Nixta Sinks

Collect zem all!

As a vulnerable scrawny wheezing gangly child I developed a very real fear of the word "criticism". Until I was already closely approaching my twenties, I had no concept of positive criticism. It has since been remarkably difficult to accept criticism of any kind, even potentially constructive.

I don't suppose that it helped growing up in a country where sarcasm is mastered by the age of five, nor perhaps being part of a shool-system that punishes a dull wit with public flogging and a sharp wit with buggery.

At the same time as I was suffering through all this, a group of people much older than myself had already met up at university. Caution of criticism thrown to the wind, they'd worked their way through stage and the small screen to feature-length films almost, but not quite, culminating in the donning of helmets and false moustaches and the adoption of a daft French accent to invent a character millions of pathetic children and nerds the world over would adopt as their own for otherwise normal conversation. I was one of those adopters, but I gave it up a long long time ago, unlike this person. Here is what they had to say about a couple of my holiday snaps:

Did Oh my God, puff out you an ass bites or what? _ Nothing with foutre! you way Z etes really too bitch!

...and...

Go draws there a little on my finger.... PROUT!!! Species of disgusting person. Do not have you shame to release scuds like Ca!

They weren't good photos, granted, but nonetheless this raises two questions:

• Is Babelfish accurate enough when it comes to the streets of France?
• What was actually said would no-doubt be flagged as inappropriate had it been written in English: Are the French building a secret-underground of crass abuse behind the internet's Anglocentric facade?

It's been well-known for some time that the French rule the world when it comes to nonsensical and untranslatable insults, if nothing else (as well as a couple of very recognisable ones - in an accidental episode of Star Trek Next Wossname the other day, Professor Charles Xavier actually said "merde"). The Greeks and Turks both lay claim to leading the race to develop the most fantastical inflammatory putdowns (Dr. R. can confirm this, but I believe the translation he was given was approximately "I fill your mother's c*&t with cement and fashion a parking a lot") [There are some who read this at work. Pulp fans with headphones witness here how the Brits are able to enjoy America's least-favourite word - Ed.].

Is this random commentary on two crappy holiday photos I took (1 2), by someone I've never heard of before, merely the drunken rambling of a sun-baked French surfer, the professional outrage of a cheese-eating surrender-photographer, or merely a small part of a patient revolution on the part of the froggy internet community? If it weren't the French doing it, clearly the first theory would put an end to it, but those French live to revolt and they love sneaking around and they certainly like to look down their noses. I wonder...

But at least I've now learnt to take criticism and will pay more attention to my composition, lighting, colour-balance, focusing, exposure and subjects. Thank you, pička materna, you've taught me well.