Differences between Great Britain and France

[philmophlegm]

1. In Great Britain, we have had widescreen TV for years. In France, they still apparently film important events with a Europe-wide audience in 4:3.

2. In Great Britain, we realised twenty years ago that putting large crowds into small cages was dangerous. Not in France.

3. In Great Britain, we are capable of organising a major sporting event in such a way that the number of tickets sold does not exceed the number of available seats. Not in France.

4. Upon seeing a large number of people in danger of being crushed to death, your typical British policeman would go to their rescue. Apparently French policemen would prefer to first incapacitate the people about to be crushed to death with tear gas, before trying to finish them off with clubs.

5. British children are taught good sportsmanship at an early age. Failure to be a good sport and, most important of all, a good loser is universally derided. In France, apparently it is de rigeur for a coach to get so upset at going one goal down that he takes the ball off the field in a fit of pique, and won't let his players play any more.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/6371329.stm

Comments

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

This is just begging for a reply regarding food, drink, transport and the work-life balance...

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I get a chance to experience some of those later this week - I'm flying to Paris for a course.

French air traffic controllers...

Tempted to agree with you (in part) on the food. While I don't think there's a lot of difference between a decent British restaurant and a decent French restaurant (except that the French use a little too much garlic for my taste), one key advantage of eating in France is that you can drive to a small town, stop, go into a small restaurant and it will be pretty good. In this country, it would be much more of a lottery.

Couldn't really comment on the drink (I don't touch the alcoholic variety), although I am partial to an orangina.

Not sure about the work-life balance thing. Put it this way - I don't have problems with mine. I usually go home on time, I live about 35 minutes' drive from the office, and I'm part-time. Oh, and I live in the country (both an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and a World Heritage Site). So I can't really complain

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

At least on this forum, it is possible to have a debate. I posted this to a discussion about the events on the BBC 606 website. I've just received an email from the BBC:

"Thank you for contributing to a BBC community site. Unfortunately we've had to remove your content below because it contravened one of our House Rules.

Postings to BBC messageboards will be removed if they:
* Are considered likely to provoke, attack or offend others
* Are racist, sexist, homophobic, sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable
* Contain swear words (including abbreviations or alternative spellings) or other language likely to offend
Content considered to have been posted with an intention to disrupt the message boards will be removed."

I'm not sure which of those criteria has been broken. The only people likely to be offended are French riot policemen who honestly believe that the best way to deal with old women being crushed to death is to attack them with tear gas and clubs.

I am angry about this.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

I suspect that they're being hyper-sensitive about the "In France references" the anti-PC cynic in me suspects that posting that again but with the 'offending' phrase replaced with say "At this match" and maybe take out "French police" in favour of "those police" I strongly suspect that would get through.