IdleRich

IdleRich
i'm in marseille right now, everything's shut and the only thing to eat is a kebab, and at the kebab shop a passer-by asked the kebab shop guys where the hell to buy cigarettes, because everything is shut. it's 6pm on a sunday, it's the centre of the second largest city.
Yeah hard to get cigs in Paris on Sunday
 

jenks

thread death
Jean Claude Izzy’s crime novels are all set in Marseilles and while 20 years old now are pretty prescient for how things turned out for the that part of the world.
 

martin

----
i'm in marseille right now, everything's shut and the only thing to eat is a kebab, and at the kebab shop a passer-by asked the kebab shop guys where the hell to buy cigarettes, because everything is shut. it's 6pm on a sunday, it's the centre of the second largest city.
Yeah, that's kind of how I remember it. Like Southampton, only with more junkies choking on benches.

Going down the subway was like The French Connection, though - all low-lighting and plastic orange seats. And there was a really nice Lebanese restaurant, but I've no clue if it's still there.
 

sus

Well-known member
My favorite part of Master and Commander is how the french sailors are treated like primitive people. Antiquated weaponry, anonymous oriental faces with pole axes, dark faces, stupid hand-to-hand tactics. A good English surgeon armed with a sword can take six at a time.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
The British establishment and men of empire look at the French and think “the neck not to have a failed revolution and restore infinite queenqueenqueen like us”

Despite many flaws and a colonial legacy to match us all, what a country. Italy is more zesty, Spain too, but I’d smash a jambon beurre and countless other food ponce gear, transport bistros, seafood towers. Only country where I’d drink again at self-harm levels and smoke cigarettes. Only a pack or two of Lung Enders. All that brandy, just waiting

Lascaux, Carnac, Zidane. The weight of occupation. All the blood from Caesar’s impact. Vercingetorix and Alesia. War after war in majestic/nightmare landscapes. Geotrauma hotspot but had ridiculous capers there. As a middlebrow, celtic identitarian always support them in sport against England, always
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
My favorite part of Master and Commander is how the french sailors are treated like primitive people. Antiquated weaponry, anonymous oriental faces with pole axes, dark faces, stupid hand-to-hand tactics. A good English surgeon armed with a sword can take six at a time.
Reading one of those Sharpe novels I learned that Napoleon's armies marched in columns of, I dunno, six abreast. At first they were successful cos they were well-drilled and intimidating, but when the English figured them out they were shit cos only six could fire at once, whereas the English spread out into a wide line and hundreds of them could fire at once and just mow them down easily.
 

sus

Well-known member
The thing about colonialism

Not that it was ever a good practice

But it's also impossible for a European country of that era not to

You get outcompeted and out invaded

Like we should expect a priori that any nation that could acquire colonies did
 

luka

Well-known member
Andy Lanigan

Andy Lanigan

3 years ago

After the battle, Wellington was in Paris, at a social event. A group of French officers, perhaps including some defeated by Wellington at Waterloo, noticed him entering the room, and as a gesture , or insult, turned their backs on him. A lady nearby expressed her shock to Wellington at their childish action, and he replied (sic) " It is of no concern to me M'am, I've seen their backs before". What a man.
 
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