Innovation, novelty and variety

[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]

Do you think these are more common in France or in the UK?
The last innovation I can remember is Sinclair's ZX81, I don't think there's much of it either side of the channel.
Novelty and variety sounds like lots of ways of packaging the same product... cheap and cheerless chardonnay from all over the world is not variety even if it looks like it on a supermarket shelf... the French have been a bit slow on this but now that the hypermarkets are becoming a force to be reckoned with they are catching up fast, imho. What do you think?

[letrangere]

We've discussed elsewhere recently how French students are not encouraged to develop original thought so this is bound to stifle innovation surely?

And with regard to variety, although I hate generalisations wouldn't others agree that, by and large, Britain today is less parochial than France? Not that that's always a bad thing for many of us love the strong emphasis placed on local culture and traditions in France. But others could find this restrictive verging on the boring.

M

[Iceni]

LAST EDITED ON 20-Aug-04 AT 12:52 PM (BST)

With regard to variety there have been quite a few programs/parts of programs on R4 recently to the effect that people have variety overload. One young person wanted a diferent shampoo as her regular one had been 'improved', they counted over 40 different shampoos and she was so stumped she bought the same one again - which was not agreeing with her hair but at least she knew the damage this one was doing.

Yes, variety in cheese and wine is a good thing as they are different but 40 shampoos? The outcome was if there were fewer, they would not keep putting new and different ingredients in them so reactions would not occur.

More and more pensioners are also having dificulty in shopping due to the sheer volume of products, many of which are made by the same manufacturer and just rebranded (you can tell this from the number above the bar code).

Novelty is normaly of Far Eastern origin and made of plastic in my book and Innovation is all around us, if you really think the last inivative item was the XZ81, I really don't know how you have survived without all the simple things such as Teflon, and you must have heard of stents which mean heart problems can be dealt with by little metal or plastic umbrellas which are inserted into veins. Innovation is everywhere, mostly we take it for granted. These things may not have been invented in Europe (US I think) but they are being used in new and exciting ways (the stents especially, ie British doctors are looking at inserting them into almost impossible to treat cancers and then heating them to kill the cancer).

To some people in the world innovation would mean something that would enable them not to walk 10 miles a day for water (this is mainly womens work) or wake up hungry. Perhaps we want too much innovation, novelty and variety, which we get at the expense of those who just want a life.

Sorry Pucette, might not have answered your question but it sure got me thinking

Di
http://www.iceni-it.co.uk

[Mysfloss]

LAST EDITED ON 21-Aug-04 AT 04:17 PM (BST)

LAST EDITED ON 21-Aug-04 AT 04:08PM (BST)

the carte a puce (on bank cards,telephone cards )invented in france by Roland Moreno. now being introduced in the uk

[SaligoBay]

Someone will take this the wrong way, but here goes anyway....

France, until quite recently, was a rural peasant economy.  And sorry to romantics among you, but peasants aren't well known for innovation and excitement.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  You can credit them with homespun wisdom and philosophy if you want, but this is the same the world over - Dostoyevsky, Hardy, whoever you want from whatever continent.

Now that France is becoming an urban economy and forced to move in global circles, things are improving.  At last you might get served (in 2004) ****tail sticks with cheese and pineapple on!

Because Britain "rejected" its traditional culture earlier, it had to replace it with other things, one of which is a constant search for the new.  Sometimes it's new and naff, sometimes it's new and useful, that's the nature of invention.

I LIKE new inventions and ideas, they show the amazing capability of the human brain.  If we never changed, we'd still be living in caves, AND we wouldn't have Funky Foam!!!!      

[SaligoBay]

LOL, and we wouldn't have online censors that didn't let me say "****tail sticks" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dick Smith]

[quote]LOL, and we wouldn't have online censors that didn't let me say "****tail sticks" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![/quote]

Looks like fun. How does it cope with '**** o' the North'? ****erel? Ball****? Ballspond Road? ****-up?

Kenneth Horne where are you, now that a nation cries out in its moment of need?

[SaligoBay]

Or that famous poem by Robert Burns, "**** up your Beaver".

SB, Juvenile Member

[Kazanton]

Oooo, let me try! C o c k t a i l stick. Tiny wooden stick. Which will it censor?

Hmmm how amusing....

Must get a coffee....

[Mysfloss]

[quote]Someone will take this the wrong way, but here goes anyway.... France, until quite recently, was a rural peasant economy. And sorry to romantics among you, but peasants aren't well known for innovat...[/quote]

"France, until quite recently, was a rural peasant economy. "    Please can you tell me how recent is recent because France  passed Britiain in the industrial nation league tables in the 1960s.Industrialisation started around 1830s to1850,I see that the superior spirit still lingers

[SaligoBay]

[quote]"France, until quite recently, was a rural peasant economy. " Please can you tell me how recent is recent because France passed Britiain in the industrial nation league tables in the 1960s.Industr...[/quote]

Mysfloss, a reasoned argument might have been nice, but not this "superiority" nonsense, which is nothing but a figment of your own fevered imagination.

 

 

 

[Mysfloss]

[quote]Mysfloss, a reasoned argument might have been nice, but not this "superiority" nonsense, which is nothing but a figment of your own fevered imagination.[/quote]

Your post ,to me ,reads like the stuff from school" were the best ,no one can do anything better than us".Question still remains how recent is recent?

[SaligoBay]

[quote]Your post ,to me ,reads like the stuff from school" were the best ,no one can do anything better than us".Question still remains how recent is recent?[/quote]

LOL, you're thinking of French education there, Mysfloss - hasn't changed for a century, and teaches French superiority in all things! 

If you were taught in this way in Britain, it must have been during the Boer War, because I wasn't taught anything of the sort.

How recent is recent?  Here's a random hit from Google on the subject.   I've never read anything that suggests any different:

"And unlike Britain, France was a rural economy for over a century until 1945. It retains a vast network of villages. Modernisation and the flight to better paid jobs in the cities came late. Most French people have personal or parental experience of rural life in a way that most English people do not"

Isn't this what attracts people to France (apart from cheap housing, of course)?   The rural idyll, surrounded by farmers who still use their grandfather's homemade sabots to grow their own eggs in? 

I've had a nice day with the bulls, I hope everyone else is happy too