Tony F Dordogne

[quote user="AnOther"] Apparently some 24 year old nocount corporal with sufficient security clearance has been arrested for stealing this information by surreptitiously burning it to a CD whilst pretending to be listening to music. Now THAT to me is the really worrying bit [:'(]  [/quote] What's even more worrying is that he was allowed to listen to Lady Gaga at work, if his job was that classified, shouldn't he have been concentrating a bit more rather than bopping along to music - and c**p music at that!

Thanks for the responses, Ernie that could be just what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for a program that automatically translates to French when you type in English.  I know that you can get them from Arabic and Indian dialects to English but now need something English/French. I've got a French person lined up to check on the outcome after the initial input.

Have just the person you need but in St Cyprien (24).  Is that too far for you?  

If there is anybody reading this who is not on the Facebook site and who may be going to the appeals process for DLA/CA/AA, please send me a pm - one of the other claimants who is already in the system, double appeal for DLA and Carer's Allowance which has been heard and despite the DWP's awful games and delaying tactics, is soon to receive a judgement - is putting together a standard appeals document with the help of a lawyer, which may help claimants in their fight.

It's their error so write a letter, make sure you add a copy to your file, asking for interest and compensation for their maladministration which is clearly is because the second decision  over rode an incorrect first decision.  There is a system in place to do this, they will say no but if you put it into the process, you will get it eventually.  There is an HMG website for this, can't find the link atm, but it's all explained on there.  I know of another person who hit them on this a few years ago (and is battling the same arguments again after the ECJ decision) who was awarded an equivalent amount as the benefit unlawfully witheld in compensation so it may be worth a bit of an administrative struggle.

The Perigueux Freecycle site has been moribund for years, shame because there's always people round here looking to pass things on.

Great news, wish the mainland side of the organisation could also make similardecisions, so many people being forced into appeals because of SWP mistakes. They should also be paying you interest on the back payment, you need to make sure that you get it, the DLA people have received it.

Boring?  Isn't that what people used to have books and record players for before the advent of permanant tv programmes, surely never getting bored whilst you have the internet to play with?

Ty Cooperlola, much appreciated. And today's update:  Just spoken to DLA and yes, those that have registered for an Appeal are all listed for Appeals but they're dealing with each one individually on the grounds that we're now all individual cases because of the Tribunal decision to refuse lead-case status - so that was a double edged sword but hey ho, we're used to that. So for those people still waiting for Appeal papers, dont worry, they will arrive when your Appeal files are prepared by the DWP and submitted to the Tribunal Service. And we need to remember that the old ExpoTeam was (in theory) wound up at the end of October when they finished all the reinstatements so we're just more claimants in the main system unless Roger Gale has more information on the administration of the Appeals, email sent to him about this.

Well, here we go at last, the final round of cases and Tribunals. So far everybody who should be reinstated have been, back to October 2007 but the DWP are still refusing to sort out the claims for reinstatement from the day of suspension (broadly when people left the UK for another EU country) until October 2007, which includes people who were illegally stopped by the DWP after they were notified that the case was going to the ECJ.  They broke their own rules are are seeking now to justify doing so. There have a been a slew of Tribunals and whilst we await the results of a couple, the Judge (Judge Martin) threw out the DWPs arguments about those cases being given lead or test-case status and also severely criticised them for the way they have been acting. The Tribunal Service has now set up a special team to deal with the (up to) 450 cases that will now be appealed as individual cases and people are now receiving their appeal notifications.  There are some technical things about where the Trubunals will be held but broadly, regardless of what it says in the paperwork, you can have the appeal where you want and Ashford seems closest to the Kent coast - we may even organise single days for Tribunals to be heard to deal with many similar cases at the same time. But, some people will not be able to have their appeals heard until at least May next year because they are claiming the reinststement of the mobility element of the benefit and that is now back with the ECJ, decision expected early next year.  DWP are saying they will appeal everything but I think that on current standards, HMG may just cut their losses and pay out the back money - relatively small beer - rather than incur even higher and more protracted legal costs, which is what they did earlier in the year. More to follow and I'll be updating this again as and when I can.  And remember that we have the closed Facebook site (closed that is to none approved people, no public access even as a guest) if anybody who is effected by this issue wants more detailed and direct information of advice: http://www.facebook.com/l/919c1MXQVIDVhJ5fZF-Ej_FzBWQ#!/group.php?gid=117479494959353

