Last week I had a meeting in Nyon with a woman working in the world of finance. After the initial introduction she said; “I’ve been working here since I was 15. I took a break for a few years, then I returned and I’ve been here ever since. “Je suis tombée dans la soupe”.
I hadn’t heard the expression before but I wondered if she meant she was stuck there for life, or simply that she had got lucky? It wasn’t appropriate at the time to stop the conversation and pursue it, but after the meeting, I asked around. A friend told me she thought it came from an Astérix story. It referred to the time when Obélix fell into the pot with a magic potion; he drank it and was forever after permanently under its influence. I am still not sure whether the business woman thought being in the...