Topic: The French

[The Boston Crab]

Love the place, speaka da lingo pretty fluently, shagged the arse off the gaff, top scran, rid a bike across it along the canals getting wrecked on the best plonk we could afford, proper education, perving, half a camembert, a baguette, three coffee and ten ciggies for breakfast, three course lunch and five course dinner, crunching pine needles and gulping down that heavenly scent. Walked into a field of sunflowers eight foot tall. Rid a barge. Ran away from the coppers in Toulouse after the maison de pastis got turned into a rave. Did another somersault on the bike and landed in the canal. Rid into a french dog. Listened to the nocturnes all night in beziers cos we were too fuckin hot to sleep and too dehydrated to cry. Got started on by some Algerian lads in Omps but saw them off with BLITZ SPIRIT and le dibble. Driv a lime VW Beetle with no licence to help out some girl. Absolute stunner but I had no chance, I been wearing the same shirt for three days and using Muck Off dry shower gel. One night it was so humid I woke up choking. Went apeshit on some religious yank tourist YMCA cunts until they put the acoustic guitar back in the case. Ate more cassoulet than I ever in my life combined.

[Buelligan]

I think you must have been in Homps, not far at all from the batcave.

I was told that they have a form of collective eating disorder and the pressure on women to be thin is very unhealthy. Was pointed out to me to watch how many plates go back to kitchen with only a mouthful of cake eaten. Once you see it it's everywhere.

Who told you this absolute balderdash?  I work in a restaurant btw and see, with my own dear eyes, the horrendous amounts of snap these people neck.

[thenoise]

They would rather die than live without fags, cheese and/or bread.

They are an interesting people to me, the ones I have met anyway, I think because we arw Britons and as a result are naturally trashy and shit with food and culture and fashion and all that we kind of view the French as rather sophisticated and intimidating, so we mock them.

One or two I have met in my time were genuinely sneering tossers though.

One of the reasons we see French as being inherently sophisticated/culturally superior is that the ruling class has been Norman French for almost a thousand years, and us common folk in England are naturally subservient. Of course everything Germanic - sausages, beer - is common as muck.

[hummingofevil]

I think you must have been in Homps, not far at all from the batcave.

Who told you this absolute balderdash?  I work in a restaurant btw and see, with my own dear eyes, the horrendous amounts of snap these people neck.

Fair enough. My sample size was mainly thin younger French women TBF. Everyone is very thin though. At least in the cities they are.

[hummingofevil]

Maybe french cakes are shit.

Famously so.

[Buelligan]

Fair enough. My sample size was mainly thin younger French women TBF. Everyone is very thin though. At least in the cities they are.

I'd certainly agree that most British people seem to be very noticeably fatter than most French people.  I'm guessing but I'd say French people drink less, don't snack and are less sedentary in general than Brits.

[Dr Rock]

Famously so.

All cream and pastry. The french ladies might be happier with some lemon drizzle.

[pancreas]

One of the reasons we see French as being inherently sophisticated/culturally superior is that the ruling class has been Norman French for almost a thousand years, and us common folk in England are naturally subservient. Of course everything Germanic - sausages, beer - is common as muck.

Yes, animals are often anglo-saxon, meat is the animal or meat in French
cow vs beef (boeuf)
sheep vs mutton (mouton)
chicken vs poultry/pullet (poulet)
pig vs pork (porc)

stuff like that.

[Neomod]

I wondered where I got my natural superiority from. This fella is an ancestor of mine on my mum's side.



William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey.

[Cerys]

Strangled by an octopus.  What a way to go.

[The Boston Crab]

I think you must have been in Homps, not far at all from the batcave.

Someone watering plants filled up our water bottles from a hose because we were dying of thirst and couldn't find a shop. That's my enduring memory, better people than I am. Can't remember if we went to Olonzac before or after but I loved that whole leg. If you saw some tit in fluorescent gear and overloaded panniers blazing a ciggie, that's your boy Bosto.

[LanceUppercut]

Love the place, speaka da lingo pretty fluently, shagged the arse off the gaff, top scran, rid a bike across it along the canals getting wrecked on the best plonk we could afford, proper education, perving, half a camembert, a baguette, three coffee and ten ciggies for breakfast, three course lunch and five course dinner, crunching pine needles and gulping down that heavenly scent. Walked into a field of sunflowers eight foot tall. Rid a barge. Ran away from the coppers in Toulouse after the maison de pastis got turned into a rave. Did another somersault on the bike and landed in the canal. Rid into a french dog. Listened to the nocturnes all night in beziers cos we were too fuckin hot to sleep and too dehydrated to cry. Got started on by some Algerian lads in Omps but saw them off with BLITZ SPIRIT and le dibble. Driv a lime VW Beetle with no licence to help out some girl. Absolute stunner but I had no chance, I been wearing the same shirt for three days and using Muck Off dry shower gel. One night it was so humid I woke up choking. Went apeshit on some religious yank tourist YMCA cunts until they put the acoustic guitar back in the case. Ate more cassoulet than I ever in my life combined.

