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1000 Years Of Annoying The French (2010)

by Stephen Clarke(Favorite Author)

4 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0593062728 (ISBN13: 9780593062722)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Bantam Press

review 1: The everlasting hatred and enmity that these two majestic nation have for each other is daunting to comprehend. But it had a good outcome financially until the later years and how these 2 nations compete against one another. The secrets of history has been well revealed of the two parties by Clarke (although, I believe he has the tendency that his remarks usually has an element of contempt towards the French or maybe because they were being 'French'). It was official that this anglo-Franco hatred and mistrust commenced in 1066. What happens after is history, dun dun dun...“there is a French version of the story, and a true one.”
review 2: This book is seriously 50% too big for such a light read with holes peppered all over the content.There’s elements of ... morecontrived and forced humour upon some decent anecdotal ‘Vive la différence’, which didn’t need to be contorted, as the real stories have enough real humour in them. If he would have dug a little further to have reached Calais.For example, the battle of Hastings; for the sheer amount of space it takes the real funnies are missing. Such as Harold’s men were getting completely plastered the night before the battle and had no helmets, whilst the Normans (in front of an European queue to come over for the party) meditated, prayed and sharpened their goodies for their early morning dash. Even good old William brought his own version of an early i-pod to charge into the fray with. William had a Bard with lute by his side singing away Roland’s deeds as they decanter to Harold’s lines. Or Charles I who lost his head not for religious dogma, but he preferred to buy the end tail of the Medicis’ artworks on sale, instead of buying war supplies for his besieged city by the French of La Rochelle. He lost not only his city.Or the Gibbet of Halifax, where nobody wanted to be executioner even allowed a 30 second sporting chance of anybody stealing 5d’s worth of wool, where today there is a pub on route called ‘The Running Man’.I could go on to the amount Clarke missed developing, if only it had been properly researched. And again he continuously picks up on the historical threads taught at school, that the wars from Europe was based on religious/megalomaniacs grounds rather than spices and trade. Which incidentally Napoleon was trying to achieve was an open world market – hence the Napoleonic wars. Even if Napoleon’s parents used to dress him up as a little girl when he was even smaller.As for the Duke of Wellington, he was born in Dublin, Ireland and a wannaby english man; Also, when referring to the Brits when they were Welsh Bowmen at one point. Guess the battles?Too many bluffs missed in the slanted narrative and too contorted to be truly funny. Saying all this, there are some wry smiles on some anecdotal evidence on the pages, but not enough to warrant 500 pages. less

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