Thursday, October 08, 2009

French tourist finds Petersfield quite diverting

An 85-year-old French woman was airlifted to safety in Petersfield yesterday after being trapped for three days without food and water in a circuitous route of ‘diversion’ signs.

Mme Katerin Denerve was driving through the town on her way to see some old friends in Liphook on Monday when she first followed a ‘diversion’ sign. But all it did was take her to another. And then another. And then another, as she explained.

“It waz, ‘ow you say, merde!” said the former model and arc welder.

“Zere woz no reason for ze sign in ze first place. Zere woz nussing to be diverted from – just a sign. But I didn’t know zat at ze time. It took me to the edge of Petersfield and another sign sent me back again.

“In all it woz sree days before I could alert somebody to my situation. I had nussing to eat or drink. The only chance I had was when one of ze signs took me past McDonald’s – but I am French: I would rarser die zan eat zat shit.”

Mme Denerve spent the night in Petersfield Hospital where many local well-wishers visited her and left gifts of strings of onions, berets and navy and white hooped shirts.

Mme Denerve added: “I will never travel through Petersfield again. There are diversion signs everywhere; you can’t escape them and the people are ignorant. Everybody knows navy and white hoops iz only relevant to people from ze Breton areaz.”

A police spokesman confirmed the infestation of ‘diversion’ signs appeared to be the result of a prank by council workmen with too much time on their hands.

He said: “Unfortunately East Hampshire District Council appears to have a glut of diversion signs and you know what council workmen are like when they have too much sugar in their tea.

“It’s either misuse of signs, bloody great holes in the road for no reason or high-visibility jackets on sheep. They’re full of high jinks,” he smiled.

A spokesman for the British National Party said: “We’re outraged. Surely there was a local person confused by the diversion signs who could have occupied that hospital bed.”

When Mme Denerve's car was lifted to safety she was
astounded to find the mechanic was none other
than Pompey's erstwhile owner Sulaiman al Fahim

No comments:

Post a Comment