The Riff-Raff Element
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Posts posted by The Riff-Raff Element
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[quote]jond, if you really are detoxing I think you really do feel worse before you feel better, but then, after a few more days you will feel great.!![/quote]
I confess that I am feeling better this morning, though this may not be unrelated to my having recommenced coffee drinking... I may stay off the sauce for a bit longer though as not drinking alcohol has dramatically reduced the amount of petrol we use on trips to the bottle bank. -
30,000 euros for 10 x 5 including cover and heating I would suggest is in the fair range, though possibly at the high end. Prices have been inflating though. I'd recommend Piscines Conseil 85 in Fontenay - we've used this company for two projects now and would happily use them again. I say "them" but its actually a one-man band (called Freddy). He does tend to get booked up though, so I'd contact him sonner rather than later. 02 51 50 02 02.
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Someone has suggested that I try mounding up grass clippings (something I have an elegant sufficiency of...) around my spuds as an alternative to earthing up. Apparently this is good as way of retaining water and insulates the soil, thus speeding growth. I'm happy to try anything once (except incest and folk dancing) unless anyone out there knows of a good reason not to?Re chickens. I fence them OUT of the veg garden, EXCEPT for the patch I am using for potatoes. They leave the plants alone (not as stupid as they first look, chickens) and do a great job on the nasty old Colorado beetles.
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Jan 1st 2005, about 9.00am.“Jon?”“Yes Jon?”“I think that you should know that we are looking a bit worse for wear.”“What on Earth do I/you/we mean?”“You think that we know...I’m talking about our diet over the past couple of weeks – it’s been at least 50% saturated fats. Cheese, chocolate – you can’t imagine why they went out and bought foie gras for the ‘do’ last night when they could have cut me open and had our liver. And as for the alcohol....”“Oh come on! You’ve only had a drop!”“Jon, people have had less of a drop after falling off Beachy Head. And face facts: urine should not be THAT colour!”“OK, OK, we’ll do a detox for a couple of weeks, drink lots of Vichy water, raw veg, the lot. Now can I leave us in peace? Only the grammar is starting to get you down.”Eight days into this and I feel like crap. Maybe I’m not doing it right – I seem to have had a hangover for a week. Knowing a fair bit about metabolic biochemistry I’ve always regarded this detox lark as being little more than snake oil, but given how bad I’m feeling there just has to be something in it. Anyone know what the qualifications are for being packed off to the spa for a cure? I think I could rather take to a few days wandering around an agreeable spa town with a glass in a little wicker basket....
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Julie - I am pleased to offer my recipie for "West African Meat Curry." This will deal with pretty much any meat, no matter how unpromising it might first appear. It has been used to render palitable a Mauritian billy goat of insanitary habits that dropped dead of old age. I still sometimes wake in the wee hours in a cold sweat at the memory of how that smelt before cooking. Do not be put off by the somewhat unusual combination of ingredients - this does work: (For four)1 kg any old meat (about 1.25 kg of chicken portions)Oil250g peanut butter (smooth or crunchy - it matters not)1 tbs cumin1 tbs turmeric1 tbs ground coriander1 tbs ground ginger1 tbs harrisa or other hot chilli paste1 tin (420g) sliced peaches in juice1 tin (420g) pinapple chunks in juice1 chicken stock cube1 tin (200g) creamed******onut1 tsb lime pickle1 litre waterHandful of salted peanuts2 bananasHeat the oil in a casserole, add the meat and brown well (if you are cooking senile, incontinent goat, open a window first).Add the peanut butter and spices and stir to coat.Add all the other ingredients except the nuts and bananas and bring to the boil.Boil for ten minutes to ensure the the meat is really dead, then cover and place in a slow oven (gas mark 1) for 2-3 hours until tender. Check periodically to see that it is not drying out and add more water if needed.Serve with rice and the nuts plus sliced bananas sprinkled over the top.
