Thoughts to end the year

So this will probably be my last post for 2006...I could go on about my resolutions, my desire not to make resolutions, etc but I have decided to focus on a topic that was brought to my attention by my colleague at our xmas party.

Everyone in the world 'knows' that the Brits have bad teeth, right? It's like Canadians know that people take the piss out of our use of the word 'eh' and Americans are generally hated because they 'all voted for Bush and they are all arrogant'. While there may be some truth in all of these stereotypes, for the most part thats just what they are (That being said I still have my toothpaste imported from Canada due to a lack of dental association approving any toothpaste in this country -- most likely due to a lack of professional dental association).

So rewind to my Work Christmas Party. My collegue informed me that he had been unaware that Brits were 'known' for their bad teeth...to which about two or three collegues went 'what? Really? I didn't know that!'

Apparantly a large majority of Brits don't know that North Americans mock their teeth....with the reference in Austin Powers not seen as a blatant mockery but just as an 'ugly hero'....In fact, the Brits refer to what we would call 'British teeth' as 'Polish teeth' (or so I've been told).

So that made me wonder what other types of nationalistic stereotypes exist, and do the citizens know about it? How many cultural references fly past a group who do not know what the 'rest of the world' thinks about them? (Aside: does this also harkens back to what each South American country calls 'titty-fucking')....

Further to all of this, I began reading a book about the Worlds biggest mistakes. I'm only about 20 pages in and thus far it's focused on the plight of women to make themselves look good (corsets, foot binding, etc). It goes on to discuss the prolific use of Ceruse (modern day equivelent is foundation) which was made with white lead. I guess in order to get the 'white face' look which hid small pox, dirt, etc, the ladies would smear this paint on their face. As time went on and lead posioning set in, the skinwould start to yellow, age, sag and peel off. The eyes would go puffy and in due course, teeth would fall out. This usually happened over about ten years. Anyways, eventually you'd die of lead poisioning, looking haggered, etc. Now I won't draw modern day comparisons to botched plastic surgeries but instead, perhaps draw a historical link...

I guess Queen Elizabeth I was a fond user of ceruse as well as mercuruci suphide for blush. As she aged, her teeth continued to fall out (yet she was settig the fashion precendent for the court). I guess the French Amabassador at the time made a comment about her appalling teeth and the effects the ceruse had had...

So this is my thinking -- the French dude saw the queen's hideous smile and made a comment about how this makeup was causing teeth to fall out and eventuially into how the Brits had poor dental hygiene...and the Brits have yet to shake this label (unless you ask one bc they wouldn't know they'd been labelled). However British history wouldn't focus in on the trivial matter of bad teeth or lead make-up, and would instead focus in on battles won against the French. The French, in retaliation to the arrogant pumped up war victories the English were claiming, would retaliate that they had beautiful women and tasty food...thus starting the bad teeth/bad food labels of the English...

Anyways this post really is all about the fact that a lot of Brits don't know that they supposedly have bad teeth..hehe...how funny is that, eh?

Happy New Years!