Stephen Clarke 
Annoying The French Encore! 

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHORBonjour cher reader, Ever since European history began, we Brits have been happily engaged in our national pastime – annoying the French. And the past couple of years have shown that this annoying never stops. To give just three examples:After a mid-Atlantic collision between French and British nuclear submarines, France’s Minister of Defence seemed to blame the accident on … shrimps.When French political superstar Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York, France’s establishment was outraged. It soon emerged that sexual harassment was regarded as a basic human right by the country’s male lite. (This theme provided so much excellent material that I decided to include it in the plot of my soon-to-be published novel, The Merde Factor.)And when David Cameron walked out of a Eurosummit, a French politician accused him of being ‘like a man at a wife-swapping party who refuses to bring his own wife.’ Yes, a very French image, and it just one of the many anti-Anglais insults that came flying across the Channel. You will find all this, and much more, in Annoying the French Encore! Because, for the French, the merde never ends.Yours historically, Stephen Clarke, Paris, August 2012 Tremendously entertaining Sunday Times Relentlessly and energetically rude Mail on Sunday