suddenly she can't keep her Christian Andersens off me, roysh, and once or twice I end up nearly going off the road and totalling the cor.
She eventually directs me to a quiet little laneway she knows worryingly well and of course my threads are off in world record time, except the hat, of course, which I leave on.
I'm just about to put the seats back when all of a sudden she says something that I suppose, looking back, should have sounded a few alorm bells with me.
"Let me seet in ze driver seat," she goes. "I like ze power." So like a fool, roysh, I get out of the cor - in the total raw, remember - and stort walking around to the passenger side. But as soon as I do, I hear the driver's door shut and the locks suddenly go down quicker than you can say, con ortist.
Lucienne - if that's even her real name - turns the key and she's gone, though she does stop at the end of the laneway to open the passenger door for a tall figure, who suddenly steps out of the dorkness.
I don't actually need to look to know who it is.
"Au revoir," Jacques shouts, which is probably French for, I don't know, you're a total dickhead.
And on that score, you'll get no orguments from me.
TXT ROSS: Readers in need of advice or assistance can text Ross at 087-977378