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Alan Zoff

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Posts posted by Alan Zoff

  1. French friends seem to like a lot of sugar in tea and coffee. But they rarely eat snacks between meals.

    I don't miss sweets, and cutting out cakes and biscuits between meals probably helped my weight loss as much as anything.

    I agree about walking as the exercise of choice. We live a mile from the nearest shop. In the past, I would have jumped in the car but now I walk there most days, even when not visiting the shops. There's a slight gradient so the march back, particularly with a backpack filled with groceries, is really useful. Apart from the health benefit, I have noticed things around the village that I have overlooked for years when flying past in the car. Talked to a lot more people, too - although social distancing and my deafness have made that more difficult recently.
  2. Homemade vegetable soup is great, too, and dead easy - and cheap - to make. Every few days we bung whatever vege is left over into a pan, 10 minutes turning in hot oil, then simmer in a litre or so of water until vege softened, then wiz in the blender. Shove in the fridge and microwave bowlfuls when needed. Healthy and tasty meals for 2 or 3 days.

    Was great for me when I needed to lose weight and now a staple of our “diet”.
  3. One of my current bedtime books is John O'Farrell's "Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain". As with all his books, it is marketed as comedy but I find his writings to be factually well researched - and of course completely impartial as a committed socialist.

    Relevant to this thread, I have just got to this paragraph: "The post-war period was that narrow window in British history when the British people were finally healthy: no longer visibly undernourished or suffering from the diseases of poverty; but before they all stuffed themselves with burgers, fries and Dunkin' Donuts and developed obesity, heart problems and type-2 diabetes".
  4. People will always put their heads in the sand when confronted with things they don’t want to hear. When wearing seatbelts became compulsory, there was always someone who knew someone who would have died had they been wearing a belt. The fact that evidence shows that 99 out of 100 are saved by seatbelts is somehow irrelevant.

    There will always be the odd exception but ignore the statistics at your peril.
  5. When my brother married in the 60s, a card arrived addressed to "Graham and his wife to be, a bungalow somewhere between the church and a common on the road from Malvern towards Gloucester". On a holiday, he had met this chap from Birmingham who didn't know my brother's surname or the name of the village but remembered roughly where the coach had dropped Graham off. Gra must have told him about his wedding plans.

    Amazingly, that was enough for the local post people, the Malvern post office presumably having worked out which village it was and our post lady - well she knew everything going on and was a close family friend.

    The village population is about 10 times bigger now and I don't think it would happen today.
  6. We have eaten lots of meals at Flunch, too. Apart from some vege stewing for hours in the help yourself pots until it turns to gloop, the food is generally fine. But it's fast food that French people claim to avoid. (After 20 years, I still get confused by the menus and ordering details which the locals have no trouble in understanding, of course.)

    Humans were not designed to cope with refined sugar but our brains do not realise this. Some doctors feel that it is so harmful to health that it should be a banned or restricted substance, like drugs or tobacco.
  7. Things seem to have gone quiet with the GlaxoSmithKline-Sanofi vaccine. You know, the one that just happens to have its UK research HQ in the village where Cummings went for his against the rules sight-testing drive. And where the government's chief scientific adviser had a £600,000 personal investment stake (but no conflict of interest, of course). And where immediately after Cummings's visit, the government ordered 60 million doses of GSK vaccine. And now they have had to start again because their stuff didn't work and might not be available before the end of the year.
  8. I think this has been said before but when people are interviewed about their eating habits, they invariably say that they eat traditional French meals and dislike "fast food". But when questioned specifically about where they last bought a meal the embarrassed answer is usually somewhere like Flunch.
  9. Greed and laziness, both vices of which I have been guilty.

    But I have been addressing both and feel much better for it, especially when I compare old and new photos of myself, the later ones being slightly less embarrassing.
  10. The use of standard clauses means the accidental revocation of the earlier will is not uncommon, although where I came across it (twice with English/Australian probates), the authorities were persuaded to take a commonsense line and accepted that the revocation was not intended in relation to the "foreign" will.

    Better not to rely on that, of course!
  11. Assuming both wills are valid in the respective countries, the English solicitor will have no real involvement with the French side of things, other than to establish the value to be reported for UK IHT purposes. (I assume that the French will does not appoint the executor of the English will as executor of that will, too, but I do not know to what extent French law would take notice of that in any event.)

    Apart from a few specialist firms (mainly London based), English solicitors will normally say that they can't advise in relation to overseas law as Law Society qualifications and regulation will not apply.
  12. Yes, the retirement home, whether EHPAD or in UK, is a scary thought I try to avoid.

    Mog's post did remind me however of something as I was passing the time in lockdown remembering old acquaintances. One such was a school friend who was best man at my wedding, although I have long since forgiven him for that. I recalled sitting next to him in a science class, when both aged 13 and both whispering serious nonsense - anything to avoid listening to a boring teacher rambling on about a boring subject.

    We made a pact that we would kill ourselves if we should ever reach the enormous age of 30. (Blame The Who.)

    Now both coming up to our 67th birthdays and I am pretty sure that at least one of us remains extant.
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