As you are no doubt aware, the Bayeux Tapestry was not made in France but by a bunch of Nuns from Canterbury.

For many years now, this tapestry has been displayed in the Norman Town of Bayeux.  My organisation wishes to return the Tapestry to its homeland, although we don't think it would work in a chilly place like Canterbury Cathedral, which often gets full of pilgrims of dubious morality anyway.

The current Mrs. Corder, whose taste is impeccable, thinks it would look very nice in our sitting-room, although we might have to cover up some of the stallions' more excited bits, if only in the interests of interior design as they might clash with our antimacassars.  There are also a few bits of the tapestry where you can see nude people, which is all very well for you the French as you have a long history of that sort of thing, but we don't do it in this country, most of us being homosexual anyway.

I know you've got problems in France at the moment with it being the car-torching season, but perhaps if you could see your way clear to having a word with Mr. Chirac, he might be happy to organise an exchange.  Perhaps if we give you back Raymond LeBlanc, then you could give us the Tapestry?

I know that you have a long history of artistic endeavour.  Where would we be without such tremendous international French artists as Jane Birkin, Jacques Brel, Plastic Bertrand, Josephine Baker, Georges Simenon or Petula Clark?