Englishman Who Wanted to Clean France

Edmund Platt

Description

In 2017, Edmund Platt aka The English Snail embarked on an 8,000 km hitchhike around France to pick up the trash that 1 in 3 French people chuck from their cars every day. Hellbent on making some noise about the disastrous littering problem, the plastic suffocating our oceans and our broken consumer society, Eddie's message is honest, ultra-powerful, and full of home truths. Highly anticipated by the media and fans alike, his first book details the nitty-gritty life on the road in the land of frog's legs and garlic breath. With nothing but a backpack, litter-picker and healthy thirst for beer, his three-month journey will change the way you look at life and maybe even your priorities. Time isn't money, it's much more ****ing valuable than that! This book is a human rollercoaster adventure laced with twists and turns that anyone can relate to. Rich in spontaneity, amusing and eye-opening, The Englishman Who Wanted to Clean France is the ultimate slap in the face and kick-start we could all use during these contagious times.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Travel writing
• Memoir
• Walking
• France

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 19 novembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800468245
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

L’ESCARGOT ANGLAIS
THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WANTED TO CLEAN FRANCE
Edmund Platt and Natacha Neveu
Copyright © 2020 Edmund Platt and Natacha Neveu

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover design by Marie Megel
Editing by Edmund Platt and Natacha Neveu
Opening image by Vanessa Moreaux
Cover photograph by Mouna Gerchi

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ISBN 9781800468245

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Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

For you Dad
1940-2019

Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. Although the authors and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, they do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause. If you are a brand, person or company that believes the contents of this book could negatively impact your image and/ or profits, but have a positive impact on the planet then you should focus on improving your product offer. If you are a sensitive type of human who takes offence to the language used in this book, then you should tell your friends to read it too to get a second opinion. Disclaimers serve to protect authors and that’s great. This disclaimer serves to protect the authors and the planet, which is even better. If you feel hurt, embarrassed, segregated, singled out, financially at a loss or that your ego has been destabilised or whatever then grab your phone, call your lawyer and tell him to put his phone where the sun don’t shine because that’s exactly what I’m about to tell you to do.
Contents
Introduction: Why ‘The English Snail’ (L’Escargot Anglais)?
Do you eat kebabs?
Illegal Hitchhiking
Drunken Midwives
Dumpster Diving
Link to France
Morning Glory
Refugee Carpool Karaoke
Lovely Gay Pâté
Naked Vibes
Fuck Me, I’m Famous
Freakin’ Love Lille
Free Heroin
Champagne a Go-Go!
Bloody Kleptomaniac
WTF France
Over My Dead Body
Le Grand Minimum
Knicker Sniffer
You Poor Fuckers
Fucking English Teacher
Water Boys
Knife to Meet You
Your Girlfriend!
Châteauneuf-les-Merdes
Jacques’ Women
Media Frustration
Veggie Burger
Raining Cats and Dogs in Paris
Reality TV Numbasses
Join the Joyride
Falling in Love
Wine O’clock
The Dirty Bastards
Footballers’ Millions
On est des Français
Unconscious Balloon Releasers
Memory Loss
I’m Not Fucking French
Old Orléans
Party’s Over
368 Words
Glossary
Thank yous and yous and yous and…
Introduction: Why ‘The English Snail’ (L’Escargot Anglais)?



Hi, I’m Eddie Platt, from Leeds in England. I’m the president and co-founder of an association called 1 Piece of Rubbish and ex-European sales manager who’s been living in Marseille teaching English since 2011. This book ‘ L’Escargot Anglais : The Englishman Who Wanted to Clean France’ is the three-month diary of my 8,000 kilometres hitchhike, meeting the locals, sleeping in my hammock, drinking gallons of beer, and picking up almost two million pieces of trash during the summer of 2017. Inspired by this life-changing experience, I’d like to share some of the cleanest and dirtiest moments with you, as well as my learnings and discoveries about man-made, petroleum plastic pollution, and our cancerous consumer society which is suffocating our planet and getting right on my tits.

