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“LAP-DOG” SUGGESTED AND OFFERED

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Adele Horin, 2004:

Visitors from Europe have arrived and, after having marvelled at the winter sunshine and extolled the harbour, they ushered me into a cafe, ordered espressos all round, coughed politely, and asked me the question I had been dreading. Would I be so kind as to explain my country’s foreign policy? ...

Australians struck them as a refreshingly irreverent lot. Yet as a nation we were America’s ... They waved their hands about, grasping for the right word. “Lap-dog?” I suggested.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Adele Horin, 2006:

It is never easy to explain to the French, even when they wipe the smirk off their face, why Australia is involved in the Iraq quagmire. Australians strike them as an irreverent lot. So why, the French ask in that earnest manner born of too many years at university, does Australia act like America’s … ? They wave their hands about, in that Gallic style, seeking a word they never learnt at the lycee.

“Lap-dog,” I offer helpfully.

Posted by Tim B. on 09/16/2006 at 11:42 AM
  1. People ask me why the hell Adele Horin writes so much shit.

    “Arsehole” I offer helpfully.

    Posted by youngy on 2006 09 16 at 11:49 AM • permalink

  2. It’s called “Recycling”. Taking tired old words, giving them a new coat of paint, and purveying them as something new and insightful rather than the same old rubbish.

    Posted by Zoe Brain on 2006 09 16 at 11:54 AM • permalink

  3. Huh. Do you think the SMH paid for her for two columns?

    Posted by Retread on 2006 09 16 at 11:56 AM • permalink

  4. I prefer the term “ally” myself. Perhaps Adele could suggest it to her French friends in 2008.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2006 09 16 at 11:57 AM • permalink

  5. Insulted by the French? A new low. Seriously, shouldn’t they be off surrendering to someone? I used to view Europe with respect once, but now I agree with this guy:

    Europe, thy name is cowardice

    Posted by Mr Snuffalupagus on 2006 09 16 at 11:58 AM • permalink

  6. Perhaps the Australia is committing the ultimate irreverance of not being the lap dog of the French.

    Posted by Lefty Wobbling Right on 2006 09 16 at 12:02 PM • permalink

  7. If she has French people in her house, she really should call the Orkin Man.

    Posted by ushie on 2006 09 16 at 12:02 PM • permalink

  8. http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2006/09/15/al_qaeda_and_ally_put_france_on_hit_list/

    and chickens come home to roost for the smirking French.

    Posted by debi L. on 2006 09 16 at 12:09 PM • permalink

  9. Self-plagiarization will get you fired at the Miami Herald; don’t know about the SMH.

    Posted by Donnah on 2006 09 16 at 12:31 PM • permalink

  10. Personally, I dearly hope the Islamists make a Mosque of the Eiffel Tower. I’m sick and tired of the Islamists “rage” and the French whine.

    Perfect match those who would behead, with those who would gladly kneel down making beheading easier. Actually the French did take a shining to the guillotine, didn’t they?

    The French should suggest the guillotine to the Islamists, much cleaner, with the bucket for head catching.

    Oh and the only ally the French have or have had IS, whomever is winning. This is always on their territory, exception Napoleon, and they made a pastry of him.

    Posted by El Cid on 2006 09 16 at 12:32 PM • permalink

  11. This is all based on the premise that the rest of Oz give a rat’s arse what the stupid cow thinks of the government’s foreign policy.
    I personally believe it should just quit while it’s behind.

    Posted by CB on 2006 09 16 at 12:38 PM • permalink

  12. Does SMH stand for Sasdo-Masochist Hater?

    Adele Horne reminds me of some obviously democrat Americans I met, in third countries, during and after the Iraq invasion debate.  They werre running around, grovelling apologetically before whatever foreigners would listen.

