Daily Diary

Sandwich man stumps Spanish

Posted 20/09/2007 by The Daily Diary

Perhaps it’s an upbringing amid the dreaming spires of Oxford and ivory towers of Cambridge, but top City lawyers are often just as useless as the rest of us when it comes to dealing with those awkward practicalities in everyday life.

For instance, you might it would have occurred to a top partner with an international law firm that not every Juan and Juanita Foreigner has bothered to master the Queen’s Imperial English.

The Diary this week heard how one City big-shot – perfectly fluent in Australian – found himself in a royal pickle as he attempted to navigate through Sevilla to his long-lost hotel.

Armed with just his natural charm and a sense of direction honed on countless walkabouts in the outback, the flamin’ gallah finally wended his way back home courtesy of a helpful taxi driver and just a single well-rehearsed phrase of the local dialect – not bad going considering he was asking for a ham and cheese sandwich all the time.