I see Spain, I see France
It’s extraordinary what the Telegraph considers news.
Michelle Obama fights to control summer dress in windy London
Seriously.
What next? Michelle Obama eats a cress sandwich? Michelle Obama moves her head from left to right? Michelle Obama blinks?
Well let’s not hastily accuse the Telegraph of triviality. Of course the story was newsworthy, for the very pressing reason that if Michelle Obama had lost the fight with her dress, the Telegraph would have been able to look up her skirt. Obviously that’s a significant news item in anybody’s book. Granted, it didn’t happen, but even the unrealized potential is newsworthy. In fact why not just skip the risks attendant on the weather and ask her to pull up her skirt herself? That would make an even better story! Playful, friendly, trans-Atlantic – it would be great. Why not ask her what color her knickers are?
What are you looking at? Listen, if women don’t want to be sniggered and leered out, they shouldn’t leave the house. If they step outside, they’re fair game. Everybody knows that.
Oh Fuck! The telegraph! Well at least it wasn’t damian thompson – or maybe it was. He does have some unusual bees in his bonnet – and i can just see a knicker fetish fitting in that warped little mind. Anyway, all this BS is the reason the Queen learned long ago to always weight the hemlines of her skirts and dresses……
British media – faugh!!!!!
It is indeed a useless thing to write an article on, but I suppose now that the news cycle is finished analyzing Princess Bea’s wedding hat, they casting about for new fluff pieces. I do think the English–at least those of a certain age–pride themselves on preparedness for any weather. I took the tone to mostly nationalistic in that sense, i.e. “you’ll seldom catch our Royals with windswept hair or ruffled skirts, WE know how to dress for these sorts of things. *sniff*”
The line about the first lady “desperately protecting her modesty” is just overwrought, though. And at one point her hair was standing on end?! Holy shit, she’ll never be able to visit again! *eyeroll*
Oh well that wedding hat is a whole different story. Now that’s worth attention.
Her hair, on the other hand, looks like she just stuck a fork in the electric socket. Now that’s funny. The dress, not so much.
“Spain” doesn’t scan. I think it’s supposed to be “I see England, I see France, I see [insert name here]’s underpants.”
But maybe – probably – I missed something.
Um, but you’re absolutely right about the bizarre emphasis.
Wearing a skimpy summer dress like that is just asking to be leered and sniggered at anyway. Doesn’t Mrs. Obama know this?
Seriously?Tune in tomorrow, when the Telegraph will speculate that Mrs. Obama will drop something on the sidewalk, bend down to pick it up, and give several passers-by a glimpse of her cleavage.
What, she is not wearing a burka, what with her husband being a muslin. Oh! The humanity.
Over here in Southern California we say “I see London I see France. I see X’s underpants.” Lately an airport security version about the stupid TSA back scatter scanners has been passed around, “Can’t see London, Can’t see France until we see your underpants.”
The Telegraph article is ridiculous and smarmy. Could a journalist actually feel national pride over the wisdom of the Queen’s wardrobe mistress or whoever sewing weights into her hems? Is that the idea? Clearly we don’t know shit over here in the colonies about how to prepare our clothes for leaving the house.
I think this piece of fluff was aiming to try to get one over on all those uppity colonials, look, our top lady doesn’t have problems like this, we’re soooooo much more sophisticated. The tory graph still hasn’t got over losing the war of independence. Excuse me while I go and throw up.
The leading story on all three of the radio stations to whose news I listen was that Cheryl Cole, she of the manufactured prettiness and the violent past and the extremely underwhelming voice*, has been fired as a judge from some talent show! Gosh! I can’t think of ANYTHING more interesting going on in the world today than THAT!
Can we start that whole humanity thing again from scratch please?
*this is the most tactful way I could think of of saying that she sounds like a drunken karaoke singer slurring her way through a Whitney Houston number in a grotty Witherspoons in Hull. I.e., someone who can’t sing.
“Spain” does too so scan, it’s a dactyl, or whatever that short short long meter is called. Pentameter isn’t the only meter there is you know! I see Spain/I see France/I see Jason’s…and then it breaks down with underpants, but the first bit is short short long. So there.
I’m with Caudimordax. I always learned it, “I see London/I see France/I see Person’s underpants.” Which actually fits, scheme-wise.
With the most important part of my reaction out of the way… This is exactly the reminder I need when I hear about all the atheists getting upset that some people want more women speaking at conferences. It’s just disgusting how sexist society is.