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There are any number of variations on this theme, but my prefered approach is as follows:1) Hold the hen upside down by her feet with her beak toward you;2) Take her neck between your middle and ring fingers with her beak cupped in the palm of your hand;3) In one smooth motion, twist her head away from you while pulling up with your other hand, so breaking her neck - you should feel it go. Do not underdo the strength of the pull.If you haven't done this before then try and get someone with experience to show you if at all possible.I would would pluck and draw ASAP - dip the bird (once dead!) in scalding water for about 30 seconds to make the feathers easier to remove. For the older birds, I find hanging for 24 hours after plucking does help the flesh relax, but in any case you would be looking to boil or pot roast anything over about 7 months old. Poule au pot is a good way of dealing with the birds.Good luck.
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Gay - Thannk you. Being a parent, I am used to being ignored and it is very nice for someone to notice for a change! I'm sure James will be able to answer once he returns. Happy New Year, by the way.
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If anyone else has problems seeing authors or logging in while running the above, try allowing script and cookies from the following IP address: 62.189.73.34. Worked for us, and the domain name is owned by Archant who publish Living France - could Forum Admin enlighten us further?
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[quote]...and the extent of broadleaf woodland in France is increasing at a rate of 8% per year. Excellent news!! Does this mean the price of firewood will come down?? I suspect not. Our recent wood-...[/quote]
"Excellent news!! Does this mean the price of firewood will come down??"That might take a while.... -
[quote]An interesting fact about France (not many people know this) is that there is more forest now than there was in the Middle Ages. This was due to shortages of suitable timber for building, charcoal etc...[/quote]
...and the extent of broadleaf woodland in France is increasing at a rate of 8% per year. This is part of a general trend across Europe (witness the National Forest project in the UK, for example). The problem with woodland management is that it is seldom obvious what exactly is going on, largely because the managers are thinking in terms of 50-100 years and for most of us "long term" means about 5 years. -
[quote]What happened was pretty awful, to put it mildly, but before the discussion becomes totally centred on 'look how bad England has become' it's worth remembering that such things are a fact of life in s...[/quote]
You're right, of course, Will. This could easily degenerate into a "bash UK" session rather than a sober (?) consideration of a serious problem. You're also right that there are problems in other European countries, though I've only ever really seen major problems with drink-related violence in port cities (Hamburg, Rotterdam - quite incredible level of unpleasentness - Antwerp, etc). What cannot be disputed is that the UK tops every other country in Europe in binge drinking amongst young adults. A Datamonitor study in 2004 estimated an AVERAGE annual consumption of alcohol for women in the 18 - 24 year age group equivalent to 190 bottles of wine. Not, generally, consumed evenly over the week with meals, but in one or two sessions on Friday and Saturday nights. Men drank considerably more. Do this in an uncomfortable, crowded, noisy environment and , whoops, you've got public order problems.Alcohol abuse is certainly a problem in the part of France that I live in. The difference is that it is generally done behind closed doors. It may lead to drink driving (an evil in itself), but it doesn't lead to people being thrown through plate glass windows. So it doesn't command the same attention.In terms of dealing with the problem...making it more expensive to drink might help. On last evening out I had in the UK in March this year I was in a pub on a Tuesday night that was offering 5 bottles of Bacardi Breezer for £5. Funnily enough these were flying off the shelves. People of both sexes were getting through a batch of 5 in about an hour. This is the same in alcohol terms as drinking 3 pints of premium larger. In my local bar a demi of 1664 costs 2.25€, or about £3.50 a pint. Generally drinkers have a couple and go home.At the end of the evening, a girl in the party next to ours passed out under an advertising hoarding promoting the next cut-price session on the following Thursday. After a few minutes of peaceful repose, she publicly and lavishly wet herself. I can't really imagine that happening if she'd been paying a realistic price for her drinks. -
[quote]Please try to reassure the mother, and the young man through her, that it isn't typical at all, otherwise all discos would be empty/closed down and some other youth activity would take their place. I ...[/quote]
