Blow me - oops bad choice of words. I see our French cousins are getting hot under the collar about the diurnal activities of Maurice the famous cock .. eral. Maurice has been proudly crowing at 6.30 am for years but now his toffee-nosed neighbors - or 'voisons au nez caramel' as they say in France - are up in arms. Maurice has been taken to court for disturbing the peace. In 1995, faced with a similar case that led to a death notice being served on a cockerel, a French appeal court declared it was impossible to stop a rooster crowing. “The chicken is a harmless animal so stupid that nobody has succeeded in training it, not even the Chinese circus,” that judgment said. Sounds like Maurice is safe for now - ooh la la et Woof ! Solidarity Maurice.