LAiffricaine

I am often baffled by the utter waste of recycling ideas for old tyres. Sometime last summer a whole warehouse full of them burnt down in SouthWales taking at least 3 weeks for it to be completely burnt out. Why oh why ? couldn't these tyres be put to good use such as strengthening river banks that are in danger of collapsing and causing flooding. When I hear the great and the good saying that the engineerring of strengthening such river bank cost far too much - financial cost as well as environmental one for making the concrete - Man ! just bang your head !! These mountains of tyres could be put to good use : criss cross these tyres, infill with mud and turf, drive in a few strong stakes that the structure doesn't move and Bob's your uncle : river bank strengthened. Turf inside tyre will soon be colonised by grass and other plant seeds which will grow and overtime cover up for tyre wall to no longer be unsightly ...  

[quote user="Rose"]    .....   I've seen all of each programme ...  [/quote]   The last program I saw was that of the choir master retiring. Unfortunately I was called away from the sitting room about five minutes or so before the 'appetiser' for next week. My question is : Is there a next week ? or was that the last in the serie.  

Angela you told me you were on the pill ! Nicolas you told me you always had condoms at the ready !

[:D][:D][:D]

2,939,637,647th ... Now ... given that I was born at 6pm on a lovely September day [:$] ... Does that mean that all the others also born on that same day before or after me are also the 2,939,697,947th [8-)] Between my birthdate and that of my last born some 1,960,891,577 more came to this world ! That's near enough another 2 billions and I was only 27 when she was born ... 7 billions [blink] ... How come the earth has not dropped off its axis/orbit with all that extra weight and given that there is an epidemic of obesity in the western world [8-)] Plenty to be pondering and wondering on whilst taking a bath [:)]  

[quote user="Alan Zoff"]  ... complete with "S" plates. I assume I can commission these from a local blacksmiths .[/quote] If you are commissionning the end plates then why keep to the 'S'. Have your own initials. My grandfather bought his house in the 1920's and did a big 'ravallement' on it at that time. The house was built in the 1860's. It had one of these tie thingy with end plates which he changed to have his wife's initials at one end and his at the other end. It was dead posh and showy to do that in their kind of farming/agricultural background. He died in 1983 and the house got sold in 1992 on his wife's death and no one in the family thought of taking these initials out and replacing it with just a square non descriptive bit of iron ... which is exactly what the buyer did when he carried out his own 'ravallement' and threw away these lovely monograms ... Sad ...  

[:D][:D][:D] Oh Angela Mein kleiner Liebeskuß !  Allons compter fleurettes sur les montagnes grecques, ça ne nous coûtera pas cher, notre électorat a tout payé. Et puis maintenant que Carla est très occupée, elle ne viendra pas nous embêter non, non... Je demanderais à Tonton Berlusconi de lui trouver un emploi chez lui comme organisatrice de ses soirées banga-banga. [Www]

