Posted on 05/21/2006 3:13:22 PM PDT by mazack
LONDON (AFP) - The French have been voted the world's most unfriendly nation by a landslide in a new British poll published. They were also voted the most boring and most ungenerous.
A decisive 46 percent of the 6,000 people surveyed by travellers' website Where Are You Now (WAYN) said the French were the most unfriendly nation people on the planet, British newspapers reported.
The Germans have no to reason to celebrate the damning verdict. They came second on all three counts.
WAYN's French founder, Jerome Touze, told the papers he had been stunned by the thumping condemnation of his compatriots and sought to blame it on Gallic love-struck sulking.
"I had no idea that the French would emerge as such an unfriendly country," he said.
"I think our romantic 'moodiness' is misunderstood and I will be sure to pass on the message to my family and friends back in France to be a bit more cheerful to tourists in the future."
Italy was voted the world's most cultured nation with the best cuisine, while the United States was named the most unstylish with the worst food.
The British did not feature in the top 10 of any of the categories.
"The British fit in nowhere -- good or bad. It appears that we are so completely average that the voters did not include us in any category," the tabloid Daily Express commented.
"And to our shame, four percent of respondents -- all British of course -- said they would only talk to other Britons when they are abroad."
This unwillingness to talk to the locals appears to go hand in hand with respondents' perceptions of foreigners.
While most said Spain was the foreign country where they would most like to live, they said the Spaniards were nearly as unfriendly and ungenerous as the French.
To add insult to injury, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph put the boot in on Saturday by saying in an editorial that the French stank.
"The French may like to think that Chanel No 5 is their scent but we all know that garlic and stale Gitanes are much more representative."
I don't care much for the food either.
You must admit though, the French women do braid their armpit hair in quite a stylish manner.
After secretly escaping from St. Helena, Napoleon led his followers into internal exile in France, where they went into the hospitality business, because nobody would ever look for them there...
Is monsieur ready to surrender... I mean order? I regret monsieur, but la "Boeuf Wellington" <ptui!> c'est pas bien! I recommend la Chicken Marengo, ou la trois fromage Rivoli with un Borodino baguette.
I take back everything I've ever said about bread pudding with hard sauce and Dime bars. The gloves are off.
I think the poll was being kind when they labeled the US as "unstylish". The appropriate word is "slovenly." Wearing sweat suits, shorts, tattered jeans, halter tops, with the ubiquitous filthy sneakers or flip flops in public makes us extremely unattractive. When one sees men and women dressed in suits and hats at baseball games in the 1940s and 1950s, one realizes how sloppy the standards are now. People do not even dress that well to go to worship services now.
As a nation, yes, but I would put the Massghanistanis up against the Froggies for being rude and boring.
Let me play the devil's adocvate ;-). London has very fantastic international restaurants owned or staffed by renowned chefs like Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Gary Rhodes, Ruth Rogers, or Bruce Poole. If you compare the London restaurant fares with those at McDonald's, Denny's, or Ponderosa as "that's-all-there-as-American-food" it would be natural to have thought American food as awful.
Now having said this, apart from Gary Rhodes none of the restaurants owned by the above-mentioned chefs or businesspeople offer British cuisines. They are either French or Italian. In the Province it is all curries. ;-)
No matter how awful the youth scene in America dresses, I can guarantee it will be a step worse in modern Britain or Spain. The pendulums swing wilder in these places.
Even Thomas J, who thought the British boorish, would have laughed at that one.
Yes, I've had a steak in Paris and it sucked. It was really bad.
And leading the league in surrenders. Did their army lose to that invasion of frogs a few months back?
I don't see how you can be rude and boring at the same time. But then, the French always seem to find a way.
As a husband who frequently waits for his wife in malls, I have to agree 100% with you. Perhaps the food question also references the food courts at malls?? They are pretty bad. The mall food courts in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand, actually serve better food than many restaurants in those countries. Beef Noodle Soup in Taipei has to be the winner for noodle shop food!!!
For home cooking, America is as good any anywhere in the world for those who still cook at home.
Somebody had to conduct a POLL to find out this common knowledge??? Jeez.
misc ping
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