    They were all astonished by me telling them to support their nation and not undermine it. That their behaviour was pathetic, abject cowardice.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 09 16 at 12:49 PM • permalink

  13. The French, (oh merde)!
    Only leftie journos, and old Labor politicians have a fetish for La Belle France. The most devious, self serving nation, that uses mercerneries to help in its foreign policy. Even during WWII that parasite De Guille, repeatibly tried to undermine Churchill and the Allies in the war effort.
    Adele Horin, can suck all she wants to her ‘friends’, did she nod in consent to the way they blew up a vessel in a friendly port of New Zealand. Let them criticise Australia’s policy as far as Iraq is concerned, it will eventually come out in the wash of history, how much this hypocritical nation cooperated with the ‘butchers of Baghdad’. They screwed Vietnam in the 50’s, so nothing Adele Horin, the tout for the French will convince me. As a nation, they have no credibility. The only thing, I would advise, is to watch the bastards, and their supporters very closely. Lets see what happens, vis-a-vis Iran. More shocks in the offering with these two faced leaching sell-out creeps. “The smiler with the knife under the cloak” - Chaucer. ‘The Canterbury Tales’.

    Posted by BJM on 2006 09 16 at 12:53 PM • permalink

  14. Oh dear.  Australia agrees that islamofascism is a bad thing?  They must be American lapdogs.

    Posted by blogagog on 2006 09 16 at 12:56 PM • permalink

  15. #8 ``We ask him [Allah] to guide our brothers in the Salafist Group for Call and Combat to crush the pillars of the Crusader alliance, especially their elderly immoral leader, America.”

    Okay, that’s it.  Who are you calling elderly, beardboy?

    Well, so far, the UK, in the person of Tony Blair, is America’s “poodle”, and now Australia is America’s “lapdog”.  We make a fine trio of mongrel nations, don’t we?  And how the French secretly envy us!

    Who is Adele Horin?

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 09 16 at 01:06 PM • permalink

  16. Unfortunate name, that, by the way.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 09 16 at 01:06 PM • permalink

  17. Now look, you guys just don’t understand.  It is imperative that people like this person suck up to any and everyone they view as officially (to some entity I have yet to discover) better than they are.  That this girl has chosen to repeatedly suck up to French people tells you that she sees herself as beneath every other human being on the face of the planet.  Bless her heart.

    Posted by saltydog on 2006 09 16 at 01:15 PM • permalink

  18. Since when does “ally” mean “lapdog” anyway? The more I read foreign newspapers (especially the British ones, good GOD), the more isolationist I become.

    Posted by tiggy on 2006 09 16 at 01:45 PM • permalink

  19. That line about Aussies’ irreverance precluding them from fighting Islamfascists is bizarre.

    I read something similar in a Gruadian column several years ago; something about how could a nation (the US) that produces The Simpsons be otherwise a bunch of war mongers.

    Well, Henny Youngman could break a man’s jaw with a roundhouse kick well into his 80’s. Or maybe I’m thinking of Chuck Norris.

    Posted by JDB on 2006 09 16 at 02:46 PM • permalink

  20. The French do not clean their toilets and piss in the street.
    Her French house guest will leave it looking like a pigsty.

    Posted by chrisgo on 2006 09 16 at 02:55 PM • permalink

  21. France´s antagonism towards the U.S is a result of their arrogance. They can´t stand the fact that the U.S. is a superpower and France not and that the influence of english is growing while french is in decline. They disguise it as not “lapping up”, fighting against unilaterism and the “anglo-saxon model”, etc. but it is petty envy.
    I didn´t know the french were multi-lingual. They fooled me. And if they´re so polite and sophisticated, why do they insist in telling every American they meet what they thing about Bush? I´m polite enough not to go around telling them what I think of Chirac.

    Posted by blubi on 2006 09 16 at 03:02 PM • permalink

  22. You irreverent lot of American neo-con lap-dogs, you.

    Wimpy Canadian—They werre running around, grovelling apologetically before whatever foreigners would listen.

    Many advised us to claim Canadian citizenship when abroad (not that there’s anything wrong with that—Canadian citizenship, I mean).

    Next time, the loser keeps France. Punishment enough.

    Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 09 16 at 03:23 PM • permalink

  23. The opinions of most of the Democratic ‘leadership’ in the US haven’t changed since 1970.  Why should Adele Horin have had an original thought since 2004?

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 09 16 at 03:47 PM • permalink

  24. Many advised us to claim Canadian citizenship when abroad

    Ugh. Any American who would hide behind a Canadian skirt should just move to Toronto and stay there.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 09 16 at 04:02 PM • permalink

  25. O/T Just outside feeding the cat (06:30 AM AEST) and counted 20 light planes one after another from Moorrabin heading to Melbourne CBD—they’re still going over as I type.

    Make that 50. lived here four years and never seen the like.

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 09 16 at 04:27 PM • permalink

  26. How about “friend”, “reliable ally”, or even “brother”?

    I mean, two continent-sized English-speaking British-heritage federal representative democracies might have something in common.

    Posted by Warmongering Lunatic on 2006 09 16 at 04:36 PM • permalink

  27. I would think that one irreverant nation getting along with another irreverant nation would, you know, make sense.

    Posted by Synova on 2006 09 16 at 04:49 PM • permalink

  28. I have a lapdog. He takes no shit from anybody. He has very short legs. But he’d have Adele’s throat torn frank and free and hanging loose before she finished shouting “Surrender now!”

    Posted by geoff on 2006 09 16 at 05:11 PM • permalink

  29. Horin suffers from what is called Alan Ramsay Syndrome. This is also called Cut & Paste Syndrome, where the sufferer, too lazy to research a fresh story, goes to the files and cut and paste’s old material.

    In Ramsay’s case, he tends to pad out his tedious columns with vast slabs of Hansard, lengthy excerpts from other people’s articles and general soft plagiarism.

    I can only think that Fairfax pay these drones by the word - so many words, so little to say.
    Time for a massive shakeout at Fairfax while they still have a modicum of viability.

    Posted by Bonmot on 2006 09 16 at 05:30 PM • permalink

  30. There are these things called alliances.  They happen between persons/groups/nations with common interests.

    Why do I think Adele Horin is a sociopath?

    I mean, besides my recurring migraine?

    Posted by ushie on 2006 09 16 at 06:04 PM • permalink

  31. uh oh, looks like I need to alter my caffiene source…

    espresso is the new latte!

    Posted by russell2pi on 2006 09 16 at 06:12 PM • permalink

  32. Go easy on the French. They must practice their Dhimmi ways for that time a decade or two hence when the Islamists levy the Dhimmi tax and veil up the women of Paris.

    Posted by Shaky Barnes on 2006 09 16 at 06:15 PM • permalink

  33. the fairfax press has so much talent at its disposal.

    Posted by vinny on 2006 09 16 at 07:13 PM • permalink

  34. My French hosts shuttled me around their crappy city.  They warned me to stay away from the Arabs parts.  My car might get burned.  I ushered them into cafe where I was overcharged for a thimbleful of battery acid.  Then I asked them the question they had been dreading:

    “How come you guys kiss Islamofacist terrorist ass? I’m trying to think of the word. Come se dice ‘no balls’ in Frog Talk?”

    “Lickspittle?” my French host suggested helpfully.

    Posted by crittenden on 2006 09 16 at 07:14 PM • permalink

  35. by coincidence i was chatting with a friend the other day and we gots to talking about france and we he was trying to find works that described the french…...he was waving his arms about.

    ‘cheese eating surrender monkeys’ i said helpfully.

    Posted by vinny on 2006 09 16 at 07:17 PM • permalink

  36. There’s no hand gesture that goes with grasping for a word.  It’s a figure of speech.

    Posted by rhhardin on 2006 09 16 at 07:25 PM • permalink

  37. Who in their right-mind would allow a ninety pound Rottweiler to sit on their lap? Especially an irreverent ninety pound Rottweiler.

    Recently my daughter signed up for her first foreign language course.

    I had to talk her out of taking french, explaining to her that the study of a dying language is a bit of a waste of time.

