A story told by the FWB’s Latin teacher, about one of her former jobs. On a school trip to France, one of the boys was being a tremendous nuisance, arrogant and rude, until he got a cold. A really bad cold. He was confined to bed, and begged her to go to the chemist to get him something for it. She told him that she couldn’t just bring it to him: as they were in France, the chemist would only provide a suppository, and there was a problem with this. Since he was a growing boy, the chemist would want to take him into the back room, kept specially equipped for this purpose in all French chemist’s shops, and measure his suppository size before he could prescribe one. The boy was horrified, and told her not to bother. He would sweat it out. And so he did, for two more days of increasing discomfort, until finally he was feeling so dreadful that he asked her to take him to the chemist, to be measured and fitted for his medicine.
On the way there, she told him the truth.
She had no more trouble from him for the rest of the trip.
Apart from being a magnificent example of resourcefulness on the part of a teacher, this does show you what the British are prepared to believe about foreigners, even after thirty years in the EU.