Paul_Gyn

Here are the salle de bain zones and what is allowed/interdit in each one : I'm not sure if it's true, coincidence, or mythical, but I believe the implimentation (or at least the enforcement) of the zones (and these are actually a revision), stems from the outcry following the death of the singer Claude Francois who was electricuted whilst standing in his bath changing a lightbulb.   Les salles d'eau sont soumises à une réglementation très stricte. L'appareillage électrique autorisé autour des points d'eau est segmenté en plusieurs classifications. Volume 0 (ou immergé) Tout matériel électrique interdit sauf le matériel très spécial alimenté en Très Basse Tension de Sécurité sous 12 volts (Installation par spécialiste, uniquement). Volume 1 (sur baignoire ou receveur de douche) Matériel TBTS 12 Volts et chauffe-eau électrique à accumulation (Installation par spécialiste uniquement). Volume 2 (60 cm autour de la baignoire ou du receveur) En plus du matériel admis dans le volume 1 : les appareils fixes de la classe II (luminaire, convecteur), protégés par un différentiel haute sensibilité (30 mA) ainsi qu'un socle de prise de courant alimenté par transformateur de séparation, de puissance maximum 50 VA (pour rasoir). Ces matériels porteront la marque NF. L'armoire de toilette classe 2, avec éclairage, interrupteur et prise rasoir intégrés est autorisée si elle est contrôlée par un dispositif différentiel Haute Sensibilité et si la prise rasoir est alimentée au moyen d'un transformateur de séparation de faible puissance. Volume 3 (2, 4m au-delà du volume 2) En plus des matériels admis dans le volume 2 : - les appareils alimentés en TBTS jusqu'à 50 volts; - les appareils de classe I reliés à la terre et protégés par différentiels HS 30 mA; - les appareils alimentés individuellement par un transformateur de séparation; - les socles de prise de courant (2 pôles + terre) protégés par différentiel HS.

[quote]It's a bit dodgy to get stories about the EU from the Daily Mail...Question - we have a light over our bathroom hand basin - it is designed precisely to be that - and it has an outlet at one end for a...[/quote] Just off to IKEA to research kitchen, and will look up the chapter-and-verse about what is interdit in which zones when I get back, but my from my experience in the last house, I bought (in the UK) one of those combined light and shaver socket units for each of our bathrooms. They are double insulated (so therefore have no earth) and the only observation the inspector from Consuel had was to insist I made a sticker to go next to the shaver socket with the double insulated logo and the words 'rasoir seulement'  on it! If you look at the earlier posting about can you or can't you bury gaines in a wall there is a link to a M. Bricolage site, and a t the bottom of the extract there is the diagram of what the various zones in a SdeB are. More info later.... p

Any and all electricity supplied to a bathroom MUST be protected by a 30mA ELCB, there would be no problem with feeding more than one bath/shower room from the same breaker - provided it is current rated for the total potential consumption, provided you are happy with the situation whereby a fault in one bathroom would black out all of them. In practice, this shouldn't be a problem with a properly installed installation (sorry need a better adjectival clause but I'm tired). So you feed the individual disjoncteurs for the lighting, the power etc. after the 30mA ELCB. and you are covered. There is, of course, no reason why you shouldn't protect the whole house with a 30mA ELCB provided it can carry the current. Mine is rated for 40A and happily looks after a little house of 3 rooms and outbuildings. Meanwhile back in the bathrooms.... you are going to respect the various zones, aren't you? paul

Ah, apparently it's now been rolled into ITV3   http://www.plustv.co.uk/   p

Have I missed something? Does anyone know where 'Plus' has gone. It used to lurk around 118, but that's now ITV 2. Missing my fix of 'Poirot'!  