    I suggested she take either Spanish (for obvious reasons) or Arabic (a century or more of guaranteed work in translating phone calls and the like).

    She decided on Spanish.

    Posted by Thomas on 2006 09 16 at 07:39 PM • permalink

  38. It is never easy to explain to the French…

    ...that being an American lap-dog ain’t half as bad as being Germany’s periodic bitch?

    ...how to go to war and not end up having your capital occupied within a few short weeks?

    ...how to use a shower?

    ..what the phrase “We shall never surrender” means?

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2006 09 16 at 07:40 PM • permalink

  39. I would rather be Bush’s lapdog than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s bitch.

    Posted by rbresca on 2006 09 16 at 07:50 PM • permalink

  40. Who in their right-mind would allow a ninety pound Rottweiler to sit on their lap?

    40 pound Doberman pup

    You can accommodate a full-sized version though, by sitting on the floor and making a lap more resembling a nest.  Dogs are attracted to it, remembering when they were puppies, and curl up in there.

    Posted by rhhardin on 2006 09 16 at 08:15 PM • permalink

  41. Australians struck them as a refreshingly irreverent lot. Yet as a nation we were America’s ... They waved their hands about, grasping for the right word.

    “Get fucked, you frog cunt.” Craig Mc suggested.

    Posted by Craig Mc on 2006 09 16 at 08:16 PM • permalink

  42. Reliable ally, staunch comrade, brothers in arms, partner or friend Id be guessing as opposed to

    Ingrateful twats, backstabbing lickspittles, whiny do nothings, quislings or collaberators.

    But thats just me…

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 09 16 at 08:23 PM • permalink

  43. I would like to thank Crittenden for causing the dreaded uncontrollable spew all over the keyboard.  Lickspittle is perfect.  Perfect lickspittle.

    Posted by saltydog on 2006 09 16 at 08:44 PM • permalink

  44. I could offer something to wipe the smirk off that French face. Why the fuck are French people allowed in this country anyway?

    Posted by Amos on 2006 09 16 at 08:54 PM • permalink

  45. Hey, you don’t waste good material, right? We should feel sorry for these journos when they get writer’s block, it must be very difficult. I’m sure she honestly forgot pulling that fictional scenario out of her arse two years ago.

    And if cornered, can always claim with sincere and righteous indignation, that it bespeaks a certain reality…

    Posted by Dminor on 2006 09 16 at 08:58 PM • permalink

  46. It’s a bit tactless speaking of America’s lap while giving a knee-trembler to the Euros.

    Posted by Henry boy on 2006 09 16 at 08:58 PM • permalink

  47. Maybe with the French guests she could have then asked them to explain their country’s foreign policy on Africa, the Pacific and the fact that they are the last of the colonial powers who still insist on attempting to control their dominions.

    She could have then asked them about how the French’s insistence on maintaning its colonial network was the direct cause of the Vietnam War.

    She could then have waved her hands around until the French offered a suitable word.

    “Colonialist Oppressors” perhaps

    Posted by Francis H on 2006 09 16 at 09:05 PM • permalink

  48. “Reliable ally, staunch comrade, brothers in arms, partner or friend Id be guessing”

    Hard to imagine how the United States could have a better ally than Australia.  The French, OTOH, would knife us in the back in a heartbeat if they thought it would secure them the slightest advantage, as they’ve proved more than once.

    I wouldn’t walk across the street to piss on France, if it caught fire…unless they paid me for the use of my urine…up front.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2006 09 16 at 09:07 PM • permalink

  49. France is just an old whore who can’t accept that she’s no longer beautiful and vibrant enough to get away with being an arrogant, entitled bitch - even as she sells her sagging buttocks to a Muslim for ten euros’ worth of backdoor.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 09 16 at 09:22 PM • permalink

  50. We need Bunyip on the case.  He’s made short work of A Dill Horin in the past. What’s happened to the Bunyip?

    Posted by walterplinge on 2006 09 16 at 09:22 PM • permalink

  51. #48 - “The French, OTOH, would knife us in the back in a heartbeat if they thought it would secure them the slightest advantage as they’ve proved more than once.”

