Le plume de mon tante - or something...

As for the language! We're very proud of the English language. It is after all a polyglot of words from every country on the planet - isn't it? Well, actually, Maupassant once said as he returned from England after a holiday "English - it is the same as French but spoken badly."

You see - over 60% of our words are French words. Scary? Think of all words ending in 'ion'. Station. Plantation. Vision. Inernationalisation. They're all identical in French and English.

As are all words ending in ent, ant, el, al, ible, able. All of them! There's hundreds and hundreds of words you know already! And so it goes.
So why was French so difficult to learn at school?

And another thing - they've tried to make their language difficult for foreigners by giving everything a 'le' or a 'la' - a 'un' or a 'une'. We struggle through school trying to remember which is which - but they don't. They just say 'l' or 'n' really quickly. But then - the myth of the professional. Why shouldn't they make it hard for you? It's their job! I used to teach Maths and could not believe how they managed to stretch it out over ten whole years. Getting on for 2000 hours of tuition and homework. If you can't get that whole lot into the head of a child by the time they're thirteen then somebody is conning somebody.

It wouldn't be professionals conning us - again?

Anyway. I had to take my French exam twice and then very luckily scraped through - just. Yet after an hour of Michel Thomas I was flying high. The people outside of Paris understood me, and smiled! It was great fun!

Of course - I'd got no idea what they said back to me!!

Je crois...

As you while away the time, sat in the sunshine with a(nother) glass of wine, nibbling crisp french bread with creamy cheese and making more mess than a three year old with a 'Make as Much Mess as You Can' kit - or perhaps driving down the long French roads wondering if this is what driving would be like in England after a neutron bomb had gone off - you think 'Hang on! That can't be right?'

Something isn't quite right! In fact it's so far not right it's left you completely bewildered. Well that's how I felt, anyway.

Un moment, s'il vous plait!

All those things I thought I knew about France, all those things I was told at school, just aren't true. It's all fiction. The teachers made it up to try to make it seem like the French were excitingly different and learning their language would be really cool. Like they used to give you those special comics instead of actual French comics that might have been actually funny and probably used the actual French that French children use rather than the stuff we had to learn.

For instance, the children don't go to school at 8am at all! I was told they did. But they do go on Saturday mornings - and have Wednesdays off! And the French don't hate the English. Except for their politicians - they don't seem to like us. But then I'm not sure if our politicians actually like us, either.

Parisiennes are different, mind you. They're city folk anyway - haven't the time to listen let alone try to understand. They think that because they live in a capital the whole world revolves round them.

But everywhere else they're quite normal. Bit like us, really. And, as I said, it turns out that they quite like us, too. OK, in a chauvinistic sense, maybe. So they don't hate us at all. Well, they don't hate us the most, anyway.

As they say, 'At least you're not an Arab'. They really don't like Arabs! Something to do with Algeria perhaps?

But they do vie with us. They're not at ease with us shoulder to shoulder to them, sat just over the water. Especially as we once owned much of their country. And they think they owned England thanks to old Guillaume the Batard! (Don't tell them he wasn't French - he was Danish).

In fact the more I think about it, the more I reckon it's all a conspiracy begun on our fresh little minds at school. They're not that different from us at all! Or should I say not that different from what we used to be like when we used to stick up for ourselves and think we ran the world.

So there's the secret. They are what we secretly wish we were like. Proud of our country. And with the clocks turned back forty years (I probably meant calendars turned back. If you sit down at 6 o'clock and turn the clock back forty years - well...it's still six o'clock! Actually, probably nearer seven o'clock. Oh well...more wine.). Just like the Welsh - proud of their country, with their own language and culture and even parliament now. And we hate them too!

It's not us, is it?

Explain yourself!!

OK! OK! The french are self-interested and nationalistic. Well, they are a bit. And damn good too! I take my hat off to them for their attitude to France and Frenchness. I love their pride and their efforts. I wish us English used a fraction of their confidence to enhance Englishness instead of being so apologetic and accepting of Americanism.
We english have traditionally used the term 'frog' for our neighbours, and they have often called us 'rosbifs' (roast-beefs). A slight dig at our cooking? Our cooking is fine often plain, and the french, who use cream and herbs, have cooking as a major strongpoint. However they never use spices, or rarely. My experience of Chinese or Indian food in France is of a certain blandness.
Anyway - that's my explanation. These are all my badly researched thoughts. I'd be keen to hear your thoughts! Lets get going!