No you didn't.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Love the place, speaka da lingo pretty fluently, shagged the arse off the gaff, top scran, rid a bike across it along the canals getting wrecked on the best plonk we could afford, proper education, perving, half a camembert, a baguette, three coffee and ten ciggies for breakfast, three course lunch and five course dinner, crunching pine needles and gulping down that heavenly scent. Walked into a field of sunflowers eight foot tall. Rid a barge. Ran away from the coppers in Toulouse after the maison de pastis got turned into a rave. Did another somersault on the bike and landed in the canal. Rid into a french dog. Listened to the nocturnes all night in beziers cos we were too fuckin hot to sleep and too dehydrated to cry. Got started on by some Algerian lads in Omps but saw them off with BLITZ SPIRIT and le dibble. Driv a lime VW Beetle with no licence to help out some girl. Absolute stunner but I had no chance, I been wearing the same shirt for three days and using Muck Off dry shower gel. One night it was so humid I woke up choking. Went apeshit on some religious yank tourist YMCA cunts until they put the acoustic guitar back in the case. Ate more cassoulet than I ever in my life combined.

Laurie Lee considers rewrite.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

All cream and pastry. The french ladies might be happier with some lemon drizzle.

I BET THEY FUCKING WOULD, THE DIRTY OLD BOLLEAUX. I BET THEY WOULD.

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

Someone watering plants filled up our water bottles from a hose because we were dying of thirst and couldn't find a shop.

I read that as horse and was trying to picture how exactly...

[Neville Chamberlain]

I've yet to meet a French person who wasn't tremendously slim, well-dressed and good-looking, well versed in the sciences and philosophy, charming and polite and a tireless champion of racial integration and diversity.

Conversely, I've never met a British person who wasn't a racist, slovenly, tattooed oaf who smelled of beer and urine, possessed all the grace of a chimpanzee and was unable to communicate in anything but a series of hoots and grunts.

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

[lebowskibukowski]

Nice is one of the loveliest places on earth, and they grind the country to a halt every couple of weeks or so with a strike. They don't fuck about the French, what's not to love? (Apart from Pascal Chimbonda and his awful spell at QPR)

[sick as a pike]

I was thinking about my favourite places in France (Albi, Arles, Avignon) and realised the French must have arranged their towns and cities in alphabetical order of goodness.  Accordingly I need never visit Versailles, as it must be a shit heap.

Oh, I was laughed at by some bikers in Ax-les-Thermes for wearing amusing rain wear, but that's just the theory being stress-tested.

[Brian Freeze]

Are they fans of flapjack in France?

[checkoutgirl]

"Rouge.  Vin rouge?"
"Huh?"
"Rouge."
"Huh?"
"Vin rouge" (dad points at one of the bottles of red in portly man's trolley)
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH, HHHHHHHCCCCCCHHHHRRRRRRROOOOOOOOUGE!!!!!"

Evidently there was a particular way to say red in French in the Dordogne.

I had something very similar. Staying in a hotel near the Moulin Rouge on one of the very rare taxi journeys I was on (finding a taxi is a pain in the bollocks in Paris, you find one by complete fluke) I told the taxi driver to stop near the Moulin Rouge. He couldn't understand me after several tries and eventually said "Ah,Moulin HHCCCCCCHHHHRRRRRRROOOOOOOOUGE!!!!!"

Some Frenchies are fussy about that word. I think French people can seem rude but I think a lot of them have cottoned on to their reputation as arseholes so go out of their way to be nice, smiling and asking if you need directions and such. But occasionally you get that spikiness poking through. I was in a cocktail bar called Dirty Dick and I pointed at the menu and said the drink I wanted and the barman snaps "I know what you want you don't have to point at it". I walked off saying "A rude Frenchman? Well I never". Totally unnecessary rudeness.

It is a bit odd when you're paying a fair bit for an expensive drink and you get backchat from the staff. Most people aren't used to that. I'd imagine that's getting rarer though as that's the only cheekiness I remember while staying there for 3 days.

So in summary, I know nothing about the French.

[Darles Chickens]

Yes, animals are often anglo-saxon, meat is the animal or meat in French
cow vs beef (boeuf)
sheep vs mutton (mouton)
chicken vs poultry/pullet (poulet)
pig vs pork (porc)

stuff like that.

Apropos of nothing, but in the dialect of Catalan they speak in Mallorca, the word for lamb is mè.  Like the noise a lamb makes.  Me-e-e-eh.

