Lehaut

Looks PC on a PC - picture of France, not Australia

Great, don't know what you have done, but well done anyway.

Following my successful appearance as an extra in "The Origin of Evil (L'Origine du mal)" (funeral scene, suited gentleman left hand side of church) my second appearance as a moving extra is now available. Mme Holmes TF1 Series 1 Episode 4. Garden party in London scene, fully visible. My agent is handling all new requests for interviews, autographs, new roles etc. 😁

For the same reason we keep our RBS account, though they will not let us open any savings accounts. However, I have a Revolut sterling account which is paying me 4.07% interest daily on my "secret nest egg" I have only had this (not guaranteed) account for less than a year and am interested to see how the FISC treat it when we do our declaration.

I wonder if the one on offer is the one on Amazon at €250? I would go with the old adage about things being too good to be true. What do you want a mini PC for? At this stage of your life, if you have a real need for one, get a proper one which will perform better. Or if its just for general surfing a Samsun tablet with an 11 inch screen (for example). Less likely to end up in landfill in the short term. Just my two pennies worth. If you do go ahead, let us know, always happy to be proved wrong.

I assume this thread relates to interest on UK bank accounts? We don't have any in the UK now, but several years ago we "forgot" to declare £345 interest sitting in a UK account in the name of my wife. She was controlled and had to pay the social charges on it! Always wondered afterwards if they are a diligent with the more affluent members of French society.

Have been waiting 3 weeks for the weather and tides to be right for a circular bike ride over the bridge to the Island of Noirmoutier and then return over the submersible Passage du Gois. Yesterday it all came together. There were dozens of cars and hundreds of people out on the mud flats scratching away for the various shell fish that live in the (not too pleasant smelling) mud. Quite a risk to drive your car onto the mud and over the rocks that line to causeway for a handful of shellfish. What did surprise us where those who were just by the side of the road, cracking oysters off the rocks and sucking them down there and then, throwing way the shells and hacking off a few more. Not our thing at all, do other members enjoy this form of "wild food" harvesting?

I think, however careful you think you are being, climate change will add an extra risk to all of us.

A chap walking down the road in the UK sees a sign in a pet shop window "Talking Centipede for sale £100". Greatly take by the idea he pops in and buys it, happily walking out with the purchase in a shoe box. Getting home he puts the box on the table and thinks how he can show off his new purchase. After a few moments, he asks "would you like to go to the pub for a drink" Silence More silence Thinking now that he has been scammed, he demands once more in a stern tone "do you want to go to the pub or what" "Keep your hair on" comes the reply from the box "I heard you the first time, I am just putting my shoes on"

Is there a similar love/hate for the Self Scan system? Our kids got us on to it at Leclerc. Scan as you put in basket, present at a special area, show scanner and loyalty card and either you just pay, (avoiding the pain of the self service checkout or the long queues at the normal checkout) or you do a rescan. In the past 5 weeks we have been asked to empty our trolly once - given a TB for correctly scanning, paid and on our way. The hand held borne also bleeps at you if there is a BOGOF type offer to make sure you do not miss it. I have to hold it in my hand all the time to make sure I scan everything though and am under constant wife surveillance.

The flooding that is rightly occupying peoples thoughts at the moment is probably only slightly behind the second effect - sorting out the insurance (if you have it). On the French News we had heard the term "catastrophe naturelle" banded about as an aid for those suffering from the effects of "natural causes". I was under the misapprehension that, once the government categorised the incident as a "catastrophe naturelle" they, rather than the insurance companies stepped in. If I understand the situation correctly, its actually all of us (with insurance) who pay into a fund which is used to fund pay-outs in these cases. Currently leveed at 12% on our house insurances, it will be going up to 20% next year. You can argue over the "naturelle", but we will all pay the price one way or another. https://www.france-digues.fr/actualites/augmentation-des-cotisations-catasrophe-naturelles/#:~:text=A compter du 1er janvier,arrêté du 22 décembre 2023).

Yes, a weird picture to put up. Where the "clean" square is on the photo stood, until recently, a free, solar powered Bike Station where you could blow up your bike tyres. One of two in our local area that people (including us) used. Now gone because person or persons unknown kept cutting off the adaptor that connected it to your tyre valve. The local SuperU up the road took away their car/motorbike pump too as the tubing was stolen on a regular basis. Sad.

I was under the (false) impression that these non conformists were isolated to the country where many other of similar (and worse) views reside. However, it may be that they walk amongst us here in France. Hopefully their "case" does not go down well in the French courts. https://www.20minutes.fr/societe/4085107-20240405-complotisme-quoi-couple-citoyens-souverains-interpelle-gendarmes

I think its just another way of making money for the Bank. Look at "Le virement instantané" . For quite sometime Revolut and BoursoBank (for example) have had these available for free (Revolut do country to country free). Its only recently that a change in European rules have forced banks to offer this service without the charges they were levying on clients. Some were charging up to 10€ for the service, whist others, at the same time, offered it free. Its always about the money.

The article does not recommend any particular breed. Shout out here for the Damascus Goat. Hopefully its mother loved it! If all animals looked like this the west might go vegetarian and help solve some of ALBF's concerns.