Once upon a time in the Kingdom of
Heaven, God went missing for six days.
Eventually, Michael the archangel found him
on the seventh day, resting.
He inquired of God, "Where have you
been?"
God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction
and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, "Look Michael, look what
I've made.
Archangel Michael looked puzzled and
said, "What is it?"
"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've
put LIFE on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a great
place of balance."
"Balance?" inquired Michael, still
confused.
God explained, pointing to different
parts of Earth, "For example, North America will be a place of great
opportunity and wealth while South America is going to be poor; the Middle
East over there will be a hot spot and Russia will be a cold spot. Over
there I've placed a continent of white people and over there is a
continent of black people," God continued, pointing to different
countries. "This one will be extremely hot and arid while this one will be
very cold and covered in ice."
The Archangel, impressed by God's work,
then pointed to a small land mass and said, "What's that one?"
"Ah," said God. "That's Great Britain,
the most glorious place on Earth. There are beautiful lakes, rivers,
streams and hills. The people from Britain are going to be modest,
intelligent and humorous and they're going to be found travelling the
world. They'll be builders of empires, hard-working and high achieving,
and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats and carriers of
peace."
Michael gasped in wonder and admiration
but then proclaimed, "What about balance, God? You said there will be
BALANCE!"
God replied wisely, "Wait until you see
the idiots I'm putting next to them. I call them French."
Here's the open letter published in an
Australian newspaper:
An open letter to M. Jacques Chirac:
Mon cher Jack
Je suis a bit fromaged off avec votre
decision to blow up La Pacifique avec le Frog bombes nuclears. Je reckon
vous must have un spot in La Belle France itself pour les explosions. Le
Massive Central? Le Quay d'Orsay? Le Champs Elysees? Votre own back yard,
peut etre?
Frappez le crows avec stones, Sport! La
guerre cold est fini! Votres forces militaire need la bombe atomique about
as beacoup as poisson need les bicyclettes.
Un autre point, cobber. Votre histoire
militaire isn't tres flash, consisting, n'est-ce pas, of battailles the
likes of Crecy, Agincourt, Poitiers, Trafalgar, Borodino, Waterloo, Sedan,
et Dien Bien Phu. Un bombe won't change le tradition. Je/mon pere/ mon
grand pere/le cousing third avec ma grandmere/la plume de ma tante fought
avec votre soldats against Le Boche in WWI (le Big One). Have vous
forgotten?
Reconsider, mon ami, otherwise in le
hotels et estaminets de l'Australie le curse anciens d'Angleterre -
"Damnation to the French" - will be heard un autre temps.
Votre chums don't want that.
Millo.
What do you call a Frenchman wearing
sandals?
Philippe Phillop
Young Marie was excited. She was going to visit her cousin Madeline in
France. She was going to stay an entire summer and she was excited about
meeting Madeline and visiting France, but she was most excited about
learning French.
When she arrived, she was even more thrilled because Madeline's cat had
just had kittens, and Madeline gave Marie three of them to raise as her
very own. Because Marie was beginning to learn French, she named her three
new kittens Un, Deux, and Trois.
Marie played with the kittens constantly, and she took them everywhere
she went. One day, Marie and Madeline were playing beside the Seine River.
Marie put her three kittens in a small toy boat and pulled them along the
river while she walked carefully beside them on the bank. Unfortunately, a
large boat sped by, and the wake tipped Marie's toy boat and the kittens
spilled overboard.
Seeing Marie in tears, Madeline rushed up and asked what had happened.
Marie replied, very sadly, . . . "Un, Deux, Trois cats sank."
Basic Rules For Driving In France
1. Turn signals will give away your next move. A real French driver never
uses them.
2. Under no circumstances should you leave a safe distance between you and
the car in front of you, or the space will be filled in by somebody else,
putting you in an even more dangerous situation.
3. The faster you drive through a red light, the smaller the chance you
have of getting hit.
4. Never, ever come to a complete stop at a stop sign. No one expects it
and it will inevitably result in you being rear ended. If you want your
insurance company to pay for a new rear bumper, come to a complete stop at
all stop signs.
5. A right lane construction closure is just a game to see how many people
can cut in line by passing you on the right as you sit in the left lane
waiting for the same jerks to squeeze their way back in before hitting the
orange cones.
6. Braking is to be done as hard and late as possible to ensure that your
ABS kicks in, giving a nice, relaxing foot massage as the brake pedal
pulsates. For those of you without ABS, it's a chance to stretch your
legs.
7. Never pass on the left when you can pass on the right. It's a good way
to scare people entering the autoroute.
8. Speed limits are arbitrary figures, given only as suggestions and are
apparently not enforceable in France, except where the police have placed
"dummy" cameras.
9. Just because you're in the left lane and have no room to speed up or
move over doesn't mean that a French driver flashing his high beams behind
you doesn't think he can go faster in your spot.
10. Please remember that there is no such thing as a shortcut during
rush-hour traffic in Nice. This does not mean that the moron behind you
doesn't want you to move faster.
11. Always slow down and gape when you see an accident or even someone
changing a tire.
12. Learn to swerve abruptly. France is the home of high-speed slalom
driving thanks to the Public Works Department, which puts potholes in key
locations to test drivers' reflexes and keep them on their toes.
13. Never take a green light at face value. Always look right and left
before proceeding. See 3 and 4 above.
14. Remember that the goal of every French driver is to get there first,
by whatever means necessary.
15. Real French women drivers can apply eye makeup at 110 kilometres per
hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
16. Real French men drivers can use their portable phones, argue with the
back seat passenger and reprimand the driver next to him in sign language,
at 110 kilometres per hour or in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
"Why do you look so glum today?", the teacher asked young Johnny.
"I didn't have breakfast," Johnny mumbled.
"You poor dear," said the teacher. "Now, to return to our geography
lesson. Johnny, where is the French border?"
"In bed with my mom. That's why I didn't have no breakfast."
GIVING THE FINGER
Isn't history more fun when you know something about it?
Giving the Finger Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French,
anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle
finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it
would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore
be incapable of fighting in the future. This famous weapon was made of
the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known
as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew").
Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset
and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the
defeated French, saying, "See, we can still pluck yew! "PLUCK YEW!"
Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant
cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental
fricative 'F', and thus the words often used in conjunction with the
one-finger-salute are mistakenly thought to have something to do with an
intimate encounter. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the
arrows used withthe longbow that the symbolic gesture is known as
"giving the bird".
And yew thought yew knew everything.
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