[quote user="Hoddy"]   Coops ... this from you "We stopped buying presents for our nieces and nephews when they stopped sending us thank you letters." ... Hoddy [/quote] My son (now married) was promised by one of his aunt a present on his 8th b'day but he didn't get it for some excuse or other but she promised it at Xmas. Didn't get it either...     So little 8 years old took pen to paper and wrote : 'Thank you Aunty for my lovely present, not sure which it was as I had so much this Xmas. I was really spoilt. etc....' He wrote the address on the envelope and went to the post office with his pocket money for the stamp all proud with himself. Never heard of that aunt again on the subject of gifts and presents.  My best Xmas present ever ?... I had a black doll when I was 9 or so. He was a baby boy doll, with his craddle and some clothes my mother had made. I called it Totolitoto. I loved it, thought it was so cool to have a doll not like any of all my friends at school had had for their Xmas. Never thought in eons of years that one day Africa would enter my life in a big way... I think the doll is still in some cupboard at my parents... Must root for it when I next go and give it to my grandchild as and when it arrives... My Xmas nowadays ... I give everyone a huge meal. I go to town on the ingredients, fully realising that for some it is strawberries to pigs but eh! season of goodwill and all that ... This year they don't know it but I am gunning for a caribean feast. Daughter lives but yards from Brixton in London so I'll be fetching her and at same time fill up the boot with all the weird, wonderful vegetables and other strange offerings. MIL and one of the SIL are fully expecting a turkey with all the trimmings. So they did a couple of years back and they got offered a huge indian banquet. They were extremely well fed, watered and wined and still they bitched that they didn't get their turkey [:-))]  I just can't be bothered with the buying of silly nik-nak. The recipient is never pleased. Fed up with complaints of wrong colour, wrong style, wrong taste, wrong size, too cheap ... Thought that counts ?... my [Www]   If they want it so bad they can buy the darn article theyself! is my thinking. as to me receiving presents... I return them all as I don't want anything. What I want is unobtainable. The material things just do not interest me, I can buy them. Other things I would dearly like to have that can not be measured in £.s.d.  ... Call me miserable if you wish ... [:P][:D]

[quote user="Renaud"]Fining the French team for standing-up to the hakka is outrageous.[/quote]   [:-))] tell me it's a joke ?... it's not an april fool's is it [blink]  No ... it is October [blink] Just that I've been away for a few days so now catching up  ... They weren't standing up to the hakka, they were hugging in solidarity against the enemy !! Are players not allowed to stand and find solace, however they want to manisfest it, before a match ?... The kiwis are allowed their waring dance so can't we have a row of united players. If they had turned their backs to the opposition and got a telling off I would have understood but a fine for standing in unison ... IRBS is truly a bunch of [Www] and short of cash to pay their bar bill ... Snot fair rules OK!

[quote user="Frenchie"] [/quote]   I like this [:D]

[quote user="pachapapa"]  Hoping france lose but a bit resigned to a dour boring game. [/quote]   Not watching [:'(][:'(][:'(] but got it on tape for this evening when hopefully the gathering of the tribe crisis council  will have disbanded  [:@] Bluddy families ...  [quote user="pachapapa"] Wasn't the game on friday sublimely entertaining!  [/quote] It must have been as the office was virtually empty ! Only 16 people present - of which 2 French, yours truly included - out of the usual 53 staff ... Wonder what the atmosphere will be like on Monday ... Will the Welshies mourn with me ...  

Frenchie ! bientôt vous allez comparaitre pour crime de lèse majesté [:D]   anyway the little one is called Julia.  

Yup! he was with me all last night keeping me nice and warm. [:D]

You misread it ! he is offering to buy your car a' van. Just a typo error on his part [;-)]

Don't know if French or American humour have a monument but here is a monument to British humour : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15237999 Just about every famous jokes in the British humour realm is there.

[quote user="Russethouse"] .....   Liam Fox ... his wife ... [/quote] Where is she ? What does she looks like? Has anyone seen a photos of her ?... Or does he keep her in the cupboard to be taken out only on a sunny day. There has been photos of the Werritys in some of the UK papers and also on the BBC 24 hours news channel but Mrs Fox remains an elusive one...  Maybe she's a vixen ... so beware ...

