Tourist websites are upbeat about arriving by plane, with one saying: ‘The landing, especially on a windy day, is an adventure in itself.’

I’ll bet.

the blog québécois

Testimony, by the French right’s presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, has just been translated into English. This manifesto is a fascinating insight into the mind of the man who wishes to run France. His brutal assesment of the state of France will please neither Francophobe nor Francophone, as he paints a picture of a country in dire straits, stuck in the past, unwilling to grasp the realities of modern life, whether it be its growing Muslim problem or its relationships with rest of the world.

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French plagarists as well. They stole his picture and abused it. Michael is using lawyers and the blogosphere to get this sorted. SNN was all over this last week. Go Michael!

The cops in France need real bullets instead of paint. Oh, not really news but…French youths are rioting.

In contrast to the mayhem tearing up the outskirts of Paris and a number of other French towns, it is a pleasure to see the side of France that has enchanted many a frequent traveller like your truly. I went to see the film “By the pricking of my thumbs” (you will get the Macbeth famous line if you see the film), and it was one of the funniest, cleverest crime capers I have seen for a long while. A sort of Agatha Christie mystery set on the shores of beautiful Lake Geneva. There is a scene on a train which had me howling.

Go this link about a series of French films now running at the Hammersmith film studios, West London, and scroll down.

Nice take on globalisation, the anti-capitalist snobbery of parts of the French establishment, and upstart wineries in Latin America and California’s Napa Valley, here. I did not realise that the Robert Mondavi winery was so hated by the French. I visited the Napa region with my fiance last September – during the runup to grape-picking time – and really loved it. We went to the Mondavi winery and brought a couple of bottles back, and I have nervously kept watch on ‘em whenever Andrew comes around the flat!

More than a decade ago, New World wines started to beat the best French red stuff in blind tastings. It is fair to say that the land of Montaigne and Charles de Gaulle has yet to recover.

Despite what you may think, I am not a hater. I do not hate any religion, country, or creed. I can be highly critical but I do not hate…well, with one exception.

Asparagirl gives a breakdown on just how bad it has gotten. It makes for pretty distressing reading. Is there any wonder that Jews are leaving France for the US, the UK, and Israel?

Found via Damian.

As any of you, our loyal readers, will know I am normally loath to write about myself on this blog less it turn into a “journal” blog. I have been writing about my latest project (besides my last novel being published in the autumn) in the form of G.o.D. However, the events of last weekend force me to share with you the sheer idiocy some of the antipodeans who come to London. Below you will find a photo of the bonfire they had roaring away right next to our building.

What amazed me was the sheer lack of common sense shown by these people. As I had a mate over, I did a bit of a rain-dance to put it out. To our amazement (ok, mine, he wasn’t surprised at all) it started belting down right after I finished the dance. To add to the effect, we got some lightning as well. The rain forced them inside, so we were no longer being asphyxiated by the fumes. You would think this would have meant they would have turned their music down…but it didn’t. Partly due to the fire and the noise, we decided to call our local noise/nuisance boys to get them to calm down a bit. Between the call and their arrival Oz & South Africa’s finest had re-lit the damn thing. The noise boys were absolutely shocked to see the back room in my flat glowing from a fire right below it. These two nice blokes did their job and shut the party down.

But a bizarre evening had one more surprise in store for me.

Once the gentlemen had left, I was yelled at by a French man who said: “you are a coward… you had to send two of your agents!” I was unable to hear the rest of his rant as my friend and I were laughing too hard to hear any more. His words were heavily accented, so I did not manage to hear if he called them zionist or not. Besides the idiotic rant, what was most amusing is that this bloke sounded just like John Cleese’s Frenchman in Holy Grail.

For the next few hours until 5am-ish we had to deal with a pissed off South African playing his guitar (badly) loud enough to annoy all his neighbours.

Abid Hamid Mahmoud al-Tikriti, Saddam’s former private secretary, listened to his rights then declared: “These rights are excellent. I would like as my lawyer Malik Dohan al-Hassan.”

“He is the justice minister,” he said.

As long as he stays Justice Minister and isn’t tempted by what will no doubt be exhorbitant legal fees, albeit defending one of Saddam’s former henchmen, then there is hope.

May I remind everyone that it is the French who are defending HVD-1

A blogger examines Chirac’s latest bleating about Bush’s statements in Turkey.

EUObserver reports that a new grouping has formed in the EU Parliament for the more sceptical of the MEPs.

If you think they are bad at world politics, imagine how they could bugger up exopolitics.

One has to wonder if they French have a beacon in space that surrenders to any potential alien invader. No doubt containing some rubbish that they speak for the world and that French is the dominant language of terra.

Some of the French in Normany look nostalgically back at the former German occupiers. As we approach D-Day some seem to regret the fact the allies won the war. The amazing thing is these ole’ collaborators are willing to talk to the press.

“At least around Omaha beach, the Germans treated us correctly…”

Yes, those wonderful Germans keep the trains running on time and got rid of those nasty Jews. The woman interviewed continued.

They were not all barbarians and not all the French were in the Resistance. Franz and Hedwig are our friends now.”

Many will say this is just the French being the French. To the rest of us, this is just another example of what noxious oiks reside in France. To end is this really nasty quote.

In the days after the invasion, he met a Frenchman in the badly bombed town of Vire who pulled a six-inch dagger from his pocket. “I said, ‘I hope you’re not going to use that on me.’ He replied, ‘No, I’m saving it up for the Americans, look what they’ve done to our town…

Update: Tim Blair has found that you don’t have to be old to wax nostalgic for Uncle Hitler in France.

