The Riff-Raff Element

The private sector would surely be able to create much efficiency. Absolutely. One needs look no further than the previously publicly-owned bodies in the UK to see just how much more efficient they are when run for profit. [:P] The railways, for example.

[quote user="Ron Avery"]Does that mean Amanda Lamb will only be telling wanabee gite owners that they will only earn 850€ a week from that converted pig sty/log store this year?[:P] Joking aside, the dire exchange rate is not set to change for months according to the experts and whilst the US dollar remains low against the £  and €,  there are real comparitive bargains to be had from holidays in US $ accepting countries.  That will surely have a disastrous affect on an already saturated French gite and B&B  market. ,Maybe clients, like the last time the £ dropped against the FF like a stone, will be asked "can you pay my daughter's bank account in the UK in £ s" or was that just a tax dodge[6].  [/quote] Ah, you make some very good points here. I think it is pretty clear that a lot of gite owners (particularly those with euro loans and sterling incomes) are hurting badly and there are going to be some going under this year. But, to be honest, I don't think it will discourage people from trying. Plenty of them move here believing that they don't need to be able to speak French, so why should financial realities deter them? [:P] If exchange rates are genuinely in contango (ie, forward rates are higher than prompt) that suggests that the market thinks euro interest rates are going to fall relative to sterling. A financial type I know (and I don't necessarily understand what he says, but I am capable of repeating it [:)]) reckons that the BoE will be disinclined to drop rates too far because inflationary pressures in the UK are still strong and stoking consumer credit to boost the fortunes of the economy is no longer seen as a panacea. The ECB has more room to move for two reasons: firstly, manufacturers in the zone are discounting to stimulate local sales rather than having to export against an appaling exchange rate (just look at the car deals being offered, for example); second, most commodity imports are priced in in dollars and priced out in euros which has defended the zone to an extent from the ramp up in prices. Anyone remember when the euro was going to plummet to parity with the dollar and disappear in a cloud of pink smoke? Were those the same experts? [Www]

[quote user="Baz"]It is hard to knock O'Leary as he has shown enterprise and massive profits building one of the worlds largest airlines in a short space of time. Like him or hate him each individual has to make their own choice. Baz [/quote] I find RA's business model a little perplexing. I don't know about massive profits but I notice their share price has halved in the last year, presumably in anticipation of the expiry of their much-vaunted $68/bbl fuel hedge at the end of this month and the likely subsequent impact of their "no fuel surcharges - ever!" policy. They've frozen the pay of their management too. I can't put my finger on it yet but I get a sensation of a house built on sand. The emphasis is always on expansion, expansion, expansion which reminds me a little of Enron [8-)] I admire the RA's brass neck and enterprise in finding all those little non-frills they can chrage for, but the paradigm for low-cost carriers is shifting and I don't think they can depend any longer on continued revenue growth simply by adding more and more routes. This year people are far less likely to take the extra weekend breaks they've indulged in in the past. So either fares go up, or they cut away unprofitable routes and go after costs. I suspect 2008 is when we find out just how good their model is. If I had any money to invest in an airline shares, which I haven't but it is fun to speculate, I think I'd buy British Aiways in preference to RA or Easyjet.

[quote user="oscar"]But it's much cheaper in the supermarket![/quote] Simpler to find and suitable for most things involving bicarb is baking powder - levure chimique. Next to the raisins.Can't miss it.

[quote user="Gluestick"]What I said on page one................ [quote] With Ph levels at 5.6, I would guess the villain may well be Carbonic Acid which in reaction with copper would form Copper Carbonate (CuCO3), which is green but may well appear to be "Blue". Normally, the Carbonate would form an internal coating which itself would be reasonably inactive thereafter. I would probably go for a Reverse Osmosis system on the mains riser and therefore filter ALL the supply entering the house. I would also send a sample of the water for independant analysis. Many labs offer this service and can be contacted on the web. Or you could opt for a Ph balance device, such as here: http://www.acornwater.com/showprod.php?id=15 [/quote] Yawn.................................   [blink] [/quote] Oh sorry - am I boring you?  I do hope Mr Tree posts the results. I'd quite like to know.

[quote user="Dick Smith"]Never trust a man called Sideboard. [/quote] I wonder how many sideboards we could buy with all that money of his? Perhaps he keeps his $62 billion in a particularly large, solid gold, dimond studded sideboard. With a mink lining. We should be told.

....Warren Buffett? Work with me here for the moment...the euro is strong because people have been buying it and selling dollars and so forth, and he has most of the money in the world, so it must be him doing it, so it's his fault! Is there a prize?

The verdigris on copper clad roofs is mostly hydrated basic copper carbonates; the acetate content, if any at all, will be minimal. Copper acetate is easy soluble in water, so the rain would wash it off. Copper carbonate is to all intents and purposes insoluble, so it stays on. Traces (part per billion amounts) will come through, which is why much of the copper we get in our diet comes from tap water. Verdigris pigments may share a name, but they are not necesarily the same thing: verdigris for paints was historically a byproduct of wine making, and that was copper acetate. Which does rather leave a problem: the copper carbonates from disolved oxygen and carbon dioxide in the wather that form on the inside of copper pipes should pretty much stay there. So if you are getting blue staining through, something in the water is reacting with the carbonate layer and producing a copper salt that is soluble. pH of 5.6 suggests a significant presence of acid, but doesn't tell us which one, though the fact that your eyes are stinging in the shower is faintly alarming. On the bright side, the acid won't be attacking your pipes directly: copper is pretty inert to acids under most conditions, so the corrosion will be limited to the rate at which the carbonate is formed, ie, pretty slow. But eventually... If it were me, I'd be getting some tests done, but I'd contact the water company first. They might just do them themselves.

A British family we knew vaguely just quit our commune to return to the UK. They arrived here two years ago with no jobs, not a lot in the way of spare capital and even less in the way of French language. Their children loved it here, settled in well and really had no inclination to return but financial realities were such that they had no choice. They were the second family to depart this village in these circumstances in recent years. It was sad thing to see happen, but telling people they would be advised to wait a few years before upping sticks and moving lock, stock & barrel to the depths of rural France usually draws accusations of negatively or (my favourite) comments that we are trying to keep a good thing to ourselves, so, personally, I now just go all evasive if I am asked directly whether I think such a move is a good idea or not. I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this. I feel a bit of a heel but I can't any longer be bothered with the abuse that is, almost inevitably, the response to honesty.

and of course, the all important bladder bashing! Grief! They have morris dancing on too?? [geek] It sounds like I missed a good show. Mind you, I have only French TV (supplimented by the odd DVD), so my standards are pretty low. But you do see presenters wearing some jolly nice blazers on TF1, France 2, et al, so perhaps things aren't too bad. Bad behavior on TV: is the medium a mirror held up to society or is the converse true? Who is apeing whom? Should "apeing" have that "e" in it? It looks OK to me but I have had a long celebratory lunch. Long enough that even Shazza Osborne could start to look alluring. Too long, in other words. I'd better go and lay down.

Using Base Rates as the sole moderator always was an idiot concept. Using other mechanisms (such as Special Deposits AKA The Corset) is much better. IMHO the B of E ought to have invoked the Corset some years before unsecured personal loans reached their epidemic proportion. But then again, if both the B of E and the FSA had have been doing their jobs properly, the Northern Rock fiasco would never have happened since they would never have been allowed to build up such a negative liquidity position, if their Liquidity Ratios had been kept in balance. You and I John are obviously monetarists: like the late Milton Friedman. I thought dear old Milt rather disapproved of things like controlling other people's liquidity positions on the basis that it was an act of government interfering in matters that were better left to the "free" market. Perhaps we would do better to return to a more Keyneian model since it is now abundently clear that the self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe cannot be trusted with the keys to the drinks cabinet let alone control of the world economy? Still, quite a lot of people did get very, very rich, and for the most part it was only the moronic Sids who got turned over and there are plenty of those born every minute.

[quote user="Ron Avery"]They use far less fuel without any bags... [/quote] I'm not sure that the weight of baggage makes that much difference in the contaxt of a seventy tonne aircraft - less fuel, sure, but much less? Personally I think that they do it for the money. Say 100 times 15 kg bags equals 1500 kg. Incremental fuel usage would be what, a couple of hundred litres? At around 75 centimes per litre that would amount to €150. But the revenue on 100 bags at €9 each gives a gross profit of €750 or so. OK, the cost of baggage handling (a couple of chaps on minimum wage for an hour) needs to come off, but at the end of the day it is Ryanair who have the whip hand at most of the airports they use, so they won't pay that much. And having watched the offloading / loading a many times it is clear that it is rarely baggage handling that dictates the turnaround time of their planes. I very much doubt that Ryanair would be so lacking in business accumen as to ever set out to solely serve the weekender market. That is just too fickle and subject to economic stricture, but the holiday makers will come every year for the main break and they will carry bags regardless. That is an income stream and RA look to exploit it. They are a business. It is been said a thousand times that if you don't like Ryanair's model, don't use them. Personally I don't like them and I find alternatives, but millions of people are perfectly happy with what they get.

Those on the Tempo tariff may have noticed that over the past 15 days, 11 have been on red rate. Now, normally EDF opt for a red day when it is really, really cold. OK, we've had some frost, but we've hardly had a great freeze, so what is going on? I've had two suggestions: 1) That the soothsayers in EDF have devined that this is, in fact, as cold as it is going to get and are just using the red days up, or; 2) That the snow conditions in the Alps have been so dire that vast amounts of power are being diverted to the hills to run thousands and thousands snow cannons to try and keep the slopes usable. Each cannon draws about 30kw, so EDF have had to find some hundreds of megawatts to keep the eco-terrorism that is the ski industry running. Can anyone confirm either of these hypothysis or offer an alternative. I did all the laundry yesterday, so I'm not under pressure for clean socks, but I would quite like to know what is going down.

