[davidmanze]

I would be one of the "leave that to professionals"-advisors, but nonetheless, thank you for bringing these platanes to our attention. I don't know, but platanes to me are the most french trees. I see them in Alsace, in Midi, they belong to public places and canals. It's really sad if they are so sick they have to be cut.

  Yes a huge catastrophe about platanes JoJu, however there is talk of a insecticide, but apparently they have to treat the roots, last time I heard they were talking about about 100 liters per tree so it will cost zillions to treat. it is passed by water contamination, hence the rapidity  along the canal du midi. It is also a zone inondable here so every ten years or so when it floods a huge area is contaminated. 

 The last couple of years the hire boats have been ordered to carry an insecticide dip for the mooring ropes, all to no avail of course.

  The trees are being replanted with some form of oak trees said to be very resistant, all this is being funded by the EU.

 

 The couplet is currently bathing in acetone following research on the net from various "experts" who do this on a regular basis, another way is to heat the lenses in an oven at 300° F, for obvious reasons I didn't fancy that method.

 The lens was bought cheaply for 150 euros because of slight marks on the rear element, it's IQ was fine then and I thought I had a bargain, I'm sure it wasn't a problem of lens storage here as I keep my lenses in lightly heated "safes", two halogen bulbs just raise the temperature so as not to risk condensation as well as reusable silica gel packs, you know belt and braces method, so it came as quite a surprise, all my other lenses are fine, so this lens had "history". 

  I will ring Nikon but my guess is they will not sell me the spares and will insist on me sending the lens in, that will no doubt cost more than the lens is worth on the S/H market, a better idea is to sell the lens on ebay declaring the fault. I've been looking and lenses for spares or whatever still make reasonable money, I'll see how I get on!