Wednesday 10 August 2005

Xenophobia is such a nice word

I love language and the way it can be used. I used to live in Germany. Someone who knows both these points sent me a link to a piece in The Mail.

Am I alone in detecting just a little "smugness" in this line?
"But now their teutonic smugness has been punctured - by one of their own lawyers." [My emphasis]
And this part is simply stupid
"German holiday habits are also under attack in Italy. A new beach behaviour guide, issued by the Italian Union of Bathing Establishments, seeks to ban beer, naked bottoms and football on the dunes, all favourite pastimes of German visitors."
I can't argue that beer, nakedness and footy are not favourite pastimes of Germans but they are not pastimes unique to German tourists are they? Will I be okay getting leery on canned Stella and kicking a football around if the shorts I pull down to moon at the police have a Union Flag design?

Of course that particular piece was great for generating some of the good old "We beat 'em in 1944" comments too. I don't think I'll take a look at how The Sun covered the story.

3 careful considerations:

Wendy said...

You couldn't get away with that towel crapp here in the states. We'd simply remove the towel and sit down. if there was a fuss by the towel owner, we would cramm it up their arrogant asses...America, violence solves every problem. LOL

Ang said...

Uh, violence only solves every problem if you live in middle America or in the south. Those of us on the West Coast tend to take a different view. (I'm sounding like a snob huh??)

And what is wrong with naked bottoms? Or naked anything for that matter?? :)

Wendy said...

Snob...not all west coast folks are Hippies. And, I was being sarcastic...no I wasn't! hehehe