30 Days

Dear old Morgan Spurlock: now let's have Abdullah doing 30 days as a Christian, 'Big Red' Hank the cowboy doing 30 days as a Jew, and peace will reign on Earth!

I don't know how long this runs for - it seems it could be a long download and I've got lots of stops and starts on it, so I might have to view it all later on.

While he's right about a lot of America only thinking of Islam in terms of cartoon flying carpets, there are a lot of Americans who've lived for decades in the Middle East in oil company work, and who support a whole range of American interests round the world, mostly connected to matters military or industrial. America has also been host to thousands of Islamic students in its universities, as well as being home to many professional Palestinians, Iranians, Iraqis and other Muslims who've fallen out with their countries' government styles. It's not that all of America has lived in ignorance of travelling to Muslim countries, either: American tourists love to visit Egypt, as much as we do. There are plenty of Americans who've married into Islamic families, too - I don't know if he'll touch on any of this or not.

While we love to think of Americans as tribal recluses when abroad - wanting American food, papers, beer, and to retain their own notions of dress, etc., that doesn't make them any different from Germans, or Brits, for the most part, so I couldn't criticise them for their insular attitudes, much as they can still admire the Sphinx or a trip down the Nile.
 
True story, as regaled to me by a friend of mine a few years back:

He (my friend) is standing at the reception of some hotel in Luxor or Cairo or somewhere in Egypt anyway, waiting on his wife coming down with the room key. He is absent-mindedly looking around, when he sees two American women chatting by the concierge's desk.

He catches the conversation, in the way that you do, which goes as follows:

US Lady #1 - "So, tell me, what was your favourite part?"

US Lady #2 - "Oh....it just has to be The Sphincter"

:what:

True story apparently.
 
American during the interval of a performance of Romeo and Julliet, overheard furnishing his wife with his perception of the plot

"You do realise this is a rip off of West Side Story don't you?"
 
Maybe so, clivex, maybe so................

.......however, here's one I know to be true.

A couple of years back, acab driver in Edinburgh picked-up a middle-aged American couple from the airport, and was taking them back into the city to their hotel.

They asked said cabbie if he could take the "scenic route", which he duly did, by taking the coastal road at Cramond, Silverknowes etc.

The couple in the back had broken their maps out, and were looking out across the Forth, to the Kingdom of Fife.

The Forth is perhaps 5-6 miles wide at this point.

There was some muttering, and the lady said (and I'm paraphrasing a bit here);

"Well, I dunno honey, I guess that must be Norway"

I can assure you that this one at least, is a true story.
 
Yes

and Gordon lee (everton manager) asked when on tour in Morocco, what his impressions of africa were said:

"were not in bloody africa are we?"

also

Bloke working for me going on holiday to tunisia

Thought it was in south america

and friend of mine, going to denmark....didnt know it was attached to germany...
 
You wouldn't believe the amount of times I've had to explain to people that no, Gibraltar is not an island lying off the Spanish coast....
 
American tourists taking a picture of a statue of Queen Victoria;

'Jeez she doesn't look that big on the tv'

A native tries to help them out by telling them it is Queen Victoria.

'Oh that's her mother right?'

Native says yes to keep them happy. :lol:
 
clivex, I'm not dogging on all Americans - I'm merely dogging on those in the examples given - real or imagined.

Think of it more as a p*ss-take of the stupid, rather than those of a US-persuasion - again, real or imagined.
 
True story: a chap my mother worked with got a phone call from an employment agency he'd registered with about an engineering job in Wales. Just the ticket - very well paid, lots of holidays, company car, etc. "Oh," she said, "Where in Wales?" "It's in a place called Aberdabby," he says. They scour the map, can't find it, and phones the agency back to inquire what big town or city it's nearest to. "Is this Aberdabby near Cardiff or Swansea?" he asks.

"Ahhh.... no, sir. This Abu Dhabi is in the Arabian Gulf... "
 
Back
Top