Lingone

Mint, You posted "does matter whether you are fiscally resident in the UK or in France (OAPs living in France and pay their impots in France do NOT get the WFA as from this year)", implying that OAPs living in France but only paying UK tax would still get the allowance. That is how I read it, and I was simply seeking to clarify the position from our experience. If I misread or misunderstood, apologies.

With reference to Norman's last post, we moved permanently to France in November 2014, and have not paid any French taxes yet (tried to, but was told I had not been in France long enough and to submit a return for 2015 in March 2016), so have only paid UK tax, and continue to do so. Pensions paid into UK bank account. We received winter fuel payment in 2013, but it was withdrawn as soon as we moved to France, so UK bank account or paying UK taxes make no difference - if you live in France, you have the winter fuel payment stopped.

Great news! I turned on the Sky+ box yesterday to fine tune the dish and LNB, and it showed that I had a signal. Adjusted the skew on the LNB and I now have over 90% strength and 80% quality. I now have all the free to air channels. Many thanks to all those who contributed replies to my original post.

What I do not understand, never having put a satellite dish up before, is how the supermarket receiver lets me receive over 200 TV stations, including HD, but the Sky boxes both say 'no signal'. I will tweak the dish settings when I have someone to watch the 'quality' bar on the supermarket receiver, then try the Sky boxes again. If I cannot get the Sky boxes to work, and really do want a twin input receiver, does anyone know if the Humax Freesat receiver has a stronger amplifier than the Sky HD box?

The non-Sky box is a Fuji Onkyo F5000 HD from Auchan. The signal quality is 60%, signal strength 90%, so perhaps I need to do some fine tuning of the dish. I am not sure that the LNB skew is spot on. I have taken the scaffolding down now, so it will be a week or so until I re-erect it and get up to the dish to tweek it.

I brought two Sky boxes with me to France. One had been used by me with a subscription in the UK, the other bought off e-bay. Both have cards in. I set up the satellite dish, got a strong signal (90%) and connected the first Sky box. It said 'no signal'. I tried the second box. It also said 'no signal'. I then tried a non-Sky decoder and got 165 channels, all from the Astra 28.8E satellite, so there is a good signal from the correct satellite. The question is, what am I doing wrong/not doing, that means the Sky boxes do not recognise the satellite signal?

You need a national photo identity card (Carte D'Identite Halieutique), plus a national fishing licence (unless you are a member of a private fishing club, when you need the above ID card and the membership of the private club). National fishing licence is 105e for the year, I think. Local gunshops and fishing clubs can issue the national ID card (photo needed), plus the appropriate private/national licence. Hope this is clear.

I suppose the real issue is the: if IS/North Korea/IRA et al were not signatories to the UN convention on human rights, so there are no sanctions against them. But what about USA/UK who were? Was it all rubbish? What did it mean? I am not naïve, but what is the moral point of the UN convention on human rights if signatories simply ignore it? We (UK/US/EU) either observe it, or accept a medieval anarchy, which I thought 'The West' were attempting to address? If we do not abide by treaties/agreements that we are signatories to, what is the point? We pick and choose? Is waterboarding torture? Discuss.

I thought it was because the UK (and a significant number of other countries, as I recall) were signatories to the United Nations Convention on Human Rights. This banned the use of torture. Now, it appears to be an 'option', or torture has had to be re-defined to avoid contravening the UN convention. One cannot condemn 'rogue' nations for using torture in a morally superior tone whilst actively using it oneself. If one does that, surely torture becomes universally 'acceptable'? Not on my watch, it does not.

I love my Berlingo. The single piece tailgate makes getting things in and out very easy, and the rear sliding doors make the interior very accessible. We also had a towbar fitted, so travel back and fro between France and England with topbox, trailer, and the inside packed to the roof - the Berlingo never misses a beat! We have had ours 6 years and, apart from windscreen wipers, have only had to replace two front tyres, brake pads and front brake discs.

On my Berlingo the roofbars run from front to back, but can be unscrewed with a Torx screwdriver and placed across the vehicle, from one side to the other. I then place my topbox on those bars. My topbox fittings are adjustable to allow for fitting to various spacings of roofbars. When I am not using the roofbox I return the bars to their 'front to back' position (aesthetically more pleasing).