Jump to content

Tancrède

Members
  • Posts

    381
  • Joined

  • Last visited

    Never

Everything posted by Tancrède

  1. [quote user="Hoddy"]I can't for the life of me see why any of my taxes should go to regimes where women are not treated fairly under their laws. Hoddy[/quote] Well said.  (And I am not an unrepentant feminist myself). It seems bizarre that the UK should be contributing over a billion pounds to Nigeria's inept, ostentatious and previously disastrous 'space programme'.  If this wealthy country genuinely wishes to embrace the values of the 'space age' (beyond the adoption of a meretricious vanity project) then a good beginning would be the suppression of the Female Genital Mutilation of which it is the biggest practioner.
  2. Like you I almost despaired.  All the French ones seem to be 'wacky', tasteless, or have stripes running in the wrong direction, or an unwanted alligator on them somewhere. I finally got exactly what I wanted (including excellent Egyptian cotton sheets too) from : http://www.viceroybedding.co.uk They can be accessed via Ebay, and the rubric saying  May not deliver to France  is (for some reason) twaddle.  They do deliver to France and, in my case, very promptly.  
  3. Wild parsnips are delicious. I will just point out, for the benefit of the unwary, that another handsome fennel-like and extremely invasive plant, with smooth stems and leaves, purple blotches, and a characteristic mousy smell, which also has thick parsnip-like roots, is extremely poisonous  -  as Socrates discovered. But whereas wild parsnips are found in poor, limey ground, hemlock favours richer and damper locations.  This plant also tends to produce blains on the hands if handled robustly.  
  4. [quote user="Loiseau"]The book it comes from is in the Vendee house, and I am not, so I cannot go back to source at the moment.[/quote] Mapie just happens to be at hand, and I can confirm that your recipe, Loiseau, is exactly correct (with a 1/3 reduction from my version). She was, of course, innocent of self-raising flour.
  5. [quote user="Rabbie"]We need more spending to generate growth.  People aren't buying non-essentials…[/quote] Yes, yes, yes.  As long as I have a dividend popping through the letter-box, I really want morons buying more and more 'non-essentials' with borrowed money…
  6. [quote user="Pommier"]I think you're right to help them Sue; after all it's not as if it's some test they've got to pass![/quote] Naturally is it correct to help one's parents.  But I do believe that it is a test that one does have to pass this test…    If not, why did the examiners call me in (several years after the event) about my script of 2007 ?  
  7. [quote user="Chiefluvvie"]Well that's just infantile Quillan - you've just grouped Maggie in with a load of mass murderers - get a grip for goodness sake! Chiefluvvie[/quote] But what a splendid exemplification of Godwin's Law. 'As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Na zis or Hitler approaches 1.'
  8. It might be an appropriate moment to remember those lines written for King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, by his court poet… Venus was sculpted by man, But the far more attractive woman, Margaret Thatcher, Was sculpted by Allah. My heart raced when I saw her face to face. Her skin was smooth as ivory, Her cheeks as rosy as an English rose, And her eyes as lovely as a mare’s. Her figure is more attractive than the figure Of any cherished wife Or coveted concubine.
  9. [quote user="Théière"]I would like to see more of it or is that just me[/quote] Just you, I should imagine.  But my kitchen window has an excellent view up a vaulted, mediaeval, cobbled passage-way  -  'piss alley'  -  which the ladies seem to have a particular preference for, and I would not hesitate to put it at the disposition of any interested party. Otherwise I simply wait until they are in full flow and rap sharply on the window-pane with a spoon.
  10. [quote user="talusa"]I get the impression that some French women will urinate between cars etc and not look for a toilet.  Is this only SOME women in France?[/quote] The majority, I think.  And naturally they have a justifiable pride in this accomplishment as many English women and most Americans would not be able to squeeze themselves into such a narrow space.
  11. Tancrède

