I’ve just discovered that yesterday was supposed to be Niceness Day – la Journée de la Gentillesse. On Monday evening the French president, François Hollande, was awarded the Niceness Prize by political journalists. Well, he’s never going to get a prize for competence, so let him have something. I suppose he’s making a nice mess of things, but that doesn’t translate into French to give the correct idea.
http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2012/11/12/peut-on-etre-gentil-et-francais_n_2117930.html
This idea of a world-wide Niceness Day was thought up by a Japanese medic, for reasons best known to himself. The question asked by the Huffington Post is whether one can be French and nice. Apparently lots of French people admit to not being gentil behind the wheel of a car, but blame this on the lack of “niceness” of all the other road users.
This is the first I’ve heard of this, but even without that I drove into town yesterday without knocking anyone down, didn’t kick any dogs (though it was a close call when the physiotherapist put her unerring thumb on the painful bit) and generally behaved in a civilised manner. So do we really need a particular day to emulate Dame Edna?
Husband asks if Nice is the capital of “nice”. It’s never struck me as such, but I may have another look when we get to France next week.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Niceness is a quality best savoured in samll doses. An old biz mate of mine used to refer to his meetings with his born-again boss as leaving him in need of a few well-chosen words and agood fart. 😉
Evenin’ Sheona. I was always led to believe that Msr. Grenouille kept a nice new Citroen in the garage back in the ‘burbs to show the neighbours how successful he was and a string of ciggie-lighter disposable duex cheveaux, battered Renaults and other mobile detritus in order to terrify the Parisien commuter.
OZ
Sheona: I thought it was a biscuit.
OZ: My German friend calls all those small four wheelers “Road Lice”
LW – Over here they still have a type of tuk-tuk – a three wheeled, scooter-engined waste of space driven by nobody under 70 and known colloquially in Portuguese as a “mata velhos – “kills old people”. They still exist because rural olds may have a motorbike licence or even one for a tractor, but not an expensive one for a car.
OZ
OZ: Speaking of three wheelers.
A good woman brings balance to your life.
Lw positively hysterical, just love it!!!!
I don’t think I do nice sheona except in hospices and even there most don’t appreciate it! They appreciate bad jokes and dreadful stories bordering on the obscene. Too many people round here do nice all the time it is exceptionally boring and totally tedious!
Anyway, if the frogs were nice we’d have no one to complain about and take the general piss.
Sheona, from your last line you infer you are still in the UK?
What did you get in the grandchild stakes? All went well I hope?
I keep reading that the Uk gets dearer by the week, what do you think compared with France?
Hilarious, LW. Here you still see tractors in the supermarket car park and once there was even a donkey tethered to the trolley bay railings.
OZ
Yes, Christina, still in the UK for the moment, cooing over second granddaughter and trying to keep older sister happy too. Haven’t been in France since May, but supermarket shopping had been getting more expensive there for some time. Two months shopping in Slovakia, Hungary and Poland over the summer has spoiled us, but it’s true that things like bread are creeping up a few pence here. I’ll report back when I’ve done my first food shop in France.
Sheona, glad all went well.
Oz, my brother always takes a tractor to the bank in Ottery St Mary, the traffic wardens don’t try to nick them for illegal parking. It is a big old triangle road that used to have a permanent market and all the tractors sit in the middle where they are apparently ‘unseen’ by officials.
He makes a point to drive extremely slowly to discommode tourists, years of payback for impatient hooting at his dairy herd crossing the road 4 times a day to their parlour.
Well, that’s Devon for you. A bit like Norfolk, no doubt, and certainly like this little part of the world that I love. 🙂
OZ
We live in the sticks here. Today I had the extreme pleasure of maintaining the speed limit and keeping a boy-racer waiting for a couple of miles until we reached the town and then he roared off at 100 kph! No cops around here to help though. 😦