Nick Yapp

Dans les année trente, l'insolite avait encore de beaux jours devant lui. Presque chaque music-hall proposait au moins un numéro nouveau dans son programme, chaque village avait son fou et les monstres étaient choses courante dans les foires ambulantes.

En 1857, durant le ramadan, cinq Anglais furent assassinés dans le palais fortifié de l'empereur Moghol. Ce fut le départ de la révolte des cipayes, une guerre cruelle avec des atrocités commises des deux côtés. Lorsque Sir Colin Campbell arriva à la rescousse de la garnison assiégée de Lucknow, il laissa ses hommes massacrer 2000 cipayes rebelles à Secundra Bagh. Les mutins comme ce Sikh, étaient courageux mais mal commandés. Les troupes irrégulières britanniques incluaient le célèbre Hodson's Horse, un corps mêlé d'officiers britanniques et indiens.

The current French Constitution was drafted in the knowledge that a lurch towards tyranny afflicts France once every generation.

The French invented diplomacy, as a weapon of state. They realised, at least a century before any other nation, that it is cheaper to delude or defraud other nations than to go to war with them. At home they use exactly the same approach to their neighbours. It is no coincidence that, for much the same reason, the French have occupied the key position of Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund for 37 out of the last 50 years (74% of that period), despite the fact that everyone knows that the French economy has been in dire straits for roughly 74% of the nation's existence.

They have an expression: le discours. It can mean anything from idle chatter to a formal speech, but their favoured use of it is as "a piece of discursive reasoning".

DECISION MAKING

Sit a group of British managers down to solve a problem and they will make an honest attempt, eventually coming up with a solution, no matter how unsuitable. Faced with the same problem, French managers will enjoy the discussion, move smartly off at several tangents, and end up with a totally new problem to discuss, to their great satisfaction.