What Can the Matter Be

A German journalist friend with whom we were dining (and waiting for inside gossip on the Heiligendamm Conference ) was able to speak only of this:

He put in to Boulogne-sur-Mer, paid his dues and was issued with the shower block number code; ever an early riser he was up and about well before 6 the next morning, popped into the only open loo (the others close during the night) and went into town for breakfast and a look about, leaving a couple asleep on board (his wife had entrained for Cologne the day before - mother's birthday).

Alone he returned, shortly before seven, popped into the loo again and, while there, heard a series of soft clicks. The timeswitches had locked-up the night-loo and opened the shower block. A well-fitting door to a windowless cubicle entombed him at seven on a Sunday morning.

He called the sleeping on board friends - no answer. Lots of paper (good thing it was a French loo) but nothing to write with made obtaining a long, difficult to recall number from emergency services a no no.

There is no way of making a dignified announcement and appeal for help to your wife, breakfasting on the Cologne-Paris express in all its German luxury and speed, in these circumstances. So he made a desperate plea from his darkened French bog and, when she recovered her composure, she had German efficiency call on French courtesy (Sunday is sacred, after all). With one click he was free, but what that half hour had done for ever to his psyche, nay, his soul, he could only express in German.