The Long Lunch

Our friends are enjoying their rest day in Morzine-Avoriaz. They are having a picnic of bread and cheese and berries in a sweet-smelling meadow overlooking a spectacular valley.

Jean Paul Sartre: Pass the cheese, please, Simone, ma cherie.

Simone de Beauvoir ( passing the cheese): Don't eat too much of it, mon petit. You will get heartburn.

The VeloDrone: Oh let him eat what he likes today. It's a holiday. Pass it to me when you're done with it, Jean Paul.

Belle et Bonne: It isn't a holiday papa, it's a rest day. You are supposed to be gathering your strength for the climb up the Col de la Madeleine tomorrow.

Le Bon David: Groan!!

Belle et Bonne: What's the matter, Uncle David?

Le Bon David: I am too old for this. I ache all over. This may be my last Tour de France. If philosophy teaches one how to live, then I have learned nothing.

Belle et Bonne: Don't be sad Uncle David. You are one of the most famous philosophers in the whole world. I'm sure you will figure out how to live quite soon. Let me in the meantime ask you the philosophical question I was going to ask you yesterday.

Simone de Beauvoir: Yes, ask him. I too will be interested in the answer.

Belle et Bonne: Yes, she will. It's really her question.

Le Bon David; Well. what is it then?

Belle et Bonne: Simone has to wear something blue to a party.

Simone de Beauvoir: I thought we weren't going to frame the question in that way!

Belle et Bonne: Oops! Sorry. I meant, Uncle David, do you think that colour can exist in the absence of light?

Le Bon David: I say! This isn't going to be a question about her undergarments, is it?