"that it isn't typical at all, otherwise all discos would be empty/closed down and some other youth activity would take their place."Flower arranging?Rambling?I'm very much afraid that this type of behaviour is typical and occurs in most town centres to some extent. It has done for years, though it would seem to be getting worse, probably because people are drinking more and more. Wasn't it this week that the government of Latvia applied to the European Commission to have Salford listed as a no-go area after one of her citizens was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver after an evening out for the crime of being "foreign"? Booze in pubs / clubs in the UK is incredibly cheap - something I didn't really notice until I moved to France. The drinking warehouses are not closed down because:1) Their current location (generally in one particular street or district of a town) does afford some potential for control and allows the police to deploy quickly;2) Closure would simply lead to the establishment of illegal drinking clubs or push the problem further into suburban pubs.The police in some towns have already admitted that they more-or-less loose control of public order on Friday and Saturday nights. The city that I spent my teenaged years in during the 1980s (Norwich) is arguably better than many, but everytime I spend an evening out there now with my brother we witness some incident of random violence, not to mention copius quantities of public vommiting. I don't have a ready solution (though forcing up the price of alcohol in bars could work I suppose), but the problem is real and getting worse. For a student wishing to avoid trouble...campus bars although not entirely trouble free these days are pretty safe and pubs in the "better" suburban neighbourhoods. -
Dick - you are right, balance is required. ID / entitlement cards - fine, but a compulsion to carry them at all times? Would that be a step to far, or not? The comment about "if you are doing nothing wrong, then you have nothing to fear" is often voiced, but is, I think, very naive, because (as I1 has pointed out) the definition of "wrong" can shift very suddenly.
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[quote]Whilst I would not wish ill on anybody, I have over the last few years become increasingly concerned about some of the UK governments policies in relation to human rights. It appears (to me) that the...[/quote]
I1 - I don't think that these laws have really that much to do with enhancing the nation's security. Consider the following: despite the all the additional "security" measures put in place at ports and airports in the UK, the flow of illicit drugs and clandastine migrants has continued apparently without significant inconvenience to the perpetrators. If these trades can continue then the smuggling of bomb components, poisons, biological agents and the personnel qualified to deploy them can occur with equal ease. I've no idea what is really going on, but I can't help feeling that perhaps the UK government (and plenty of others) are taking full advantage of the situation to have a good chip away at individual liberty. An Icelandic friend of mine (now there's a nation that keeps it's political class firmly under control and in their place - the only perk that their PM gets is his own parking space) commented to me that the apparent ease with which the US and many European governments could persuade their populations to give up liberty and privicy for no clear benefit was a constant topic of conversation between him and his friends. The acivities of government should be of interest to us all. To accept the dictates of politicians without questioning them is foolhardy. These people are, after all, supposed to be our servents, not our masters. We should take every opportunity to remind them of this while we still have the freedom to do so. -
[quote]Nice place Cuba, I must visit sometime... If there's evidence bring them to trial, if there is not then that's tough. We can't just lock people up for no justifiable reason, this living in fear cr...[/quote]
Good point. It is interesting to consider that governments might actually need unpleasant things like terrorists and crime to justify their own existence, even to the extent (Algeria a few years ago, perhaps) of sponsoring them themselves. Take the threats away or diminish them and all of a sudden these people are just silly little men / women who's alternative fate would be middle management. -
[quote]We've now been in touch with the department (Insp IFU?)that sent the form, via an interpreter, and it seems that as we are a B & B registered with Gites de France, we just need to write a letter (...[/quote]
You should be fine. We have one gite on site with us (spookly about 11m away) which gets lumped into our taxe d'habitation and a second property in a neighbouring commune that is assessed for taxe professionelle. As I say, the latter is less, so we'd like the property onsite with us to be assessed for professionelle, but it would seem that we live just too close to it! -
Opas - try this mob:http://www.meilleurduchef.com/cgi/mdc/l/en/boutique/produits/introuvables/index.htmlFrench company (with multi-lingual website). They are aimed at the professional kitchen but sell all kinds of useful stuff, in fairly big quantities I'll grant. They sell something that looks like it might be what you need, though it is described as meringue powder (under pastry ingredients).
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One other point to consider: if the pool is heated or if you plan to heat it, then for a saline pool a titanium heat exchanger is necessary (salt water, even at the 0.6% used in pools being highly corrosive at elevated temperatures). These can be expensive - about 900€. That said, we went to the expensive of fitting heating at both our properties, and having had the experience of saline systems, I would not want a chlorine based system.