    Indeed.  And yet the frogs remain popular with the inner urban latte set. Have a gander at the all the new Citreons and Renaults parked outside garden shops/coffee bars in Hawthorn, Deepdene, Kew and Brighton, Canterbury, &c.

    Posted by walterplinge on 2006 09 16 at 09:27 PM • permalink

  52. Oh please, all I want is two million Islamic French-Somalian Socialist Pope hating refugees in Australia for Christmas.

    Oh please can we?

    Posted by 1.618 on 2006 09 16 at 09:35 PM • permalink

  53. What made my blood boil was her own simpering to the French and sense of embarrassment about our great country.

    Adele needs to study our regional history a little more, fear of the Japanese? The Indonesians, tee hee hee, how irrational eh? Why yes, why not use the French model of a Republic as to what Australia should aspire to despite endemic political corruption, a failure of the French nation to stand for any principle other than its own financial gain let alone the way in which France is successfully tackling its’Muslim problem’, though there is no mention of these things.

    Yes, France is soooo sophistocated Adele, but maybe, just maybe, there are things in life worth fighting more for than a crisp tablecloth and a sense of ‘style’ and that we are lucky to have nations such as the US and Australia who realise this.

    Posted by Nic on 2006 09 16 at 09:40 PM • permalink

  54. “Offered helpfully” is so much wittier than plain suggested.  She’s improving all the time!  Maybe next time she could try:
    ” ‘Lapdog?’ I quipped spontaneously for the nineteenth time, pleased with my little pearl -an Adele original - but not so pleased that I forgot to choose a fresh setting for it.”

    Posted by arrowhead ripper on 2006 09 16 at 09:58 PM • permalink

  55. I guess it’s this sooo embarrassing “fighting against tyrants” thing that Australians and Americans seem so hung up about.

    I wonder if A-dill could find time between espresso gulps to ask her French friends about their foreign policy, for instance - if they would come to the aid of Australia like our diggers did for them in the last few world wars.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 09 16 at 10:00 PM • permalink

  56. It is never easy to explain to the French, even when they wipe the smirk off their face, why the Sydney Morning Herald is anti-American to the point of being in favor of the terrorists. Australians strike them as an irreverent lot. So why, the French ask in that earnest manner born of too many years at university, does the Sydney Morning Herald act like the terrorist’s … ? They wave their hands about, in that Gallic style, seeking a word they never learnt at the lycee.

    “Mouthpiece,” I offer helpfully.

    Posted by blogagog on 2006 09 16 at 10:01 PM • permalink

  57. A dill Whorin’ gives good French.

    Posted by slatts on 2006 09 16 at 10:01 PM • permalink

  58. # 25 MentalFloss.Re:O/T.Phillip Island maybe? MotoGP.

    Posted by Lew on 2006 09 16 at 10:35 PM • permalink

  59. #51,
    I’ve even seen those Renaults/Citreons/Peugeots in inner Melbourne with an oval “F” sticker on the back. I’ve never seen a BMW with a “D” sticker.

    Posted by chrisgo on 2006 09 16 at 10:45 PM • permalink

  60. “Yes, France is soooo sophistocated”

    It’s their mutilingualism I admire.

    I understand that your average Frenchmen can say “Don’t shoot, I surrender!” in half a dozen different languages.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2006 09 16 at 10:48 PM • permalink

  61. When will Adele Horin grow out of the adolescent obsession of worrying about whether other people (in this case the French) like you? The inferiority complex and the desperate trying to fit in with the cool crowd is like being back in high school.

    Posted by Softly on 2006 09 16 at 11:00 PM • permalink

  62. #58 Of course! The MotoGP!

    I am such a (shrugs shoulders in that Jewish way, seeking a word never learned at schule…)

    A shtik fleish mit tzvei eigen?”, I offer helpfully if somewhat disturbingly.

