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Tancrède

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Everything posted by Tancrède

  1. [quote user="Gardener"]Another knee jerk response from that idiot that is IDS! The areas in France that are suffering from a heatwave at present are often the coldest in winter.[/quote] Hear, hear !  And blatantly descriminatory too.  Why should equal help not be given to those who are too hot ? 
  2. [quote user="sweet 17"]Prince Harry in Las Vegas[/quote] Perhaps he was having Prickly Heat too… ?
  3. These might be some form of bullace (béloce).  In their wild format they have the colour and finish of a sloe, are generally spherical in shape and almost precisely the size of a mirabelle  -  but there are various cultivars. Unlike sloes they are not at all bitter, but quite sharp and perfectly delicious.
  4. [quote user="powerdesal"]…the numbers always come up as 'withheld'.   My normal response is to answer clearly in English… [/quote] You are evidently a very generous natured person.  If a number is 'withheld' I wouldn't even consider going to the effort of lifting the receiver.
  5. A good rule of thumb is about 2% fresh yeast by weight.   I.e.  20 g. of fresh yeast to a kilo of flour. As regards future use, I used to buy it in a kilo block, and cut it down into cubes of roughly an ounce with a cheese-wire.  The cubes can then be wrapped in cling-film, frozen, and used as required. If you find it disinclined to 'work', the tiniest smear of marmite will greatly encourage it  -  but I scarcely need tell you that.
  6. [quote user="sweet 17"]Trust them to need being made into jam when it's 34 degrees in the shade![/quote] Sorry to hear that you are having such a cool time of it  -  it was 40° in Dijon this afternoon [:D] You could always freeze them, and do them later.  This is what I do if I think that jam-making is going to give me heat-stroke.
  7. I usually do mine quite ripe without any problem.  If you have some which are doubtful setters  -  and some plums are, despite most of them setting like fury, then use them slightly less ripe. Do you know what variety they are ? (I am rather envious of you if you have a good crop  -  not a very good showing up here .)
  8. [quote user="Rabbie"]Each individual's tax affairs are kept private in the UK. It might be better if this information was made a matter of public record as it is in Sweden,[/quote] But if we really wish to tap that rich seam of envy and splenetic denunciation  -  and I am sure it would be an entertaining spectacle  -  surely we should take steps to publicize each individual's allocation of benefits too ?
  9. [quote user="sweet 17"]But that suggestion of Gengulphus's about asking for a DVD of the party is a very good one.  After all I am not so bothered if the party is all over and I only get to watch it; in fact, the DVD might well catch the livelier moments.[/quote] Oh, but I wasn't for a moment suggesting that you should actually view the DVD.  I would not be that unkind.  Your own experience of viewing people's wedding albums and holiday 'clips' will be sufficient to know what level of toe-curling, buttock-clenching tedium to expect.  And amateur film makers are perfectly incapable of holding the camera still, and cannot resist doing a 'zoom', again and again and again  -  to the last syllable of recorded boredom. Ask for the DVD of the dreaded party, and hang it it up as a bird-scarer in your cherry tree (I cannot recommend them highly enough for this purpose).  You can then say with perfect honesty that it gives you great pleasure every time you see it.
  10. [quote user="cooperlola"]I just don't get the "must watch it while it's happening" thing at all.[/quote] I could not agree with you more.  It is almost as infuriating as the guests who express a strong preference for having a today's newspaper, when there are several old ones which are quite as interesting. [quote user="cooperlola"]Sorry but isn't this what DVD hard-drive recorders were invented for?[/quote] Yes, and people seem obsessed with filming  -  and 'sharing'  -  every last thing nowadays, including the painful details of the most uninteresting social events.  Perhaps the most obvious solution to S16's dilemma would be to ask for a DVD of the party  -  there inevitably will be one  -  and say that she will enjoy looking at it later.    
  11. [quote user="sweet 17"]it's partly my own fault for not consulting the calendar beforehand and for not having a ready-made excuse…[/quote] Yes, that is bad, and you have my fullest sympathy.  You need to be on your toes.  But never mind, there exists a useful and memorable formula for this nightmarish situation. I remember, back in the last millennium, some D-list celebrity soliciting the presence of another for a dinner party at which Princess Fergusson was due to be exhibited. The intended victim splendidly replied, after making some show of consulting his cyber-diary :  I am afraid I must decline  -  I find that my wife and I are watching the television that evening… The riposte seemed such a perfect one that I even briefly debated getting a TV of my own.
  12. [quote user="just john "]Count Robert de La Rochefoucauld, who has died aged 88, escaped from Occupied France to join the Special Operations Executive (SOE); [/quote] Thank you for drawing this interesting notice to our attention. [quote user="just john "]parachuted back on sabotage missions, he twice faced execution, only to escape on both occasions, once dressed as a  N a z i  guard.[/quote] How depressing that despite the generally unwelcome and inept  'improvements' to which the site has recently been subjected, this unacceptable and babyish system of censorship is still firmly in *** place.  
  13. [quote user="Pommier"][quote user="NormanH"]I asset with civil leer.[:D] [/quote] Is that an anagram? [/quote] Rhinitis wets lace veil ?  
