THE Margin was intrigued to notice a row that Anita Roddick's Body Shop got into in the French alpine city of Chambery. It seems that the French branch of Body Shop was fined 1,000 francs (about £130) under the [local] laws aimed at restricting the use of Franglais that bastardisation of the French language which created words like le weekend and le sandwich, not to mention le shuttle.

This reminds The Margin of laws operating in Quebec still a province of Canada despite last year's knife edge referendum. There, language laws are so strict that Kentucky Fried Chicken had to become Le Poulet do Colonel and stores like Eaton's the equivalent of Brown Thomas had to drop the possessive and become plain Eaton.

On a more amusing note, what did the local English speakers dub the inspectors specially created to police these Bill 101 language laws? Tongue troopers.