Island folk.

[Buelligan]

I had something very similar. Staying in a hotel near the Moulin Rouge on one of the very rare taxi journeys I was on (finding a taxi is a pain in the bollocks in Paris, you find one by complete fluke) I told the taxi driver to stop near the Moulin Rouge. He couldn't understand me after several tries and eventually said "Ah,Moulin HHCCCCCCHHHHRRRRRRROOOOOOOOUGE!!!!!"

Some Frenchies are fussy about that word. I think French people can seem rude but I think a lot of them have cottoned on to their reputation as arseholes so go out of their way to be nice, smiling and asking if you need directions and such. But occasionally you get that spikiness poking through. I was in a cocktail bar called Dirty Dick and I pointed at the menu and said the drink I wanted and the barman snaps "I know what you want you don't have to point at it". I walked off saying "A rude Frenchman? Well I never". Totally unnecessary rudeness.

It is a bit odd when you're paying a fair bit for an expensive drink and you get backchat from the staff. Most people aren't used to that. I'd imagine that's getting rarer though as that's the only cheekiness I remember while staying there for 3 days.

So in summary, I know nothing about the French.

Odd isn't it?  Like when one meets an Englishman and Scotsman and and Irishman in a bar and one of them is "cheeky" to you, you understand it's a racial characteristic. 

When they're all the same nationality as you are yourself, you put it down to having a bit of a bad day or being someone who doesn't know their place.

On the thing about pronunciation, have you ever found it difficult to understand someone who doesn't speak your language trying to speak your language?  It can be difficult.  Even eef you are not a cheeky leetle rasist minky.

[imitationleather]

I've not been to Paris, but as my opinion on all matters is very important I shall post anyway. I've always thought their reputation for being rude is probably similar to the negative way people always talk about Londoners. In that being from London myself I know it's stupid and only espoused by people who aren't used to cities of millions of people, because if they were they'd understand that being attentive to absolutely everyone you encounter in that situation would just be impractical and so you naturally learn to tune folk out.

That said, London is full of cunts but I won't consider that right now because I'll just confuse myself.

[Gerald Fjord]

Odd isn't it?  Like when one meets an Englishman and Scotsman and and Irishman in a bar and one of them is "cheeky" to you, you understand it's a racial characteristic. 

When they're all the same nationality as you are yourself, you put it down to having a bit of a bad day or being someone who doesn't know their place.

On the thing about pronunciation, have you ever found it difficult to understand someone who doesn't speak your language trying to speak your language?  It can be difficult.  Even eef you are not a cheeky leetle rasist minky.

bit defensive, given all the joyous bashing of the english that occurs on this forum. the french are good eggs -existentialism, baguettes, creme pat - but they definitely speak funny. all ze zis and ze zat - IT'S "THE THIS". IT'S "THE THAT".

[Buelligan]

Yeah.  I remember being in an English cafe once, the woman ordering before me was French, she kept asking for a black coffee.  Which made all the staff stand in a row, repeating her order repeatedly and incredulously to their own great entertainment.

A black coffee!  A blaack coffeee!

In the end, I had to intervene and explain all the foreigner wanted was a coffee without milk.  She was very grateful to me and I think she offered to pay for my order but I couldn't really say for sure.  So I just laughed uproariously in her anxious face.

[Gerald Fjord]

but... in this scenario isn't that poor woman analogous to the people who were made to feel stupid for mildly mispronouncing "rouge", who you've then been quite snippy with?

incidentally, the only time i've ever been laughed at for my pronunciation of a foreign language was when i was (quite bravely, i think) ordering in a french mcdonalds aged 13, with two older and (to my puberty addled eyes at least) quite attractive teens at the counter. just stared at me blankly as i repeated my order and got redder and redder, then laughed when i gave up and pointed at the menu and said it in english. put me right off my frites.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Just remembered one more fact:

71% of The French can't say "clothes" properly, and always say "clothes-eese". It's weird, the rest of the time their English can be impressive but they often struggle with that word.

[checkoutgirl]

I can't pronounce "clothes". It always comes out as "close". I think Irish people have a problem pronouncing their TH's.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Just remembered one more fact:

71% of The French can't say "clothes" properly, and always say "clothes-eese". It's weird, the rest of the time their English can be impressive but they often struggle with that word.

Russians always pronounce it " clotheses ". It's fucking one syllable, fucking CLOTHES you stupid, cloth- eared Russian cunts, fuck's sake, if you'd spend less time swilling vodka and running away from the bears that infest the streets of Moscow, you might learn to pronounce the FUCKING ONE SYLLABLE WORD correctly, you fucking dumb Russkie fucks ( if I may quote verbatim from my lessons ).