  14. [quote user="Chancer"]  I do miss the forum of old.[/quote] Hear, hear ! And what has happened to all the other interesting and entertaining contributors  -  have they all been purged ?
  15. I wish that they would do a Kit Kat which tasted of chocolate  -  I think that would be a real winner.
  16. If only they would do a Kit Kat which tasted of chocolate  -  for me that would be a winner.
  17. [quote user="Quillan"]Seeing as you have only made 23 posts over four years and virtually all of those have been asking for help I don't think that you will be missed that much. For somebody with your background… etc. [/quote] [quote user="Clair"]…you are probably right to go "off somewhere else". I'm quite sure I won't miss you.[/quote] Or  (an alternative form of words) :    How nice  -  and what a refreshing change  -  to hear from an infrequent poster. 
  18. [quote user="Clair"]Windows 7/Firefox 11. The font size is too small for comfort. The colours (dark text on white background) are too contrasting and make the page difficult to read. The thread titles (black or blue on dark blue background) make the text difficult to read. The background image (lavender field) is too prominent compared to the text area. [/quote] Hear, hear !  to all these points. And simply too many colours  -  dark blue, light blue, lighter blue, ivory, pale mauve and white.  All too distracting, especially with the provoking glimpse of a lavender landscape running down the edge on either side. I agree with NickP that black text on ivory (especially if a better font than Arial is used) is perfectly satisfactory. Blue text on dark blue for the Edit your details rubric is particularly unsuccessful, and so is the black on dark blue of the headline of the individual postings. But it is refreshing to find a 3rd millennium product in which so few bogus genuflections have been made in the direction of 'design' or 'consumer choice'. No technical difficulties at all…  [Firefox 11].
  19. [quote user="Clair"]If so, they are harmless.[/quote] Absolutely.  And interesting.  Last year a masonry bee took advantage of an open window to construct, very rapidly, a tiny nest in a dowel-hole of my dining table;  they find ready-made cylindrical holes particularly attractive. She carried on quite oblivious to my presence and I was able to observe the whole fascinating process extremely closely.  Having finally sealed the entrance with mud, she left.  The young emerged and departed a couple or three weeks later.  Neither mother nor offspring caused the slightest nuisance.
  20. [quote user="dexter"]Can anyone tell me the name for the  French version of knotting?[/quote] Yes, I had trouble with this too, in precisely similar circumstances.  And there have been previous threads including this one… http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1123262/ShowPost.aspx
  21. I think it is possible to overlook the positive aspects of braying.  For example, I felt very privileged to share (as unintending audience) this excellent conversation the other day at a café in Beaune : American into mobile phone :       Hi  -  we're in France… His wife (very much present in the flesh) :     No !   We're not in France, this is Paris ! American into mobile phone :       Oh sorry about that…  yes, I thought we were in France but we're actually in Paris  -  it's very much smaller than I had imagined. If they hadn't been braying, I would have missed this important and refreshing glimpse of International Life.     
  22. Or pied d'athlète.  When I had a touch of this underserved complaint last year (I am not remotely athletic and don't wear plastic) I had the consultation at the pharmacie, with the customary crowd of interested bystanders, and was duly rewarded with some Lamisil, no less.  But in fact cured it very briskly myself by sunbathing my foot for ten minutes each day with my toes akimbo.
  23. [quote user="idun"]The toffee continued to cook and cook and cook…[/quote] I often need to make caramel  -  but not, I must admit, for anything as sensational as your gâteau St Honoré.  I don't use a heavy pan for this precisely to avoid the problem of it overcooking. In order to stop caramel (or toffee, or butterscotch) cooking further I either dip the base of the pan briefly into water, or pour a small amount of water into it. The former is quite a violent way of treating the pan  -  which is why a use a beaten-up, pre-war article inherited from the great aunts.  Adding water can be a little explosive, but is useful if you need the caramel to be slightly slacker. In either case, if the caramel/toffee hardens, the pan can be put back on the heat for a moment or two. But as for using a bain marie, I really cannot see how this would be helpful given that the setting point of the material is, as you say, so much higher than the boiling point of water.  
  24. [quote user="Benjamin"]For anybody who doesn’t fully understand the Euro situation , I provide the helpful illustration below:  [/quote][quote user="Benjamin"]It didn't work.[/quote] I wouldn't say that.  It read on my screen as a large empty box with a question mark in the middle of it  -  which seemed extraordinarily apt.
  25. [quote user="pachapapa"]The pipes up chimneys is of more benefit to the back pockets of artisans than of any real tangible benefit to the owner of the chimney.[/quote] Quite.  This is the entire and only reason for this post which seeks  -  before I lock horns with the aimiable chauffagiste  -  to discover if there is now A Regulation to the effect that I should contribute in this particular way to the lining of his pocket.  If there isn't, then I am happy to continue to use a chimney  -  without metal pipe  -  which has functioned perfectly adequately for several centuries. [quote user="pachapapa"]It is perfectly obvious that the lowest resistance to the flow of the combustion gases will be by using the conduit of largest cross-sectional area i.e. the chimney.[/quote] I shall adopt the line of Least Resistance.
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