Colonel Mustard

Your kitten thinks you are just a bigger version of itself, and its biting is practice for when it will need to defend itself. It's doing what comes naturally. If you were feline, your fur would absorb the force of the bite. Does it really hurt that much? Are you a man or a mouse?

I read the article, which amounts to "my village is quieter in winter than in summer", and wondered why he bothered to get out of bed to write it. Round here, the French for "grockle"  is "Parisien". 

I have just had the result of a bludd test which shows my cholestorol level is higher than a cat's back. 'Er indoors is threatening to put me on a diet of lettuce and carrot juice. I have heard that oats mop up cholestorol. If I eat porridge before my (soon to be outlawed) bacon and egg, would the porridge neutralise the b & e? Positive answers please, that I can use against the threatened carrot juice diet.

1. Forget about cold winters. Their cocoons are excellent insulation. Anyway, it's during the night, when it's coldest, that they like to come out and feed. 2. Cats and dogs won't eat them , but any cat will put its nose up and have a sniff, and possibly prod them with its paw. 3. We got our treeman to climb the tree and saw off the worst-affected branches. Gets rid of the nests but keeps the tree.

I want to make Spotted Dick, but I can't find suet anywhere. My dictionary tells me that the French is graisse de boeuf, but supermarkets and butchers look blank when I ask them. Any ideas?

Hobiton, I don't know where you can get goats but we used to keep goats years ago, and I have a copy of Mackenzie's Goat Husbandry which is "the bible of goat-keeping", and it is free to a good home if you would like it.

Round here, if you have termites in your house you're supposed to report it to the mairie. Your mairie will tell you if you're in a termite area. And if/when you come to sell your house, you will have to provide a certificate that it's free from xylophagous insects.

Herault. They are widespread in S and SW France, and are moving northwards. You will never see termite damage, because they eat the wood from the inside. The first thing you will know is when your house falls down.

My neighbour had a beam collapse in his garage because it had been eaten by termites. Today he had men in spraying the rest of his garage, and they asked if they could come into my garden to check. I have several tree stumps which are being eaten by termites, and they found these, and said I should have termite traps laid around my garden. I knew there were termites eating my tree stumps(it's one way of getting rid of tree stumps) and I know there are none in my house, because the only wood in my house is in the roof beams and they were inspected recently and treated for a little capricorne damage - no termite damage. How do "termite traps" work, and is it worth paying to have them put around the garden? Apart from the tree stumps, I don't keep any dead wood around the place.

On a similar issue: a friend of ours had a complete home security system installed, one of those linked to a central control. The company installing it recommended a finance company, and our friend borrowed from the finance company to pay for the security system. A year after installation the security company went bust, and all its service contracts and guarantees are now useless. But my friend still has to pay off the loan for the next 7 years, because the two companies are separate. Nice work, if you can get it.

Don't talk to me about Political Correctness. Once you could send small boys up to clean your chimneys, stop blacks and Jews and Irish from renting your rooms, bait bears, smoke where you jolly well liked - all these pleasures gone, gone utterly on the altar of Political Correctness. I even hear talk of giving women the vote. What next?

Tandem Pilot, what does "ATLA" stand for, and whom do the Consumer Attorneys of USA represent? Whom do they act for?Who pays them? "Follow the money" as Deep Throat said.

Aude, Herault, Pyrenees Orientales, Gard are all hot summers, and while winters can get cold they don't last as long as in UK. I live in the Herault and haven't had to put my heating on yet. However (there is a serpent in every Eden) a feature of the climate here is strong, cold winds - Mistral,  Tramontane - which can get on your nerves sometimes.

That will teach them to withdraw our health benefits!

My house is on a plot of land which stretches between two public roads, and I want to sell off the back part as a building plot. The local mairie assures me that it is in a "zone constructible". I have already had the geometre mark out the new plot and register it at the cadastre with a new number. What do I do next? If I want to advertise it as "terrrain a batir", do I need to get a certificat d'urbanisme?

Where I live the nearest town has an English bookshop, and an English grocery, and there are people organising cricket clubs and Guy Fawkes nights and carol concerts etc etc. I know that in theory we should be able to do all this, but the French are in for hard times under Sarkozy, and they are going to look for scapegoats. I do sometimes think that as a community we should keep our heads down more.

Does anyone know if all these different kinds of cat biscuits are for real? There are biscuits for old cats, young cats, indoor cats, neutered cats, long-haired cats, keep-your-urine-healthy cats, etc etc. Are they really any different, or is it a marketing scam?

EDF changed our three-phase to single phase, for free.  Single phase will cost you less on abonnement charges, too.

I have a theory that the French like Audrey Tatou because in the shot you always see of her (sort of three-quarters on from behind) she reminds them of Joan of Arc.

There is a small hole top left of the box marked "reset". Try pushing the end of a paperclip in this and hold for 20-30 secs. (This is official Neuf advice, by the way). Or try pulling the power cable out, as martinwatkins suggested.

White, very sticky stuff has started to appear on the back of the leaves on my lemon tree. Is this some sort of fungus? I am pulling off the infected leaves, but I'll be left with nothing if I carry on. Anyone know what this might be, and what to do?

Mine hasn't arrived yet, and my local CPAM said they wouldn't renew my Carte Vitaille if I couldn't produce one. I went to my hotel d'impots and she looked me up on her computer and said mine would be sent out on the 30th of this month. So it does seem that they can forecast when you will get it - worthwhile going in and prodding them.

What's Georges Freche got against Carcassonne then? Too many harkis?

"Unpleasant elderly bits...."  - you get that close?

2 stroke is usually 50 parts petrol to one part oil. Use proper debroussailleuse oil. Mix it well. Alternatively, you can buy ready-mixed 2 stroke. The foreplay consists of pulling the cord to start the motor, and, like most foreplay, may give you backache.