You'd think none of us had jobs to be getting on with: I've got pots full of geraniums to clear out, bulbs to put in, 2 trees-worth of logs to cut, stack, and split; yet I'm sitting here with my 3rd coffee of the day rummaging round the forum. I'll be whingeing when it's raining!   paul 

I used to clean the rollers with a cotton-bug dipped in acetone which did a fine job but was fiddly, and didn't effect any more permanent a solution than my current route which is to pick the fluff (well, more like a gunge of dust, grease and dead skin cells if I'm honest) off the rollers with a finger nail.  I have a little optical mouse with my laptop which is fabulous - works on almost any surface (even the side of a leg when you're working with it on your knee) but for my big pc I'm stuck with needing a trackball because I have no space at all at the side of the keyboard to roll a mouse.   paul

[quote]yesterday found itv channels o.k. and i did not touch a thing. i looked day before and their was no viewing card number on system details but myteriously their is today. puzzled but happy .thanks.[/quote] All of which makes it sound as if the card reader in your box is not making a good contact with the chip on the card.Do not confuse yourself with the BBC channels: they are free-to-air and will be received quite happily if you don't have a card in the box at all, so they are no guide to the health or otherwise of your card/card reader.   paul

"....everyday I have the same message which tells me that I have an undelivered message and that to see it I should do something or other to look at it but the address is similar to mine but not exactly.  I realise that it is probably some sort of scam but it is really annoying me that I have to delete it everyday and could really live without the need to if somebody could tell me whether I could cancel it for ever...." Not the entire answer I know, but you could always block the sender. 'Messages' / 'Block Sender' I get a lot of these so made a new folder called suspect mail, then set up a rule to move any incoming mail with an attachment into this folder (I could have set the rule to just delete them, but I would have run the risk of losing something I actually wanted to open that way) then I can just look at the display text without opening any, and delete the lot in one go.

[quote]Hi Paul, Thanks very much!! I tried the steps you suggested - although my computer did not in fact have the pages of black-and-white that some have during start-up. Eventually I managed to capture Se...[/quote] "...Now my cup of happiness would overflow if you could tell me how to stop my small Dial-Up Connection window opening up on start up.  I have tried ignoring it, but it seems to upset all sorts of other things if I don't turn it off before starting to open files I want to work on.  To make it go away, I have to click "Cancel" 16 TIMES!...." Ah now that's a horrid one! It's possible you have a programme somewhere which has the option to go online and look for updates (You've not got XP so it's not windows I don't think), and it is trying to do this when you open up windows? Have a look in Programmes / Startup and see if there is anything lurking there, although I don't have much hope, really. I have been plagued with these things on and off, and usually resort to deleting programmes until it goes away or (in desperation) reloading Windows completely.   good luck... if you find the solution, I'd love to know.   paul

It's part of the BIOS setting. Sounds scary but isn't, really. When you first turn on the PC you see various pages of white-on-black text before 'Windows' loads. There will be an instruction briefly (how briefly depends on the speed of your PC) flashed up which says something like .. "hit 'DEL' for set-up" (or some other key, possibly 'esc'). Follow this instruction and you should find yourself with a list of options (if you find Windows has loaded, you have been too slow.. simply switch off again and keep hitting the appropriate key while the pc run up again, eventually you'll get to the BIOS menu screen), Remember the mouse is useless here, you need to navigate using the cursor keys. Usually the option you want is the second down the list, called something like "advanced bios setting" or "bios options" or something like that. use the arrow keys to highlight this line of menu and then press 'ENTER' to get onto this page. one of the options listed should say something like "NUMLOCK on at startup?.......DISABLED". highlight this using the up/down cursor keys then use the 'page up'/ 'page down' keys to change this to 'enabled'. get out of this page by pressing the 'esc' key, and look for an option like "save setting to BIOS and exit?" select this with the cursor keys and press 'ENTER' then 'Y' (to confirm) then 'ENTER' again, and the screen should go black and windows load up normally WITH the NUMLOCK light on this time.  Remember: You move around the menus with the cursor (arrow) keys, use the 'enter' key to go down a further level, and 'esc' to climb back out again. You won't alter anything until you confirm a "..save settings to bios" change by tying 'Y' and pressing 'enter'. So if you think you've made a mistake, or altered something you shouldn't have, select "DON'T save changes to BIOS and exit?" and start again from the begining. Good luck   paul  

