The Daily Telegraph has an interesting article concerning a twelfth century poem that has just been translated into modern English. The poem itself is piece of propaganda composed by English intellectuals of the time to whip up anti-French feeling. Seems we English have not got on with the French for some time; the poem characterises the French as lazy, arrogant cowards. The stanza I particularly like is:

People remind them often enough about
This source of shame, but they may as well not have bothered;
For they take neither offence or account,
As they know no shame.

Naturally, I love French culture and the French people, even if sometimes they can be a bit… well… French.