Talk:A Year in the Merde

A fact from A Year in the Merde appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 1 April 2005. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke is a humorous look at the tense Franco-British relations during the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2005/April.

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A Year in Provence[edit]

It would seem very likely that the name A Year in the Merde is a play on A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle (ISBN 0679731148), an earlier work on Anglo-French cultural relations. I believe the article should mention this, just in passing. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 09:34, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I haven't read the book, but it seems to me very strange that the daughter of a rich man is living in a HLM. Ilive in France myself and know what a HLM is: that's a place where NOONE wants to live!

There are area's around Paris where even thought it is a sort of HLM it is reserved for Posh people. I have helped my father deliver Goods to those area and I can tell you that you won't see a beggar in the street. Police cars do patrol around those areas. Hence it is a possibility. Those so called HLM are 5 story high and no more usualy.

I'm confused. The blackmail element in this book is pretty integral to the plot. If the blackmail element is real then it's absurd to have published it as a book. If the blackmail element is fake, then it seems like a lot of this book must have been fake? Anyone know much fake stuff and real stuff was really in here? Crypticfortune 03:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(a) What "blackmail element"?

(b) A Year in the Merde is a novel, not a memoir. <K F> 11:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(a) Paul blackmails Martin into 1) giving him a generous severance, 2) Letting him use one of the leased spaces for his tearoom and 3) letting him use "My Tea is Rich" as the name of said tearoom. He uses Stephanie's emails about the imported British beef to blackmail him (although he never tells Martin exactly what the emails contain). (b) It is "based on actual events." So the BM was likely added to make the story more interesting and not just another "Oh, those crazy French!" books (à la Mayle).

Merde Actually is not based on the Film Love Actually. None of the plot, story or narative has any simularity to the film. The title is simply a pun incorporating the word 'merde' into a populist phrase. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.104.19.175 (talk) 11:47, 27 October 2009 (UTC) Sdblair (talk) 08:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC) ≤[reply]