Saturday, May 09, 2015

The thing is, the Parisian waiters and taxi drivers who aren’t nice to tourists aren’t nice to anybody, ever

The French love their summer traditions
notes Stephen Clarke
– the Bastille Day parade, for example, when the Champs Elysées is covered in tanks and soldiers and the air overhead rumbles to the sound of jet fighters, while, down in the residential marquee, arms buyers from all over the world note the serial numbers and hand in their orders. Another one is the annual attempt to break the record for the longest-ever traffic jam, when almost everyone in the nation gets in their car and tries to drive along the same stretch of autoroute at the same time, having a quick rest in the south of France and then repeating the record attempt in the other direction.

A lesser-known summer tradition is the regular campaign to suggest that the French, and the Parisians in particular, need to be nicer to tourists. Every year, newpaper articles and TV shows do shock-horror features about unfriendly waiters, hotel receptionists, taxi drivers and shop assistants. I often get to join in the fun. Several times over the past few years I’ve been invited by French TV crews to go out and prove that Parisian waiters are all bastards. When I object that they’re not, the TV people say, “don’t worry, we’ll find some”, or “you can annoy them so much that they turn bad”.

Once, I agreed against my better judgement to sit down at midday at a table that was laid for lunch and order a coffee, an act of folly that will usually result in the waiter asking me to sit elsewhere, preferably in another café. I used to get annoyed about this, but now I understand.

 … This year, the city of Paris has decided to annoy all its waiters, receptionists, taxi drivers and sales assistants at once by sending them a booklet explaining that they have to stop being nasty to tourists. This will almost certainly be counter-productive. Those who are generally nice to tourists will take offence, while those who aren’t will take revenge.

 … The thing is, the Parisian waiters and taxi drivers who aren’t nice to tourists aren’t nice to anybody, ever. They’re genetically grumpy and you’re not going to change them. As for the others, well, tourists simply need to be aware that the concept of ‘the customer is always right’ doesn’t exist here. The rule in Paris is that the tourist is usually a badly informed idiot. Which is, after all, the basic nature of the tourist.

 … Anyway, visitors to a country are by nature going to be ignorant to some degree about the country they’re visiting, and this irritates the naturally impatient, stressed-out Parisian waiter or waitress who has probably been up since dawn, sweated their way to work on public transport and been on his or her feet for hours. The same goes for taxi drivers, who spend their whole careers dealing with other Parisian drivers, a fate rather like spending your life in a fish tank of piranhas.
Stephen Clarke’s book Paris Revealed is full of handy hints on how to deal with the French, and explains why Parisians act the way they do. It also contains tips on where to see great art without queueing for hours, how not to choose a hotel, and how to use the Métro without getting elbowed in the ribs.

Friday, May 08, 2015

"David" Miliband and "Nicholas" Farage Are Two of the Losers in the UK Elections

Blame it on the stress of the breaking news cycle, but twice, Fox News' Greg Palkot got the (first) names of British leaders wrong.

At 00:57, he gets Ed Miliband's first name mixed up with David Cameron's.

And at 02:08, UKIP's Nigel Farage becomes Nicholas Farage.

No biggie, and nothing to get excited about, but that's what the news stress will do for you some days.

VE Day: Vera Lynn shares wartime memories

Vera Lynn is still alive?!

I had no idea!!

Here is one of her most famous songs, White cliffs of Dover.

Thursday, May 07, 2015

70 Years Ago, the German Army in Denmark Surrendered, and Joyful Danes Filled the Streets of Copenhagen

For the past couple of weeks, Denmark has been celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, as can be seen in a Berlingske Tidende photo display.

A message on a resistance fighter's car seems to say that his group has executed seven snitches.

Wednesday, May 06, 2015

May Day, the day when the French celebrate the “festival of work” by not working

It’s May 1, the day when the French celebrate the “festival of work” by not working
wrote Stephen Clarke five days ago.
Yes, old joke. And not a very accurate one.

There are buses this morning, the Métro is running as usual, the cafés are open, and lots of people are out in the rain, selling little sprigs of lily of the valley, the traditional May 1 flower. Some of the flower sellers have been over-working in my opinion. It’s pretty difficult these days to find a straightforward sprig of “muguet” without extraneous leaves or alien flowers tucked in there to raise the price.

Monday, May 04, 2015

A Legal Immigrant Testifies: America is a tolerant nation, but immigration is not a right, it is a privilege

I am a legal immigrant
writes Ida Tiongco to The Economist from New York City.
America is a tolerant nation, but immigration is not a right, it is a privilege, and countries should guard their borders. People like myself do not question the deportation of those who broke American laws. We came here legally and expect others to do so.

Sunday, May 03, 2015

Amnesty: Nothing could be more illiberal and cruel, and nothing impoverishes America more than rewarding those who violate its laws

I am tired of The Economist’s repetitive fulminations against America deporting illegal immigrants (“Barack Obama, deporter-in-chief”, February 8th)
wrote an irate reader of The Economist, David Donnelly, a year ago from Bangkok.
After all, they have broken the law. But more significant by far is the message that any kind of amnesty sends to the millions of people trying to emigrate to America who follow the rules but are turned down.

I have worked in Thailand for 15 years and I see daily the hundreds of Thais visiting the American embassy to try to emigrate by adhering to our procedures; less than 3% gain admission. The situation is the same all over Asia and the developing world. There is little sympathy for those who don’t get a visa. Yet illegal immigrants from Mexico are to be rewarded for violating the law merely because America shares a border with Mexico.

Such a policy promotes rather than discourages illegal immigration. Nothing could be more illiberal and cruel, and nothing impoverishes America more than rewarding those who violate its laws. Few, if any, “nativists” oppose letting talented and educated immigrants into America legally.