Merde. I'm being humped by a bear. No, really.

Us English always pride ourselves on our eccentric traditions. Pantomimes, bonfire night, morris dancing, the list goes on. Who else in the world would ever even consider standing in the cold November drizzle to watch some poor dummy get plonked on a bonfire, or dance gormlessly around with bells and sticks, or have men dress up in make up, over the top dresses and silly wigs? What a ridiculous idea. Except, and prepare yourselves, the French can absolutely kick our oh so eccentric and patriotic pale-fleshed arses in this department, as I found out last night at the Bernais carnival of Pau.

I didn't really listen properly when my teacher told us the legend that this utterly bizaare tradition stems from, but I'll refer back when I find out properly. I gained that it was something to do with bears chasing men dressed up as women, then women dressed up as hunter men chasing the bears thus saving the men/women.... You can probably understand why I gave up listening. I wasn't even very bothered about going to this part of the carnival, I would have preferred to be totally uncultured and go to the Valentines pub quiz at 'le garage'. But my flatmates persuaded me that it was a necessary part of the Bearn culture to nourish myself with (translated literally- and by the way, Bearn is the region of France that Pau is in. Not technically, but culturally. Or something). We also met up with some English friends, Lara and Sinead, and off we trundled to the chateau, where this ridiculous affair was to take place. The atmosphere was vivacious and wonderful when we arrived, a brass band were in full swing and the tiny square was crammed with people. A group of men in funny flowery suits danced along. Overfed old men leaned out of their French windows in the buildings above, happily awaiting the event to commence. I was suddenely content and filled with the infectious excitement that surrounded me. However, the first peice of unease was already present: All around me there were hairy men dressed in pink wigs, mini skirts and blouses with balloons stuffed down them to constitue as breasts. They ran around shrieking in high pitched voices and giggling wildly. My feminist head said this was the epitomy of the mysogynistic, chauvanistic view of women. My tolerant head told me this was an age old tradition, just laugh about it. So I did. Besides, on the stage there was tens of young women dressed as hunters with beards drawn on. The atmosphere was building, the audience was getting more and more hysterical. All of a sudden, there was a gun shot. The music got yet more hysterical, along with the crowd. The bears were released. When I say bears, they were overexcitable men dressed up in black hairy bear suits. They ran into the crowds, and after the hysterically screeching transvetites. Now came the part I was most astonished by, they starting pretending to rape the transvestites. Yes. They ran after these screeching pantomime-dame-style horrors, grabbed them, jumped on them and proceeded to hump them. I also noticed at this point, just to rub salt into the wound, that they were wearing GIANT STRAP-ON PENISES. My stiff upper lip, conservative, ingrained English-ness which I didn't even know existed got the better of me at this point. I was utterly confused, and slightly terrified as we were standing right at the front of the crowd, of whom these great penissed beasts were starting to rape as well as the transvestites. Lara, Sinead and I huddled together like giggling 4 year olds being chased by a scary adult in stuck-in-the-mud. We did not want to be humped by a bear. Some people were even being double humped. Absolutely horrifying stuff. However, soon all was to end. Luckily, the women dressed as hunters came to our rescue, hunted down the bears, and, er, castrated them. Phew. Thank God for that. They triumphantly held up the giant strap-ons to the tune of the brass band and the weird flower-suited dancers. The crowd cheered. Everyone was ecstatic. We ran. To the nearest, most English thing we could find. The pub.