Handshakes

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I agree, although the French president is a fool if he thinks his handshake will have any lasting impact on his American counterpart.
I suspect he was playing to the domestic audience, if indeed that's what he said regarding it. The way newspapers work these days, it could have been a journalists fever dream.
 
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I notice on programmes like Pawn Stars, they occasionally shake hands with their left hand...ooer, why is that ?
Do they not have google where you live?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scout_handshake
 
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Scotchland
I don't think he is quoted saying that at all, it is @Pale Rider interpretation. Or did I miss a link?
Sorry! My keyboard predicted "finest" rather than "domestic" which will have confused things ...
He was reported as saying it was a "moment of truth" and it was being pitched as a masterful manoeuvre...

"Finest audience" sounds so Trumpy...
 

Pale Rider

Legendary Member
The BBC story quotes Macron as saying bilateral discussions are about getting respect and 'he doesn't let anything pass'.

It seemed to me he by respect and 'anything' he meant stuff like body language.

He might have meant something else.

The original interview with the Journal du Dimanche might shed some light on it - for someone who reads French.

"Mr Macron told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper his approach to the encounter had been about getting respect.

"Donald Trump, the Turkish president or the Russian president see things in terms of power relationships, which doesn't bother me," he said.

"I don't believe in diplomacy through public criticism but in my bilateral dialogues I don't let anything pass. That is how you get respect."
 

swee'pea99

Squire
That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?
It's obviously a stretch, and meant to be tongue-in-cheekly provocative, but there's equally obviously something in it. Baden Powell was a lifelong soldier, modelled the organisation on the military (uniforms, ranks, drills - even the very name, from an army role), and saw it as inculcating the values and behaviours that would be useful for the army. Interestingly though, he avowedly excluded conflict, violence, weapons and all the military aspects of this clearly quasi-military setup, stressed the 'duty of care' aspects of being an 'officer' (rather than the authoritarian side), and above all - all the more unusually given the context - placed the highest value on universality, regardless of colour, nationality, religion, class, wealth or anything else: 'A scout is a brother to all scouts.'
 
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User482

Guest
It's obviously a stretch, and meant to be tongue-in-cheekly provocative, but there's equally obviously something in it. Baden Powell was a lifelong soldier, modelled the organisation on the military (uniforms, ranks, drills - even the very name, from an army role), and saw it as inculcating the values and behaviours that would be useful for the army. Interestingly though, he avowedly excluded conflict, violence, weapons and all the military aspects of this clearly quasi-military setup, stressed the 'duty of care' aspects of being an 'officer' (rather than the authoritarian side), and above all - all the more unusually given the context - placed the highest value on universality, regardless of colour, nationality, religion, class, wealth or anything else: 'A scout is a brother to all scouts.'
Admittedly, it's much like the military if you overlook all the ways in which it is completely different.
 
That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?
:laugh:

Well, yes. But add in the monarchist element and the protestantism and I do understand why I wasn't allowed to join. Oh, yeah, and gender segregation which I had enough of as I was attending an all-girls school.

But calling the scouts a paramilitary organisation is funnier.

(my father was in the cadets - proper cadets with rifles - at school, and was a career army reservist to the rank of Brigadier and his main hobby was military history, but he did not want us in the scouts/brownies/guides.)
 
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User482

Guest
:laugh:

Well, yes. But add in the monarchist element and the protestantism and I do understand why I wasn't allowed to join. Oh, yeah, and gender segregation which I had enough of as I was attending an all-girls school.

But calling the scouts a paramilitary organisation is funnier.

(my father was in the cadets - proper cadets with rifles - at school, and was a career army reservist to the rank of Brigadier and his main hobby was military history, but he did not want us in the scouts/brownies/guides.)
The Scouts are multi-faith and Google tells me that more girls than boys now join.

The Boys' Brigade however...
 

Floating Bombus

Well-Known Member
Scouts in some countries are or have been avowedly paramilitary – doing military exercises with blanks and so on, in anticipation of a specific enemy nation – but also mixed-sex. Possibly these scouts are not part of the Baden-Powell organisation though.
 
The Scouts are multi-faith and Google tells me that more girls than boys now join.
Do you think I am eight? How it is now is pretty irrelevant to my parent's decision in the sixties. It was highly segregated. But that was probably wasn't a factor in their decision, as they happily sent me to a segregated school. Actually, I say "happily", but there wasn't much choice back then if you wanted quality teaching.

As for multi-faith, sure, they let all faiths join even back then. But the underpinnings are definitely CofE and British Empire.

And I still wouldn't let a hypothetical child of mine make either oath (oops, "promise") on this page.

The existing Scout Promise:
On my honour, I promise that I will do my best
To do my duty to God and to the Queen,
To help other people
And to keep the Scout Law.

New alternative wording of the Promise:
On my honour, I promise that I will do my best
To uphold our Scout values, to do my duty to the Queen,
To help other people
And to keep the Scout Law.
 
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