Microblog Memes

Ahhh but many cities and towns have some sort of rails in the streets, and bonus: they're not being used!

I just thought of how that would look on the San Francisco cable car tracks. Fast sausages.

Yeah, you stop believing in the first part when you see what they vote for.

Yeah same I’m curious now.

I found those on a 💩website https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/climate-paris-2015-polar-bear.html?sortBy=relevant

They've been flirting with far-right government like most everyone else, but their protesting game is on point. The whole country being smaller than Texas helps, too.

Historically, the French really only surrendered once, unfortunately evocative of the "but you fuck a goat one time ..." joke. It didn't help that they surrendered to one of the biggest monsters in history, at a time where they arguably didn't need to surrender. TBF, the main reason their biggest ally (Britain) didn't surrender at the same time was the fact that they were able to run away.

It does seem they're suffering from the same rightward-slide that many other countries are facing though, unfortunately.

Freedom Fries

As an European, I still can't believe you guys did that

Middle aged American here, and when I was a kid the culture around me regarding france was basically “lol they surrender.”

Copied from my earlier comment elsewhere:

Have an extensive history of military might, from rampaging barbarian hordes, to a continent-conquering emperor, to a foreign legion famed as being one of the most badass fighting forces in the world, and nobody bats an eye. But get embarrassingly outflanked one time, and you never hear the end of it!

Excuses incoming in 3, 2, 1...

"But, but, but the us country is huge. We can't be expected to protest about something all the way over there..."

"But, but, but, wait for the midterms. We'll sort it then."

"But, but, but, the protests are gaining steam now. It's not easy to coordinate these things and we need time...{also we'll conveniently ignore you when you point out that we live in a world of instant communication and that protests and strikes were coordinated decades ago when we didn't have today's technology}"

We luv you too m8

I love the French because every other country I have been to besides France where I have attempted to speak the language, people are super appreciative of my efforts, even if I'm shit.

Not so in France. There's often an air of arrogant expectation, because making an effort to speak French isn't considered going above and beyond, but is expected (and if your French is mediocre, then you are not meeting that expectation). This isn't always as abrasive as I make it sound here, but it is a sharp contrast to my experience in other countries.

I weirdly like this though. It's a reflection of how British people travel about the world with a default assumption that many people will speak English. I have a Norwegian friend, for example, who said that when he was travelling, he was grateful that he knew English, because there would often be some people who could speak at least some English in most places he went. Attempting to speak French in France reminds me of how much privilege I have when travelling, because the French are as stubborn about expecting people to speak French as the English are about English. But the French are mainly like this within France, whereas English folk carry their expectations everywhere with them.

France feels like our sibling — we have a tumultuous relationship that could easily give the impression that we hate each other, but it's far deeper than that. One of my interests is fashion history, and it's so funny how many instances there are of a trend originating in France that people in Britain take notice of and want to emulate — in part because it is French: trends that are developing in a different cultural context, and are thus exotic and interesting compared to British fashion. Sometimes there'll be attempts to stop trends from crossing the channel, but that just makes them seem cooler. If you want an example of one such trend, this video from Abby Cox is great.

But the cultural exchange happened in the other direction too; sometimes a trend would start in Britain and slowly diffuse over to France. Stuff like this is why I see the French as being our family. For better or for worse, we are joined together by history.

We have a whole Quebec political party that's about not voting for federal elections... Want to protest against the libs or the cons? Vote for the Block!

They don’t specifically follow the tram tracks, but in major European cities, tram tracks are simply everywhere. As the route of the protest has to be registered in advance, it’s very easy to plan for this.

With standard wheels on the barbecue, it would be far too bumpy to barbecue properly. And the risk of everything tipping over is 100 times greater.

I think it’s a brilliant solution.