‘L’Escargot Anglais: The Englishman Who Wanted to Clean France’ is for you; whether you love France, its cheeses, fresh baguettes, wine, brandy, and climate or whether you can’t stand France and its frogs’ legs, undercooked raw steaks, idiotic opening hours and non-existent customer service, or the French in general with their, ‘we are ‘ze best and we drive on ‘ze right’ attitude.
It’s my first book and I hope you find it entertaining, enriching and thought-provoking. Maybe you’ll identify with it in parts and occasionally laugh out loud in others. According to my mum, I never wrote this much throughout my entire education. I’m quite proud of myself and think it’s totally mint that you’re about to read my story. Before going any further though, here’s a YouTube teaser of the trip in French with English subtitles.
This book is for everyone who still flicks their cigarette butts on the floor (as I did 10,000 times as a smoker), or not. It’s for you whether you’ve started reducing the amount of single-use plastic in your life, or not. It’s for people who chuck trash from their cars, or who leave their picnic leftovers on a bench 10 metres from a bin, or on the beach - thinking someone is paid to clean up after them, or not. This book is for you if you think that Dubai is a must-visit holiday destination and that posting a photo on Instagram with a Starbucks in your hand is good for your image. It’s for you if you’ve got your own reusable water bottle and care about the environment and all the little interlinked ecosystems that surround us, or not. It’s for you whether you earn six quid an hour, 160K a year, or nothing at all. This 90-day ‘ don’t fuck my planet ’ 2 adventure is for you, whoever you are and wherever you may be. Enjoy, and if the intro bores you, feel free to go straight to the first chapter where the real action begins immediately with my first driver, Julien.
The original catalyst for ‘ L’Escargot Anglais’ took place on the 14 th of August 2015 in one of my favourite places on the whole planet, Roundhay Park - my youth time haunt, in my hometown of Leeds. I was walking around Waterloo Lake at 7:30 in the morning when I picked up a can of Diet Coke. As I approached a bin with the can in hand, I decided to post a selfie on Instagram with the caption: ‘My new habit is to pick up at least 1 piece of rubbish every day for the rest of my life’ - adorned with the hashtag #1PieceOfRubbish. This single photo was a huge success and received many mixed comments of support, encouragement, and bewilderment;

– ‘Come to Manchester, it’s horribly dirty too.’
– ‘My husband does the same, good for you.’
– ‘How embarrassing, why would you pick up someone else’s trash?’
– ‘Great job, if only more people did the same!’
– ‘Who are these bellends who toss litter on the floor?’

And the most famous of all was from Georges-Edouard Legré in Marseille;

– ‘If you can motivate all the Marseillais* to do it, you’re my god.’

Alright then! I immediately decided to rise to the challenge because after all, who wouldn’t want to be someone’s god, even just for one day?! After my summer break in Yorkshire, I returned to Marseille and met up with Georges-Edouard to discuss cleaning France’s oldest and dirtiest city and me becoming his god. I never expected this photo and statement to go global, starting an online litter picking frenzy around the world.
Ever since that day back in August 2015, hundreds of people have been proudly posting photos of themselves picking up trash on social media. Tons of photos were flooding the internet of people picking up trash in the street, parks, beaches, cycle paths, play areas, woodlands, and anywhere there’s trash (basically everywhere). All these photos were uploaded with the hashtags #1PieceOfRubbish and #1DechetParJour . We’d created a bangin’ eco-movement for cleaner streets, cleaner cities and a cleaner future. And I was fast becoming a litter picking god (ha ha ha) for an active, global community striving for positive change.
I was pumped up like a raging bull and encouraged by all the online love. Georges-Edouard and I agreed to cause a ruckus and take the action of picking up litter to the masses, raise the plastic pollution alarm, and make it impossible to ignore. We set out to reinvent ecological communication and bring much-needed visibility and coolness to something that lots of people were already doing, most often anonymously. We hoped to wake up the world and provide real insight into how matters are being made worse through our ignorance. We also hoped and wanted to empower people to mark their territory with vital and urgent transitional solutions. Part of our strategy was to uplift and encourage everyone to take control of their future and lead reduced plastic lifestyles. And of course, I wanted to be on the cover of Time magazine and the Yorkshire Evening Post like The Pied bloody Piper.
Within one month, we’d officially called our movement ‘1 Piece of Rubbish - 1 Déchet par Jour’ . Georges-Edouard had become comm