Saturday, 21 March 2015

Entente et la Belle Dame.

I just listened to Charles Trenet’s original version of La Mer on YouTube. There followed a long conversational thread in the comments.

First a German man berates the French for hating Germans. Back comes a French woman who hates the Germans for hating the French. Then she turns her fire on the English for not teaching our kids about Dunkirk (which isn’t true) and the Americans for forgetting that the French helped them kick the Brits out. Indignant American replies by berating the French for accusing Americans of being poorly educated. Then another American joins the Gallic ranks and claims that the average French teenager is far more adroit than most Ivy Leaguers. And an Englishman enters the lists by pointing out that the British two-fingered insult was designed purely for the French (by mediaeval English archers) and rightly so.

Shouldn’t we be over all this by now? All you have to do is think of Amelie.

(And isn’t it interesting that the whole conversation was in English?)

No comments: