Pie update

The national pie deficit of France has been very well-documented. Or at least, I've talked about it a lot, which is more or less the same thing. So, being a man of action, I decided to do something about it, and wrote to one of Britain's leading pastry bakeries.

Clotilda the cow says: "Happy St Kevin's day!"
Note: this cow is not called Clotilda, and I think it's supposed to be a bull in any case.
Today is, however, St Kevin's day.

"I am an expat living since 2000 in Paris, a city of several thousand Britons, and a serious sausage roll deficit. [...] I wanted to know if your company has any plans to expand into Europe and of course particularly Paris. The French have recently cottoned on to the concept of the pasty but sadly they have adapted it, regarding it as little more than a snack. This has left me nonplussed. I'm convinced that there's a market gap just waiting to be filled by your products. The demand would be huge."

They were kind enough to reply very promptly.

"Thank you very much for your enquiry with regard to Shops in Europe.

"I am very sorry, but whilst we read your e-mail with great interest, we do not have any plans to open up shops in Paris .We are a vertically integrated company which means that... [blah, blah, blah, etc...] [oh, and a bit more blah] ...to set up in a new geographical location would require massive capital investment, due to the nature of our business operation, and as such we have no plans to locate in new geographical areas in the foreseeable future.

"We do intend to develop our business further in the forthcoming years, and hopefully may move to Paris, but as for the immediate future, I am sorry we have no plans.

"Thank you once again for your interest."

What can I say? The battle is lost but the war is far from over. And I will fight on!