England VS. France: The FINAL Battle! (7/31/2000) For many years I've suffered through history class after history class wondering to myself just what went wrong. You see, over the course of the centuries both England and France have at one point or another virtually ruled the world. Their conquests were truly global and they were considered to be the bad ass empires of their respectable days. But eventually something happened. Instead of being the ass kicking war-mongers that went out looking for fights and who used to pick their teeth with fake nations like Belgium and Prussia they became the turtles of the European community. They would just sit back and take it up the ass in order not to make a scene while newcomers like Germany trounced their old stomping grounds (hell, when I was in France a friend of mine sneezed and I answered her with a "gesundheit" to which the French government promptly surrendered to me). Well, that's about to change! While this competition is not designed to decide the "Greatest Country in the World" (that is alredy a tie between the good old US of A and Scotland [which shall be free again!!]), it will put to rest once and for all who is less wussy, England or France.

Both nations start out relatively equal with preconceived notions. England is thought to be a country run by mean assholes (as seen in both Braveheart and The Patriot) and everyone will tell you that France just sucks. But that was the problem, most of these beliefs are held by people who haven't been to either place. So I personally set out to discover the truth myself. Round 1: National Flags The British Union Jack has a cool name and a pretty rugged design. The red, white and blue color scheme isn't as cool as Old Glory, especially since there are no stars on it. At least New Zealand learned from England's mistake. The Frenchie flag doesn't even have a name as far as I know, and even if it did it would probably be named something lame like "Le Peepee d' Poopoo" or "Fuck off you touristy types before I sheet on you and your uncolored socks!". It's even lame as hell. Granted, the French flag is red, white and blue... but that's all there is to it. They didn't even try to do something cool with it. France is supposed to be a country of gay decorators and flaky artists! Three color stripes (that's if you count "white" as a color) on a piece of cloth does not make a flag. Point to England. When in France one of the first things I did was climb the Eiffel Tower with my friends to watch "Dave the Dazzling" throw a symbolic frog off the first tier. It was an action that did not go unnoticed as all the other tourists around us applauded and the Frenchies started muttering things to/at us in what sounded like baby talk (Karen later informed me that they were actually talking in their native tongue and using the foulest words that they could to insult us with their sinusy ridicule. It sounded like they were reading a Pastry Shop menu. What the hell kind of language has curse words that fruity?!).

Round 2: Nicknames Hmmmmm, a toughie. Either "Bloody Ol' England" or "Gay Paris".... Point to England. Round 3: Bathrooms The British name for bathrooms is "The Loo". I learned this the hard way after a long pub-stop when I pestered a store clerk for an hour about where the "Goddamn Bathroom" was. He had no frickin' clue why I would want a bath at that time of day in the middle of the city. I then asked about the "Men's Room" while doing a 6-pint jig in front of him with anger and pain solidifying on my face. It was only after the moron actually called over his manager did he understand that I was looking for the "Loo" and he directed me accordingly (it was too late at that point, but at least that lamer had to clean it up himself). Other than having to learn a new word, the bathrooms of England are cramped and they're always down a flight of stairs. This sucks, especially when emergencies arise (which is quite common when there are taverns and pubs on every corner). In France the Loo is called "La Toilet". It sounds cruder, but Frenchie bathrooms are a lot more spacious and they smell a whole helluva lot better. And their bowls have a much more satisfying flush to them that lets one know that all is right with the world. Point to France. Round 4: People Brits for the most part are really nice people. They may talk a bit funny and their teeth are all fucked up, but they're very pleasant... And they don't smell. As for the French (you can see where I'm going with this), well, the whole country must be suffering from some sort of lingering nassal cold because nobody there seems to be bothered with the fact that deoderant has yet to be introduced into the indiginous population (i.e. they have frighteningly bad b.o.). Granted French chicks are almost all hotties (about 95% of the female population is made up of foxes who dress slutty/hot), but they smell. Some try to cover this fact up by pouring on pints of powerful purfume each day (showers would be cheaper IMHO) but to no avail. While French men are just rude, smelly Miami Vice wannabees who don't care what us American pig-dogs think of their odorous appearance. Yeah, they show us. Now, the Brits don't smell (I know I just said that but it should not be something one takes for granted), but they all look alike. Seriously, all of London looks like one giant city-wide incestuous family reunion. The best way to describe the populous is "bland" (and they accentuate it with drab clothing too). Not that the women are all unattractive, far from it. I've dated a few Brits and everybody knows that the Rossman don't settle for nothing (well, not in the "looks" department anyway... Mental instability seems to be a settling point though). Point to England (well, beauty does get you places, but not smelly beauty).

