Thursday, July 29, 2010

Number 27 – British men are a little limp in the wrist, if you get my meaning

I wasn't going to dignify this one with a comment, but I thought better of it, so, here goes.
Mr Grasse says that he believes that men in the upper classes of Britain are a bit “fey” and that this is because of spankings they got from their teachers at school. Since 1987 corporal punishment has been outlawed in the whole of the UK, however it is still legal in 20 US states.
Also whilst at school they had “furtive cloakroom gropings” according to Mr Grasse, where is your evidence? I know that some children “experiment” whilst growing up, maybe the British are the only ones secure enough to admit it.
The last point Mr Grasse makes is that the Romans realised the need to allow homosexuality within their army, which made for a happier bunch of soldiers, this is certainly the case, and in Britain we allow homosexuals to join the forces, does the USA? At present I'm sad to say no.

Number 26 – They think terrorists are heroes

This is, I think one of the sickest, most hurtful things that Mr Grasse says in the whole book, how dare he say such a thing, he is a very, very disturbed “man”.
He states that on bonfire night that “the whole country sings and dances around a bonfire”, no we don't, we do however have fireworks and a bonfire, on top of which an effigy of Guy Fawkes is burned, so some 405 years after Mr Fawkes attempted to blow up the House of Commons he is still paying for his crimes, to emphasise this we have a nursery rhyme that goes “Remember remember the fifth of November, Gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why the gunpowder treason, Should ever be forgot”.
Mr Grasse also states that this day is a national holiday, wrong again, it isn't, simple as that.
The last point Mr Grasse comes up with is that “such displays are in poor taste, and you won't be seeing them stateside on September 11th 2101 or 2501.” I doubt that you will see them in Hiroshima on August 6th 2145 or 2545 either.

Number 25 – They created the first very stupid and very violent puppet show for children

Wrong! The Punch and Judy puppet show can trace it's roots back to 16th century Italy, and was extremely popular in France.

It was (and still is) basically a story showing the fight between good and evil – Punch although a funny character always got his comeuppance in the end – it taught children that if they led their lives without violence and greed then they would have happier lives.
The stick that Punch used to hit Judy with was not a walking stick as Mr Grasse states, it was in actual fact a “slap-stick” which was a device that, although it caused a loud crack, used very little force to the person being struck (it is of course where we get the word slapstick).