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 09 16 at 11:09 PM • permalink

  63. Perhaps A Dill could ask her French guests about their giving the Japs the air-fields in Indo-China from which their planes sank the “Prince of Wales” and “Repulse”?

    Posted by Susan Norton on 2006 09 16 at 11:13 PM • permalink

  64. #25 MentalFloss.Ignore my #58.Brain fade.They’re going to Temora,David Lowy is flying his latest toy,a Spitfire XVI.It keeps his Spitfire VIII company at the Temora Aviation Museum along with his other desirable toys.

    Posted by Lew on 2006 09 16 at 11:14 PM • permalink

  65. Why do I keep writing the same stuff over and over Adele plaintively lamented in a sorrowful and regretful tone while staying humble and aloof at the same time?

    “You’re a Creative wasteland,” I offer helpfully.

    Posted by Bonmot on 2006 09 16 at 11:15 PM • permalink

  66. All the praise is due to Allah for the blessed union which we ask Allah to be as a bone in the throats of the Americans and French Crusaders and their allies, and inspire distress, concern and dejection in the hearts of the traitorous, apostate sons of France,” he said.

    “We ask him (Allah) to guide our brothers in the Salafist Group for Call and Combat to crush the pillars of the Crusader alliance, especially their elderly immoral leader, America.”

    Any wonder they want English sermons here in Australia? Who cares about France, they’re socialist gits with tacky handbags!

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14845950/

    4:48 a.m. ET Sept. 15, 2006 AP press. : ref

    Posted by 1.618 on 2006 09 16 at 11:50 PM • permalink

  67. Hahahahahaha. The dozey cow could recycle this more than a dozen times and then some as the EU expands. The only glitch will be losing her job when the Iman of Australia says women shouldn’t work.

    Posted by Hanyu on 2006 09 17 at 12:15 AM • permalink

  68. #64 You know, Lew, I saw a BIG twin engine flanked by two smaller craft. Maybe it was that Bristol Beaufighter they’ve got at the Moorabbin Air Museum. Thanks for update.

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 09 17 at 12:25 AM • permalink

  69. #60 “I understand that your average Frenchmen can say “Don’t shoot, I surrender!” in half a dozen different languages.

    Well, German and Arabic at least.

    #64: A Mk. XVI? I gotta get out to Temora!

    Posted by Wally on 2006 09 17 at 01:00 AM • permalink

  70. i wonder if this dishonest journalism will get a run on media watch??

    Posted by vinny on 2006 09 17 at 01:06 AM • permalink

  71. French university-trained, eh?  Where their Post-communists marry Postmodernists and give birth to National Suicide?

    Memo to Horin: With the French as your friends all you need is someone to fight your enemies.

    Posted by Barrie on 2006 09 17 at 01:11 AM • permalink

  72. #55 Margos, what do you mean: If they would come to the aid of Australia like our diggers did for them in the last few world wars. ?
    The French help us a lot just by not migrating here.

    Posted by Barrie on 2006 09 17 at 01:16 AM • permalink

  73. Then why is France like a Poodle on a Muslims lap?

    Posted by Howzat on 2006 09 17 at 05:29 AM • permalink

  74. “What made my blood boil was her own simpering to the French and sense of embarrassment about our great country.”

    15-odd years ago A-dill’s set were up-in-arms about France’s tests of her force-de-frappe in the South Pacific. Frances was vilified in the left press. Now the French are the darlings of the latte set.

    Of course, 15 years ago there was no latte set. There was no latte, actually.
    Back then they were chardonnay socialists.

    Posted by walterplinge on 2006 09 17 at 07:40 AM • permalink

  75. Y’know, the great thing about France is what a great battleground it makes, on those occasions when it is necessary to broom out enemies the Frogs have allowed into their midst, in their usual failure to hold up their end.  Nice big beaches, no mountains to speak of.  Hedgerows a bit of a nuisance of course.  There’s always been a gentlemen’s agreement not to level Paris. But the enemy has entrenched itself in Paris this time, doesn’t much give a damn about the quaint stuff, and answered the question “Is Paris Burning?” before anyone asked.