Re: Anglophone Europhilia
Date: 22 May 2004

Sir – Your leading article “Britain belongs in the English-speaking world” (May 15) is misleading. It proposes that Britain must choose between “the European Bloc” and the English-speaking world. We do not have to make that choice, nor should we.

From:
Lord Watson of Richmond, Chairman of the English-Speaking Union, London SW1

While Britain and the US grow stronger by the day, France and Germany are in economic melt-down.

No wonder they hate us so much.

And they want us to join their currency?

French

Disaster

A few Brits tried opened a restaurant to find they owed £25,000 in taxes. Yes folks, that’s before they made 1 faux-money Euro.

Pickle

The French are whinging that Chris Petain’ (nee Patten) does not know French well enough to become head of the EU. Unfortunately they are living under the delusion that knowing French matters in the EU.

Wonder when they will finally admit to themselves that French falls behind even the european masters German, which, in turn, falls behind English?!

The premature release of the news of the cancellation of 3 Air France flights from Paris to Los Angeles because of deep security concerns compromised on-going security investigations.

...

Bush administration officials expressed frustration that al-Qa’eda operatives might have escaped capture after word leaked, early this week, of American concerns about flights from France to the United States over the Christmas period.

US officials said they fear Air France has been infiltrated by Islamic extremists and have criticised French co-operation in providing details of passengers on US-bound flights.

The D-T, quoted above, has more on this most disturbing episode.

He claims to have been “kept in the dark”, when we all know his primary problem is not having a clue about anything in the first place. Isn’t this about the 3rd time, recently, he’s spilled tears about France not being allowed to play with the adults?! Quel Domage!

What would I do without the Ghost of a Flea?

Instead of struggling manfully on my essay on the long-overdue reforms to the Canadian Wheat Board (patience, children, it will soon be before your innocent eyes) I instead click on Nick’s cornucopia of links and come across this. (Requires Quick Time player.)

Scroll down a bit to read the story behind it.

Chirac will have to drown in his tears of dismay, again, for having lost not one but two “guerres diplomatiques”. Quel Domage!

JFM, for one, has no sympathy; in fact, she cheered about each one. Being barred from Reconstruction Contracts in Iraq brought out his first “whine”; the second must have happened behind closed doors upon hearing about work on the proposed EU Constitution coming to a screeching whoa when those uppity little “other” countries protested about being subordinated to “les pays superieux”. Mon Dieu!

Of course the linked abomination in his post could only have come from France, but James nails it with one line.

What is particularly galling is that that page seems to be the only page on that blog written in English in order to villify Americans. Of course, France knows no better than to be typically Gaulling.

France is not only a rubbish ally in war, it’s a not very good at being a good European nation, either. The French are always keen on regulations in Brussels; however, they are less keen, in fact the least keen, on putting them into action at home. With the French it is clearly a case of “do as I say, not do as I do.”

The French have a long history of collaboration with tyrants. One would think their association with Hitler in WW II would have prompted some reforms —but no! Jacques Ch-Iraq’s allegiance to Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athist henchmen continues even after Saddam’s deposition, which is to say, the French continue to support attacks by Saddam’s loyalists against American and allied liberators in Iraq. We encourage you to avoid purchasing any consumer goods labeled “Product of France,” thus avoiding any support for those who would provide aid and comfort enemy.

Some companies listed below are American-based with American employees. To avoid French products without compromising American family incomes, we ask you to target only consumer goods labeled “Product of France” — products actually made on French soil. And, please don’t spend a dime touring French soil (unless it is to visit these sites. )

I posted the following in March, but it needs to be put up again in light of that dreadful cartoon I linked to below. The French deserve no mercy.

Don’t spend your money here!

Here is a list of all the companies the Frogs have their appeasing mitts in. One exception to my anti-French stance is Jean Paul Gaultier. His passionate fisking of PETA and their idiocies is something to support. (And yes, JPG does things for men.) List provided by Metrospy.

Air France, Air Liquide, Airbus, Alcatel – Based in Paris France; Allegra (Allergy Medication) – Produced by Aventis Pharmaceuticals based in Strasbourg, France; Aqualung (Including: Spirotechnique, Technisub, US Divers, and SeaQuest); AXA Advisors, Bank of the West – Owned by BNP Paribas Beneteau (boats); BF Goodrich – Owned by Michelin; .....

see the extended entry for the complete listing, in case you want to copy it for your own personal use …..

Paul links this obnoxious cartoon from Le Monde on 9/11. As if you needed another reason to boycott the vile French.

Paul blogged this story before I got around to it. It seems the French ambassador to Israel has made some rather unkind comments about his hosts. I suppose, for a Frenchman, they were rather mellow. It would be most amusing if Israel told the slimy little oik to piss off back to France.

Fred the Frog, someone I traded barbs with over the French Boycott, is back commenting on all criticisms of France over on Sasha’s blog. Presumably, he has returned from his August holidays and made sure none of his elderly relatives are part of the over 10,000 or so heat deaths. He is welcome to bring his particularly French view of the world over to this blog if he wishes. I am sure our contributors and commenters will have no problem handling his Gallic bile.

Three Germans have been busted trying to sell uranium processing equipment to the North Korea. A French ship was carrying the stuff, naturally.

Philip Delves Broughton has written a most amusing piece on the French reluctance to introduce air-conditioning. I just cringe when I think of how public places must smell in Paris right now. Besides, what does it matter that a few old people are dying when it is in the cause of resisting American global capitalist domination? No doubt Le Monde is full of articles blaming the heat wave and deaths on the arrogant Anglo-Saxons.

The French have finally realised that their reputation is in le bog. They are attempting to curry our favour. Yeah right, the stupid logo is going to overcome our memories of the desecrated graves in Normandy. How gormless do the French think we are?