Nanohedron wrote:If ever you've seen that photo of the becigared Curchill showing the "V" sign, it didn't mean "victory" as I was taught as a child. It was a very real "screw you" to the Nazis.
I don't buy that. Churchill made the victory sign with the palm facing out. If you want to make a V-sign to tell someone where to get off, you do it with the palm facing you. Also, the victory sign is static. The V-sign is performed with either a beckoning movement of the hand towards you or a sharp upward thrust.
Thats what I thought, but since I've got a digital channel called UKTV History (it should be called UKTV military documentary) I've noticed several examples of him using the "V" sign the other way round - cheeky chap!
As for the Brits having a problem with the French maybe its stuff like the following that accounts for it. In a recent programme about two Brits buying an old farmhouse in France and doing it up (All wrong of course) They invited the locals for a meal. One lady, at least 50, reacted with surprise when one of the Brits said his Grandfather had died near the local town in the Great War. Oh really, she said, were there some British in WW1? Try over 3 million British and Commonwealth casualties, 60,000 on the first day of the Somme offensive alone!. Why did we bother, the Germans didn't declare war on us after all!?
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tell us something.: This is the first sentence. This is the second of the recommended sentences intended to thwart spam its. This is a third, bonus sentence!
I remember it well! (That's yours truly looking a trifle startled in the background.) Dear old Maggie, her atttempts at showing "the common touch" almost always backfired. E II R could give a good V-sign, mind you. She never knew, but I spotted Her Maj giving Maggie a topping one once. Ah, heady days.
Porridge! How nice to see you've graced our Pub.
John Keegan's book, 'The Face of Battle' provides the best account of Agincourt I've read yet.
Since most of us over here don't know the meaning of the V sign (palm in) I think it shall come in handy in the future.
Nanohedron wrote:If ever you've seen that photo of the becigared Curchill showing the "V" sign, it didn't mean "victory" as I was taught as a child. It was a very real "screw you" to the Nazis.
I don't buy that. Churchill made the victory sign with the palm facing out. If you want to make a V-sign to tell someone where to get off, you do it with the palm facing you. Also, the victory sign is static. The V-sign is performed with either a beckoning movement of the hand towards you or a sharp upward thrust.
My bad. Haven't seen it for quite a while, but memory has Churchy's palm facing inwards.
Walden wrote:Am I the only one who recalls Pres. George Bush I creating a scandal using the gesture in question while on a presidential visit Down Under?
Now that's the sort of thing I should remember. I wonder who the recipient was?
Walden wrote:Am I the only one who recalls Pres. George Bush I creating a scandal using the gesture in question while on a presidential visit Down Under?
Now that's the sort of thing I should remember. I wonder who the recipient was?
It was accidental, so to speak, but, was in January of 1992, in Canberra, to a crowd (perhaps protestors). It was on the same trip where he visited Japan and vomited on the prime minister.
Walden wrote:Am I the only one who recalls Pres. George Bush I creating a scandal using the gesture in question while on a presidential visit Down Under?
Now that's the sort of thing I should remember. I wonder who the recipient was?
It was accidental, so to speak, but, was in January of 1992, in Canberra, to a crowd (perhaps protestors). It was on the same trip where he visited Japan and vomited on the prime minister.
We have Prince Philip, you have George Bush, the French have Jacque Chirac - every country should have its own diplomatically challenged figurehead. They're great fun.
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
