Green boxes along the quai now offer letters of good standing, signed by a man named Gaston who does not know you
Seine Bouquinistes Start Selling Character References at Five Euros Each
Green boxes along the quai now offer letters of good standing, signed by a man named Gaston who does not know you
PARIS – Along the Quai de Montebello, the green boxes of the bouquinistes now sell something besides postcards and old Maigret paperbacks: character references. Five euros each. Bulk discounts for pensioners. Signed by Gaston.
The trade was started by bookseller Gaston Lemoine-Vasseur, 71, after reading the news from the Philippines. The trail begins with a Manila News report on a Mactan broker alone with three brochures and a cold coffee, continues through the London Prat on British pensioners asked for two referees and a letter from the vicar (at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and ends with Bohiney on an Ohio realtor whose showings now run two hours. “Retirees need references,” he said. “I have been writing nonsense on paper for forty years. This is a promotion.”
On the Serious Side
Philippine authorities are examining allegations concerning Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until earlier this year. No charges have been filed and the allegations are unproven. Child protection is serious business; this piece is about the mood of a property market and nothing else. Lemoine-Vasseur said he would “never write a reference for anyone about whom serious questions are being asked.”
The Catalogue
- “To Whom It May Concern: He Is Quite Harmless.” Five euros.
- “She Has Never Been Seen Near a Goat.” Five euros.
- “A Perfectly Ordinary Retiree With a Sandwich Box.” Seven euros.
- “The Sea Did Nothing Wrong.” Ten euros, framed.
- “Vicar’s Letter, Deluxe, With Wax Seal.” Twenty euros. Vicar sold separately.
Business has been brisk. A British pensioner bought three, plus a postcard of the Pont Neuf. An American retiree from Ohio asked for a reference from a notary and was sold one by a pigeon. The pigeon, to be fair, had been seen on the premises for years.
Quality Control
A rival bouquiniste accused Lemoine-Vasseur of forgery. He denied it. “I do not forge,” he said. “I interpret.” A passing tourist asked if the references would be accepted in Cebu. “Who knows,” said Lemoine-Vasseur, shrugging. “But they will be accepted on the Seine, which is the more important place.”
He sold forty-one references by dusk. The last went to a squid, who paid in exact change.
The Facts Behind the Mood
The market itself is healthy. Colliers named the Visayas and Mindanao a key property investment hotspot in July, and under the Condominium Act foreigners may own units but not land, capped at 40 percent of a project. Retirees can read up at the Philippine Retirement Authority. The jitters are psychological: Tversky and Kahneman’s availability heuristic says the vivid example outweighs the dull statistic, and a cold coffee in an empty showroom is very vivid indeed.
The wider story lives at prat.uk and bohiney.com; for how the British laugh at queues and forms, see the Daily Squib.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/