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| Letters From London |
| Humorous Views on London Culture, Royals, Gossip and Politics |
Are You Taking the Piss? - 16 November 2007
Ah. Male inhabitants of the British Isles shave their heads, paint their tattooed bodies red, run
around half naked, and can hit a target when peeing. No. Not the Celts. Not the Vikings. The skin-
heads. Or so say the Belgians.
In the new provocative ad to inspire Belgians to visit their compatriots via the Eurostar, what can
only be a football hooligan, a skin-head, a menacing bloke posing cockily (sorry, but) peeing into
his gran’s lovely blue and white floral china cup, laying bare the symbolic red cross of the English
flag painted across his naked, tattooed back. “Oye! It’s me dad innit?”
“The Belgians very much look to the British and identify with them. They like the royalty and
pomp, but at the same time they love the street life and the edginess about London.” This from a
Eurostar spokeswoman advertising the British sense of humour for all to appreciate. “We don’t
see the ads as offensive…these aren’t adverts that we would use in France.” Vraiment?
After years of promises you can now be awed by the £800m refurbishment of the neglected now
stunning Victorian wonder St Pancras which it has undergone in order to house the new £5.8b
rail link. Sadly rail service within Britain remains useless and pathetic.
You can get pissed on 1949 Krug at £2,700 a bottle while hanging off the longest champagne
bar in Europe within feet of the platform – thankfully protected by a wall of glass for those
intoxicated by the wondrous site as well as the price per bottle.
You can arrive in Brussels in 1 hour and 51 minutes or the centre of Paris in 2 hours 15 minutes -
provided you are fully dressed and willing to relieve yourself in the toilets - on the English side at
least; the French do have a reputation for enjoying relief al fresco, as do their ubiquitous little
dogs – although not necessarily simultaneously.
Glamour and romance have returned to rail travel at St Pancras …but best to avoid the
embarrassingly clichéd, banal 9 metre bronze statue of two embracing travellers inspired by the
film Love Actually (argh). It was meant to be as memorable as the Statue of Liberty. Could that
have been the problem? Wrong recipient nation. Thank god it isn’t continuously revolving.
If put off, perhaps you could have 98 drinks marking every one of the 98 metres of the bar, then
pay an exorbitant £4 to wait on the tube platform delayed due to that old ‘leaves on the track’
justification to make your way to South Kensington, known as the 21st arrondissement, to mingle
with the 300,000-350,000 French ex-pats who now live in London. To put things into perspective:
that is the size of Lille.
When running for president, Nicholas Sarkozy campaigned here. At an election rally he called
London “One of the great French cities” and he wasn’t referencing the Norman Conquest. He
was addressing the converted. Hermes scarves, cashmere blankets, fois gras, 40 varieties of
brie and Jane Birkin in hand, French bankers, city workers, entrepreneurs, service workers and
students are all travelling in the opposite direction. “Bonjour London. Au revoir Paris.” And they
are taking up permanent residence en masse mostly in South Kensington.
France’s best selling novelist, Marc Levy, wrote a novel disguised as a love letter to his adopted
city. Having lived all over and in London since 2000, Levy declares that British humour is what
makes “this country more civilised than France.” Drop down. They are throwing Choux à la
Crème. He also reveals that his favourite café, Raison d’Etre, serve the best baguettes – made
with British flour by British bakers on British soil - better than those carried home daily in Paris.
Mon Dieu, mon amie. Quelle horreur!
He waxes on: “Your culture here is really much more high. Your planning laws, for example,
allow fantastic new buildings to be made. They are a sign that the whole country is progressing –
99% of Paris doesn’t even belong to the 21st century. Paris is like a dead city with no progress
while everything here has the buzz.” Ouch. Je suis vraiment désolé, mais… “If I was as polite to
people in Paris as I have to be here they would spit at me in the street.” As they will if he
returns.
With all of Paris transport on strike for what surely will be months, Belgians will be able to pop
over on the Eurostar to see skin-heads taking the piss up close and personal without being
bumped, jostled, elbowed, shoved, out of the French way. A bientôt….
