This doesn’t sound quite like a French thing to be honest, having a “League Against Road Safety”. They tend not to do jokes in that manner. Sounds much more like an English thing really. Make the critique of excessive safety moves by making fun of them, pretending even to be against the very concept itself.
Well, maybe. But France does seem to have such a league, at least the Telegraph thinks so:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]But Chantal Perrichon, president of the League Against Road Safety, warned that given the unpopularity of the speed cuts, “we are going to pay in blood for the pseudo-responsibility of politicians who prefer their mandate to the safety of citizens”.[/perfectpullquote]Somehow it doesn’t quite chime. The answer being that France doesn’t have and it is an English invention.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Ligue contre la violence routière[/perfectpullquote]Ah:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Chantal Perrichon est une combattante. Cela fait plus de 15 ans qu’à la présidence de la Ligue contre la violence routière,[/perfectpullquote]Yes, right organisation, right person.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]the president of the league against road violence, Chantal Perrichon.[/perfectpullquote]Aha!
So, it’s the Telegraph’s translation there then. Somehow they’ve managed to move the league against road violence over to being the league against road safety. Which is pretty good, don’t you think?
And now think on. The journalist who wrote this read over it at least once just to check. And then multiple layers of editors did. They must have done, they’re the media, right? And no one noted this rather jarring though that France has this league against road safety?
Now extrapolate this command of fact to their reporting on anything of importance, the EU, climate change, inequality…..
Quite when the Telegraph turned from being a newspaper to a magazine is lost in recent history. Perhaps it is the fault of the internet, but it now seems to be either Op-Ed or non-sense about allegedly “lifestyle” issues. One supposes they are no worst than the rest.
I’m sure most readers are familiar with this, but I still like it: Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I call it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.) Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine,… Read more »