If the French so hate the British, then the feeling seems mutual

According to reports in the UK media quoted in this column last week, the French hate the English. Well, guess what? The feeling, it seems, is mutual.

In blogs, letters to newspapers, on Twitter and elsewhere, Anglophiles denounced the 20 reasons which 700 French people gave in a recent survey for disliking their neighbours across that strip of water known as the English Channel.

True, one Englishman wondered how serious Albion’s distaste for the French really was.

“Check any supermarket car park in the UK,” he said, “and you will see people putting French wine, croissants, brie cheese and baguettes into their Peugeots, Citroens and Renaults.”

Other responses were more combative. Said one, “The French resent us because we invented the world’s most popular game, le football, and because countries which used to speak French are now speaking English.

"Also, it makes them mad when English words sneak into the French language, such as weekend, email and jogging.”

MONARCHY

One thing that irritates the French is what they see as England’s obsession with the royal family.

Came the retort, “The French killed their royal family and now wish they hadn’t. It was the French media who were fined for sneaking photos of our royals.”

Another of our obsessions apparently is tea. However, a resident of Putney replied that in his small town on the River Thames there are 14 coffee shops, and when an establishment tried to concentrate on tea, it closed after six months.

As for the English lacking style, this brought references to the French invention of the beret and the striped jersey, this latter portrayed regularly in cartoons as the favoured dress of burglars.

CONQUEST

Inevitably, there were references to military history. England’s defeat at the 1066 in the Battle of Hastings was not a victory for the French, said a contributor, but for the Normans, who were Vikings or “Norsemen” who settled in northern France.

Declared a regular blogger, “The problem the French have with us are events in 1805 and 1815.”

As every English schoolboy knows, the first was Lord Nelson’s naval victory over France and Spain at Trafalgar, the second the Duke of Wellington’s defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo. Today, October 21, happens to be Trafalgar Day.

If you find all of this too tedious (we haven’t even mentioned eating frogs and snails), you might agree with a certain Zimmer from Chicago who called a plague on both their houses, as follows: “The French and the English are equally evil. They colonised all corners of the globe, they are arrogant and they think they are better than other humans.”

So there!

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An increasing number of young Britons are going teetotal, according to a new study.

Researchers found that almost one in three people aged between 16 and 24 in 2015 said they did not drink alcohol, compared with one in five in 2005.

A Health Survey for England questioned some 10,000 people and found that binge-drinking rates also decreased, from 27 percent in 2005 to 18 percent in 2015.

Lead researcher Linda Ng Fat said the trend covered a broad range of groups, in both north and south of the country and across all social classes.

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Inmates of Durham prison are being handed photocopies of letters, photographs and birthday cards sent by their families after traces of the drug Spice were found on some of the originals.

Wardens believe some relatives and friends were putting the mind-bending drug on correspondence for prisoners to smoke.

Said a prison spokesman, “In order to prevent mail being sent in contaminated, we had to take drastic action.” Some prisoners taking the drug had become violent and attacked prison staff, he said.

Spice, a synthetic drug that can put users into a zombie-like state, is said to sell for up to £3,000 per ounce behind bars.

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Talking about nationalities, I recall an Irish friend telling me that he once shared a first-class train compartment with five Englishmen.

During the six-hour journey from Edinburgh to London, not a word was exchanged by any of the Englishmen, something which would have been impossible in Ireland.

I was reminded of this by a Kenyan reader of this column, Jiwan, who sent me the following: Two Scots, two Welshmen and two Englishmen were shipwrecked on a desert island.

The Scots promptly formed a Caledonian Society, the Welshmen organised a choir but the Englishmen said nothing to each other. They were waiting to be formally introduced.[email protected]

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