Bad Machinery by John Allison for August 04, 2023

What’s that poster in P1? “BALLY”?

Lottie should try some German swears. I wish I knew some German swears. I bet they come with bunches of satisfyingly guttural syllables. Like annoyingskinningfrenchmeangirlwithbadattitudeandstylishclothes.

Sounds a lot like my hometown.

So for her, Tackleford is just a place to get away from home for a little while until she’s old enough to move to Paris

Sonny speaks fluent French. Will he and Mimi have a moment? Will his sunny optimism rub off on her French jaded cynicism?

If Mimi is intending to be perceived as insufferably entitled, and supercilious, it would be difficult to imagine how she could do any better.

Honestly, Mimi’s just bitter about everything, so Lottie can at least be assured that her attitude towards herself isn’t so much anything personal, that’s just her default mode of operation.

During the Second World War, Germany established a submarine naval base at La Pallice (the main port of La Rochelle).

A German stronghold, La Rochelle was the last French city to be liberated at the end of the war. The Allied siege of La Rochelle took place between 12 September 1944 and 7 May 1945. The stronghold, including the islands of Ré and Oléron, was held by 20,000 German troops under German vice-admiral Ernst Schirlitz. Following negotiations by the French Navy frigate captain Meyer, the general German capitulation occurred on 7 May and French troops entered La Rochelle on 8 May.

The submarine base became the setting for parts of the movie Das Boot. The U-boat scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark were also shot in La Rochelle. The base is featured in the computer game Commandos 2: Men of Courage. It was also chosen in 2018 for the location shooting of the German television series Das Boot (a sequel to the 1981 classic). Stolen from Wikipedia and an old Michelin guide.

Ah tweens…. I see the sentiment is not entirely lost on the class, in varying degrees, but the stark, hormonal angsty tone is striking each of them a little differently ( the drawing is so excellent in this strip.)

Definitely a Gauloise smoker.

I wonder how much of that the English students even understood.

Not bad Mimi. That could be a Jacques Brel song.

This is my second favorite strip ever, from any comic, following the one in which the Tackleford football club owner explains how he got started in lithium mining.

Je suis d’accord!

Vive la France!