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"There are lots of French people who are not at all hypocritical, inefficient, aggressive, arrogant, adulterous or incredibly sexy. They just didn't make it into my book..."
"My good friend Chris told me not to come to France. Great lifestyle, he said, great food, and women with great underwear. But, he warned me, the French are hell to live with. He worked in the London office of a French bank for three years. "They made all us Brits redundant the day after the French football team got knocked out of the World Cup. No way was that a coincidence," he told me. His theory was that the French are like the woman scorned. Back in 1940 they tried to tell us they loved us, but we just laughed at their accents and their big-nosed General de Gaulle, and ever since we've done nothing but poison them with our disgusting food and try to wipe the French language off the face of the Earth. That's why they built refugee camps yards from the Eurotunnel entrance and refuse to eat our beef years after it was declared safe. It's permanent payback time, he said. Don't go there. Sorry; I told him, I've got to go and check out that underwear." A Year in the Merde shows the French as they really are.They're not "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", but they do eat a lot of cheese, some of which smells like pigs' droppings. In general, they do not wash their armpits with garlic soap. Going on strike really is the second most popular participation sport in France after pétanque. And they really do use suppositories. Stephen Clarke gives a laugh-out-loud account of the pleasures and perils of being a foreigner in France. Less quaint than A Year in Provence, less chocolatey than Chocolat, this book will tell you how to get the best of the grumpiest Parisian waiter, how to survive French meetings, how to make perfect vinaigrette every time, and how not to buy a house in the country. Liberté, Egalité, get out of my way.
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21 languages
Australia : Random House
Brazil : Record
Canada : Penguin Canada
Croatia : Algoritam
Czech Republic : Albatros
Estonia : Sinisukk
France : Robert Laffont
Germany : Piper
Holland : The House of Books
Hungary : Ulpius
Italy : Sperling
Japan : Sony Magazines
Lithuania : Baltos Lankos
Poland : W.A.B.
Portugal : Editorial Presença
Romania : RAO
Russia : Ripol
Taiwan : Muses
Thailand : FreeForm Editions
UK : Transworld
USA : Bloomsbury
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