Our neighbours over the water....
I am British and even having lived overseas all my life I do still have some allegiance to my country of origin, so I think 'foul scorn' on anyone who would dare to call Great Britain...'pathetic'. Britain as a nation may be called a lot of things...Britain is not perfect (no country is) but I do not think that it could ever be described as 'pathetic'.
It is true that Britain and France's scrapping and making up has been going on for hundreds of years..in 1066 the Anglo-Saxons were conquered by the French Normans, the Kings of England spoke French for many generations, when he died Richard the Lionheart's (Richard 1) body was buried in three different locations...all in France...Henry VIII tried to keep the peace by agreeing to the famous meeting named the Field of the Cloth of Gold'...it didn't work for long, Bloody Mary (Henry's daughter) lost Calais, Elizabeth only just managed to keep the peace and that was only with her usual scheming, conniving and possibly, maybe agreeing to consider marrying a French Prince....skip another couple of hundred years and it brings us up to the immediate present and we have the the Iraq War and the EU..both of which France and Britain differ very strongly over. But...there is still no need to call Britain pathetic...we just agree to differ...name calling is not going to help the situation.
I think Tony Blair has done a huge amount to try to heal the rifts between the two countries..rifts that are far wider and dangerous than the physical channel that divides us. The French as a nation are spectacularly hard to understand and I feel that they find it hard to realise that they don't rule the World or European roost anymore (if they ever did?).
Reading this brief article from the BBC goes to show that many French are seeking out better prospects in the UK, hopefully this will help lead to the greater understanding which is so desperately needed.
On a more 'snarky' note...Chirac did choose the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo to make his comments....can't possibly think who was 'pathetic' then!! And on an even more 'snarky' note...searching Google for "French Military Victories" comes up with this link....which in turn leads to this rather humerous reading material..!! Enjoy...I certainly did!!!
It is true that Britain and France's scrapping and making up has been going on for hundreds of years..in 1066 the Anglo-Saxons were conquered by the French Normans, the Kings of England spoke French for many generations, when he died Richard the Lionheart's (Richard 1) body was buried in three different locations...all in France...Henry VIII tried to keep the peace by agreeing to the famous meeting named the Field of the Cloth of Gold'...it didn't work for long, Bloody Mary (Henry's daughter) lost Calais, Elizabeth only just managed to keep the peace and that was only with her usual scheming, conniving and possibly, maybe agreeing to consider marrying a French Prince....skip another couple of hundred years and it brings us up to the immediate present and we have the the Iraq War and the EU..both of which France and Britain differ very strongly over. But...there is still no need to call Britain pathetic...we just agree to differ...name calling is not going to help the situation.
I think Tony Blair has done a huge amount to try to heal the rifts between the two countries..rifts that are far wider and dangerous than the physical channel that divides us. The French as a nation are spectacularly hard to understand and I feel that they find it hard to realise that they don't rule the World or European roost anymore (if they ever did?).
Reading this brief article from the BBC goes to show that many French are seeking out better prospects in the UK, hopefully this will help lead to the greater understanding which is so desperately needed.
On a more 'snarky' note...Chirac did choose the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo to make his comments....can't possibly think who was 'pathetic' then!! And on an even more 'snarky' note...searching Google for "French Military Victories" comes up with this link....which in turn leads to this rather humerous reading material..!! Enjoy...I certainly did!!!
posted by Madame Chiang at 5:04 pm
1 Comments:
Dear Madame Chiang,
Incredibly amusing. I love your pointing out the Waterloo dateline of Chirac's comments. I also enjoyed your expletive laden quotation today. Sounds like an interesting industry you work in...
...reminds me of a story about a desk head at a large American merchant bank whose daily ritual before the market open was to get his Napoleonesque body onto a chair and yell to his team, "Make money fuckers!"
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