Posted 3:13 AM by Paul
A Nation of Shop Keepers

A whole lot of navel contemplation has since MG Rover announced that they were going into receivership leaving the UK without a British volume car producer. The inefficient uncompetitive French have two, Renault and Peugot. Nobody seems to be able to offer an explanation of this.

Not only do the French have a strong car industry but also a world class aerospace industry partly based on the technology they developed and improved as part of the Concorde project. We see the French as dreamers and aestetes, the creators of obscure structuralist theory and luxury hand bags. They see themselves are engineers and manufacturers.

Which takes me back to 1971 and La Roche Sur Yonne in the Vendee. Eric Thomas who I did an exchange with wanted to design planes when he grew up. I wanted to be in a rock band, write poetry or failing that open a clothes shop.

Perhaps Napoleon was right