Observations: Pour Femme ( + The Bint Itinerary)

I'm sure she has a "bubbly" personality.

So, I was going to write about French people’s perceptions of English women. I had already started writing this entry, but having just come back from a little trip to England (Bristol to be precise), I feel I have plenty to say on the matter myself. I’ll give you a quick break down of the feedback my French compatriots gave me regarding that weird and [rarely] wonderful thing that is the English woman. Unfortunately it’s mostly negative...

• They like to wear ridiculously short skirts - regardless of the occasion, the climate or their body type.
•  They wear far too much makeup – often to their detriment. Anyway, caking your face and eyes in makeup only makes you look more tired and rough if ever you dare to go au naturelle. It really is a vicious cycle! 
• Linked to point 2, is the fact that they wear awful amounts of fake tan. The tragic thing here is that the French men have said to me that the white skin of an English girl is both charming and alluring. So why hide it under layers of orange? 
• Their choice of heels is astounding – most of the time they’re incapable of walking in them. 
• They choose to not wear tights or coats in winter – which to a French person is particularly ludicrous given our geographical position on the planet

Essentially, the way the English woman dresses herself dominates the observations. In short, to quote a friend of mine, “They’re not well dressed – at any age”. Although apparently the way they “dare to wear bright colours, interesting shaped clothing and up to date fashion, even if they’re not a size 6” is something that is admired. Now is maybe a good time to tell you about Michel Audiard. He was a French screenwriter who once wrote "les cons, ça ose tout, c'est même à ça qu'on les reconnaît", which roughly translates to “idiots dare everything, that's how you spot them"(Whilst idiots is not the most accurate translation of the les cons, I think one c-word per paragraph is probably enough. I’m sure you get the idea). I’ll let you form your own opinions on that one.

Some other brief observations not related to clothes are: 

Worthless tart.

• They make great writers (no specifics were given here – personally I find the works of Jane Austen interminable, and I’m not sure the young lady on the right will be winning the Nobel rrize in literature any time soon).
• They’re “vulgar” and “lurid” –it seems the positivity towards the English birds was short lived.
• They’re bad cooks, although this may be linked to the fact that English cuisine is not rated too highly by a lot of French people. I know though, that the only roast dinner better than y mother’s, is her mother’s!
• They drink far too much – well, see my early entry related to this!

Alas, it seems the French aren’t too impressed with Blighty’s efforts at producing a good woman. I’m all for patriotism, but on the whole I have to agree. Whilst I had these kind of thoughts before I came to France, having gone to Bristol and seen English women en masse for the first time in just over 3 months, I was horrified. In England, a night out in the pub seems to justify wearing skirts so short and tight they constantly require adjustment and yanking down so that they cover the, more often than not, fat arse of the girl wearing it. Whilst this is unattractive in itself, the way that the tightness of the skirts/dresses restricts the girls’ movement and forces them to waddle about like penguins makes for a doubly unpleasant sight. It’s honestly mind blowing – what sort of man do they want to attract? It’s as though they’re in fancy dress (that’s like a costume party to any non English speakers who are reading) and the theme is cheap whore/tart/slag.

Obviously I’m generalising, but on my night out in Bristol I really was hard pushed to spot a girl who looked like she had even a hint of class. And that is the biggest tragedy – I know that whilst of course some of them are indeed braindead, many of them actually have brains and personalities that I’m sure are quite charming. They’re drastically underselling themselves by opting to reveal as much flesh as is possible without actually being naked and dressing like pornstar Barbies It screams, “Yes I’m a bimbo but I hope the fact that you can see my knickers, because my skirt is too short, and my tits, because they’re falling out my shitty skimpy top compensates for my lack of a personality and/or brain”. How many times have you seen a girl like this? Sure, she is a braindead mong and almost a shade away from being a full blown caricature, but I recall 95% of the girls from my university days looking not too dissimilar to her at all. And these were educated women! Women who were in the upper echelons of academic achievement and yet they still dressed like cheap tarts! Why are they compelled to do such a thing?! It belies all their other qualities and facets and makes them wholly unattractive (in my opinion anyway). No one wants to bring a scrubber home to their mother!