    Cholesterol

    The last time we skated around this pond, someone posted this tendentious link, which was sufficiently thought-provoking that I saved it : http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAE78.htm 'Perhaps even more important…  is the fact that a falling cholesterol level sharply increases the risk of dying of anything, including heart disease.' It reassured me of the benefit of having a couple of shares in pharmaceutical companies producing this apparently bogus panacea.
  12. [quote user="sweet 17"]And I suppose you'd buy it at an agricultural coop perhaps?[/quote] Yes, an agricultural / gardening supplier would be sure to have it.
  13. [quote user="sweet 17"]However, now please assure me that it doesn't stain everything irridescent blue or fluorescent orange?[/quote] Oh yes, I can assure you that it doesn't do either of those things.  It is a pale green crystal (or powder) and when diluted is virtually colourless.  It does give a slight smell of old anchors for a day or two  -  but living far inland I find that quite evocative. You will rapidly see if it is working because the moss will turn black within hours.
  14. Sulphate of iron, an ounce to two gallons of water, put on with a watering can. Oh, and I meant to say :  put it on during the growing season. And it's as cheap as chips. 
  15. [quote user="Chancer"]I often ask myself at which point children, more so in the UK but also in France, became the centre of the universe, or is it just the ill behaved ones? the ones with special names like hyperactive or attention deficit or expressive, whenever it happened I must have been unaware.[/quote] Hear, hear.   Well said. I cannot define the exact point, but it goes precisely hand in hand with the use of the term 'kids'. I could scarcely repress a shudder at the Original Post.  The combination of Brit + Kids in a restaurant is generally so singularly noxious as to enable me to tolerate any amount of frankic nose-picking as a decidedly lesser evil.
  16. [quote user="Hoddy"]I empty a plastic drinks bottle, fill it with pebbles and put it in the water in the toilet bowl.[/quote] This is good.  But I find that child's wellington boot stuffed down the lav is the perfect solution.  You do not have to fill it with anything, and it goes Round the Bend better than a drinks bottle (most of which are glass in my experience).  Obviously it is best to remove the child first.
  17. [quote user="just john "]I was given some flowers with two enormous seed pods, called trumpets of jericho? I have no idea what their real name is or how to propagate, any advice gratefully received.[/quote] If they are something like large kidney-bean pods, you will find bags of information on the internet under Campsis.
  18. [quote user="Christine Animal"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW0xk2ajRJE [/quote] *** LIKE*** [quote user="5-element"]Then I just had to watch more snake videos…[/quote] Absolutely.  Me too.  YouTube search "climbing snakes" opens up a dangerously compelling, very entertaining, and previously unsuspected way of wasting time…
  19. [quote user="Laurier"]I have accepted what they say but wonder if that is right ...?[/quote] Strangely enough I have just opened a Livret A, and asked precisely this question.  I received the same response as you  -  that when the threshold of the investment is raised, any interest already accumulated beyond the previous threshold 'counts' towards the new maximum investment.
  20. Perhaps the Queen  -  after her crowd-pulling and populist success at the Olympic Games  -  has asked them all (the young ones) to play to the baying gallery by doing Something Really Rude ? I am a little troubled, however, by the new style embraced by The Palace.   Hugely saddened…   grotesque…   violated…   Who on earth is writing this postured, sensationalized, hack-journalistic, Diana-reminiscent, soap-operatic drivel ?   The universal cliché of bien-pensant reproof 'inappropriate' surprisingly failed to put in its mealy-mouthed appearance.   But at least on this occasion the Duchess can thank her lucky stars she hasn't been  [an ultimate boo-word of this trashy style]  'marginalized'.
  21. [quote user="Gengulphus"]pensée laterale[/quote] Whoops  -  latérale.
  22. pensée laterale [quote user="sweet 17"]My French teacher thinks there is no such expression....[/quote] Quite.  Which precisely explains why the phrase has not been widely embraced on this side of the Channel… I haven't heard of it, therefore it doesn't exist.
  23. [quote user="woolybanana"]You should take a TEFL qualification so you know what you are doing. Something like the CELTA.[/quote] I absolutely second what Woolybanana says.  Not only so that you know what you are doing, but because the punters will expect it.
  24. [quote user="Araucaria"]I received an ominous brown envelope from HMRC yesterday - the first time they had written to me for more than four years. [/quote] Snap !   -  mine arrived last week, and was for an alleged underpayment in 2004.  The explanations were equally unsatisfactory…
  25. un squale [or un requin]  =  a shark  
×
×
  • Create New...