(paywall) Sacrebleu, our Del Boy gets lost in translation 
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/sacrebleu-our-del-boy-gets-lost-in-translation-05ll0hqfc
The monthly press conference that David Davis and Michel Barnier hold at the end of each round of Brexit negotiations is starting to resemble a game show,
one in which the audience have to guess how the talks have gone from two completely contrasting descriptions.
“We’re not making much progress,” sighed Mr Barnier
with all the enthusiasm of a Frenchman who has ordered the cheese trolley at the end of lunch and been given a choice of Babybel and La Vache Qui Rit.
“Time is passing quickly.”
“Au contraire, mon bonnet de douche,”
riposted Mr Davis, the Del Boy of the privy council.
“In fact, we are making concrete progress.”
This just made me think
— perhaps because the Brexit secretary has the look of an East End boxing promoter —
of someone in Blue Circle boots being pushed off the Isle of Dogs and progressing to the bottom of the Thames. 
Mr Barnier was unconvinced. He kept talking about the “legal obligations” that Britain has to the EU, which appear to be low on Mr Davis’s list of priorities. “It’s all about creating trust,” the Frenchman said. “There are still areas where we need to build trust.”
The relationship between Britain and the EU,
as a former secretary of the English Rugby Football Union once said about his nation and the Welsh,
is based on trust and understanding:
they don’t trust us and we can’t understand them.
< unfortunately true >
Well what does the EU expect when Mr Barnier keeps slipping between French and English without the need to reach for his Larousse?
His press conferences are properly bilingual.
“Lundi, j’ai dit à David, ‘I am concerned’,”
Mr Barnier said at the start of his statement,
before veering off into his native tongue for a bit to talk about the orders he has been given by the European parliament
and then slipping easily back into English to warn of “consequences” if we don’t reach an agreement.
Mr Davis did not seem flustered by this threat.
He flicked out his translation earpiece with a gesture that seemed to say “mangetout, ma crêpe suzette”
and set about explaining that it is the EU that needs to buck up its ideas.
“We want a deep and special relationship. But we’ll only get that through flexibility.”
He was rather keen on the F-word.
Several times, the Brexit secretary argued that Britain is being more “flexible” than the EU.
It can only be a matter of time before a new portmanteau is born — Brexible:
the act of working such contortions that you can’t tell your culus from your cubitus,
as Jacob Rees-Mogg would say.
From their body language it seems that Mr Barnier regards his counterpart as a right pain in the culus
“You appear to be angry,” a journalist told him.
“I have shown the calm of a mountaineer,” Mr Barnier said, implying that he is more on-piste than piste-off.
“If I get angry it will be very obvious, I can assure you.”
He then accused Britain of showing “a sort of nostalgia”
with its have-cake-and-eat-it approach to wanting the EU benefits without being in it.
“It’s just a belief in the free market, mon vieux parapluie,”
Mr Davis replied, all sweetness and innocence.
He had the cheeky look of someone who intends to see just how far he can push this relaxed mountaineer towards an avalanche at their monthly summit meetings,
but whose chalets will end up being crushed by it?