Greetings cards

[0BRIAN WOODHEADI,m here in franceddMMyyyy0Falseen-USI,m here in franceTrue]

Willy,you always get some prat going on about la differencedo you read all of private eye or just look at the pictures.it,s grim is it up north?

[Will]

Outcast - I read every word, while sitting on the bog. And I look at the pictures too. That's what an education does for you, sometimes I think I'd have been better off without one. But Private Eye isn't a patch on The Oldie .

Yes, it's grim in Normandy but not as bad as Islington. I'm here in France too by the way.

[opas]

Will the conq, I had a bump on the head yesterday so can be excused for being more thick than normal....If I was going to have an 8 ft inflatable , it would have less gut than santa, a six pack to go wild over with a hairy chest a sun tan and  a shave to boot....just remembered my 1.5 ft santa needs a B****** , whoops too many letters a Blow up! bissous Mrs O

[French Kat in England]

"Absolutely, New Years' cards are sent in the New Year, and exclusively to those who one cannot greet in person... "

I agree completely with this and I would add that you are supposed to do it between the 1st and the 31st of january

Now about the remark about the French not being able to spell, wow, what a great comment when you realise how bad the English are at spelling their own language

I was and (still am) surprised when I arrived in England 4 years  ago at how common it is for people  not to be able to spell here ! It seems like everyone write according to their ears (is that english ? ). "hear" becomes "here", "their" becomes "there" etc... not talking about the seemingly unknown rule about when to use an apostrophe ! This is particularly frightening when I can identify about 3-4 spelling mistakes from a A4 document coming from my daughter's preschool , or in newspaper or  subtitles on TV (the one that I will always remember is a certain "mast bate" for "*********e" and no, it was not a naughty programme but only Big Brother )...

And about the tradition of sending cards to everyone here, all I can think of is what a waste of paper ! Ok, I am not in my country so I do it to not to offend people. But I still find it hard to understand the aim of all this (unless it is to win a popularity contest ? ). If at least, the cards were personalised a bit and you would actually use them to ask for news from people you don't often see, then ok, but what the point of just a "dear X" and a signature at the end ? Why can't you just say it in person ? I have also dutifully written 30 cards for all Abi's friends at preschool, most of whom I don't even know, but felt I had to do it as the teachers gave us all a list of all the children for that purpose...

Help, I can feel I am going to get lynched now Be merciful please

But I thought it could be interesting for you to read a french point of view too

French Kat in England

[French Kat in England]

Blimey, I have just realised that I missed 2 pages of this topic ! I didn't realise the debate had gone that far. I am sorry if I offended anyone. I was just reacting to the poster who talked about spelling mistakes.

About the comment about the French being possibly tight fisted (wow, just learnt a new word ! ... and I can't remember the right spelling already ), you must admit that it is easy to buy cards here. I got my 30 ones for 75p ! And they were nice too ! You will never find that kind of price in France

French Kat in England

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

Much as I would love to disagree I can't. Written English by British people is in a parlous state. Most Christmas cards are a waste of paper, devoid of sentiment.