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RE: Failing at Uni
July 15, 2013 at 11:38 pm
(July 15, 2013 at 10:47 pm)apophenia Wrote: Stupid Americans.
For which reason are we stupid? I mean, I know there are lot of reasons why we're stupid but which one specifically do you mean here?
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RE: Failing at Uni
July 16, 2013 at 11:21 am
(July 15, 2013 at 7:37 pm)Rahul Wrote: Oh, Monty Python. Good stuff.
I remember this old Saturday Night Live skit where a British officer is casually walking around his camp during a Zulu attack and everyone is fighting and dying around him. He's all calm and collected drinking his tea and speaking british sayings. Hilarious. Also closer to reality than us Americans think.
During WWII a combined British/American force had routed a German division. The Germans were pulling back to a bridge and were getting ready to blow it up. The Americans and British are hauling ass to get there before they blew it and stop them.
When all of a sudden the British stopped, started fires, and starting making tea. It was tea time for crying out loud. They weren't barbarians. The Americans freaked, called them nuts, and kept racing.
The Americans saved that bridge and the British had their tea. All in all a pretty chipper morning all around.
Also on D-Day on one of the beaches some British officer was casually strolling back and forth on the beach with a map, smoking a pipe, and inspecting everything like he was looking over a piece of property he was considering buying.
All the time the Germans are raking the beach with machine guns and people are dying all around him.
I don't even think the crazy bastard got a scratch.
That's always impressed me about the British even while simultaneously thinking they're crazy as shit to act like that.
Source of this please.
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful" - Edward Gibbon (Offen misattributed to Lucius Annaeus Seneca or Seneca the Younger) (Thanks to apophenia for the correction)
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RE: Failing at Uni
July 16, 2013 at 11:45 am
(This post was last modified: July 16, 2013 at 11:50 am by Rahul.)
(July 16, 2013 at 11:21 am)Gooders1002 Wrote: Source of this please.
The one about the British officer on the beach I read in:
The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan
http://www.amazon.com/The-Longest-Day-Cl...0671890913
The one about the Brits stopping to make tea while chasing the Germans I read in the following:
D-Day by Stephen Ambrose
http://www.amazon.com/Day-June-Climactic...068480137X
Scratch that last one. I actually read it in Stephen's follow up book.
Citizen Soldiers: The U. S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany
http://www.amazon.com/Citizen-Soldiers-N...cc_b_img_b
Everything I needed to know about life I learned on Dagobah.