Round 5: Subways In London the subway system is called "the Tubes". They're not for the claustrophobic, but they are pretty fun. It's easy to cross the city in just a few minutes and maybe only one change of lines. And I've never gotten robbed on one. In gay Paris (pronounced "Pah-Reeee" to make it sound even more gay) the subway is called "La Metro" and I got robbed on one. Well, actually Big D did... but he got his wallet back. You see, all of us had just gotten off the EuroStar bullet train from London and we were only in Paris for 10 minutes when we went underground to the Metro to ride it to our hotel. We got kinda seperated on the train, but we were all within a cart of eachother. Less then one minute into the ride Big D started shouting that somebody took his wallet and he began frantically looking around for a pickpocket type-person... and he found an obvious suspect (ugly, unbathed Haitian-immigrant with a baggy coat on in the middle of summer) right behind him. Big D told (not asked) the fly-feast to give him his wallet back (keep in mind that Big D is 6'4", 220lbs and an ex-college football player and the ugly unbathed man was about 5'2" and puny)! The dude in the coat kept playing dumb (playing?) and pulled out his own wallet to show that that was the only one he had. Welllllll, Big D then did something that I never thought he (or anybody) would/could have ever done: He grabbed the short and stinky guy's wallet and told him that he would only get it back after he returned Big D's ^o^! Everybody in the cabin sucked in their breath (and if this had been NY several people would have been shot by now) and the would-be thief started shouting shit like "You canno do zees!" and "Zat eez mine! Peepee d' poopoo!" Well, Big D would not have any of it and as the train started to slow down for the next stop the baggy coat Frenchie started to move for the side door. I reached for the door closest to me too to catch the rat if he did indeed bolt, but I shouldn't have worried so much as Big D did something even ballsier than before! He actually grabbed the little vermin and put him in a half nelson while searching the man for any signs of the lost wallet!! This was the coolest and funniest thing I have ever seen. After pulling out a total of four different billfolds, the train came to a stop and the smelly little man threw my main man's wallet to the ground (it was still in his coat sleeve) and raced out the now open door. We let him go (as Big D now had 5 wallets) and people began apologizing to us for "Heez rood beehavyour". Point to England. We then decided the the splat caused by the chucked froggy wasn't as fulfilling as we had originally hoped it would be, so we gave our spare amphibian to the nice guy you see to the left. He was climbing the tower anyway while adjusting all the digital clocks that seemed to be malfunctioning (they were all counting time backwards for some reason). He seemed cool even though he didn't speak any English or French. He looked like Saddam, so we just nicknamed him "Satan's Big Gay Lover".

Round 6: Language France is full of people speaking very "puffy" (Julie's term). You can't understand a word they say, but it's still somehow obvious that they're all putting you down. In England they speak English... Well, sort of (every other word is either "bluh-ee" or "blee-in"). It's close enough to English that you can at least order a pint of Guinness at a pub. And everybody can understand you and join you when you start making fun of the French. That's a plus. Now granted, there are a lot of people in Paris who speak passable English. Mostly waiters so that they can insult you in your own language. And while learning a language just to piss people off can be fun when you're an American and you're trying to get some foreign guy to leave so you can hit on his girlfriend, it's just annoying as piss when a waiter spits into you and your friends' faces that they "Have NO baguettes!! They HAVE NO jea-t' louis BAGUETTES! Ze cook wants to go home to eez wife, an I want to go home to my be-bee... We have no fuckin' baguettes!" It's even more bothersome when you are ordered by a police officer to remove the forks and knives from said gay Parisian and apologize for insulting his and the chef's lard-assed wives. Point to England. Round 7: Hotels English hotels suck. French hotels are pretty good. And the toilets actually have water pressure. Point to France. Round 8: Television Despite everything you may think and hear about British TV it ain't all that great. You think that every show is an hilarious Brit-com with wacky situations and a total of 6-7 episodes, and, well, you'd only be partly right. Yes, every show only has at most 5-6 whole episodes (and that's after 10 seasons), but only 1-2 a week are any good. Every once in a while you'll get a League of Gentlemen or Faulty Towers, but for every one of them you'll have to sit through an assortment of around 20,000 or so pure shit-coms and variety shows of such eye-bleeding pain to watch that you'll wonder why Churchill didn't just broadcast them to the German troops to break their moral and raise the rate of Nazi suicides 10 fold! French television is incredibly different. It's like a surrealist painting come to life! I thought I was tripping a few times before I realized that Jen just left the tube on while I was half asleep. And while England only has 3 stations in total (and 1 and 1/2 are just static), France has FIVE! Yeah, that's right, 5 TV stations (Woo-Hoo!)!! And what's weird is that 3 are in German. I don't question it, I just watch it. And what was really fun was watching Futurama, the Simpsons and the Mysterious Cities of Gold in French. I had no idea what they were saying (well, that's a lie with the Simpsons as I have every episode memorized), but I was laughing like a mad man while listening to Bender sound like a cream-puff while pronouncing his "Oo-lah-lah's" way too perfectly. Damn I'm easy to please. After the dude scaling the tower took our frog we quickly ran down to the ground level so that we could see it get hurled off at a hopefully incredible height. We didn't see that, but we did see Satan's Big Gay Lover and a bunch of his friends sprinting past us while looking at their watches and counting down in synch. The fireworks display that night at the E. Tower was pretty cool. I must admit that London never had anything this rugged going on. After the whole metallic mass had melted, Chi-Chi took it upon himself to put out whatever small fires were still burning molten heap. Continue on to part 2 of the Final Battle