Ah. Male inhabitants of the British Isles shave their heads, paint their tattooed bodies red, run
around half naked, and can hit a target when peeing. No. Not the Celts. Not the Vikings. The skin-
heads. Or so say the Belgians.
In the new provocative ad to inspire Belgians to visit their compatriots via the Eurostar, what can
only be a football hooligan, a skin-head, a menacing bloke posing cockily (sorry, but) peeing into
his gran’s lovely blue and white floral china cup, laying bare the symbolic red cross of the English
flag painted across his naked, tattooed back. “Oye! It’s me dad innit?”
“The Belgians very much look to the British and identify with them. They like the royalty and
pomp, but at the same time they love the street life and the edginess about London.” This from a
Eurostar spokeswoman advertising the British sense of humour for all to appreciate. “We don’t
see the ads as offensive…these aren’t adverts that we would use in France.” Vraiment?
After years of promises you can now be awed by the £800m refurbishment of the neglected now
stunning Victorian wonder St Pancras which it has undergone in order to house the new £5.8b
rail link. Sadly rail service within Britain remains useless and pathetic.
You can get pissed on 1949 Krug at £2,700 a bottle while hanging off the longest champagne
bar in Europe within feet of the platform – thankfully protected by a wall of glass for those
intoxicated by the wondrous site as well as the price per bottle.
You can arrive in Brussels in 1 hour and 51 minutes or the centre of Paris in 2 hours 15 minutes -
provided you are fully dressed and willing to relieve yourself in the toilets - on the English side at
least; the French do have a reputation for enjoying relief al fresco, as do their ubiquitous little
dogs – although not necessarily simultaneously.
Glamour and romance have returned to rail travel at St Pancras …but best to avoid the
embarrassingly clichéd, banal 9 metre bronze statue of two embracing travellers inspired by the
film Love Actually (argh). It was meant to be as memorable as the Statue of Liberty. Could that
have been the problem? Wrong recipient nation. Thank god it isn’t continuously revolving.
If put off, perhaps you could have 98 drinks marking every one of the 98 metres of the bar, then
pay an exorbitant £4 to wait on the tube platform delayed due to that old ‘leaves on the track’
justification to make your way to South Kensington, known as the 21st arrondissement, to mingle
with the 300,000-350,000 French ex-pats who now live in London. To put things into perspective:
that is the size of Lille.
When running for president, Nicholas Sarkozy campaigned here. At an election rally he called
London “One of the great French cities” and he wasn’t referencing the Norman Conquest. He
was addressing the converted. Hermes scarves, cashmere blankets, fois gras, 40 varieties of
brie and Jane Birkin in hand, French bankers, city workers, entrepreneurs, service workers and
students are all travelling in the opposite direction. “Bonjour London. Au revoir Paris.” And they
are taking up permanent residence en masse mostly in South Kensington.
France’s best selling novelist, Marc Levy, wrote a novel disguised as a love letter to his adopted
city. Having lived all over and in London since 2000, Levy declares that British humour is what
makes “this country more civilised than France.” Drop down. They are throwing Choux à la
Crème. He also reveals that his favourite café, Raison d’Etre, serve the best baguettes – made
with British flour by British bakers on British soil - better than those carried home daily in Paris.
Mon Dieu, mon amie. Quelle horreur!
He waxes on: “Your culture here is really much more high. Your planning laws, for example,
allow fantastic new buildings to be made. They are a sign that the whole country is progressing –
99% of Paris doesn’t even belong to the 21st century. Paris is like a dead city with no progress
while everything here has the buzz.” Ouch. Je suis vraiment désolé, mais… “If I was as polite to
people in Paris as I have to be here they would spit at me in the street.” As they will if he
returns.
With all of Paris transport on strike for what surely will be months, Belgians will be able to pop
over on the Eurostar to see skin-heads taking the piss up close and personal without being
bumped, jostled, elbowed, shoved, out of the French way. A bientôt….