    Posted by crittenden on 2006 09 17 at 09:59 AM • permalink

  76. Unfortunately being terribly clever often seems to go with being terribly timid.

    haven’t worked out why yet, but Martin Seligman has written on the subject…

    I love certain things about the French attitude to life.
    i don’t have to like the other stuff like their political hypocrisy, the appeasement, the non-recognition of current political reality and their giving up their own country to Islamic thugs.

    It’s called discrimination - an art that should be recultivated.
    Don’t leave home without it!

    Posted by carpefraise on 2006 09 17 at 10:00 AM • permalink

  77. I was talking about having gone to France, by myself, in the distantish past, with another woman (I was talking with the other woman—I hadn’t travelled to France with her).

    “Oh, my God!  I would NEVER go there!  You could be assaulted, or killed, or burned up!”

    Yep, France has such a good reputation nowadays, just like, say, Pakistan, or Somalia…

    Posted by ushie on 2006 09 17 at 11:34 AM • permalink

  78. Memo to Horin:  The French are not cool anymore.  It doesn’t matter what they think.  Time to throw out your collection of Alain Delon and Katherine Deneuve videos.

    Posted by Big Jim on 2006 09 17 at 07:13 PM • permalink

  79. #75 crittenden

    Y’know, the great thing about France is what a great battleground it makes, on those occasions when it is necessary to broom out enemies the Frogs have allowed into their midst, in their usual failure to hold up their end.  Nice big beaches, no mountains to speak of.  Hedgerows a bit of a nuisance of course.  There’s always been a gentlemen’s agreement not to level Paris. But the enemy has entrenched itself in Paris this time, doesn’t much give a damn about the quaint stuff, and answered the question “Is Paris Burning?” before anyone asked.

    Modern Paris may have been designed with putting down rioters in mind. Apparently the wide streets provide a good line of fire for artillary and infantry.

    “Napoleon may have ordered or sanctioned the building of long, straight boulevards to facilitate the use of artillery fire, forestall the building of barricades, and to break up working-class areas with a history of insurrection.  Between 1827-49 there had been eight occasions when barricades had been thrown up in eastern Paris; they had preceded revolution on three occasions.  These included the July Revolution or Trois Glorieuses (the Three Glorious Days) of 1830, and the February 1848 revolution.” 


    Mind you I doubt that Napolean III considered the tactical implications of insurgents armed with bombs, molotov cocktails and torched Renaults.

    Posted by geoff on 2006 09 17 at 07:25 PM • permalink

  80. “that earnest manner born of too many years at university”
    Didn’t PJ O’Rourke suggest that “Earnestness is stupidity been to college”
    I hope A Dill wasn’t dissing her new mates.

    Posted by wazza on 2006 09 17 at 09:13 PM • permalink

  81. Maybe she did have 2 separate sets of visitors from France and maybe they both had the same conversation? Only she will know.  Maybe she is a cousin to Germaine Greer and a fully paid up member of the cultural cringe?

    Yes or no to the above she still comes across as a loser.

    Posted by allan on 2006 09 17 at 09:21 PM • permalink

  82. I just read the actual article and really, if she fears having to explain Australian values she is an embarrassment to herself and others.

    Posted by allan on 2006 09 17 at 09:55 PM • permalink

  83. I have my own foreign policy. If any foreigner starts hectoring me about my country’s foreign policies, I punch them in the nose. This is also a pre-emptive strike policy. I’m not popular internationally, but not too many damn arrogant foreigners annoy me anymore.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 09 17 at 10:19 PM • permalink

  84. “Lap-dog? That would be Adele doing a certain sort of dance”, I offered helpfully.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 09 18 at 06:29 AM • permalink

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Please note: you must use a real email address to register. You will be sent an account activation email. Clicking on the url in the email will automatically activate your account. Until you do so your account will be held in the "pending" list and you won't be able to log in. All accounts that are "pending" for more than one week will be deleted.