Of tea and bidets
Sir: I found the description of Jeffrey Bernard's last trip to Paris quite fascinating (Travel Special, 3 February). However, I still have doubts about the connection established between the inability of French hotels to provide English customers with a good cup of tea, bidets and the use that French women make of them.
I came up with a few possible explana- tions such as the fact that you might nor- mally enjoy to use water from bidets to pre- pare your national beverage. Or you might just prepare tea in your bidet altogether. I guess that Le Crillon is probably not short of flexibility to accommodate your most wicked drinking habits. However, going back to the origin of bidets, you probably know that their original use was to allow French women to wash their feet. Only in the mid-Fifties did it become fashionable, I'd like to buy the TV rights to BBC vs BSKYB.' as France was getting progressively infatu- ated with the Anglo-Saxon cleanliness obsession, for French women to take care of more precious parts of their anatomy with bidets.
I therefore conclude that Mr Bernard's remark is only a reflection of the fact that there is one dimension of the use of the above mentioned part of the human anato- my which is not known to Englishmen. This is probably the reason that Edith Cresson had in mind when she concluded that a vast majority of English men are homosexuals.
A French reader always fascinated by your very Francophile publication,
Frederic Di Guisto 8 Saint Mary's Place, London W8
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