Snooty French, stiff Brits, shy Finns and humourless Germans: Europeans love their conceptions about their neighbours to be well-defined, if not necessarily true. Even if stereotypes don’t teach us much about who our European neighbours really are, they do teach us a lot about how they are perceived. And sometimes our cliches about the rest of Europe have a story behind them that can reveal something about Europe’s rich history – and occasionally even a grain of truth about the national character. Even if sometimes these complaints land a bit close to the bone, we talk about our fellow Europeans precisely because we are interested in them — after all, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. Just remember not to take them (too) seriously…