We all know from our school days learning a foreign language is a tricky business. Luckily for HARRY COLE his French exchange student could even sing in English.

I listened to a phone-in recently in which people listed the nation they liked least. I didn't phone in but it reminded me of the time my daughter went to Paris for two weeks and later, a French girl, Veronique, came here.

Now Veronique was a complex child. She was pretty and quite sweet and tried hard with her English though some of her chat was a little bewildering.

When asked her thoughts on a cake she had just made, the reply "The cake 'as 'ad a miscarriage" was somewhat worrying .

This did not stop her from eating it though. In fact there wasn't much she didn't eat.

She not only ate but complimented whoever cooked it. "Ah missus Cole" she exclaimed to my wife as she sat poised knife and fork at the ready "The dinner is raining!".

My mother, who was living with us at the time, used the tried and tested English method of conversing with foreigners almost touching noses and yelling "And how are you today dear?". It was a week before Veronique realised my mother was not stone deaf.

Our big problem with the girl was that her visit coincided with a heatwave and her reluctance to wash began to get oppressive by the fifth day.

Our big night out was going to be Friday when we had bought tickets for the Royal Tournament and we finally bribed the girl (with my daughter's best dress!) to have a bath.

The Tournament and the bath were both great successes, apart from the fact that the Tournament featured Napoleon and the band played the Marseillaise every few minutes.

On the way home the child must have sung it a dozen times before we even reached Chelsea Bridge.

"Don't you know another song?" asked my wife in desperation.

I know White Christmas' came the astonishing reply.

Apparently, her father had an old 78rpm record by Bing Crosby that the girl had learned parrot fashion in perfect English.

Well anything was better than the infernal Marseillaise so White Christmas it was.

The huge bus driver perched high in his cab at the Brixton Hill traffic lights swivelled his head frantically in the heat searching for the cause of the noise.

It was some moments before his gaze fell down to the side of his stationery bus to see, on a baking July night, three adults and two young girls in an old Austin, windows wide open, singing " to hear the sleigh bells in the snow"at the tops of their voices.

I'm now sick of White Christmas, I hate the Marseillaise, I've never eaten a cake since and I'm still not keen on the French.

December 20, 2001 15:30