Sometimes I wish we could just pray to Athe and wind up on our own planet….
I see London, I see France…. I see _____________ underpants! What we want to see is the US getting out of the Middle East, coming home, addressing their Everest of war-induced debt, and solving their own economic problems.
What passes for news only titillates or panders to the gossip hungry masses. The real news… maybe if you’re lucky someone will post real news on Facebook or Youtube. Hey…maybe one day, we’ll all be “your man or woman on the street, bringing the real news to the small screen.”
This is Robyn reporting from Toronto, where it’s still raining. 40 days and 40 nights…ain’t got nothin on us.
So amazing that such absolutely trivial, manufactured events are considered `news’ and are broadcast. And if it doesn’t somehow, no matter how involve, no mattr how vaguely, a celebrity of however meager a status, one can be created. There is, quite apparently, a demand and relish for this kind of mindless non-info by our current culture, tho it’s most distressing to me to accept that this is representative of the type of intellect that makes up the majority of our society.
What? You mean it scans? It doesn’t scan in any English rhyme-scheme I know of – and it also doesn’t work in the more basic sense, because who the hell pronounces London as London or person as person? Scansion depends on the existing pronunciation. Other than that…great scheme. :- )
Sherlock Holmes has some interesting ideas about concentrating on trivial information like this. In “A Study in Scarlet”, chapter 2, he and Watson have just met, and W is trying toform some kind of idea of what kind of man Holmes is. Having commented (to the reader) that H seems to have an immense knowledge ofsome fields and total ignorance of others…. —————————————My surprise reached a climax, however,when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theoryand of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized humanbeing in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earthtravelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary factthat I could hardly realize it.”You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression ofsurprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.””To forget it!””You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally islike a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furnitureas you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that hecomes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him getscrowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so thathe has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workmanis very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He willhave nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but ofthese he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. Itis a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and candistend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for everyaddition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It isof the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowingout the useful ones.””But the Solar System!” I protested.”What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you saythat we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make apennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”————————————————
I totally agree with the rest of your comment though, Doug.
It’s funny about atheist conferences…I watch bits on video or read bits of transcripts and so often when it’s men talking about the subject it looks as if they’re thinking atheism is a guy thing and they have to “invite” more women in. I never ever think of it as a guy thing. I do think the administration of conferences must be way too packed with guys and that they do way too much inviting of the same guys over and over, but I don’t think of atheism itself as guy property. No doubt many of those guys do, but I sure as hell don’t.
Anapaest.
And Holmes couldn’t have deduced all those deuced clever things unless he’d known an awful lot, so Doyle was just making it up.
And yes, guys will just go on and on and on being guys, so we just have to keep shouting till they stop doing it. Well, you know what I mean.
@Ophelia
My bad. I blame it on growing up in a fairly rural area (Also because I was stupidly italicizing the rhyming part of the word instead of the accentuated syllable); proper pronounciation sometimes tangles me up. Especially remembering that london isn’t pronounced lun-din.
Also, I agree with your guy-for-a-guy theory. It’s entirely subconscious, but when I’m looking I can find a lot of instances even in casual conversation where I realize I would have said something majorly or (I think worse) minorly differently were I more thoughtful about both sexes being present. I can see where male confrerence organizers and speakers would also have the same biases clouding their speeches. Overcoming that priviledge is something that takes a lot of work, and I’m glad for a great blog network that pushes athiest conferences to expand beyond “White guy talks about X.”
Sorry – tried to post a Beatrice hat pic and failed. Link here:-
http://rosiebell.typepad.com/rosiebell/2011/05/when-news-items-clash.html
Ahahahahahahahahahaha – Rosie’s Beatrice hat pic. Hilarious. Everybody click on it.
There are some strange hypotheses on just what that hat’s meant to be.
http://chzmemebase.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/memes-whos-that-pokemon.jpg
It’s definitely “I see London, I see France…” Just start googling them. Type in “I see London” and google knows to add the word underpants immediately. Type in “I see Spain” and you can continue all the way to “underpa” before anything related to the rhyme appears, and what appears then is this blog post. Ophelia, you appear to be the only person ever to use Spain in this rhyme (on the internet, at least).
OK, I should’ve looked harder. You’re not the *only* person to ever use Spain, but it’s clearly a rarity.