Another Gift!

I saw this book in an English bookstore while we were in Durham. There were several French people asking me to recommend books or English authors to them. They wanted to know if the level was good for their abilities, etc.

Then I saw this book on the shelf. I know Stephen Clarke from his wildly amusing "A Year in the Merde". Some of the more advanced students have read all or parts of that book.

I picked this one up and showed it to a couple of the French folks and said, "now this looks interesting!" One of my long-time students said, "I don't appreciate your sense of humor."  I knew he was kidding.

This morning our lady post deliver came by leaving another package! When I opened I laughed out loud! It was from Von, again! I'm not sure how she knew I had looked at this book, maybe I mentioned it to her in an email. But I was so surprised. And, a little embarassed because she's spoiled me rotten this week.

KISSES to you, Von! Now I can torture my students tonight with some of the great quotes from the book.

Here are some samples:
Joan of Arc:
'Of the love or hatred of God for the English, I know nothing, but I do know that all of them will be booted out of France, except those who will die here.'

Fougeret de Montbron 1706-1760 (French write and Anglophile):
"We are the only nation in the universe that the English do not distain. Instead they pay us the compliment of hating us as ferociously as possible. We should be flattered -- every foreigner in London is called a "French dog.""

Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
"Frenchmen are like gunpowder, each by itself smutty and contemptible, but mass them together and they are terrible indeed!"

Stendahl:
"The French are the wittiest, the most charming, and up till now at least, the least musical race on Earth."

Mark Twain:
"In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French. I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language."

Claude Gagnière 1928-2003, French writer:
A man who speaks three languages is trilingual. A man who speaks two languages is bilingual. A man who speaks one language is English."