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Motorhead

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Everything posted by Motorhead

  1. This is the sort of mince I've been getting from the DVLA Sophie (8:36:29 AM):You’ll need to apply by post using a D1 application form. Remember: - To include your current licence (if you have lost it, please mention this on the form). - To provide relevant ID. - A passport standard sized photograph. - The application will be free of charge. This form can be ordered https://www.gov.uk/dvlaforms. Alternatively, you can get one from selected Post Offices® that offer driving licence transactions. To check what ID to provide and how this is returned, please see https://www.gov.uk/id-for-driving-licencThe address to send it to is on the back of the form. You will also need to provide a certificate of entitlement from the French licensing authority. It’s got to be less than 6 months old and show all categories you can drive and the validity dates. This will need to be accompanied with an official translation if the document is not in English. You (8:38:05 AM):Is a certificate of entitlement the same as my current licence and what constitutes an official translation? Sophie (8:40:35 AM):A certificate of entitlement is a document issued by the licencing authority confirming the status of your licence and is separate from the licence itself.
  2. I passed my bike test in Glasgow and car test in Greenock so still part of the UK for the time being. I went into the sous prefecture in Montlucon, filled in a form and gave them 2 photos and my GB licence (no money asked for). In return I got a receipt that allowed me to drive for a month. The only drama was when the fonctionnaire failed to put my bike category on the receipt, but I got my new licence 2 weeks later through the post from the prefecture in Moulins and everything was in order If there's any logic to the DVLA wanting a certificate from France it's to check that I'm not banned.
  3. Thanks for that idun. I'll get on to them toute suite.
  4. I didn't receive a letter from the DVLA. I do have a transcript of a 1hr 20 min webchat I had with them. I tried to phone over the course of a week but even at the start of daily business all I'd get was a recorded message saying that they were too busy to answer. The transcript tells a very different story from yours. I can send you a copy if you'd like to see it.
  5. Bonjour I've not been on here for a long time but I've got a very new problem. When I moved to France about 17 years ago I got myself a permis de conduire no problem. Now I'm wanting to change back to a GB licence things have changed dramatically. DVLA are wanting a "certificate of entitlement" less than 6 months old in addition to my old permis. Also, it has to be translated into English but they can't tell me how official that has to be or what quals or prof memberships the translator needs to have. These are new rules that came in at the start of the month and they haven't even got new D1 forms that reflect the changes. When I got my permis I dealt with the local prefecture but that seems to have changed now and it's all been centralised. So does anyone know where I should be contacting and what I should ask for? Also, any ideas about whether they would send the said certificate to a UK address? I've still got my French house but the chances of me getting over there anytime soon are rather slim.
  6. Never said it was SD. However, this misinterpretation of the 6 month rule is exactly the same thing as the DVLA have been guilty of eg. http://www.dft.gov.uk/dvla/pressoffice/pressreleases/archive2006/20060308_24.aspx OK, so it's not exactly recent but it is still available on the internet (and presumably unretracted) and may even have been used by an Oban PF who should have known better.
  7. This article from the Glasgow Herald should be of interest to all those who move about between UK and France (and anywhere else for that matter). "Foreign drivers benefit in residence ruling Lucy Adams Chief Reporter 12 Nov 2011 POLICE have been told to apologise after a landmark ruling which could change the way forces deal with foreign drivers. The Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland, Professor John McNeill, found that Jeremiasz Kosinski, a Polish national, unlawfully had his car seized and was wrongly convicted for driving without insurance. The man was convicted in 2008 of driving without valid insurance. Following an application to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), his conviction was overturned by the High Court in 2010. The SCCRC found that, according to a European Directive, a person’s “normal residence” is the place where he/she “usually lives … for at least 185 days in each calendar year”. Specifically, in terms of the legislation, the period should be calculated over individual calendar years rather than over “any” 12-month period, as had been believed by the police. According to the commission, the police, prosecution, and courts of all instances acted against the law. It also concluded many provisions of Scottish law do not comply with European law and they had to be adapted. The commissioner established that the decision by Strathclyde Police to seize the vehicle had therefore been wrong."
  8. Like Rabbie I too saw that Question Time and what a classic it was. A pannelist was totally stumped when a member of the audience asked if the same excuse should apply for a housing benefit claim. All he could do was to keep repeating "that's a very good question". Dimbleby saved the guy any further embarrassment by saying  that they would come back to it later. However, they didn't seem to go back to it at all. I may have missed it due to a toilet trip but I'm pretty sure they didn't. Did anyone else notice this and if it did come up again what was the response?