[quote]I write music for films and I am always receiving and sending big files (average 30 Mb) so Broadband is useful. I could camp out in the nearest Cybercafe in Chateau Chinon but the missus would leave m...[/quote] "....Would a second PSTN line be any better or cheaper than ISDN?...."   same price as a second PSTN, but faster 1 line = 64kb,  both lines bundled = 128kb not the blistering speeds of ADSL, but then us beggers can't be choosers! paul

[quote]I'm very surprised that you get dual-channel with 9Online for 25E. In fact I can give you names and addresses of hundreds of people who have had their 25E unlimited 9Online account cancelled for conne...[/quote] >".....ISDN installation costs about 106E, nationwide. FT are legally obliged to supply it under the "service universel" laws. Mazan, I wouldn't dream of arguing with you. .. I know they are supposed to be obliged to supply it, however it's very hard to argue with an FT engineer who says where you live there are physically not enough bits of copper getting to your front door to provide an extra line - analogue or digital.  >"...You may have to argue about this though......" you're not wrong about that bit! My local FT office happily took the booking to convert me from a single line to a ISDN pair, then I was rung up a week later by a desolee engineer who explained how impossible it was for me to have the service. it was only by persisting that some weeks later they eventually conceeded that it might just be possible, provided I forfited my original number. My experience was simply that the FT salespeople I encountered were so geared up to selling ADSL (the Vendee proudly boasts that they can supply an ADSL service to every subscriber: I, unfortunately, live just across the boarder in Loire-Atlantique) that they had no experience of ISDN at all. On the subject of my dual channel connection; I won't say anything if you don't! paul

[quote]ISDN used dual-channel would be much cheaper to install and cheaper to use per month. More reliable too, and probably faster. You can get a very reasonably priced ISDN dual-channel ISP service from ...[/quote] I pay 24E90. for unlimited access dual channel ISDN (128k) with N9UF Telecom, but this may only be available to existing customers; worth checking the site, though. You'll probably be better going to a big FT office to enquire about an ISDN (RNIS) installation, as so few people use it these days the information is not necessarily something the staff have at the tips of their fingers. Those were my findings, at least, here in 44/85.   paul paul

[quote]alt + tilde (can't get this software to do one, it's the key above and to the half-right of alt) and then e. Sèè?[/quote] Dick - did you write that in word and then cut-&-paste it into the reply page? 'cos I can't find any accents on the forum page. In my version of word (2002) my acute is ctrl+' (key to the left of enter) and my grave is ctrl+ ` which on my keyboard is the top left key, to the left of 1! paul

[quote]For a few quid you can buy a qwerty keyboard and plug that in. S[/quote]  "...For a few quid you can buy a qwerty keyboard and plug that in..."   Yes but it rather defeats the point of a laptop, doesn't it? p  

[quote]You should be able to re-programme an AZ**** keyboard to work as a QW****;in other words when you hit A it will print Q.[/quote] Yes you can.. but wo betide you if you're not a proper touch typist! It's Hell, I tell you.,. HELL !!     what we really need is a laptop with a keyboard which has blank keys - i.e. not with letters/numbers stencilled on them, but lit from within by leds. Then they could be made to display the key code for whichever kbd setting was chosen. p 

[quote]OK, I understand that the TV lic. is to be rolled into the tax d'habitation and have a question. What about those who do not pay habitation as they live in a corner of a renovation in progress? Our fo...[/quote] I suspect you will fall through the cracks...... Look at it from the French government's point of view:- What percentage of the population don't live in a building on which taxe d'habitation is levied?  My guess is it's a number small enough to be disregarded. paul 

