'joke' doing the rounds in France

[Teamedup]

Bloke gets to heaven and St Peter lets him in and explains that he'll get a harp and can lounge on a fluffy cloud for eternity. After a while the bloke is bored and siddles up to St P and asks about hell.  St P says the bloke can go and try it if he wants, and he'll get him back in a week.

So off he goes and has a great time, everything just right to give maximum pleasure. At the end of the week St P whisks him back to heaven. But the bloke is really bored and goes to see St P again. He pleads to go back to hell and wants to stay there forever. So St P acquiesces and off the bloke goes.

And hell, is his worst nightmare, he is tortured, abused and humiliated. And he is screaming why oh why when Sarko appears, his tone grave, 'do not' he tells the man 'confuse being on holiday with immigration'.

 

Hope it hasn't lost too much in translation.

[Unknown]

Very good TU

[Will]

Thanks TU. It's amazingly philosophical for a French joke. Or maybe the Normans have a less developed sense of humour than the southerners. Jokes round here usually involve falling over or farting, and can be rather cruel.

[Miki]

TU,

Yes, we are getting more and more similar types of jokes like that around here, some taking the pee out of the way, the Brits come over and buy their pile of stones, live in a caravan, freeze in winter, boil in summer and many do seem genuinely astonished by it all.

[Teamedup]

Hmmmmmmmm, yes but, around here we don't have the 'brit' population, we don't think it is aimed at 'us'.

[RumziGal]

The other one I've heard a few times, and which j'arrive pas à laff at, because I just don't get it, is the one about "what's the difference between Arlette Laguiller and thingy-Bayou-whatsie" - come on guys, you know what I mean, my gnatty memory and all that...

Anyway, the answer is...... one of them leads le camp des travailleurs, and the other one is is the camp des travailleurs.  [8-)]

Or something like that.   Actually, I do laff in a panicky sort of "what on earth are they on about" sort of way. 

I read "La Face Karchée de Sarkozy" on the plane yesterday, while we waiting patiently for Stansted to give us a landing créneau so that we could take off.    It was a long wait!  [:)]      

 

[Tony F Dordogne]

Many a true word spoken in jest - Hell and Sarkozy seem the natural combination, he's even there telling people what's happening in their lives and strutting round like he runs the place come to think of it, where does he hide his horns and tail?

Hell is French invention of course, founded by de Gaulle, it's red-ish in colour there so must be where the socialists go if the plethora of Gaullist signs suddenly appearing in 24 for the upcoming election are anything to go by.  There are so many of them they almost sort of feel like graffiti.

[Miki]

[quote] Hmmmmmmmm, yes but, around here we don't have the 'brit' population, we don't think it is aimed at 'us'.

[/quote]

I know TU but no doubt they will have seen on the TV and  read in the journals about all us Brits and our quirky habits, yes?

[Tresco]

I don't get told many 'jokes' here but this one does seem to work whichever group of immigrants (including some of those who don't regard themselves as such) it's taken as being directed at.

Very clever (and cruel).

[Teamedup]

Ah yes, cruel. Lots of us think that Sarkozy will be just like that, well, would like to be, in spite of the soothing verbage he comes out with 'now'.

[Tresco]

Do you mean a bit like this, TU?[:'(]

 

[Teamedup]

Yeah, well a bit, you know. Scary innit.

[Tresco]

Did you see the 'debate' on France 1 last week? Did anyone see the debate last week? I think Jon mentioned it in passing somewhere.

He (Sarko, not Jon) 'performed' very well I thought, but then he nearly always does - somehow offering everyone what they want - even if it was the oppostite of what they wanted in the first place. He is very persuasive. [:'(]

Very smooth, as you say.

I saw a poll reported in le Figaro Which indicated that his performance in that 'debate' and his campaign generally, is impressing potential voters who have never voted for a right wing candidate before. Whether that will translate into large numbers of votes is another thing altogether, of course.

Shameless edit, made to bump this up the 'active' list'.

 

[Tresco]

My shameless edit failed, so I'll reply to myself to bump this up. Did anyone in France watch the debate?

[Biloute]

[quote user="Tresco"]

He (Sarko, not Jon) 'performed' very well I thought, but then he nearly always does - somehow offering everyone what they want - even if it was the oppostite of what they wanted in the first place. He is very persuasive. [:'(]

[/quote]

I've watched most of it and must say your description is spot on- after watching him I was telling myself 'I don't get it, I know I

shouldn't agree with what he says, but somehow he managed to make me

think I do'. It was really in +claire (saturday noon on canal+) that I've seen someone uncovering his rhetorics. But I think part of the problem is

that sometimes I do have the feeling that the people facing him either look up to him like a god or watching him closely, just waiting for

him to say something that may be interpreted as racist or facist. It

feels like those opposing him hate him with such a passion and therefore lack the required

subtlety to challenge him.

