DEREK JAMESON

WE Brits may be obsessed with our French neighbours, but I'm afraid our constant whingeing about their behaviour means absolutely nothing on the other side of the Channel. They couldn't care less.

Visiting France over the past few days, I was able to see what they make of the fact that more than half of us want to pull out of Europe, a frightening statistic bolstered by the ban on British beef and the aggressive antics of French farmers.

A British businessman explained that the French are well aware we have never been comfortable in Europe, and see the latest crisis as yet another example of the barmy Brits regarding themselves as superior to everyone else.

"Let them get on with it, that's the French view," he said. "They're quite happy about their own role in European economic integration and don't propose to lose any sleep over dithering Britain."

As for all the fuss about the ban on beef, typical British hypocrisy, say the French. They are well aware that several local authorities in Britain refuse to buy the home product and beef on the bone is still banned.

Anyway, at best, French imports of British beef are negligible. Their own meat is highly regarded despite British hype about French food. The Americans, incidentally, have banned British meat for ten years or more without a whimper of protest.

Suicide

We don't like the French - that's the difference. To most of us they are noisy and arrogant and stink of Gauloises and garlic. They don't like us any better. In their eyes the Rosbifs are a dull lot hung up on outdated virtues such as the monarchy and excessive politeness.

All good knockabout stuff, no doubt, going back to Agincourt and Waterloo, but hardly any justification for these islands to commit economic suicide by abandoning Europe, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of our trade.

Where do the Europhobes propose we find new customers? Uganda perhaps, or some other bankrupt African state. Russia must be dying for our goods. It hasn't got any money either.

They say patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, and by the same token, some newspapers and commentators play the jingoistic card to curry favour with our flag-waving little Englanders.

I got tarred with the same brush by calling our neighbours Froggies in my broadcasts. It was meant as a term of endearment - just like Rosbifs. The fact is I love the French. They are a romantic lot with style and sentiment. My first wife was born in England of French parents.

She died years ago from a brain tumour, but I'll never forget how she introduced me to that soft, vibrant language and French culture.

It's Armistice Day on Thursday when our two countries remember the blood we have spilled together, the tens of thousands of lives lost in defence of justice and freedom.

That makes a lot more sense than spitting and snarling at each other while drumming up a trade war of no benefit to anyone.

CHARLES BACKS A WINNER

EVERYONE seems to have missed the point about Prince Charles's support for a referendum to decide the future of the monarchy in Britain. The fact is he's on a two-time winner.

Should people decide they don't want King Charles III, he could be the first monarch to be totally free since King John signed the Magna Carta.

No more garden fetes, duty trips abroad, fancy uniforms and other people's speeches. He could even marry Camilla.

Best of all, he would still be among the world's richest men and feted everywhere without having to answer to anyone.

The fact he has nothing to lose might explain why he is chancing his arm by taking on the politicians. He is more outspoken than ever, has snubbed the Chinese and has come out in favour of the hunting lobby.

Of course, he is becoming ever more popular, and a referendum could go his way. I know which role I'd choose.

LAST CHANCE FOR PEACEFUL END

THIS is make or break week in Northern Ireland. Peace hangs by a thread, but at least the warring parties are talking and nobody doubts they now prefer the ballot box to bomb and bullet.

I truly believe that one day Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness will be honoured as peacemakers rather than reviled as apologists for terror, but sadly they failed to make us understand the thorny question of the decommissioning failure of the Provisional IRA to

surrender its arms.

The fact is that the IRA sees itself as a bona fide army with a duty to protect the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland, since they consider the forces of law and order exist primarily to serve the interests of the so-called Protestant ascendancy.

Since the Irish are so obsessive about history, it's unlikely that the IRA will agree to give up a single gun unless and until the Patten report is implemented and the Royal Ulster Constabulary is relaunched under a new name.

SAD ILLNESS OF RUDEST MAN

TIME to forgive and forget. Comedian and writer Barry Took is seriously ill. He's the rudest man I ever met, but that has never affected my admiration for him as the genius behind the Sixties' radio series Round the Horne.

Barry, 71, has been fighting cancer of the bladder for 20 years and recently suffered a stroke which left him unable to read and write. Now his second marriage has broken up after 35 years and he's living alone in a tiny flat.

My misgivings go back to an encounter while having lunch with friends in the MCC dining room in St John's Wood, West London. Barry came lumbering past our table, glowered at me and said: "We don't want people like you in here." He wasn't joking, either.

Not very fantabulosa, to quote the Julian and Sandy gayspeak that Took and his writing partner Marty

Feldman made universally popular in the cult radio series fronted by Kenneth Horne.

For the young among you, this dialogue was known as polari - camp chat based on a mixture of Italian, Yiddish, rhyming slang and various other forgotten sources.

The lingo has almost died out now, historian Chris Denning tells us on the Internet.

Once gays needed a secret language of their own, but happily those days are long past, though Peter Tatchell might disagree.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.