Scorn by Matthew; Parris Read Free Book Online

remain flooded for weeks on end; and the whole set in a flat mournful plain without even a hillock in sight for a 100 miles in any direction: this is Bangkok, the vaunted Venice of the East.
Sir Arthur de la Mare, British Ambassador to Thailand
    God made serpents and rabbits and Armenians.
Turkish insult
    Do not trust a Hungarian unless he has a third eye in his forehead.
Czech insult
    Half an Italian is one too many in a house.
German and French insult
    I saw the new Italian navy. Its boats have glass bottoms so they can see the old Italian navy.
Peter Secchia, President Bush’s nominee for US Ambassador to Italy, during Senate confirmation hearings, 1989
    In Milan traffic lights are instructions. In Rome they are suggestions. In Naples they are Christmas decorations.
Italian Defence Minister, Antonio Martino
    Apart from cheese and tulips, the main product of Holland is advocaat, a drink made from lawyers.
Alan Coren, The Sanity Inspector
    The indigested vomit of the sea
Fell to the Dutch by just propriety.
Andrew Marvell, ‘The Character of Holland’
    There are few virtues which the Poles do not possess and there are few errors they have ever avoided.
Winston Churchill
    Did hogs feast or did Lithuanians have a feast here?
Polish saying
    Beer is the Danish national drink and the Danish national weakness is another beer.
Clementine Paddleford
    Fuck off, Norway.
Paul Gascoigne, when asked by live Norwegian television if he had a message for the Norwegian people before the England-Norway World Cup qualifier
    It could plausibly be argued that it is a misfortune for anybody but a Finn to spend three years in Finland, as I have just done. Even the Finns who can afford it are happy to make frequent escapes to sunnier climes. Finland is flat, freezing, and far from the pulsating centres of European life. Nature has done little for her and art not much more. Until yesterday the country was inhabited only by peasants, foresters, fishermen and a small class of alien rulers who spent most of their money elsewhere. The rich cultural past of Europe has left fewer traces in Finland in the shape of public and private buildings of quality and the objects of art which adorn them than anywhere else in the Western world save perhaps Iceland. Finnish cooking deserves a sentence to itself for its crude horror; only the mushrooms and the crayfish merit attention.
Sir Bernard Ledwidge, British Ambassador to Finland
    How do you tell the difference between a Finnish introvert and a Finnish extrovert? One looks at his own feet when he’s talking to you, the other will look at yours.
Finnish joke
    The Greeks – dirty and impoverished descendants of a bunch of la-de-da fruit salads who invented democracy and thenforgot how to use it while walking around dressed up like girls.
P.J. O’Rourke, in the National Lampoon
    The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.
Saki
    Just compare with the vast monuments of this vital aqueduct network those useless pyramids or the good-for-nothing tourist attractions of the Greeks.
Frontinus, superintendent of Roman aqueducts
    In Sao Paulo it is now said to be quicker and safer to rob a bank than to try to cash a cheque in one.
Sir John Russell, British Ambassador to Brazil
    Poor Mexico, so far from God and so near to the United States!
Porfirio Díaz
    There is, I fear, no question but that the average Nicaraguan is one of the most dishonest, unreliable, violent and alcoholic of the Latin Americans – and after nearly 21 years of Latin American experience I feel I can speak with some authority on the subject.
Roger Pinsent, British Ambassador to Nicaragua
    Bolivians are merely metamorphosed llamas who have learned to talk but not think.
Chilean Admiral José Toribio Merino
    Realizing that they will never be a world power, the Cypriots have decided to settle for being a world nuisance.
George Mikes
    A nation is a society united by a delusion about its