MY FRENCH is woefully inadequate, but recently I needed to communicate with people in France who spoke very little English.

So I turned to the Internet for help as there are several sites which make instantaneous translations into a variety of languages. Most of the sites warn that the automatic translations are somewhat literal, but add that they should be good enough for the person receiving them to understand.

Worried about the messages I might have sent abroad, however, I decided to test the sites out by translating nursery rhymes into a variety of languages then translating them straight back.

I quite enjoyed the results. Here are some of them Dutch: Flash, flash, little astre how I am aroused curiosity what you omhoog above the world you are fly as a diamond in the sky.

German: Black sheep of the Bloekenbloekens have you each possible honoured master of wools, honoured Mr. three bags fully one for the master, one for the lady and one for the little boy, who lives down the way.

Italian: Sig.na the Muffet small sat on tuffet that it eats it curdled and a serum of latte ahead have come a spider and the Muffet has been based down to the side of she and frightened sig.na via.

French: Jack and Jill assembled the hill to seek a bucket of water. Jack fell to the bottom and broke its crown and Jill came dgringolant then.

Russian: Humpty Dumpty Oye on wall Humpty Dumpty had horse it was large a drop completely in the king and people completely of king could not assume Humpty together again.

CARCASS WORRY A COUPLE of weeks ago we featured a story about a deer injured by a car which was then put down by a vet who used a phenol barbitone injection.

The carcass was then left lying by the side of the road at Ullswater because it was Sunday and the district council could not arrange for its disposal until the next day.

There was a warning with the story that people feeding the carcass to pet dogs would have been dangerous because of the drugs.

But, as a reader phoned me to point out, birds of prey - protected species - and other wild animals might well have tucked in to the dead deer.

"It was a little irresponsible to leave it there," she said.

I am inclined to agree.

MODERN MESSAGE A FRIEND e-mailed me to say: You know you are a member of the computer society when 1 You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2 You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3 You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

4 You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5 Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6 When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial 9 to get an outside line.

7 You read this entire list, and kept nodding and smiling.

8 As you read this list, you think about forwarding it to your "friends."

9 You got this email from a friend that never talks to you anymore, except to send you jokes from the net.

MY FRIEND Stewart Hulse sent me A car park-style sticker (below) that his wife Joan acquired.

"Berwick-on-Tweed seem to have come up with a brand new pee-and-display system," said Stewart.

"To go to the toilet a 20p ticket has to be obtained before entering the cubicle and, as you can see, there is a sticky bit to peel off to presumably stick it on your backside," said Stuart.

"On the ticket it says the ticket must be retained ready for inspection during your visit.

"I can just imagine the conversation," adds Stewart.

Attendant "May I see your ticket madam." Lady "Read my behind young man."

Visit Web Watch (link below) for another view of language translation online...