The Xenophobe's Guide to the French - Softcover

Yapp, Nick; Syrett, Michel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853045586 ISBN 13: 9781853045585

Publisher: Ravette Pub Ltd, 1995

Synopsis

Xenophobia: An irrational fear of foreigners. Xenophobe's Guides: Small books that show the more you know the less you fear. Xenophobe's motto: Forewarned is forearmed.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

The French care about what really matters in life - being French. They care more about doing everything with enormous style than what they do. They are convinced of their corporate and individual superiority over all others in the world. Their charm is that they don't despise the rest of us: they pity us for not being French.
Xenophobia is an irrational fear of foreigners, probably justified, always understandable.
Xenophobe's Guides - an irreverent look at the beliefs and foibles of nations, almost guaranteed to cure Xenophobia.

About the Author:

Nick Yapp spent his first night in France in a hay barn near Calais docks in 1961. Since then he has loved the French for their music, wine, space, and those purple onions you can¿t get in England. He fears their driving and is bewildered by the speed at which they speak.

When he sits outside a café in the centre of a small French town on a sunny day, nerves jangling from the first sip of hot, strong coffee, watching the world go by, he feels he has somehow made a success of his life. When he gets the bill and sees what this success has cost him, a little of the euphoria evaporates - but he returns the next day.

He used to be a teacher, but escaped to become a writer and broadcaster. In his dreams he lives in a beautiful Basque villa on the clifftops south of Biarritz. In reality, he lives in Catford.

Michel Syrett, French on his mother's side, studied in Paris and visits France regularly as a business commentator, lecturer and journalist. He claims that his French is better than it might otherwise be because, in order to hold his own in French business circles, he has to eulogise about the perfect style with which the Nuits St George cohabits seductively with the 'microbes' of the fromage while making a seriously intellectual evaluation of the påté de fois gras. This is a pleasure, naturally, since being French in his soul, he values food as a spiritual experience.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ravette Pub Ltd
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1853045586
• ISBN 13: 9781853045585
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 64