My best French teacher at the moment is the cost, in the village, of the English daily papers.

The London Times come in at about €3.25, or nearly €20 a week, so as a consequence it is not a daily purchase but an occasional one.
I am then thrown on the Midi-Libre for the news, and from there come my French lessons.
Almost inevitably, within fifteen minutes out has to come our Robert French Dictionary.
Take this morning's headline.

Le préfecture du Gard coiffe encore le bonnet d’âne

Literally:
The governing body of the Gard (department) again style the hair of the ass's bonnet.

Out comes Robert.
First the asses bonnet, this means quite simply a dunces cap.
Okay, so now we know that the Prefecture of the Gard intend to style, again. a dunce's cap.
Back to Robert.
Coiffer means not only to style hair but also to don any form of headgear.
So then all is clear;
The Gard prefecture have again put on the Dunce's Cap.
This is because of the departments in the area, it takes them longest to produce certain documents.

For example 28 days to produce a Driving Licence compared to the Lozere who have it the following day, 12 days for a passport compared to the Aveyrons 1 and 11 days to produce a national identity card compared to a mere 1.7 in the Landes.
I don't know , the poor old Gard don't seem too bad to me, but then I was reared in a hard slow school.

A fascinating little bit of trivia happened when I started to look of the meanings of Coiffer in Robert.

The following sentence occured:
Elle allait bientôt coiffait sainte Catherine
This seems to mean that she will soon have crowned Saint Catherine.

But (of course) it doesn't.
In fact it means: (says Robert)

She would soon be 25 and still unmarried.

Now I am still unsure of how they come to this conclusion.
My guess is that as Saint Catherine achieved her sainthood for (as well as becoming the role model for a firework) being a very adamant virgin.
Could it be that the French in their wisdom have decided that a girl 25 and still a virgin is never going to lose that distinction ?

Seems a harsh judgment to me.

As I said at the begining it is amazing what the the papers can teach you.