h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Everyone over sixty in France was in the Resistance. All fifteen million of them.

"Undermine international solidarity against terrorism by secretly handing wads of cash to Hezbollah to release French hostages, whilst British ones remain in captivity."

Agreed (and my defence of the French was a sort of back-handed grudging admiration, btw).

Then again, if we took a closer look at our own offshore banking industry, places like the Cayman Islands, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands (who are near as dammit to being French whilst still allowed British passports), what would we find? In places like this which aren't as tightly regulated and which don't come under British mainland banking law, whose money are we looking after, how clean is it, and how much of it could be in the name of, for instance, mr o.B. Laden/

"Everyone over sixty in France was in the Resistance. All fifteen million of them"

Indeed, and some of them resisted so hard that a grateful ally saw they got the coveted and much-sought-after Croix de Fer!

Love to protest about anything that doesn't suit them...but if someone protests against the French, they blow up their ship.

That's unfair to the French. I must point out that the French only blow-up protesters ships when they're in a neutral country. After all, neutrality is something they understand.

Strike first negotiate later.
Don't like foods with any strong flavours, always cook the vegetables till they're soggy.
Don't understand the principle of pedestrian crossings.
Park using their bumpers.

Will probably think of some more later!

Mel

I recently had a holiday in Portugal. Even though Myself and Herself arrived knowing about three words in Portuguese, we made a bit of an attempt to pick up more. (Herself with far more success).

The response was typical of what happens in most countries if you make a genuine attempt - the people who are hosting you feel better towards you that you're making an attempt, correct your pronunciation and grammar, even help you along a bit, and give you better service (or seem to).

There's a kind of mutually held "nice people" response that makes everything work that little bit better and it breaks the ice a bit.

Having said that, there's only one country where my attempt to speak their language has provoked scorn, derision, and a sarcastic "ignorant foreigner" response.

Guess where?


Yup - France.

This doesn't bode well, as French is far and away the most common foreign tongue taught in our schools!

(Herself did it to degree level and even lived over there for a while. So it's hard to believe her conversational French is bad, even though she did live in the local equivalent of the West Country and picked up the local version of a Devon accent.

But when a local who was evidently having a bad day chose to belittle her accent and pretend he couldn't make out a word she was saying.... well, she let rip and used a certain kind of extended vocabulary on him, which he certainly DID comprehend!)

Zut Alors!!!!

Merde aux yeux!

You want to be careful I might have to start ing if you go on like that!

I've thought of more as well.

French men stare and it's really annoying.
They try it on and don't take no for an answer.

On the whole though the people I have met have been lovely and helpful it's just some who have been a little 'difficult'.

Mel

Sacre Bleu! Les Anglais ne comprende France. France et Amour, passione!

Enough Already

Hmmm. Could this lead to seriously politically incorrect "yikesable" stereotyping? We could possibly get away with doing the Israelis, as that would be putting a nationality rather than a race / religion under the microscope.... and maybe if the Arabs were done as well, to show a kind of even-handed xenophobia.

Point taken about foreighn language posts, Mel!

I think we should move on to the Germans next....

For those of you who have read Last Chance to see:

Always have over engineered equipment and are smug about this fact.

Mel

even now, a "befehl ist befehl" mentality which comes out in the pettiest things. (ie, "orders are orders")

This ties into "ordnung" - "order" in the other sense, of conformity and regulation.

Typified in the story of the Engliah journalist renting a house in Bonn. He put is laundry out on the washing line in Britsh order - ie, any old how - and came back to find the elderly lady next door, affronted at the mess, had re-pegged it all in size order from smallest item to largest, so that it looked neater to the German eye...

Just don't start a Scouse stereotype thread

Ahh yes the European system:

The Germans make the Rules
The British follow the Rules
The French ignore the Rules
The Italians sya 'What Rules'

Mel

Germans live on a diet of sausage and beer. They wear leather shorts and strange caps with flowers, in fact they all look as if their off to a Village People convention.

If "Daphne Moon's" accent on Frasier doesn't sound authentic, perhaps it's because Jane Leeves who plays her has spent too much time here with us USAmericans.
"Acting always appealed to Leeves, who recalls writing in a school book at age 5 that she wanted to be an actress. Born on an April 18 in London, she was raised along with two sisters and a brother in East Grinstead, Sussex, England, the daughter of a contracts engineer and a nurse. Her first dream as a performer was to be a ballerina, but that career was cut short by an injury when she was 18. She bounced back with modeling and less strenuous dancing in commercials and rock videos, where she was given occasional lines to deliver."
PS. Is Grinstead anywhere near Manchester?
PPS. The DvD accent is so 'orrible that it even appalls Americans.

East Grinstead near Manchester?

Nowhere near - it's somewhere SouthCoast-ish, don't ask me where. (Sussex? Hampshire?)

Makes sense, though - the worst people in the world for taking off Northern accents are the Southern English, they go over the top entirely and miss the subtleties!