  9. Pickles said "I think that this was one of the issues concerned in the arrest and detention of a former forum member the other year" I think missed that one but I can tell you as one who has been both arrested and detained by HMC that one cannot suffer both at the same time.
  10. I know the car parking is all changed now but what about motos, are there: 1) bike places 2) are they secure 3) what's the cost,if any 4) if none of the above apply, what does one do
  11. Have a look at www.envisioneer.net. There's a guy there who did this sort of thing and built a house for 4 grand albeit in Galloway. I suppose that in France it all depends upon finding a maire that is switched on to this sort of thing.
  12. This thread is not getting any more sensible. This last referrence from Gluestick is a complete red herring as it's all about atmospheric acetic acid. This is not surprising as it what's known as a Volatile Fatty Acid, the only places you are likely to get it in an aqueous solution or rather colloid are in the bottle you shake over your chips or in the anterior digestive compartment of a ruminant. Getting back to the origional problem, it's pretty much as Buckdendave says. If the water in the heating system is self contanied then a corrosion inhibitor is a good idea. Treating the water for the showers, taps etc is not so easy but a lot easier than going down the reverse osmosis route which is hideously wasteful of water and bound to cost an arm and a leg when the bill hits the mat. I would suggest running the main supply through a header tank as is done in the UK and lobbing some Tufa rock into it. This is basically magnesian limestone which is dissolved by the acid in the water until it neutralises it (actually because of a time lag in the reaction it can take the water up to about 8.5 but no more). Tufa rock is available from any good aquarium shop as it is used to replicate certain aquatic ecosystems and it is also SERIOUSLY CHEAP!
  13. 10 days and no reply. I must apologise for the good folk here. My experience is that they are into more gentle pursuits. Once upon a time I got involved in a thread on puddling clay but when I mentioned that I'd found an old pair of hammer shoes to be the ideal footwear for this I was met with the forum equivalent of blank stares. My days as a field athlete are now over since I switched to powerlifting but I still notice a few things. French athletics seems far more dependant on voluntary coaching especially with  juveniles who don't do any at school. It is also far less cliquey than in the UK. I don't know if you'd need to do any French qualifications but you almost certainly will need to carry some sort of insurance. If you go onto your governing body's website look for a link to the European umbrella organisation and then find one down from there to the French body which shold have a site that tells you all you need to know. That's what I did and I didn't even know that powerliftng was called force athletique in France.
  14. Aye right. "The necessary technical infrastructure is not yet in place" In fact it's not even in place yet for the new national number plate system never mind anything else. The new vehicule de collection regs have been supposed to be coming in every year since 2005 or was it 2006. Nothing's going to happen any time soon. I agree there is a serious problem with the dreadful state of many of the mopeds one sees but a biannual inspection by someone who has only a vague knolwedge of PTWs is not going to achieve anything. Bikes, especially small ones, do go off a lot faster than cars if you don't look after them well. A proper test by an expert every 2 months would be doing things properly but we all know this is never going to happen. It all seems to me to be very much like the dangerous dogs orders in the UK, a hasty and ill thought out sop to public opinion by publicity hungry politicians which achieves nothing that could not have been done with existing legilation if only it had been enforced. If the police and the gendarmes got off there backsides and did their job properly there would be no problem with deathtrap mopeds. The legislation to take unroadworthy vehicles off the road is already in place.
  15. I checked up on mine with DVLA. They could tell me that it had been exchanged for a foreign licence but couldn't say which country. Points disappear in the changeover, really is like a licence laundry. Interesting that Weedgie's info says that the categories that are subject to a medical can be transferred at a later date. When I changed over it took me all my time to keep my bike category and so I never missed the other disappearing categories until a later date. Nowadays I wouldn't mind being able to tow a bigger than 750kg trailer but the sous prefecture says non even though I have a photocopy of my old UK licence (certified by local mairie). Looks like a trip to the proper prefecture to see if they know any better. Can anyone quote me chapter and verse on the French regs on this?
