Hoddy

Call me cynical - I just copied this from Twitter - I’ve just signed the #RevokeArt50Now petition 10 times. Started off using different email addresses but then noticed you can sign it multiple times using the same email address.

I am sorry to say this but I cannot see how this petition has any validity. 17.4 registered voters got off their bottoms and went to a polling station to cast their vote. How can a click petition which can be signed by anyone compare ? As far as I am concerned the best I can think of for this whole sorry mess is that I will be dead before it appears on the history curriculum so there is no chance at all that I will have to teach it.

Thank you so much Eric this is exactly the tone I wanted - . Ça (cette expérience)me reste au fond de la gorge.

Thanks Eric. Your guess is almost right. It was something he had from me and for which he did not pay. Not a huge amount, I am not going to sue or anything but "it left a nasty taste in my mouth".

I'm sorry I've been away from my computer for a couple of days. You are right Eric. I expressed my original question badly. What I'm trying to do is describe a transaction between someone we both know and me. If I were saying it in English I would want to use the 'nasty taste' expression, but I realise that a straight translation is very unlikely to fit the bill. I wondered if there was something relatively mild but unpleasant that I could use. This isn't a very good explanation either and my thanks and apologies to those who have tried to help me so far.

I am writing to a French friend who has no English at all. I want to say this or something that means this in French and realise that a straight translation won't necessarily be right. Is there a similar expression in French ? Any suggestions will be gratefully received.

Is food preparation a science or an art ? An interesting question. I have an acquaintance who is very experienced teacher of A level Food & Nutrition. She won't accept anyone in her class who does not have O level chemistry and she is responsible for writing one of the standard text books for the course.

Idun's pastry - I've been around so long that it's in my folder as "Teamedups pastry" Whatever we call it - it's wonderful.

Mint - ALBF won't have had time to experience the wonderful neighbours in the Dordogne. Once, when my husband had to return to England and I was alone in the house for two weeks, I noticed that my neighbour was strolling past the house early in the morning and realised that he was quietly checking if I was up and about.

I'm not sure if it's entirely left or right but I've been quite shocked at the tone of the BBC news for some weeks now. The whole Brexit thing has almost excluded all other news. There has, for example, been very little reporting of the gilet jaunes movement. We get precious little news from any other European countries and I've just assumed that it's because it's easier to report in a language that is nearer our own. We quite often get what I would consider to be local American news.

I noticed some time ago that I was using ‘one’ as a pronoun more often than I used to. This morning I used pharmacy where I would previously have said chemists. Do you do this ? I’m wondering if there are more words that I’ve changed without noticing.

Patf - we could turn this into all our yesterdays. I can actually remember my first banana. My mum, my dad and my uncle roared with laughing because I didn't know how to open it. I expected it to taste like treasure (don't ask) and it didn't. I've never really liked them.

At last I've found my copy of "We'll Eat Again". Here's a recipe for Mock Apricot Flan. Line a 9 inch pie plate with oatmeal pastry or potato pastry and bake for 25 mins. Grate 1lb of carrots, put in a sauce pan with a few drops of almond essence, 4 tablespoons of plum jam and about 4 tablespoons of water. Cook gently until a thick pulp and then spoon into the cooked pastry. Note: The carrots really do taste a little like apricots. I can't say I fancy it myself.

Patf - you're obviously not the only feeling bolshie ... Please can we stop the personal insults I really do not want to have to start deleting things.

Last week during a very convivial lunch with some old friends I was stupid enough to laugh at the boarders. When I evenutally used their 'facilities' I found what seemed like a year's supply of toilet paper stacked along the wall.

My experience is out of date, but when I visited Macon some years ago I liked it very much.

I don't understand how Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour Party. I've always leaned, though not always voted, left and I have a long memory which includes Corbyn, Livingstone and Abbott.

Two families of farmers with five children. Only two of them in my class though.

Richard51, in the interest of historical accuracy, JCB was not connected to the original Bamford company. There had been a family dispute which led to Joe setting up on his own. Many years later when JCB was a very successful company he offered to buy the old business and was turned down. Going back to Boris I would not trust him as prime minister. He is clever, but not clever enough to know when to consider the full ramifications of what he is saying.

I have a primary school class photo which proves that the only overweight children were the farmer's. They were taller than the rest of us too.

Joe Bamford did not come from nowhere. He may well have been quoting his grandfather. What was impressive is that in his heyday he could tell you the exact price, to the decimal point, of even the smallest screw in his vehicles. Wooly - I did not say that Bamford's don't manufacture tracked vehicles I said bulldozers. Richard51 has pointed out that they do make bulldozers in China, so I obviously I should have said in Rocester.

A bulldozer is a tracked vehicle with a large blade for contouring the landscape. Check out the lake in front of Bamford's Rocester factory which was done by one of my brothers many years ago. An excavator is used for digging holes.

I really dislike Johnson, but Bamfords don't make bulldozers.

It worries me that everyone appears to be assuming that the D of E was at fault. It's something that bothers me as I get older.

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. I shall wait until spring and then sand an oil it. Wooly it would be very difficult to lift it indoors because it has cast iron legs.