Management consultant Adrian Williams has assured everyone that a letter he wrote claiming to have banned French knickers from his home as part of the ongoing beef row was written tongue in cheek.

The 61-year-old, of Old High Street, Headington, Oxford, caught the imagination of readers of The Times when he claimed everything French had been banned from his home in protest.

He wrote: 'I have banned everything French from my household - beans, chalk, cricket, curves, dressing, fries, horns, kisses, knickers, leave, letters, mustard, polish, toast, vermouth and windows.

"That'll show 'em!" But Mr Williams, who, along with his wife Norma, have a number of French friends with whom they keep in regular contact, said people "must be mad" if they had taken the letter seriously.

He said: "None of the things I mentioned are actually French, with the possible exception of mustard.

"It's the same in France where they have English terms for things that are not English.

"I think this whole issue is a load of nonsense and I wanted to try to show it up for being just that." He added: "I am sure people will have seen that what I wrote was tongue in cheek.

"I have several French friends and when we talk, write or phone each other, we discuss what nonsense these sorts of situations are."

European scientists are currently trying to decide whether British beef is safe in the light of French claims that it still carries a risk of BSE. And amid counter-claims about French beef, sections of the media have led calls for a boycott of French products.

Story date: Saturday 30 October

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