EuroTrash

or manage it better. It has made the forum unusable. Will pop back in a few weeks and see if it's gone.

Fair point Théière. But I was assuming that rebuilding, and identifying the underlying (excuse the pun) cause so that the problem can be stopped, is the way forward. Sorry to be blunt but if bowing of the wall has been observed over 10 years or so and no steps were taken in all that time to find out the cause and remedy it, I think it would be difficult to convince an insurance company that lack of maintenance wasn't a contributing factor in the wall's collapse.

Could you give a few details about the type of construction? Approximate age? You say 'historical cracks' so presumably it is a traditional construction style? Stone, brick, timber? Foundations? For instance I have a 16th century columbage house that doesn't have a single right-angled corner left in it, just about every element has shifted / settled / started leaning / gone banana-shaped, I suppose just from very gradual natural subsidence because the house sits directly on top of the soil. Around 8 years ago I had timber cladding to shore up the back wall that gets the worst of the weather because It was leaning out so alarmingly that I felt it was starting to defy gravity. The maçon who did the job assured me cheerfully that the house would easily see me out. He said it's normal for columbage houses to "breathe" and expand and contract and move, and you should never try to stop them doing what they naturally want to do. But, you can't have walls collapsing. Your best bet is to get a local artisan out because he will know all the ins and outs of the local building style, and he should hopefully be able to tell you why this has happened and what can be done about it.

Hunt has tweeted a message to the Chinese government. Twitter is blocked in China. The message is about the need for countries to respect their international commitments if they want respect. His tweet has hundreds of replies pointing him to the GFA, the UK's exit payment to Brussels and its whole disrespectful attitude to the EU. Politician? Diplomat? Bonkers plus.

^^ *LIKE* ^^ Velvet jackets used to be compulsory for male wannabee poets and writers and long skirts for females, or at least they did in the north of England. I used to go to creative writing classes and it was practically de rigeur, I actually felt obliged to buy a long skirt just to fit in ;-) What you wear does make a statement, I don't think you can odds it.

"is that just another example of the class system in France and there are places where the plebs do not know of????" I guess the international movers and shakers and jet-setters and their hangers on and wannabees keep these shops going. Obviously there are different strata of society from one extreme to the other, some spend thousands of euros at designer stores on a whim and some save up for months to afford something from Primark, some buy Bentleys and some buy Nissans, and ne'er the twain shall meet on an equal footing. Not many of us ever go to events where we're likely to rub shoulders with the likes of the Prince of Monaco, diplomats, Sarko and his mates etc but no doubt there is very a full calendar of such events where you can show off your latest fashion creation or diamond tiara if those are the circles you move in.

Yep I totally agree that conventions evolve constantly, just like language, and so they should. They're a reflection of cultural changes and changing attitudes. As for the apocryphal scruffy lottery winner who goes to a flashy car showroom looking like a tramp, all I can say is, Well what did he expect. For every nouveau riche millionaire that the salesman cold shoulders, he has probably made a correct assessment of similar scruffs as time-wasters many times over. Historically, dress code and other status symbols had greater significance than they have now; everyone knew their place and the notion of social mobility worried people. We like to think we're OK with social mobility these days and we're too sophisticated to be "taken in" by superficialities. But we don't question police uniforms, military uniforms and decorations, nurses' uniforms, judges' robes, wearing evening dress to black tie events, etc etc etc. So yes, if you go to a formal dinner in jeans,then those who have done the "done thing" i.e. the more formally dressed people will make a judgment about someone who is less so. I don't see observing the accepted dress code for a given situation as deference to a particular person, because you can dress correctly and still speak and behave as insolently as you like to someone you don't respect. I see it more as a sign that you're willing to conform to the expectations of society in general, which most people do because they want society in general to accept them. When I was young I used to like dressing for work as informally as I thought I could get away with; I liked to think it showed I was a free spirit and an independent thinker. So although I didn't see it at the time, it was just a different kind of dress code.

I think it's just that people tend to feel uncomfortable when custom and convention is broken. We like our conventions, they oil the wheels of social interaction. When everyone follows social conventions we feel we're all "on the same page" and things run smoothly. So when a person chooses to break the convention we wonder why they did it. Is it to draw attention to themselves, to make a point of showing disrespect in a non verbal way, or perhaps the person is having some kind of temporary personal crisis. And according to what message we pick up from their unconventional behaviour, we might react with disapproval, or sympathy, or embarrassment, or indulgence. For instance if the person is known to be individualistic / non conformist / unconventional, maybe a geek or mad professor type or a natural eccentric - or even just a newly arrived foreigner who isn't familiar with French customs and conventions - we don't take offence. If it's a young thug who hasn't bothered to put a tie on for his court appearance, or a sulky teenage son or daughter who turns up at their parents' posh family "do" dressed totally inappropriately, that would give out a different signal. I take Einstein's comment as referring to people who can't afford smart clothes or good furniture, which is a completely different issue.

