Monsieur Pamplemousse Hits the Headlines Read Online Free

amount of pleasure in embarrassing the participants and he had no wish to become one of his victims.
    Doucette, who didn’t trust men with fleshy lips, was very down to earth on the subject, maintaining he should never have shaved off his moustache.
    Since she didn’t like men with beards either, believing it meant they had something to hide, Monsieur Pamplemousse was tempted to say she couldn’t have it both ways. It was like giving a man two ties for Christmas and as soon he tried one on, asking what was wrong with the other.
    As usual, she had the last word. What was it she had said?
    “If you stuck a pin in that man’s ego he would flutter around the room like a pricked balloon before finally disappearing up his own derrière .”
    Monsieur Pamplemousse had pretended to be mildly shocked at the time. It was unlike her to be quite so censorious , or so earthy.
    Although it was his first visit to the studios, he had often caught glimpses of them from the outside when he and Pommes Frites were out for a walk. Situated not far from where they lived, but further down the hill towards the Boulevard de Clichy, it was one of those half-hidden enclaves peculiar to Montmartre. Often bigger than they looked, sometimes put to good use and thriving with activity, as was the present case, but more often than not monuments to a bygone age following years of neglect.
    Occasionally he stopped to peer between the wrought iron bars of some electrically operated gates that opened on to a courtyard surrounded on all four sides by ancient buildings. Windows, which at one time had been like eyeless holes in the walls, now sported gleaming white shutters , although he strongly suspected many of the openings behind them were bricked up, concealing the fact that the inside had been gutted. Beneath each shutter there was a window box full of carefully tended flowers.
    The courtyard was usually full of parked cars, often including an old Facel Vega Excellence in immaculate condition . In its time it had been France’s answer to Britain’s Rolls Royce and Germany’s Mercedes-Benz, and he took it to belong to Monsieur Chavignol himself, since it was very much a Show Biz car, beloved of American film stars: Ava Gardner, Tony Curtis and Danny Kaye to name but a few, and was always in a special marked area by the main entrance to the studios.
    More than once he had seen people queuing for audience shows, never dreaming that one day he would be joining them.
    Rumour had it that Chavignol had purchased the site for a song. If that were true, his investment had certainly paid off. It was a case of money making money. Having converted the buildings into a complex of studios at a time when everyone seemed to be going independent, he had never looked back; least of all – again, so it was said – at those whose toes he had trodden on during his progress up the ladder of fame.
    His own weekly show, which took place in a simulated theatre with a fake proscenium arch and raked seating for an audience of around 150, followed a set pattern. Fifty minutes of something borrowed, something blue, something old and something new: chat show, game show, the occasional musical item, a touch of magic here and there, plus various cookery items, all rolled into one.
    Cynics who took the view that you can never underestimate the public’s taste must have had their fears confirmed , for in many respects it was a combination of all that was worst in television. That said, it was compulsive viewing and regularly topped the charts. 
    Host, anchorman, magician, raconteur, wit; once Claude Chavignol got going, bons mots culled by his team of researchers flowed in a never-ending stream via the autocue.
    “In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, the other is getting it.”
    “Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”
    Oscar Wilde might well have consulted his copyright lawyer had he been alive to hear them.
    Marcel Aymé