It is a commonly held view that the Brits are the ones most ready to knock their most successful people. The most recent example I have seen was when the papers took the mickey out of Mick Jagger when it was leaked that he needed an auto-cue on stage during his latest tour.   more »

We all know that Jacques Chirac walked out of an EU summit earlier this year because a French businessman addressed the meeting in English and not in French. So when the French government launched a new culture initiative to promote French values and products, called CulturesFrance, it must have hurt him to discover that the model for the new agency is going be based on the British Council! Quelle honte!   more »

Talk to a Frenchman about the English and he may well refer disparagingly to les anglo saxons who are trying to destroy his way of life. Speak to an Englishman about the French, and he may well moan about rude shopkeepers and supercilious wine waiters. So it was with some mixed emotions that I read recently that Reader’s Digest has carried out a survey to test the levels of common courtesy in 35 cities. Their researchers scored London and Paris as equal fifteenth.   more »