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News & ArtsMonday, May 24, 2010
History Overheard at the Dinner Table
Posted by Brendan Kiley on Mon, May 24, 2010 at 9:43 AM
From the indiscreet—and sometimes improbable—memoirs of Paul Johnson.
General Charles de Gaulle, the postwar President of France, suffered from halitosis. The affliction was key to his character - to forestall people retreating from his bad breath in revulsion, de Gaulle himself rejected them with hauteur.Diana Cooper, the wife of Duff Cooper, Britain's ambassador to France, told me about a dinner she gave for him and his wife after he had just resigned as head of the government.
Madame de Gaulle was a severe figure in black, a pillar of the church in their home village of Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises.
At the dinner, someone asked her, in English, what she was most looking forward to now her husband was relieved of his onerous responsibilities. She replied, to the consternation of the table: 'A penis.'
In the silence that followed, De Gaulle spoke: 'no, ma cherie, you 'ave mispronounced the word. You mean 'appiness.'
5
@3, the link doesn't say bogus, it says suspect, which is good enough for me in a spicy memoir.
Apropos of nothing, there is an ad showing up on the Slog this morning that says if give a manicured lady the wrong vodka she will knife you in the shower.
Apropos of nothing, there is an ad showing up on the Slog this morning that says if give a manicured lady the wrong vodka she will knife you in the shower.
8
For what it's worth, by all accounts Fidel Castro has had a life-long problem with body odor also. Just a little piece of useless trivia to add to your collection.
13
Looking at his face, I would automatically assume he had bad breath. It's kind of like looking at Margaret Thatcher you would instantly assume her feet stank. Or Barbara Bush must have horrendous farts.
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