Classy Bird

I know that it’s easy for me to criticise as I’m on the other side of the channel and am with a very classy French lady, but surely we should all recognise that you don’t have to squeeze into the smallest dress you can find in order to look “sexy”. Sometimes less really isn’t more! Obviously ‘peacocking’ is a natural and wonderful phenomenon, but it doesn’t mean you – but why not also rely on your brain and must bare all or worst still, completely change your natural look in order to attract someone. Why not rely on some of the cognitive and intellectual abilities we, as humans, were blessed with in order to attract the attention of a potential mate.

French women, on the whole (you do still see a few dodgy looking birds around the Gare du Nord and Chatelet areas of Paris] seem to have nailed the art of dressing with class. Their outfits are elegant but not overly conservative/vanilla and they manage to juggle being tasteful as well as sexy. On top of that, they barely apply any makeup when they go out – it’s all very light, fresh and natural looking and they are much better for it. For one, it means they don’t develop crow’s feet on their eyes or have wrinkled foreheads when they’re 19 and 20 – in fact I have met many French women in their late 20’s and even their 30’s who have fresher, younger looking skin than most English girls who are at university age. Whatever happened to the idea of the precious and delicate English rose?!

Obviously the whole topic of dress sense and taste is a hugely subjective area, but I think anyone that has seen any English town/city on any given Saturday night will know what I’m talking about. Similarly, I think anyone who has also been to France recently will be able to recognise the sheer contrast between the two nation’s women, and at least see where I’m coming from.

I suppose that I should re-iterate that this was a grossly generalised piece of writing and hope I have not offended anyone with either the my observations or the ones that I have relayed on behalf of the French. I know not all English women are classless skanks with wardrobe tendencies that border on the whorish. But you know what they say... no smoke without fire eh? Feel free to come back at me with your own comments below if you have observations of your own, be them contradictory or otherwise.

For now though, I’ll leave you with something that a good friend of mine wrote to me by way of a rant. I think it’s an extremely funny and [sadly] remarkably accurate description of the mentality of some (and I mean only some) English girls. I have altered some parts very slightly but I can take no credit for it. It is called The Bint Itinerary and it goes like this:

8:00pm: Pack numerous outfits and head over to hosts house to get ready.
8:15pm: Arrive at hosts house and greet others bints in the standard fashion - over-enthusiastic "Hi!!!" , “Heyyyaaa” etc and kiss on cheeks.
8:30pm: Evaluate which skirt/dress is the shortest and accompany with fake tan and copious amounts of make-up until finished, whilst listening to the current [insert generic crap club] playlist.
9:30pm: Drink more than you can handle at pre-drinks, normally vodka with some exotic fruit juice that may as well be coke. Initiate contact with any male targets via SMS in preparation for meeting up later.
10:00pm: Arrive at 1st bar and drink shots to build enough confidence to hover around the 'coolest' group of guys in the venue. Look for approval from all group members before doing so.
10:15pm: Dance in exactly the same way to every song that is played until the above mentioned guys approach.
10:20pm: Ask the guy what sport he plays and/or how much money he earns. Then go back to group and laugh about guy regardless of his answer.
11:00pm: Recieve text from previously mentioned male target regarding end destination and then persuade group of girls to go there using whatever excuse necessary.
11:30pm: Immediately ditch friends in order to meet up with guy.
12:30am: Vodka from earlier catches up on you and you realise that you might end up embarrassing yourself. Immediately return to group of girls.
1:30am: Realising that you are all too drunk to last until the end of the night, agree to leave the club going home via a takeaway for some 'comfort' food.
2:00am: Arrive home together and discuss what an amazing night you've had and talk about all the guys that you could have pulled if you had wanted to.
3:00am: Go to bed without removing make-up.
10:00am: Wake up looking rough/real. Again talk about the amazing night before. If any girl leaves the room or goes home early, bitch about her behaviour from the previous night.

Above all else...ensure that you drink enough alcohol to be able to blame any embarrassing situation/incidents on being drunk so as to preserve your self-perceived status.

Pretty close to the mark, eh? If you need a fix of Rock n Roll, I think the title of this [dangerously close to being plagiaristic] track is relevant.

Ciao.