He filled it with petrol and doubled it's value !
You paid for a Skoda? ;-)
I have to disagree entirely Pamela. 'Surviving' France is what it's all been about for me since the '70s. Raising a family and trying to keep in work in order to be able to feed us all has been one heck of a challenge. Believe me there have been times when we struggled to 'survive' so for me yes, the name is spot on.
Depends if she has nice bodywork and is a 'good little runner' Norman !
€8300 for a 2007 Motorbike? Crikey, I know I am out of touch with these things, but that's the same price I paid for my 2009 Skoda Superb!
Gawd knows how much he is asking for his wife?
David, I also find the name interesting. To me it is actually quite negative. To survive something indicates that it is more than just a challenge. One survives a war or a traumatic event. As an Australian who has chosen to live in France, (and I expect for most of the subscribers to this site, it has been a voluntary choice to live here), one would expect challenges, be it the language, the bureaucracy or even just the differences and nuances between French culture and our own. For me, apart from the food, wine, history, etc, living here is an opening of my mind to the differences and the joy of overcoming the challenges with a different language or culture. I don't feel like I have to "survive" it. I think a more positive name would be good, but I am not expecting it to change in the short or even medium term. However your comment did provide an opening for me to express my dislike of such a negative attitude to choosing to live in a different country. I would be interested to know what others think.
In case anybody suspects the French have no sense of humour, then take a look at this. It is a bit macho and 'me, me' but nonetheless if it had been a comedy sketch onUK TV then it would be taken differently... http://www.moto-journal.fr/news/un-motard-vend-sa-moto-ou-sa-femme-au-choix-sur-le-bon-coin/
Ok if you work it out perhaps you'd be kind enough to message it to Terry Williams and he can then add it to the page. Thanks! x
Catherine, I noticed the last bit didn't come up in blue, so may it is not part of the offical code although I thought it was. Perhaps to go into just the first part www.correze.gouv.fr might be better. I have downloaded it myself, so I will see how I can put it across here.
Véronieque
one of my sessions in both my BBA and MBA courses I ran in Europe and Asia mainly - and with very mixed Nationalities involved was called 'Country of Origin Effect'. I think I probably enjoyed this session more than anyone, as although auspiciously it was about what perceived Nationalistic factors could be applied profitably to various products e.g. engineering excellence =Germany etc.
However it invariably produced results far and away from such commercial devices, and was truly illuminating in many other ways - and as is the way of perceptions almost totally wrong. England for example meant images of bowler hats and umbrellas, plus very polite people (really?) and so on.
I recall very distinctly falling flat on my face in a major client presentation trying to get the business of the biggest Hungarian Beer manufacturer. I fell into the trap of not recognising that just because the client's representatives spoke perfect English they were NOT English. In a mad bout of enthusiasm in which I had presented a brilliant case for the campaign which covered everything from tV to drink coasters, I made the fatal error of saying 'but it doesn't make the coffee, so in that respect it is a load of crap'. Guess what registered with the Client?
Another of the anecdotes that helped me create the title of my memoirs - 'Tha Accidental Ad-Man'
I should have said sounds useful as I was in the process of checking it out whilst typing and it seems your link is broken? Can you re post it please?
That's very useful Norman. I'll get it added to the Useful links page. Thanks!
Brian
I too am a great fan of both Fernandel and Louis de Funés and of course Bourvil - but admit to hardly understanding a word they say - the body language just creases me up. So maybe I am a bit more French than I thought? I do enjoy the BIg Yin, but admit to not catching everything he says first or even second time around.
I don't see or hear a lot of subtlety in English humour these days as things like 'Knock the Week' et al tend to leave me cold.
Re words and derivations well of course you perfectly understand that whilst the origins are interesting they often play little part in common or modern parlance - take the workd 'Gay' for example, in less than a hundred years it has gone from describing Prostitutes, to having a good time, to being Homosexual, and providing a good deal of unexpected humour in the process I would imagine?
Yes, as someone mentioned earlier 'surviving' the Hanoi Hilton would definitely fall into my understanding of the word.
Appropos of (presumably) one of the reasons for SFN, I have just come across a very useful document that has been produced here in the Correze by the gloriously named Foreigners Residents Organisation Guide (by accident or design is F.R.O.G)
It is a downloadable 52 pager which covers just about all the basic of as the name suggests living and working in the Correze - and it is in English and French, there should be no survival problems I would hope. As most of the info.covers non-Correze specific subjects I suggest it is worth having a look;
www.correze.gouv.fr/Services-de-l'Etat 'Guide à l'attention des anglophones pour vivre et travailler en Correze'
Ah, the stallion bloke! Gotcha and gotcha before. Yes!
Quite the opposite Norman. I was talking about the source of the name, the word 'survive' in this case being English as part of an Anglophone site name. Of course, I am probably totally mad because I can laugh at French humour and like the oldies best, hence lots of Fernandel and Louis de Funès in the house, but then I fall flat on my sense of humour face when my OH starts following Italian humour however do understand and appreciate but am no great fan of German humour. So, I see humour as a name for many things, but then back to where I lost you and I was referring specifically to the Anglophone wit. I accept it is unique and why should we subject others to it? However, since people do not find the Big Yin funny, which defeats me, I often think there are pots of neurons around in lost property places. Take survive totally seriously then the last thing you will do is actually survive. I think the whinging is deplorable, as austere as I may often be I do not go down there, and as for knocking France and everything French including the people, I am not a fan. Knocking bureaucracy, GREAT, but I will do that on any given square millimetre of this planet, except when what they do is hilarious which it often is but people lack the irony to see that. So, to survive surviving with the word survive that doesn't necessarily mean survive but... wibble, wibble, wibble, wibble......
I meant the dreadful horse dung dumping Ken.
Yes, I know exactly where it is, I come from St Tropez & even though I no longer live there it is my home town - I wondered if you actually live in RsA or just cycle with the club as you mentioned it.
"French sense of humour, which is much more physical - hence the continuing following of Charlie Chaplin Festivals etc" that's because we make a difference between 'humour' and 'esprit' in French, esprit is usually translated as wit but there is more to it than that.
Verbal humour in other languages doesn't often translate & dead-pan humour isn't often picked up on unless your grasp of language and cultural codes is as good as a native's. Even what is funny at all is a question of culture - my Indo-Chinese greatgrandmother used to roar with laughter at things that were completely beyond me... they may have had them rolling in the aisles in Huê but we were in Nice.
And some people just don't have a sense of humour or wit or esprit or anything for all sorts of reasons & seem to get on OK without them. And it depends what your frame of reference is as well, it was pointed out to me kindly after I left University that there wasn't any point making jokes in dead languages because people didn't understand them, I had made some stupid pun which was funny only if you knew ancient Gk. So obv I looked like an smart alec weirdo idiot but it was an honest mistake as I'd spent my whole life up to then with people who either knew stuff or wanted to know it & didn't feel got at & liked jokes in many different dead & living languages. Well it is the same with Fr & Eng - I see it all the time, people just missing the point.
You forgot 3 years in the Hanoi Hilton but I digress.