1000 Years of Annoying the French
I came across this book on the shelves of a friend, dipped into it and found it so amusing and interesting that I bought my own e-book copy.
It is crammed with hints and tips on how to annoy the French -- and some account of how they have annoyed us.
Stephen Clarke is the man to do it. Although fluent in French and thoroughly well-informed on their every foible and tic, he does sometimes give the impression (to this reader, anyway) that he detests them and probably annoys them every chance he gets.
He starts by destroying their fond illusion that they were the last foreigners to successfully invade Britain, in 1066. They weren't -- and anyway, the Normans were Vikings and we already had plenty of them. It was merely the rowdiest branch of the family bargeing in unwanted.
The Bayeux Tapestry is a cunning annoyance, since it isn't a tapestry, it isn't French and is anti-Norman in sympathy.
Below: An embroidery and English (wikimedia)
We annoyed in fine style during the Middle Ages, by collaring half of France and fighting long wars-- and Clarke annoyingly points out that the English did not burn Joan of Arc. The French did.
Clarke gives a fascinating account of the French Canadians, a luckless people, not treated at all well by the French, and how they also became the ancestors of the 'Cajuns' way down South in Louisiana.
The book is, of course, a disguised history of things French, but exceptionally readable and full of interesting and unexpected twists, as well as providing the English with lots of ammunition -- Champagne and the guillotine, it turns out, are both English.
And all French wine is American.
I enjoyed the book very much -- laughed a lot -- learned a lot.