2009 - Not sure if I will bother

[Robbo SPS]

Robbo,

There is no excuse for leaving a gennie running at night ! Personally i would have got out my tent to go and switch the bugger off as well.

Cold Beer, Fresh food....

No one hs ever actually turned it off until sunday evening..... it occasionally runs out of juice... or oil, or a spare plug, or iAN  bought one and it stopped.

[Andy Zarse]

This subject crops up every year, and each year i seem to make the same comments.

I have to say I entirely fail to see how things have changed to any remarkable degree in the last five years, that's but a blink of an eye in LM terms. The ACO have always been a complete bunch of muppets who couldn't organse a piss up in a brasserie. There's always been a hooligan element, and it's a lot less now than it was say twenty years ago. And why would you not expect to get a Gallic shrug, Le man's in France last time I looked.

We're all entitled to an opinion and nobody forces anyone to attend. Now call me a mysogenist, but perhaps LM isn't really for girls anyway, particularly not if all they're going to do is complain about everything. 

Replacement events? Maybe you could try the International Kitten and Needlework Exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham. 

[tn*c]

Replacement events? Maybe you could try the International Kitten and Needlework Exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham. 

Mmmm Kittens and Needles!!!

[termietermite]

Now call me a mysogenist, but perhaps LM isn't really for girls anyway, particularly not if all they're going to do is complain about everything. 

It seems to me to be mostly blokes doing the whingeing, non?

Nowt's gonna stop me coming (death apart, of course).

Call you a mysogenist, Andy?  Heaven forfend!

[Fran]

perhaps LM isn't really for girls anyway, particularly not if all they're going to do is complain about everything. 

You won't catch me complaining about anything..... one of the best bits of being "femme" at LM is jumping to the front of the toilet queue while all the blokes wait in line with their knees clenched together!   

F

[nopanic - neil]

perhaps LM isn't really for girls anyway, particularly not if all they're going to do is complain about everything. 

You won't catch me complaining about anything..... one of the best bits of being "femme" at LM is jumping to the front of the toilet queue while all the blokes wait in line with their knees clenched together!   

F

At times it was not my knees that were clenched! 

[Bob U]

   I must say that I saw no more loutish behaviour this year than in the past. In fact the short time that I spent at HA roundabout I found it to be a whole lot quieter than previous years due to an increased police presence. I assume that this was due to the new circuit entrance and the tram being accessable from the roundabout. This can only be a good thing as, the way it was heading, it was only going to be a matter of time before someone was seriously injured.

  OK, so my car and a few others were keyed on Friday night. It was bloody annoying as I thought that we all went to Le Mans because we liked cars. A bit of a downer but not the end of the world. This happens in any carpark in any town at any time of the year.

  Yes, the tossers riding around on gopeds and minibikes kicking up dust are annoying, but then so is a wasp buzzing around your picnic. Heaven knows what kick they get out of it but they are muppets and are easily pleased.

  The way I look at it is. If as many people who, having drunk as much, wandered around after a football match or congregated outside a town centre pub in England I'm sure there would be considerably more trouble and more tension in the air than any of us saw or felt at Le Mans.

  It's a matter of percentages, they say 260,000 people attended LM and how many reports of trouble were there? I can understand that if you encountered some of the few idiots that you would be pissed off but the vast majority, myself included, found it no more troublesome and intimadating than it has ever been.

  Get youself back next year. You'll only regret it if you don't.

[termietermite]

The keying incident was really sad - as you say not least because we like to think we're here to enjoy the cars, not abuse them.  It's unknown over here normally, so I just hope this habit doesn't start to rub off on the locals.  The UK seems to be the only country on the planet which has this particular problem - I wonder why that is?

[Andy Zarse]

The keying incident was really sad - as you say not least because we like to think we're here to enjoy the cars, not abuse them.  It's unknown over here normally, so I just hope this habit doesn't start to rub off on the locals.  The UK seems to be the only country on the planet which has this particular problem - I wonder why that is?

Deb, the consensus at the time was that it was done by French/pikeys, not Brits.

Only Brit cars were damaged. Someone had seen some swarthy looking French(ish)youngsters seemingly "casing the joint" on the friday night and had put them straight. It was assumed, rightly or wrongly , that they'd damaged the cars in retribution. 99.9% of the Brits who attend are petrol heads of one sort or the other, and whatever else they do, are not likely to damage cars deliberately.

Filthy untrustworthy foreigners, that's who did it.

[termietermite]

 
It does appear though, to be a peculiarly British thing (keying that is) the French are more into burning cars!

[Kpy]

Unfotunately keying is common in France.

This sort of thing is not uncommon if you own a Ferrari in Paris and park in the wrong place.

[termietermite]

Then I stand corrected, but I have NEVER seen it round here before.  Blame the Parisiens (definately a Sarthois sport!)

[Fran]

The UK seems to be the only country on the planet which has this particular problem

I can vouch that it also happens from time to time in Spain, Portugal and Italy.  And my GB plate car was grafitti'd in Germany (not sure what it said, but I am told the GB plate was relevant!).

Also had a campervan stripped down to the bare bones in Bilbao when parked overnight following a breakdown... they took everything - including the kitchen sink!

F

[grumpy]

Don't think it was any worse than previous years - saw one fight in the Stella Bar on Friday night and one after the Starsailor gig.  There should have been another fight in the Stella Bar on Saturday when the atmosphere was really tense but nothing happened.

On the campsite (HAS) all seemed pretty laid back.

[Kpy]

Then I stand corrected, but I have NEVER seen it round here before.  Blame the Parisiens (definately a Sarthois sport!)

Maybe your average Sarthois vandal would rather burn cars as you say. They set fire to at least 5 cars in and around Le Mans on a Friday night last month.
The keying issue is not confined to Paris. The middle photo in my last post was from Qumper.
Sorry to bang on (and I promise not to post any more keying photos) but, whilst I've lived in France for a long time now, and love it dearly, I think we should avoid the rose-tinted "doesn't happen here" view. So the images below are of cars in Rennes, Dieppe and Annonay. Far enough apart - do those Parisian vandals get everywhere?