[quote user="FrenchMamma"]Hi, I am an American that moved to France with my French husband over a year ago. We are expecting a baby in 4 weeks and are not sure what the best way is to raise the baby bilingual. ...... I read that the younger they are the better when learning two languages - I just cannot figure out how to accomplish it so that she will not be behind the others .....[/quote] Just go with the flow .... I am French married to a Brit (who doesn't speak anything else but English) and we live in Wales. I spoke French to the kids, their father spoke English and once they started school they were taught Welsh. My in-laws spoke in English and nothing else and the children replied in English. My parents were rarely spoken to, as internet/Skype had just barely been thought off and the ease of travelling with budget airlines was at the same state of affair (I am going back to the early 1980's). French was spoken by the grandparents and the replies were in French (be it a little stultified with much help from me). My daughter didn't speak to anyone at home until about 7yrs old as she insisted on speaking, and being spoken to, in Welsh. We just ignored her tantrum and carried on in English and all was well. She is now a teacher at a primary school in London and abhors the Welsh language. She has no plans to settle back in Wales. She gets quite annoyed when English is badly written and spoken by her pupils and she relies on me to translate when we go over to France to visit my parents. My son was and is and forever will be a chatterbox. He is now learning chichewa, a localised Zambian language to communicate with his workforce. He had to learn to speak Russian when he worked for over 2 and 1/2 years in Armenia. When at home on leave he speaks Welsh to his old school friends with whom he has kept contact. And on his last trip to France, about a month ago, spoke to his French grandparents in a quite competent French. Indeed his French was quite useful to him and his colleagues when they were stuck in transit for 3 days in Senegal from Zambia to Mauritania on one of their mining prospection trip (he is a mining geologist). None of the others spoke anything else but English or Afrikaan. So... some have the knack for languages and others don't. Whatever you choose to do : Don't get paranoid about teaching one language over the other, just go with the flow and the kids will sort it out themselves.

[quote user="AnOther"]      I'm an osmosis learner ....  send me to sleep, you definitely need some interaction and a challenge.      [/quote] The best way to learn a foreign language is pillow talk.  It eventually does send you to sleep with a kind of osmosis, interaction challenge [:$][;-)][:D]

Are you using your human rights to remain in the country [;-)]

Push the caravan to the bottom of the garden and when kids come home with wives/girlfriends/boyfriends, rugrats and other animals in tow, just emigrate there with plenty supplies and take pleasure in playing the grumpy one at the bottom of the garden [:D] Alternatively, tell them to make that hovel into their castle and leave you alone to enjoy the cricket, tennis, whatever takes your fancy!

Oi ! Never mind that. We woz there first us from St Malo [:P]  Anyhow as of today, after valiant battles on the rugby fields, both the Argies and the Brits can lick their wounds together [;-)]

Pas de cidre breton on tap then ?...

[quote user="NormanH"]on TV http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b015r55r/Rab_C_Nesbitt_Series_10_Broke/ now that's a programme I can't see amusing the French ... [/quote]   It does amuses me [:D] ! I was taught 'glaswegian' aged 15 by  Morag Watson from Paisley. I'll remember her for ever, she was so funny and had quite a dislike of authorities in general. She took us to a bar in Clermont-Ferrand one night and we got quite  [:$] ... Imagine 7 boarding school girls, having absconded prep time in the first place and with a regulatory 8pm curfew to obey ... Wowee were we in trouble when we arrived back at the lycée ... She stayed with us a whole year as part of her university course. Great times .... I learnt some of  Robert Burns poetry, Auld lang syne, Sailing that anthem of Rod Stewart's and also his Maggie May and much more. Best 'english' conversation classes ever all in a thick glaswegian accent. So Rab's lingo and antics are not that strange to me and get me curled up with laughter anytime [:D]  

Si j'avais su ! I would have got my sister to rent a stall to get rid of  95% of the rubbish in her house. The woman is an impulsive buyer and all her purchases are just lying about her house, still in their bags with the till ticket still in. I found a bag with new born baby clothes with a ticket dated 23/6/2003 [:-))]  I didn't have to snoop all that hard, it was just there in the room where I stayed when I visited her last month. I asked her : "wots with the baby stuff!" in that bag. I didn't tell her that I'd seen the till ticket at the bottom. She replied that her friend recently had a baby and she was just going to give her a little present. Trouble is that the kid is now 8 years old... She is proper mental [:(]

[quote user="Pierre ZFP"]    I feel sorry for the 7 people staying in August but arriving on 10th Sept [8-)]  [/quote] Don't underestimate the effects of jetlag [:D]