Comments on: The game is afoot!

By: Verity

Verity — Tue, 31 May 2005 14:24:07 +0000

Frankfurt banker – That was hysterical, and very clever! Thank you!

By: Frankfurt banker

Frankfurt banker — Tue, 31 May 2005 09:11:24 +0000

Ze French rulers in ze arsch have gekicken been, coz ze stupid snail-esseners asked ze French volk vot zey thought. Zis is not ze Cherman vay. Ve do not trust ze voters to give ze korrect antwort, not after ze Tirties, ven zey backed dat guy ve don’t menschen who made ze Reich go pear-shaped.

Nowadays ve tell ze volk vot ve will do, as ve follow ze great dream of a New European Ordnung and ze Reichstag rubber-stamps it. Eighty million Chermans can’t be wrong, but vy take ze risk? Already ze countries of ze East we fought to acquire in times past haf into our Lebensraum komm peacefully, und ve haf peace on ze Vestern Front– or ve did until Jacques und Marianne said ‘Non’, dummkopfen! Now Jaap und Greta are about to do ze same, und ve can be sure that Wayne und Samantha vill vote ‘No’ also: so unter der sway of Murdoch und Der Mail haf zey gefallen.

Zis is a provocation. Ve cannot let our Grosse Projekt be wrecked by zese ignorant peasants und leftist agitators– ze future of Europa is too important to be left to dose schweinhunden!!

By: Stehpinkeln

Stehpinkeln — Tue, 31 May 2005 00:20:48 +0000

Main Entry: sang·froid
Pronunciation: ‘sän-’f(r)wä
Function: noun
Etymology: French sang-froid, literally, cold blood
: self-possession or imperturbability especially under strain
synonym see EQUANIMITY

Sorry, I thought I was being funny. I guess it doidn’t play well on that side of the pond, where it is two words.
I’ll stop. As with all humor, your laughter may vary.

“Where humor is concerned there are no standards – no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. ”
- John Kenneth Galbraith
US (Canadian-born) administrator & economist (1908 – )

“There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.”
- Will Rogers
US humorist & showman (1879 – 1935)

“Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law?”
-Dick Clark

By: ernest young

ernest young — Mon, 30 May 2005 21:11:19 +0000

Verity,

Good to see that you haven’t lost your delightful sense of humour!

By: The Mayor of Trumpton

The Mayor of Trumpton — Mon, 30 May 2005 20:50:25 +0000

I’m beginning to wonder if closer political union with Europe might at least delay the onset of totalitarianism in the UK. After all, we already have the RIP act, and soon we’ll have ID cards and laws to end free speech. Perhaps a lumbering, inefficient Brussels behemoth might destroy what remains of our freedoms at a marginally slower pace than our own indigenous totalitarians, who seem to be rather too efficient in this respect.

By: Verity

Verity — Mon, 30 May 2005 20:47:53 +0000

Because they’re paying for holiday, housing, transport and healthcare for legions of parasites?

By: ernest young

ernest young — Mon, 30 May 2005 20:26:55 +0000

Verity,

Given that every man, woman and child, including those who have spent their entire lives on welfare, has been abroad for holidays and weekend breaks

If the above is true, and I have no reason to doubt that it isn’t, you make a good case for proving that socialism, ‘Tony style’, really does work. Bed, board, transport and holidays abroad for everyone. Seems as though the aim of wealth distribution is almost complete. Gosh, the UK must be a paradise on earth! sort of USSR without the snow.

Tell me again, why do some 50% of the population want to emigrate?

By: Verity

Verity — Mon, 30 May 2005 19:02:15 +0000

No, but some of us are enjoying our Schädenfreude.

By: guy herbert

guy herbert — Mon, 30 May 2005 18:19:38 +0000

And it is a proverbially British quality, at least in France. Britons don’t seem to be living up to that stereotype these days.

By: Verity

Verity — Mon, 30 May 2005 18:02:02 +0000

Chris Goodman says: No Stehpinkeln ‘that German word? sangfroid? is what British people do when Americans who are wholly ignorant of European politics [and languages]

… Chris, you forgot to add, “and the history of European nations”. Apart from anything else, you would have to have a tin ear to think sang froid sounds German!! – even if, inexplicably, you had never come across the phrase before in context.

Stehpinkeln – it’s two words, by the way.

The EU or any other governing supranational body is a very bad idea for “Europe”, which is a continent, not a country, and has been populated by local indigenes since time immemorial.

By: Verity

Verity — Mon, 30 May 2005 17:52:03 +0000

David Carr has a good point, as does Julian Taylor at the top. You never know how much the supine majority in Britain can be manipulated – especially with the childish bullying David describes above. Given that every man, woman and child, including those who have spent their entire lives on welfare, has been abroad for holidays and weekend breaks (breaks from what?), is there one person in the UK today who could be described as a xenophobe? But it doesn’t matter, because the word has taken on a life of its own. It stands in for, “Someone I hold in contempt. Someone I can feel superior to.” Few of the people who employ it have the faintest idea what it means.

David and Julian are right to be cautious. I agree; it’s best to see the whole thing scuppered by someone else and just sit back and watch.

By: Julian Morrison

Julian Morrison — Mon, 30 May 2005 17:48:41 +0000

You can reduce government by adding another layer, if the big government’s main role is to say “no” a lot to all the little governments. USA more or less worked on that model for awhile, although Lincoln and then FDR loused it up pretty badly.

EU obviously is nothing like that, and I doubt either it could be made into such, not without tearing it down entirely and rebuilding from scratch.