And The Winner Is…

Posted on February 27, 2011 in Russian Roulette Sunday | 1 comment

Now, I’m not entirely sure what to make of this.  Chrissy lives in England – which is already next door to France – so, unless her brother lives in Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Andorra or Spain, this won’t work.  Plus there’s no cricket in France, she wouldn’t like that, and cricket is far better than brothers, as my sister will happily confirm.

In second place is Rachel Simmonite’s entry:

I, a reader of the wonderful website 7 Reasons (.org), would like to win France because it would be the ideal place to put my shoes, and it would be a good bargaining tool to help me take over Britain, then after that THE WORLD.

Now, if I had feet half the size of Central Europe, I’d want somewhere to put my shoes too.  This is an entirely laudatory use of France.  Where Rachel’s entry falls down is the suggested use of the occupation of France to take over Britain, and then the world.  Or THE WORLD, as she shouted.  This has already been tried – by a monobollocular chap with a funny moustache – and it doesn’t work.  I appreciate that her plan differs somewhat to that of Herr Hitler, in that she intends to use France as a bargaining tool, rather than as a picturesque military base, but how would that work?  Would she issue threats?  “Give me the Isle of Wight or I’ll blow up Dieppe!”  I can already hear the massed voice of 60 million Britons saying, “Okay, blow up Dieppe then.  Whatever.”  “Give me the Queen or Nicolas Sarkozy gets it!”  “Bahahahahahha!”  The plan is fundamentally flawed.  Rachel is clearly the Wile. E. Coyote of the Win France competition.

Winging its way in from Greece (where the exchange rate is 2.5 Greek words to 1 English word) is the final entry that we received – which is also our winner – by Ασπασία Ματθαίου (easy for her to say):

I, a reader of the wonderful website 7 Reasons (.org), would like to win France because I would be able to stop that awful film overdubbing business which is just wrong. Viewers should be allowed to enjoy actor’s real voices in the way that they actually speak them. Why would anyone want to listen to Orson Welles speak in a silly French tone? I know I wouldn’t. (Individuals formerly employed in dubbing would have to find a new job, in the field of foreign film criticism. Their criticism would have to be written in the language of the film in question. At least 5000 words of it. I think that’s fair.)

Then I would pass a law whereby all taxi drivers in the area of the land formerly known as France would speak Greek. That would serve them right. And then everyone would be made to count and spell numbers correctly, in every known language in the world. Finally, that same law would clearly state to all taxi drivers that they would have to drive me to and from airports for free, eternally. (Hehehe. That would be great.)

French politics and sport I would make sure remain the same for ever more. (Yes!)

Just a final thought.  If my entry wins the competition I might just hand France to Jon. I think he will appreciate the prize better.

So there you have it.  In a totally unexpected outcome to our competition, France has been won and her new owner, as a result of Ασπασία’s generosity, is my writing partner, Jonathan Lee.  I’d like to thank everyone that entered and, now that France is under new management, I’d like to wish her citizens good luck.  They’ll need it.  And Jon, you may now sally forth across the channel and claim France*.  Though please get your posts for the week out of the way first, I’ve rather a lot on.

*Remember to put an English-Greek dictionary into your suitcase of baked beans and ginger nuts in case you need to use a taxi.  Oh, and it’s thé au lait you want.  The other brown stuff is something called coffee that you won’t like.