[quote user="just john "] (and unless you've handed in your passport you are his subject!)  [/quote] Sorry John, I'm not his subject, I'm NOBODY's subject, I am a free thinking individual who is not subjected to anybody's rule, I wholly and totally reject the concept of monarchy, of Parliament being the monarch's Parliament (except in any historical sense), that the monarch has to sign off on legislation passed by Parliament and even that the monarch's head has to appear on postage stamps.  I've started to think about the language that the lackies and flunkies use too, what does 'Royal Highness' mean, it's a silly expression, are there other Highnesses that are not royals, if so, who are they and does that mean that people at the bottom of the social scale are 'lowness/esses'? And as for the national anthem, it's beyond the pale that in 2010 it's about a PERSON (even though the argument is that the monarch is the embodyment of the nation - no he/she isn't, the PEOPLE are the embodyment of the nation) and not about the NATION, "send her/him victorious, happy and glorious, long to reign over us", not even on a good day, I never sing the British national anthem in the same way that I never say prayers nor, if I can help it, do I even enter a Church because for me to do so would be hypocritical.  I belong to a research society in the UK and after the lectures they 'dine'.  They have a loyal toast and say prayers, I don't take part and it has been both noted and mentioned to me and I'm told it's a reason that I would never be President of the Society! And before anybody accuses me of anything, I've done the Queen and Country thing, sworn allegience to the Crown and the whole bit and realised very quickly that it didn't actually mean anything, I did the work I did because it helped people and because I enjoyed it, not because of some old concept of being RULED by and having allegience to somebody!

What Bugsy said !!!

[quote user="woolybanana"]Do not blame your Prince, but those incompetent Europeans. Doubtless we shall have to cross the Channel and save them yet again. BEF anyone?[/quote] Leaving via Dunkirk?

[quote user="sweet 17"]Yes but, so far, it's done b u g g e r all for the pound![:'(][/quote] Back to Mandelson again?

[quote user="woolybanana"]  Tony, you offspring of Norman, you,  .... I pray that your Prince will forgive you.[/quote] And as for praying for me, as a committed atheist, I am touched by your kind offer of trying to save my soul, I'll take my chances thanks, many have tried to do that previously and have failed miserably.  My prince ............ not in a million lifetimes! Long live the Republic and the Revolution !!  Norman is the new Che !!  

Tut tut Wooly, she's been promoted, she's no longer a Kate, she now has to be referred to as Katherine cos the people wot know about these things say so. Doesn't matter whether current royal abdicates or dies, the UK media of every type will be full of it, every pundit, idiot with a vested interest and royal correspondent will crawl out of the woodwork.  So far on BBC tele news this evening they have had 4 royal correspondents, for a family of how many?  Please don't abdicate and then die, that means two helpings of wall to wall royal stories and opinion.

[quote user="woolybanana"]  Or not. If we care, or not.[/quote] Put me down as a 'not'. I don't live in the UK, I'm not a 'subject' of anybody in the UK and that suits me fine.  The wall to wall reporting on the 'event' is nausiating and that lickspittle Nicolas Witchell should get himself a job putting the toothpaste of Prince Charles' toothbrush, he has the mentality for it - whoops he can't, Charles and sons thought he's 'an odious little man'.

Go safely Cathy, be thinking of you.

Just picked this up from a Canadian Facebook chum: "A Veteran is someone, who at one point in their life, wrote a blank cheque payable to Canada for an amount up to, and including, their life.That is beyond honour, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer remember that fact" And not only Canada if Braco is anything to go by.

