Comments on: a culture utterly saturated with bureaucrats

By: edgar

edgar — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 21:49:18 +0000

Hopeless debate. If numbers had shown UK having more blogs than France you probably would have written how retarded was France. Such comments are not very useful neither do they help any comprehension of French (or British) society.

By: jm

jm — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 20:38:18 +0000

i am so calcified that it is hard to move now!
jm

By: Pierre

Pierre — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 04:25:10 +0000

You can say that France is calcified and that there is a big bureaucratie. It’s true. It could be BAD for your culture and your world’s view where everything is about money and anglo-saxon references. For french view, your things show that we have in France other interests than money and “performance” in anglo-saxons referees.
May be you can understand it with very good newspaper in your world; the Idler or if you can read french, you have to read books from Albert Cossery.
In France, there are people that know or remember that “working” and money are not natural and are sort of illness. As we have chance to have system that can feed us , we use it..
Please, excuse my english, i never learnt it in School, it’s too money and action oriented language. As french, i prefer langage of the Glande but i say you THANKS YOU for all your jobs to earn money for occidental world and then for us too when you spend it in France )

By: Thierry

Thierry — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 05:11:42 +0000

Probably Lo

By: Thierry

Thierry — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 04:57:23 +0000

Our culture is probably "calcifying" thanks to the amount of good cheese we have (that usually accompany non south african wine, btw). All this meaning, at least, WE do have a culture - even if you have to scrape more and more to (hopefully) find it - and WE do have good cheese. Also, saying our bureaucrats are "calcifying" is inappropriate since most of them are just neurotic: http://www.wouarf.com/blogtk/index.php?2005/07/10/64-quelques-causes-psychologiques-de-la-nevrose-des-elites-francaises---et-quelques-consequences

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 04:47:07 +0000

Loic,
I guess you are living in France. Why don’t you leave the country if it’s so calcified? It seems that somehow this system is profitable for you.

By: Vincent

Vincent — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 04:40:39 +0000

This post about the link between blogs and France is a little bit funny. Bureaucracy can’t explain everything in France, failures or success . And France has not the monopole of bureaucracy (I hope so). I think about other European countries such as Italy or Germany.
Blogs are booming in our country and to my mind there are two main explanations:
1) French people like to talk

By: Loic Le Meur Blog

Loic Le Meur Blog — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 03:17:13 +0000

"French culture is calcifying and utterly saturated with bureaucrats" It's not me saying that, it's Hugh, and not only on his blog, also in the Evening Standard. Here is the comment I have just left him: "I am sort of happy to arrive late in the discussion to

By: Loic Le Meur blog [FR]

Loic Le Meur blog [FR] — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 02:46:54 +0000

"La France, une culture calcifiée composée de bureaucrates" C'est Hugh MacLeod, un des blogueurs les plus influents d'Europe et ami anglais, qui le dit sur son blog et dans le Evening Standard. N'hésitez pas à aller gueuler un peu sur sa note, il y a quatorze commentaires

By: Loic

Loic — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 02:41:30 +0000

Hi Hugh’s club I am sort of happy to arrive late in the discussion to see that nobody argues on the French “calcifying” culture and the bureaucrats.
The explanation is probably that everyone agrees including me ?
I agree there is not enough creation currently in our country and it extremely slow moving and changing, like a fat cow with the french being well installed in comfort.
I would not quote however the U.K. as much more creative forward looking either, it is just the same in all old Europe, we’ll look more and more to China and India for that…
Except for entrepreneurship, agreed.
Now for selling South African wine, that’s easy, there are more and more Int’l wines being sold in France, just go in front of the Madeleine church in a huge wine supermarket there and you’ll see how many countries represented.

By: Brock Tice

Brock Tice — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 23:49:27 +0000

Hey Hugh, Just came across this blog post about the various types of closures including screw caps. May be of interest, given the previous comments: http://winecask.blogspot.com/2005/08/corked-wine-must-read-pb.html

By: sig

sig — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 16:03:39 +0000

Excellent, 14 comments and not a single one going “hmpff, French culture is not calcified!“
Must be spot on then, fact of life, not even worth a discussion etc.

By: pete

pete — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 18:39:47 +0000

“Down in New Zealand I still think screw caps are the province of cheap wine, though all the mid-to low-range brands do it now. “
Ata Rangi ‘aint cheap
Prefer screw tops myself. I’ve had enough of buying expensive vinegar.

By: Patrick Smith

Patrick Smith — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 02:58:42 +0000

Intentional or not, looks like your sensationalism may get a large and influential group of people talking about the wine.
And with some possibility of a nice coup — French cred for Stormhoek.
Nicely done.

By: Ric

Ric — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 23:50:31 +0000

No fool Brock — despite the snobbery, screw-caps will keep the wine better longer.