Le President de France,
Paris,
FRANCE.
jeudi 6e septembre, 1990.
Cher Monsieur le President,
LES MOUTONS ANGLAISES
Now here's a thing: I know you French have never seen eye-to-eye with us Brits (and vice versa), but I never thought your lot would stoop so low as to hijack a bunch of our sheep. Worse still, you actually tried to cook them while they were still in the lorry! I know that your French cuisine is notoriously experimental, but this is plain ridiculous!
Now, it seems to me that hijacking sheep is probably illegal, even in France, and I would be most interested to know whether the local gendarmes intend to apprehend the culprits at all. I hear that our own Agriculture Minister, Mr John Selwyn Gummer, a member of the General Synod and, therefore, not usually a chap quick to anger, has described himself as "hopping mad" about the lack of arrests and is going to have "stiff words" with the relevant French officials. You had better watch out; I hear tell that Mr Gummer is not the sort of person you would want to pick a fight with at all.
The whole escapade has been very unfortunate really: you French were just about getting over the extremely bad press coverage you received as a result of your commandos' sinking the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warlord fiasco - was that episode blown out of all proportion or what? (I mean, what does a little bit of international terrorism matter when the whole of France's nuclear armament programme is under threat?) - and then this happens. Never mind, c'est la vie!
Let's hope that this whole messy saga can be brought to a satisfactory conclusion as soon as possible and that our governments can get on with much more important matters such as "European harmony", the environment and stopping the Germans from having their way all the time.
Yours for a better Europe,
[Julien Date]