Braco, I really don't see how you can equate a poppy with a swastika.  I'm not going to say why I might wear a poppy or not - I'm not against people, like Quakers, wearing white poppies either because they are anti-war - but your views are deeply offensive to many many people and the reaction here, from people that I know personally and hold in high regard, for their intellectual integrity and ability to think for themselves, speaks volumes. Sometimes people should go with dear Oscar's observation that keeping your mouth shut and letting people think you're a fool rather than opening it and proving that you are. Pitiful. And btw Braco it's 'toe' the party line, not 'tow', if you're full of indignant and inflammatory comment, at least spell it correctly  

[quote user="ericd"]It's all ok for you guys, you might have a degree and you most probably did not pay for it. We have two daughters at Uni (eldest doing a Masters at LSE) and fees are already crippling. Imagine the future when all student will be called Ruppert and Miranda darling.[/quote] Eric, your daughter has impecable taste, I did one of my first degrees and a Masters at LSE back in the 80s (mature student) and my partner worked there in academic departments for 25 years.  LSE has changed so much, we were back there a few weeks ago for a reunion and there's nothing of the old School left, only the buldings and the whole ethos has changed.  The proportion of high fee paying students is crazy, mainly from abroad but that's what keeps the LSE afloat, post-grad students on all the programmes, who are mainly funded by their governments, not by their parents or by themselves. Interestingly, I've just been looking at the fees for doing another Masters here in France at a specialist research centre in Pau.  The costs are horrendous (I jest of course), for people on benefit or continuing from a first degree, it's €272 (two hundred and seventy two) per year and for those paying full fees, €392 per year. OK, I know that's it's comparing apples and oranges but to me it's the mind set that matters. On BBC tele this morning I saw Danny Finkelstein telling people that rich parents and yoof that could afford to pay should pay - yep, the same Danny F with rich parents who, with Steve Pound the Labour MP who advocated bringing in fees as an unofficial ordinary bloke spokesman for the previous government, were at LSE as the same time as me and were members of the Labour/Social Democrat Clubs and who got their educations for free.  Like me, Steve was a mature student at a time when mature students were treated very well by the grants and benefits system, just before the Joseph reforms were introduced so for him to advocate changes really smacked of political opportunism if not outright hypocracy. The LSE academics and admin people that we had the reunion with a few weeks ago told me that the days of the groups of mature 'home' students working at the College were long gone because THEY cannot afford to go there, something that really undermines the life of the school as they brought a life experience and a motivation that the 18/19 year old wannabees no longer have. 

Whilst I don't agree with or condone the violence, it's nice to see that at least ONE sector of the UK population that are going to be effected by HMG are actually doing something visual and obvious to protest what is happening, shame that some of the other people involved aren't so vocal. Obviously they've been reading the threads on here and have decided that what Frenchie (and some others) said was right! Edit: And it looks as though they're going to try to hang the Met out to dry on this, must have SOMEBODY to BLAME, what is that all about, it seems to be a Uk media obsession.

Hi Cathy, so sorry to hear your news but hang on in there, as you say the diagnosis and treatment here is first-class. I've lived with my particular form of cancer for almost 30 years now - well all my life actually, just diagnosed that long ago.  I was given 5 years and I'm still here by a combination of doing what the doctors said, volunteering for every new project there was and is (shortly to go one another experimental treatment as part of an international project being managed from France) and in short, being bloody-minded.  Read everything you can about it and please, don't be afraid to ask questions of the specialists, if they're anything like my guy at Haut Leveque in Bordeaux, they'll be brilliant. There's a great advert on UK television atm for Macmillan Cancer and it's based around the concept of 'today's a day without cancer'.  You're sounding as tho you're still in the earlier coming to terms with it phase but after the treatment and when you're feeling fitter and can see the future clearly again, I promise you that every day without cancer is just brilliant and something to focus on. Both my parents died of cancer, my father because he left his prostate cancer too long, even tho it runs in the family and my mother because she didn't believe the doctor when he told her that smoking was the cause of the throat cancer she had and that stopping then would give her a better - 75% - chance of survival but she didn't listen. Good luck is such a lame thing to say but this IS something you can fight and as it's caught early, something that can be dealt with. Bloody minded is good, my last specialist in the UK actually called me a stubborn bas***d, let it know that you control it, it doesn't control you !!! Where are you going for treatment?  If it's Haut Leveque, they're brilliant, in all my time with this condition it's the best treatment I've ever had and the doctors and nurses I see there actually do seem to care.

[quote user="tj"]who cares anyway !, this s**t happens everyday, ,,,[/quote] Comments like that say more about you than anything else.  So next time you ask a question or post anything, we can all say who gives a s**t about what you say.