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Certainly taxe professionelle can apply to properties that are used for business if they are not also the property (or dependencies of the property) in which the owners live. In other words, if you live in one house and own a second somewhere else that is your business, tax professionelle may apply in place of taxe d'habitation.On the plus side, it tends to be less than the taxe d'habitation would be.
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[quote]John We'd be grateful to know how your registration with the local Tourist Office went, did you have to prepare anything for them, did they visit the property etc. Also, we've been told (by an exper...[/quote]
Hazel,To be clear, we did not go to the Tourism Office to register. The guy we saw is the duputé at the conseil général for our dept. (85) who has responsibility for tourism and we were discussing other tourism matters. We are not registered with our local tourism office. I'll explain, but please understand that this is from our personal experience, so don't take it as gospel.We are a fully badged business (SIRET, properly prepared accounts, licences for alcohol sale, etc). However, there is currently no obligation for someone running a holiday home lettings business to be registered with anyone. Income from rental activity can be declared to the tax people along with any other earnings at the close of each year (I believe form 2044 is used for the purpose).Our local toursim office (although very helpful and generous with publicity material) explained that they were really only interested in businesses that could take on passing trade at short notice - B&B or hotel business basically. Here, at least, they seldom if ever get enquiries from people interested in taking a weeks rental sometime next April.To register as a business...our first step many moons ago was to find an accountant and describe the business that we were putting together. He then prepared a short letter to the Chamber of Commerce suggesting how we should be registered (in the first instance, in our case, as a micro entreprise). The CdC then carried out the actual registration. This approach saves a lot of too-ing and fro-ing. The CdC will require the usual paperwork: proof of identity (passport or titre de sejour), proof of address (EDF bill - the single most useful piece of paper in France), your French social security number, deeds to the property you are proposing to use for your business activities, etc.Registration takes about 15 minutes, once you've assembled all the bits.If you choose to remain as an individual rather than forming a business, I would suggest as a minimum at least letting your marie know what you are up to and paying a visit to your hotel d'impots to tell them you exist. Registration with Gites de France is not a requirement. It would be fair to say, I think, that the tourism authorities would prefer people to be with GdF or Clévacances because these organisations impose standards. Personally, I think that some kind of compulsion to register and be inspected would be a good thing. This is not some ruse on my part to make it harder for people to set up competition to our own business; in a world where competition for the tourist buck is getting ever-more intense, any move that makes France a more attractive destination is a plus. Setting up a rating system similar to GdF or Clévacances' (though perhaps with less rigidity) for all rental accommodation would provide reassurance for those planning holidays that what they were booking met certain minimum quality standards. For property owners it would provide some protection from spurious complaint or inadvertant infractions of the law.Hope this is in some way helpful - good luck in getting established. Jon -
[quote]It does sound a bit unlikely, the word "gite" being in general usage as it is. We've got a meeting next week with the deputy with responsibility for tourism in our dept, so I might just ask. I think y...[/quote]
Having now had meeting with tourism chap I think that you are perfectly safe in using the word "gite" to describe your gite. Certainly we will be making no changes. I'd restate what I said before though - I'd make very sure that anylogos or publicity were put together in such as way to ensure that no confusion could occur. -
It does sound a bit unlikely, the word "gite" being in general usage as it is. We've got a meeting next week with the deputy with responsibility for tourism in our dept, so I might just ask. I think you'd be in more danger if your signing in any way resembled GdF's...
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Immigrants are necessarily defined by race or creed?
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[quote]Don't want to pour cold water on things, but I get the impression that things now might not be as they were. I don't have an account any more with Lloyds TSB bank itself (in my opinion the worst ban...[/quote]
You make a good general point here Will. For a large number of "customer service" type organisations, 0845 numbers are given, and these just don't work from France. For organisations like the Inland Revenue, this is not a problem (phone ANY office and if you are polite they will find someone for you to talk to). For financial organisations, however, it really is worth getting a "normal" phone number from them before you quit the UK.
Death of Town Centre's(or not)
in The Complete France Post Bag
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