[5-element]

[quote user="Biloute"]
after watching him I was telling myself 'I don't get it, I know I shouldn't agree with what he says, but somehow he managed to make me think I do'. [/quote]

That is spot on. Unfortunately I get exactly the same - and I passionately dislike him and all he stands for, he is such a dangerous and treacherous dog. But he is an consumed artist at playing his audience, comes across so sincere, so sensible.

I just think: "If he can manage to almost convince me, what about the people who already agree with him?" and then I wonder if anyone else stands a chance. Some people at work already talk about him as if he has already won the election and is our new president[+o(]

Rumzigal - I didn't get the joke about Arlette Laguiller and Francois Bayrou either[:(]

[Tresco]

I'm not alone in being bemused and be-dazzled then.

My critical faculties (what are left of them) are on full alert. I'm going to Patent a Sarko-Sneakoscope*, dedicated to rooting out  Sarko Double Speak.

*That's a Harry Potter reference. I did say my critical faculties were kaput, didn't I?[Www]

[Teamedup]

I always think of him as a dwarf silk tongued snake......... and if we weren't going, I reckon I 'd be first shipped out when he gets in.

[RumziGal]

have any of you read the BD "La Face Karchée de Sarkozy"?

If you already disliked him, you'll dislike him even more after reading this!

He's a smart cookie, certainly smarter than Sego, and seems to have limitless reserves of great energy.  But I didn't like the way he talked to that youngster in an interview once.   There are other things I don't like about him too, of course, but for me that was a decisive moment in forming my opinion of him.

 

 

[Tresco]

I think he's going to win. I really do. Did you see what he said in the 'debate'?

It was words to the effect of '.. if M.Le Pen says something is blue, I'm not then obliged to say that thing is red...'.

That was incredibly 'clever' of him, and seeing Le Pens support now slipping, I have no doubt where it's going.

[Catalpa]

Sego is certainly disliked around here but I have to say that is in a very rural area, with a mostly over 50 and probably over 60 population. That will have something to do with it, I think. Although, of course, they don't like Sarky either. But I detect a more passive dismissal of him than of Sego. She's lost the mo. Imo. [;-)]

[Biloute]

[quote user="Tresco"]

I think he's going to win. I really do. Did you see what he said in the 'debate'?

It was words to the effect of '.. if M.Le Pen says something is blue, I'm not then obliged to say that thing is red...'.

That was incredibly 'clever' of him, and seeing Le Pens support now slipping, I have no doubt where it's going.

[/quote]

The guy simply knows how to use rhetorics- if you listen closely to what he says, usually he doesn't really say anything meaningful, he never gives his opinion, but simply lets the listener to put the meaning he/she wants to hear into his words. When they looked into this 'debate' on Canal +, they claimed he was asked eventually only 40-something questions; at the same time, he posed over 60 questions to the audience, questions that obviously had no answers, rhetorical questions...

RumziGal- what was this incident you were referring to?

[5-element]

A couple of years ago, (sorry can't remember the name of the French TV programme) I saw him (Sarkozy) do a fantastic demolition job on Tariq Ramadan, who is pretty clever himself. That was the first time I really saw Sarkozy at work - his tack was to ask Ramadan whether he (TR) agreed with his brother who is in favour of lynching adulterous women - it was very below-the-belt, phrased in such a way that nobody could have answered without appearing to betray either family, or Islam, or his own convictions - total double-bind. Tariq Ramadan,  usually pretty smart and articulate,  was effectively silenced.

Sarkozy really revealed himself in that programme - he was like a vicious little dog who got his teeth in your leg and just won't let go. (BTW I couldn't be deported for "diffamation" even if he wins [:P])

[RumziGal]

[quote user="Biloute"]RumziGal- what was this incident you were referring to?
[/quote]

As you would expect, I can't find it on YouTube now!  [geek]   

But it was Sark with a studio audience, and a yoof from les banlieues asked him a question, and Sark was extremely cutting and snooty about the lad's accent.    It really wasn't nice. 

Here's something else for you all to watch instead:  http://www.jer666.com/sarko-war-youtube/