  16. If you get the first Ryanair in the morning out of Prestwick to Beauvais and only take hand luggage you should have time to get the 12.17 train from Austerlitz which will get you  to Limoges for teatime. I you book up far enough in advance the total cost is under £60 including airport bus and metro. This has only ever failed me twice when the bus broke down and when the plain was diverted to Lille due to fog but there is a later train as a fallback. I used to use this route a lot to go to Montlucon. The train from Austerlitz definately went to Limoges so I had to change at Vierzon. The trick is not to have to hang about at Beauvais waiting on luggage and to get on the first bus to Porte Maillot then jump on the metro.
  17. Here's something that might keep you occupied in the meantime http://www.ifm.org.uk/training/diploma/
  18. I think you're all missing the point and the point is to relieve British bookies of their cash. Next year put on a double, Eurovision and Big Brother. Easy money!
  19. Wow another Portonian! I feel like I've been run over by the Comet. I once spent far too long in Oronsay Avenue. How long have you been away? Are the POW and the Widow's still the same?
  20. "There are international agreements which provide for the temporary use of a vehicle in a foreign country for a limited time, usually six months in a 12 month period. A visitor to the UK may use a vehicle displaying foreign plates, provided that all taxes (including vehicle excise duty) are paid in their country of origin. If a vehicle bearing foreign plates is stopped by the police, it is the responsibility of the keeper to demonstrate that he or she is eligible to use the vehicle in the UK without registering and taxing it." I've usually found that a French driving licence is sufficient proof. The only exception was when I was kipping in the back of my car en route from Dover to Glasgow. However, it was in a train station car park and when I ascertained that it was local plod and not Transport I told them to push off which they did. As it says above the time limit is usually 6 months but there are exceptions. I once had a car impounded by the plod as evidence when they caught a couple of scrotes stealing it. They were really really after one of them and he had a really really good lawyer so that by the time I'd got it back it was over the 6 month limit. I was assured by the police that it was quite OK for me to drive it around untill the next time I was going back. I wonder what other exemtptions there are. 
  21. SD is right as usual. The only fly in the ointment is that some job adverts specify a UK driving licence as a requirement but I don't think this is legal and I'd love to see it come up as a test case.
  22. Good job you have a deed poll. In Scotland there is no requirement for such a thing (you only have to advertise the change in the local paper). It seems that the only way for a Scotsman to change their name in France is to join the Foreign Legion. Come to think of it how do ex Legionaires fill in their French forms?
  23. I think a wee bit of history is in order here. Three hundred years ago there was a union of the 2 parliaments which was aided by a previous union of the crowns due to the fact that the English monarchy could no longer reproduce. The English wanted the union because A) they saw Scotland as the source of a new catholic monarchy and B) they could do with the cannon fodder for their expanding empire. This was proved correct by the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745 and their aftermath which saw the creation of Scottish regiments that were promptly sent as far away as possible abroad. The Scots accepted the union because A) the movers and shakers were paid off with large amounts of money, B) the proles saw that there was a bit of money to be made in the new empire and C) the country was skint after the Darien fiasco. For the next 200 years or more whenever and wherever there were fuzzy-wuzzies needing masacred or slaves needing whipped they sent out the guys in the kilts. Some of them did extremely well. The Jardines and the Mathiesons made a fortune out in Hong Kong by suppling the Chinese with class A narcotics. Although this sort of behaviour would get a minimum of 10 years in the chokey these days, back then it had the full support of the British government if not the Chinese one. The biggest objection that I have to the union is that it has brought out the worst in the Scots and Scotland. Even after the empire was effectively finished the notion continued that if you wanted success then the best thing about Scotland was the road out. This led to depopulation especially in the rural areas with the vacuum being filled by "white settlers" from England. The island village where I grew up is now an English retirement ghetto that I just don't recognise as being the same place anymore. I really think that independence is the only way to address this problem. As for the notion that England  is being run by a Scots mafia the English already had their chance to be on the same footing with the proposed regional assemblies that were rejected so I really don't see how folk can moan about it now. TB (if I make him sound like a disease then it's purely intentional) never envisaged the Scottish and Welsh assemblies as national ones they were to be regional assemblies the same as Northumbria or Mercia would have been and there is a tradition of trying out new things such as the poll tax on the celtic fringe. If the SNP has managed to turn the assembly to their advantage then power to them.
  24. Latin doesn't just help in learning other languages. My school latin helped me immensely when studying biology. It gives you a feel for a lot of the terminology eg anyone with a bit of latin can tell that something like "rostral to the caudal peduncle" is a load of mince.
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