Frenchies Fried

or, How to cop a Parisian 'tude

J'kid pas.

No, seriously, chaps, everyone knows my love/hate/hate relationship with my French confrères and con-soeurs (gad that sounds rude), hence my hilarity at clever Max Davison's report on how

"... Parisians have finally got wise to the fact that they are a byword for rudeness and launched a charm offensive.

As reported ... a new tongue-in-cheek travel guide by the Paris tourist board deconstructs

The Gallic Shrug

The Moue

... and some of the other magisterially dismissive gestures that so annoy visitors to the French capital.

Alors, you thought that waiter making juggling movements with his hands had dropped a croissant? Mais non. He was executing a gesture known as Les Boules, which is as offensive as it sounds.

You were baffled by that woman squeezing her thumb and forefinger together ..."

Clever stuff.

Check out, too, Max's deft spoof on the repertoire of gestures and facial expressions in the Londoner  s' armoury, a section more suitable for our transAtlantic cousins than those rhino hides across the Channel: Whereas yer Johnny Frog would simply shrug gallically at Max's cheeky barbs, les Merkans would go into a tizzy and take careful note so's not to put a brogue wrong.