Archives for 30 July, 2005

I received the email below from my father-in-law, who along with m-i-l is hoping to join us in France. It’s all worry, worry, worry.

“We still want to go to France very much, but some concerns emerge. What are the possibilities of being shot. The hunting season in France has been brought forward by a week, and an outfit called something like the Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux predicts 9000 tonnes of lead pellets, propelled out of 250 million cartridges will soon be whistling around our ears, with particular reference to duck-shooting in the Somme estuary. Being blown up. A newly-created public park in Lille (seehow they are targeting us) has found to be home to over 200 WWIhand-grenades, each capable of maiming within a 25 metre range. The excuse is that the contractors landscaping the park trucked in topsoil from the Flanders area, a lame excuse to me (nopun intended). Being misled. In Paris, once again in our theatre of operations(see how the military jargon so readily overwhelms one in times like these) unidentified agents have been pasting convincing Latin translations of street names over street signs, appropriately enough  throughout theLatin Quarter (eg Vicus Scholarium instead of Rue des Ecoles). Prime suspects are militant Latinists – a new one on me -from the local Tridentine church.

Mother-in-law continues to improve, but I am not sure
that she is up for full-scale counter-terrorist and counter-intelligence operations.

Can you advise soonest, please?

Worried,

Monkstown”