RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31741, 26 July 1968, Page 17

RANDOM REMINDER

VIVA LA FRANCE

With the second test match at Wellington tomorrow the French Rugby team’s tour is drawing towards its close. One can not but wonder whether that man at Blenheim who saw the tourists play their first game, and lose it, has yet mellowed sufficiently to admit to some virtue in things French. Speaking to a captive audience after the game, he denounced French Rugby in vigorous terms. From there he moved on to the bomb tests, with which he was not in agree-

ment, and French students, who according to his rating fell just a little below all other students. He made it clear he did not hold the French political system in high regard, and as for de Gaulle . . . The agricultural methods of the French then came in for some trenchant criticism, and so did their army. The social habits of the race were also strongly censured. His audience slowly assumed that glazed look which the Ancient Mariner would have recognised. It

was time, obviously, for the denunciation of the French to be brought to an end. After a few hasty words about tbe much over-rated French cooking, and the poor quality of their wines, he came to light with his final, crushing pronouncement. “You,” he said, “have seen kids playing that French cricket?” His audience admitted that it had. “Well, there you are,” the anti-Gallist thundered “it just shows how bloody ■tupid the French are.”