Jump to content

IAN_S

Members
  • Posts

    220
  • Joined

  • Last visited

    Never

Everything posted by IAN_S

  1. I would think you could get any unencrypted channel and you can get the French national channels on Atlantic Bird 5 deg west in digital at the moment. Unless of course you live in the Shetlands!
  2. As I write this, there have been more viewings of the Giving Gerbils thread than those of the London Attacks thread. Priorities or what!
  3. If it is a shipment made through a forwarding agent/airline in the US you should be able to get them to tell you the shipping details of how and where it was sent to in France. If they can do that you can get a clearing agent to find it and clear it through customs. If it is a personal shipment sent by mail then you need a consignment no. at least and talk to La Poste, not sure where!
  4. We have one of these pools and just go round and round and round and round.................
  5. Clarkkent I don't think you are cynical at all and I'm sure you are right. Funnily enough, I am in favour of ID cards in general as I believe they would save a lot of hassle in proving one's identity in a number of ways, shopping, banking, just living in a foreign country where it's the norm. Blair said the other day that he could not force the country to pay such large amounts for the technology, and there are doubts whether it would work properly anyway. Also the time taken to introduce such a system would mean that vast numbers of the population would not have a card for a long time. Anyone could say "sorry officer, mine hasn't been issued yet".          
  6. France have had ID cards since N.Bonaparte was a lad I think? As far as I understand, unless things have changed, it will be the usual muddle headed operation where they say "we want you to have one and pay a huge amount of money for it, but it's not compulsory......yet" Anyway, with the now reduced commons majority, not a shirt betting gamble I wouldn't have thought.
  7. We have tried all the products available I think, and none of them really worked for long so resorted to head masks which do work but only on the face. We were advised by a French friend to try a mixture of concentrated geranium essence and sesame seed oil and we found this did work well and all day/night, the only problem being getting hold of the sesame oil. The last time we used ordinary tournasol oil which seemed to work just as well. We bought fly rugs which are good but the main solution to this problem for us was to build a large field shelter 6m x 6m with a doorway covered in strips of garden netting to create a dark interior that the flies do not go into. The horses now live in the shelter during the heat of the day and leave it at night to graze. They are ex-racehorses so also get hard feed/hay as well.      
  8. It is a well known fact that anybody here in France who speaks English IS English don't you know. My wife was born and bred in Zambia, her family going there in 1820 and speaks perfect English due to a good school in South Africa, has a British passport due to marriage (not me) and still everybody she meets here makes the arrogant assumption that she is English. We both suffer from this as I am a Scot but it does come in very handy at times with the French as it enables us to duck any problems concerning les Anglais!
  9. I mean, you can't really change gear, overtake on a twisty road, negotiate a roundabout etc, with only one hand, surely?   Yes!
  10. Richard Not sure about this but I'm sure that someone will and hopefully respond with what you need to know.  
  11. I would have thought that it would be worthwhile to declare this in France too as you already have some liability here and presumably make a tax return. If you have paid tax on this amount in the UK then at the end of the day you should not pay tax twice due to double taxation agreements.
  12. I look at this forum every day and whilst I have seen some ridiculous statements from him, which we all make from time to time, I can't remember seeing anything just recently that would cause this banning. So can someone tell me what the thread was so I can have a look, or has it already been removed?
  13. If the EU did not exist you wouldn't be able to just decide to live in France would you? That is if you do of course.  
  14. You don't say what size dish you have but bigger is better against rainstorms etc although the bigger they are the more accurate the alignment has to be. The BBC channels are on Astra 2d which is aimed far more at the UK than other Sky channels on Astra 2b so if you are further south as we are the likelyhood of this problem is increased.
  15. Chris I don't think that it is surprising that they had your address as the Impots know about you here don't they, and we know they communicate with IR because of double taxation agreements and they would want to know about any possible undeclared UK income that only the IR would know about. I am sure this would also happen in reverse with French people living in the UK. Cosy really, isn't it?  
  16. I normally watch it for a good laugh but I can't take Wogan any more, I'm sure that he was on something last year and was totally useless. He will be suicidal and affronted this year as Ireland are out, is there some way I can watch and listen to it in English without having to listen to him?
  17. Which war are we talking about here? Couldn't be that UN police action that apparently finished in 2003 could it? There have been a few since Napoleon was around. We had a dinner party the other evening, all French guests, and it didn't really get going until my wife asked them whether they were going to vote Oui or Non. Well, two hours later.....! Next time we will stick to pancake recipes or similar.    
  18. We are in southern Aude and have a 80cm dish mounted on a wall about 2m from the ground, it is not neccessary to stick it on a chimney. Height has nothing to do with it, just a clear line of sight to the satellite. You could put it on the ground if you wanted to. We also brought an oval 60cm mesh dish for Sky and this works very well too. Neither work well in very bad storms but this is very rare so all in all I wouldn't worry, just get the dish aligned by someone who knows what they are doing.
  19. You don't say whether you live in a village or not but I can tell you that around here there are laws about construction and the distance between kennels and the village. Also a limit of 5 dogs in the kennels, which is not always obeyed here. We built a field shelter for horses on our land which is 2/300m from the village and this required full planning permission. As always, I think you should ask the mairie what your particular position is.
  20. It may be too far south for you but Flybe do Toulouse/Bristol.
  21. Some evenings I get quite a few sky messages saying there is something wrong with the card etc and all I do is pull out the card slightly and reinsert it and all is well. It can go for months without this happening but when it does it happens a lot in a short time.
  22. It is not true that no bank accounts in France attract interest. Even a non resident account at CA Midi gets some interest although it's not at UK levels, but then if you look at European rates in general they are pretty poor in comparison.    
  23. Am I right in thinking a Sky+ box has to be connected to a British phone line. If so, is there a time limit on that?
  24. Chris "well they don't do it like that in the UK". I have a brit neighbour in my village who has had a house here for 15 years although he has only been here 2 years permanently, and I would think I hear this comment at least once a week, it drives me crazy! If it's not builders it's banks, restaurants, and of course the French think of nothing else but their next meal and what they are going to have down to the last lettuce leaf. And as for the maire who is always drunk and never does anything for him...... I say to him that as everything in the UK is perfect, how can France possibly compete. He never seems to quite see that though!
  25. I've never heard of a licence just to ride, only for serious competition which, unlike the UK , needs you to show on paper some competence before being allowed to compete. As for insurance I would check carefully of what's in your house policy as mine only allows for damage to property but not people.
×
×
  • Create New...