[quote user="Deby"]Actually when I saw the topic for this thread - I interpreted it as to some transexual/trans gender person asking for information. Deby [/quote] I'm pleased it wasn't just me then. But is this a group that is adequately catered for on furums such as this? And just what is a furum?

Apparently they are having to comply with govt. regs & include all taxes in the price shown at long last, or be taken to court! Oh good. Then I won't have to waste so much time wading through slow-loading pages to eventually find a figure that I can use for comparison. Competition is good, but only when it is clear & simple.

[quote user="Renaud"]I had thought that the arsnic was from the wallpaper. Call for Hercule Poirot.[/quote] So did I - I heard that the green pigment called Scheeles Green gave of horribly toxic methylarsine gas when the wallpaper got damp and went mouldy. St Helena is damp. Boney's wallpaper was green. A similar case occured in the 1950s in the US embassy in Rome. The ambassador, one Clare Luce, fell ill with arsenic poisoning that was eventually traced to green arsenic based paints and pigments in her bedroom. I think it pretty unlikely that the concentration of arsenic in firewood provided direct from forestry would be dangerous, BUT scrap wood from buildings could pose a risk as up until the second half of the last century arsenic compounds were used as wood preservatives. Vichy water is reputed to have about easily measurable levels of arsenic in it. Some people think that this is what gives it its tonic effect.

There was a meeting in Fontenay last Monday evening regarding the planned industrial park outside Fontenay le Comte near Chaix. Could anyone who managed to attend advise me as to the current status of this and the plans for the motorway link to Rochefort? Neither particularly affect us but I have some friends who are concerned. Thanks.

[quote user="Jane and Danny"]I really think you are hyping up the threat incredibly - you write like an 50 million strong army are coming over the hill any day! [/quote] It suits some people to blow up the impression of this from being a very small number to the entire muslim world. Unhappily this is frequently those who have some racialist agenda, I am sorry to say, not that I think anyone contributing to this thread would be guilty of such a thing.

Ah. Now, had I have read the paper (or gone to bar for a coffee and read theirs) I would have known this. Thank you for the link.

[quote user="woolybananasbrother"]All over the local press young man, with permissions from Mr Sakrozy, perhaps payoffs?[/quote] I've not seen a paper today [:$] But permission is one thing, building it another. There's no economic logic for it with airports left right and centre that could easily handle five times the traffic that they are already. Though, come to think of it, when did economics matter...does Sarko need de Villiers for something perhaps? And you've not replied to my finely crafted email of this P.M. [:@]

There once was an idea that the Vendée was to get it's own airport, but not actually in the Vendée. Our Mighty Leader Mr de Villiers was appearantly trying to negotiate some deal by which the département owned about 50% of the project but didn't have the inconvenience of actually having to find somewhere to put it. I think the plan was to plonk it somewhere near Cholet. But I thought it was all dead and burried because it was a completely wacky idea with no sensible economic basis whatsoever. Someone did suggest to me that de Villiers wanted to have an airport in the middle of nowhere where it would be possible to avoid employing muslim cleaning staff after terrifying himself writing "The Mosques of Roissy," but I have no way of knowing whether there is any truth in this. It made a great deal more sense (and was far cheaper) to upgrade Nantes a bit. Put in a new café, increase the price of parking, that genre de chose, so they were going to do that instead. And now it is back on the menu perhaps?

Thanks Cooperlola - I've narrowed the search down to six models and happily these are all available in some shade or other of blue. Now I suppose I'd better start the dull bit. I quite like the C4...anyone got one?

[quote user="Tresco"][quote user="Just Katie"]Please stop.[/quote] So Jon can carry on regardless and everyone else adjusts their behaviour?  It's been quite light hearted but these accusations of bullying are too much. [/quote] Quite. It is really quite tiresome to have someone continuely playing the victim because people don't share their world view.

[quote user="Framboise"] The A of C seems to be so keen on appeasing everyone else, he has forgotten where his own flock are.  He should be putting his OWN house in order before interfering elsewhere. [/quote] He hasn't got much of a flock these days. Average Sunday attendences are down to around six people, and two of those are usually drunk and / or mad. Everyone else is shopping. He could try talking about old fashioned Anglican virtues, but no-one would listen. I'm convinced he's done this to get more attention from the media. It worked too.

Regratably the day has dawned when I am forced forced to buy a new car. Regretable for two reasons - firstly because the Wallet Moths had just about settlled in and now I'll have to rehome them and secondly because I am utterly uninterested in cars and subsequently know nothing about them. Are there out there in the mists of cyberspace websites (French ones, preferably, since I am buying here) that compare the various models in terms of price, performance and available colours? Any pointers gratefully received.