ginovandewalle.com

Fawlty Towers still exists! It is no longer a hotel, but it has become a restaurant in the area where I have my office. Somewhere in the “Greater Almancil Area”, somewhere in the Portuguese Algarve. Earlier this week, I went there for lunch, together with a friend. Upon arrival, we saw a blackboard, announcing a two course lunch for 0 €! We looked at each other, and laughed about the bargain we were going to get. After having  parked the car and while walking towards the front door, we saw the other side of the blackboard, announcing the two course lunch for 10 €! Still a bargain, but obviously, the one person that had written the announcement didn’t know exactly how to spell 10 €!

Anyway, Bazil Fawlty has now become Baziel, a fat French cook in his early forties. He was constantly sniffeling underneath his armpits while talking to himself in a mixture of English and Portuguese with a very funny, undefined accent of which we couldn’t understand a word. Both my friend and I are pretty fluent in French, so we decided to address Baziel in his own language. We told him we wanted the two course lunch for the price that he had announced outside. It took a while before we could convince him to go and take a look at the blackboard. Baziel returned running in the unique Bazil Fawlty style, calling for Manuel, the assistant. Manuel has now become a young Russian girl, who must have arrived only very recently in Portugal as her Portuguese is still very poor. Baziel sent this girl outside to change the announcement.

Anyway, we took a seat, and as an aperitif we ordered two red Martinis on the rocks. It took a while before the girl had understood what kind of drink we wanted, and off she went. It took ages before she returned. Guess what? Martini had been sold out. No more Martini in the whole house! So we decided to have a beer, in order to keep things simple.

A little later, Baziel came to our table (we were the only guests), apologizing for the incapability of this poor little Russian girl that had come all the way from Siberia, blaming the European Union and all other incapable politicians for letting all these foreigners into the country, and he wanted to take our orders. We hadn’t received a menu, so there he started… ratteling down everything that was available. Both my friend and myself didn’t understand a word of what he meant to say, so we asked him to write it down on a piece of paper as it had become clear and obvious that a normal menu didn’t exist inside the whole restaurant. We also asked him to turn the music a little bit down, as we were sitting underneath some loudspeakers which were at least at volume seven or eight. Baziel is not good at computers, as we found out when he was struggeling with the volume. Him switching the computer system that controlled the music in the restaurant off and on felt like explosions in our ears.

While Baziel was at our table, another customer came in wearing shorts, sandals and socks. He came to our table, and asked if we liked his socks! We didn’t. Baziel then started a whole lecture telling this poor bloke which socks go with which trousers and shoes… Incredible! We witnessed all this at our table, while trying to order a two course lunch for 10 €!

We ordered, and were served a very nice meal. The starter was ok, and the main course was nice as well. However, when we were about halfway the main dish, the Russian female Manuel came to our table with the two Martinis that we had ordered in the first place. Of what we could understand, she had been sent by Baziel to the little café next door to get our two Martinis.

Both my friend and I couldn’t stop laughing when we were paying the bill. As a matter of fact, I am still laughing out loud!

This week, Portuguese reality was even better than the very popular seventies BBC-sitcom that was written by John Cleese.

Share on Facebook