[Sup] You've unmasked me there, only been there once in February, weather was as I described though.

The windy miller and I are off to the 24-hour Citroen 2CV race at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday. What fun. Ages since I've been to any motorsport-related (I use the term advisedly) events. It's been nothing but windmills for the past eight years.

(pen) For a short period I drove one of those. They can do 60 on the flat. Handling characteristics of a London bus; power of a Sinclair C5.

I think the ones on the track last week had been pimped. Quite a lot. Great fun, free entry, free grandstand seats, disgusting toilets.

The 2CV has an integral toilet?

[Stevie] IN the Netherlands they are affectionately known as the Citroen Eend or 'duck'. There's also a brand of toilet cleaner in NL and in the UK called 'Toilet Duck' or 'Toilet Eend'. We are truly going round in circles.

(pen) I get the impression the Dutch are cheerfully lavatorial. Is that a fair assessment?

[Stevie] Not really, not as much as the British. It's a coincidence about the Duck thing - it's a Europe-wide name for the toilet cleaner because of the shape of the neck of the bottle. Now I'm trying to identify the Dutch sense of humour...

[pen] The boy with his finger in the dike points* the way to the Dutch sense of humour, I think.

* Ahahahahaha

Not seeing the connection between the bottle-bank on wheels and a duck, myself.

Depends on your stance. The Ka was nicknamed "Flea" in Germany (they seem to have an insect fixation), the Multipla was the "coffee pot" in France (probably could be exchanged for one after ten thou miles), not too sure about the resemblance either.

[pen] My recollection of Dutch humour was that they gave you very fair warning of an imminent joke, often some days in advance, allowing one to take cover. Is it still like that?

Our Finnish friends, who owned an underpowered 2CV, used to refer to it as the 'un cheval'.

[Superman] I get the 'flea' moniker and the coffee-pot (I'm thinking of a Bialetti stove-top espresso maker - does that make me one of the 'liberal elite'?) but it does take time for objects to earn an affectionate nickname, doesn't it?
And as for slow-simmering Dutch jokes, I haven't actually noticed any, probably because I don't work with enough Dutch people for the technique to gain critical mass. They're not without a sense of humour, but because mine relies on wordplay (most often) then there's a gap that isn't often bridged.

I had asked if anyone had seen Venus low in the SW around sunset but for some reason the question didn't appear. Well? The moon's there now as well.

[Rosie] I have seen it peeping through the trees the last few chilly nights.

(Boolbar) Bright, innit. You can see it in broad daylight with binocs and even with the naked eye under the most favourable conditions.

Is it the thing shining diretly under the new moon right now? I can see it from the sofa. It's going to be a chilly one tonight.

(pen) It is, or was. The moon moves on, unlike Ars?ne Wenger. Venus gets higher and higher until mid February. Cue UFO reports.

Why has my carefully crafted grave accent come out as a question mark?

Jupiter beaming at me this morning. Still visible as the sun was lurking just over the horizon. [Rosie] Try using the html string è

[Rosie] I dunno, but I wish you'd stop ending every question with an 'e' sporting a jaunty grave accent.

(Boolbar) Normally alt0232 works but not this time. Something is slightly amiss because on doing "Preview" the text disappeared from the box and after several severe blows with a club hammer this is what came up. ??? lad.

It's done it again. I dunno.

[Rosie] I never use that because absent a numeric key pad I have to use the numbers up top and it dun't wurk. Boolbar's suggestion should work as it is broswer rendering character set immune (a quick test: è).

It could be the preview is furging it all up. (quick test with preview: è).

So preview can't bugger up the HTML entity. Let's try with the number (quick test:

Egad!

? j?? ??p? th? ?h?r?ct?r? İ ⱳā?ẗ.

è é ë
These characters created via è é ë, as recommended by Boolbar.

Testing, testing.

Well, that works, as does the Preview. Let's try this: Tèsting, tèsting. That previews OK but only by using Boolbar's method. On MCIOS both systems work. Why dat den?