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Le Petomane

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Everything posted by Le Petomane

  1. Anyone remember chris pp? He was the forum's David Attenborough. If something bizarre with six legs appeared in your home he could identify it.
  2. The forum does not like the standard abbreviation for Richard. It's not me......
  3. I remember Twinkle and Russethouse and **** Smith. I hope they have not gone to the Great Forum in the sky. I hope they are thriving somewhere.
  4. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves that the State of Israel came into being through acts of terrorism. British soldiers and diplomats - British - were shot, bombed and hanged by Zionists. At the time they were described in the House of Commons as terrorists. Now the American President and the British Prime Minister rush across the world to hug them. How times change. This is not hate speech. It's how things were, and are.
  5. We have invited my brother-in-law in the UK to stay with us at the end of September. He is a worrier and a stickler for the rules, (he used to be a magistrate) and he wants us to send him a letter confirming that he will be staying here with us. Has anyone ever heard of such a letter being asked for by French border officials?
  6. Are you suggesting that Brits who settle in France do so because they are dissatisfied with their own country? Not so in my case. Is it the case with most of the members of this forum? I have grumbles about life in Britain, and about life in France. I've lived in Germany, Bulgaria (under Communism) and the Middle East. All these places had their drawbacks. I'd probably find things to complain about in Utopia, Nirvana and Shangri-La. And it's not because I'm particularly picky. It's human nature. To come back to the original thread, I'd be interested to know which particular laws Gluestick thinks are unnecessary? Let's have chapter and verse! 
  7. We kept pigs in the UK. There, they are subject to all sorts of control orders, and I guess it's the same in France. You have to have them properly penned (they are very strong and very intelligent, and can smash their way through anything that would retain cattle), and they are very prone to disease. Get a canary instead.
  8. Many Acts of Parliament are non-controversial legislation, often bills sponsored by MPs for their local authorities, or for river or harbour authorities etc. Others, like the Finance Act or the Armed Forces Act are designed to prolong existing legislation. This "seven and a half new laws" doesn't mean anything until you analyse it. I find that the people who shout loudest about nanny states and government interference are also the first to ask "what are they(ie, the government) going to do about it?" as soon as something goes wrong. And no, I'm not a Tony Blair fan.
  9. You think Freud was obsessed?  Have you read Wilhelm Reich?
  10. H'mm. Perhaps you should read Freud, too...
  11. I would like to see this Gurkha treated justly, indeed, I would like to see everybody treated justly. I am also pleasantly surprised to see the Daily Mail campaigning for more immigration, even if it's just one deserving Gurkha. What next? Mr Paul Dacre joining the next Gay Lib March, or saying something positive about state schools?
  12. There is a serpent in every Paradise. Read "Genesis"!
  13. I have just bought a rhubarb crown. I live in Herault, and I am not sure where to place it. I thought rhubarb liked shade, but a website tells me that it hates shade and to keep it in the sun. Any advice?
  14. The Foreign Office minister who signed their deportation order was Roy "Chubby" Hattersley, who now presents himself all over the media as the Inheritor of Keir Hardie's Cloth Cap.
  15. If it's any comfort to anyone, all my usual overseas transfers for May have come in OK, plus a completely new transfer from Canada for which I had provided my old IBAN reference. Some bits of the new CA are getting it right.
  16. Only an eggcupful. And it is a vegetable oil. It's not going to harm anything. The tank is only for watering his garden. And it was in the interests of Science. And I did water and weed his garden all last summer while he was ill. And.....
  17. Good luck to you. Michael O'Leary has a vocabulary of two words. The second one is "off".
  18. We moved here from Oman, and were in the same situation as you. We had closed our Omani bank account. We wrote off to our ex-employers in Oman and they sent us letters confirming our earnings. These were accepted. Remember that you will pay cotisations based on your earnings for 2006.
  19. My neighbour's water-tank, which he uses to irrigate his potager, is brimming with mosquito larvae. His tank is about 20 metres from the sitting-out-and-eating bit of our garden. Soon they will all hatch out. They won't bother him, because his house is much further away, and anyway, he doesn't use his garden other than for growing his veg. Someone told me that pouring oil on the top of the water will prevent the larvae from breathing, and yesterday I poured some sunflower oil on. The larvae didn't seem to be able to penetrate my little oil slick, and they surfaced elsewhere in the tank. The thing is, I can't cover the whole tank in oil, he would be bound to notice; I get on well with him and don't want to upset him.  I have thought of scooping them out with a child's fishing net, but I don't think the holes would be small enough. What else can I do? Buy some goldfish? Is there anything else that would eat them? What to do?
  20. I have a small lemon tree which has four very large fruits on it. They haven't yet turned yellow, but now new buds have started developing. Should I take the fruits off now?
  21. Are they a sort of orange colour? If so they are probably scolopendra, and you are right, they are not very nice. If evicting them, get them well away from the house, otherwise they will only come back in. Look them up in Google.
  22. We are a retired couple, nonsmokers, unbelievably respectable, looking to rent a 1 bedroom apartment/studio in Paris for 1 month from 9th June. Will water plants, walk dogs, gratify cats' whims, etc. Can anyone help? Please email me.
  23. Sir Keith Joseph was keen on putting Latin on the school syllabus twenty years ago. I did Latin at school and enjoyed it and have never regretted learning it. But a lot of the claims made for Latin - that it is especially "good for the brain" or that it helps you understand English grammar - simply aren't true. Any intellectually challenging activity is good for the brain, and the grammars of English and Latin are quite different. Ideally one would like to be able to know everything, but any school curriculum has to be a choice of priorities, and it would be hard to justify the general inclusion of Latin in the modern school curriculum. If you take a group of children and subject them to special treatment, they will respond well to it whether the subject is Latin or go-karting. There was a famous experiment in an American factory - I can't remember the name of it - where they improved the lighting in a work area. The workers responded by improving output - they felt that the management cared about them. They kept up the improved output even when the old lighting was restored. Children in school will likewise respond favourably, but it's the singling out for special treatment, not the Latin.
  24. Meg & Mog, do you (or your dog) have any of the following: (a) pelmets (b) valances (c) doilies (e) something such as a doll with a huge crinoline dress to hide the spare loo roll  (f) a special-shaped brush to dust behind radiators (g) those little things on your table to rest your cutlery on to stop the tablecloth getting dirty (h) a special-shaped thing for getting the first slice out of a pie (i) grape-scissors (j) one of those things you plug into the wall which discharges nice smells (k) an After-Eight mints coaster?
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