I wear specs and it took me a long time to get the knack of faire-ing la bise with other speccy-four-eyeses without clashing spectacle frames. I still don't always get it right.

"once derobed, they would probably be rather 'casual' to say the least." Depends how far the derobing goes I suppose... down to their Calvin Kleins? Further still? [insert boggle-eyed eeking smiley here]

Best of luck with your plans, but as you say yourself, earning a living looks like being the challenge. I'm not sure exactly what a shop floor retail manager does, but smooth communication skills are usually part of being a manager. Ask yourself would it be possible for eg a French person recently arrived in England, not speaking much English and not familiar with English retail policy and legislation, products, customer expectations, local customs etc, to come straight in and do that job? Would that person be likely to be chosen above the other candidates for the job? IT could be easier to get a foot in the door, depending on what role you are looking for, but I'm not sure how transferable expertise in the education sector would be if that means schools. If you haven't already, why not start job searching on one of the online platforms eg indeed.fr to get an idea of what is available in your chosen area. As regards Brexit, it seems you've been following it closely yourselves so your guess is as good as anyone else's. At present it looks unlikely that freedom of movement will survive, and that being the case Brits will lose their automatic right to look for work in France after Brexit. Likewise if Brexit happens then if you aim to be exercising your FoM as workers at whatever cut-off point is decided on, word seems to be that you would need to have been established in France as a worker, ie with a job, for at least 3 months at that cut-off point.

If possible I suggest you are waiting outside his local tax office when they open on Monday morning so as to be first in the queue. They will answer all your questions.

My aunt had two sons. The younger one was a feckless type who wanted to be a musician and she supported him financially, paid his rent when he had no money, fed him and washed his clothes when he went back to mum, mopped his sick up when he turned up drunk in the early hours of the morning, worried herself sick when his marriage broke down, etc, I don't think it's exaggerating to say that he aged her before her time. The older brother was a shy serious lad who became a teacher and my aunt always joked about how he was "the only sensible one of the family". She never needed to do anything to help him. Guess which brother looked after her when her dementia set in. The younger one suddenly discovered he could lead an independant life after all and he stayed well away, he said he loved her so much that he found it too upsetting to visit her. The older one took her in to live with him until her condition deteriorated, and then he made all the arrangements for the nursing home, visited her several times a week etc. Both brothers both benefited equally from her will. I could never understand how the older brother managed to be so philosophical and accepting about having done all the giving while the younger one did all the taking. I don't think he did it out of duty exactly, nor out of love exactly, he just felt it was the right thing to do and he is the sort of person who always tries to do the right thing. I guess we all have our own perceptions of what is the right thing to do, and if we choose not to do it then at the end of the day we have to deal with our own conscience, no matter how convincingly we rationalise our decision to other people. So I don't think there is an objective answer, there is only what feels right to you. Every person is different, every relationship is different.

Yes I think WB is on some good stuff. "No, Brit, much more complex than you are trying to suggest. brussels wants to stop the breakup of the EU so is posing, being hard and inflexible, meaning the UK has to hang tough too." WB, what's complex about the concept of the EU wanting to protect itself? OK stop the breakup if you want to put it like that, although I don't think there is any imminent danger of that outside the DM. But more to the point, it wants to ensure that all its members have the best deal possible and are disadvantaged as little as possible by the fallout from Brexit. And Ireland is one of its members. So yes, it is being hard/inflexible/steadfast/unwavering in doing that - not just posing but actually being it. One would likewise expect the UK to "hang tough" to fight its own corner. It's what both sides usually do in negotiations. What's arguably made this negotiation complex is that the UK, having created an unsolvable problem, has been too busy arguing amongst itself to bring anything constructive to the table, and it's been expecting the EU to do all the negotiating itself in the UK's absence, presumably by doing a kind of double glove puppet act with the EU flag representing the 27 on its right hand and the Union flag representing the 1 on its left hand, and then to present the UK with the perfect answer to the unsolvable problem.

"The whole sorry mess is the result of a faction of the Conservative party, as fanatical as religious bigots, managing to put the blame for Tory austerity on the EU." And also, the determination of certain individuals to keep their lucrative activities outside the scope of the EU's new anti tax evasion legislation. All that matters to them is that the UK is never obliged to implement this legislation, and their self interest seems to have blinded them to everything else.