[quote]Paul, I am absolutely delighted that you understood all the words but like dear departed Eric once said in another matter, perhaps they were all in the wrong order ? For the secret of what I am on, ...[/quote] Ah, mais oui ! My error was logging on to the forum at 9 in the morning with a clear head and an empty stomach Where we live it is possible (if you know the right people) at certain times of the year to buy the most beautiful Pomerol en vrac without breaking the bank. I have a cubie with 40 l. of it waiting to be bottled. I think I set to and get it done this afternoon. Of course I don't have quite enough bottles to empty it, so there will be a bit left in the bottom and - as Michael Flanders wrote - "..once it's been opened, you know it won't keep."  Maybe tonight (if I can find the keyboard) I'll review your wise words, and comprehension will flood my brain (possibly).   As for the music; I'm still exploring and still learning, but the celtic pipes require a stronger stomach (and possibly more of a tin ear) than I possess! paul

[quote]I know it's always a danger assuming something (particularly on this forum), but would I be right in assuming that you both - like me - are resident here in France? No I am not resident, I am like...[/quote] Dear Miki, I have read your posting from top to bottom and back again. All 314 words of it. And I can confidently claim to understand every one of them. I only wish I could say the same for the point(s) you are making. This is clearly a comprehension error on my part. Can I have some of what you're on please?    paul

[quote]Like you, I am also looking for a laptop -for my son (living in England but spending Christmas with me in France). I have explored all the possibilities (I think!) in France but cannot find anywhere ...[/quote] "....buying at Dover (Ashford) Europort. Does anyone know whether such a purchase would be liable for tax when imported to France?...."   As far as I'm aware there is no such thing as 'duty free' when passing from one EU country to another (we're talking land and sea routes here so to all intents and purposes it's all intra-EU travel, really). As Kevin said, what Dixon's et al call 'duty free' is just them talking a bit off the top, therefore in reality the goods must surely be duty-paid in an EC country, and as such you should be free to take them hither and yon with no additional charge due. You cannot sell the goods with impunity, but since you own title to them, you are pefectly free to gift them to anyone you choose. paul

Also do other people manage to spell check and add new words to the dictionary without hitting a 'debug error' message? Or is this just a function of my bizarre PC?

esperanza, miki I know it's always a danger assuming something (particularly on this forum), but would I be right in assuming that you both - like me - are resident here in France? If not, then please disregard the following : I'm clearly talking out of my hat. If you are, an observation.... I suspect that those of us who live here full time have a slightly different - slightly more proprietorial - take on life in France, and, quite rightly in the opinion of many, take a dim view of those who appear to be trying to get something for nothing out of 'the system' (I for one can never quite shake off the feeling that if someone, somewhere, is wriggling out of paying something, then somehow I'm picking up the slack!). However it's dead easy to forget what it felt like to be someone who visited their holiday home for just a few weeks or months per year. After shelling out a fortune to the ferry companies to get here, paying the taxe de'h. & taxe f. and the insurance, and the electricity etc. etc. It's not unnatural, in my view, to think, "we have this TV which doesn't get French programmes; the DVD and the videos are really to keep the kids quiet; I pay a licence back at home to the BBC, so why the hell shouldn't I continue to watch uk-programmes even though I'm not on UK soil? What exactly would I be getting for my 116E50?"   Surely it's like the distinction between tax avoidance, and tax evasion: sail as close to the wind as you can without crossing the line (sorry: mixed metaphor, I know, but you get the idea). Yes, I agree with you. If you have a TV: pay the damn thing and be done with it. But I think it ill behoves us to be too censorious of those who seek to (legally) find a way round it. paul  

[quote]We have had our house in Normandy for over 3 years and earlier this year received a letter from the licensing peeps in St Lo saying it had been noted that we had paid tax habitation for the last 3 yea...[/quote] "... We replied to say we were taking over a UK TV for video and DVD use only as we have no receiving device, aerial or sat dish ...." Sally B.  - where you argument falls down is in the definition of a 'receiving device'. I'm afraid a television IS a receiving device.  I can't imagine the law (or more precisely those interpreting and implementing the law) is specific enough to differentiate between the transmission standards of the various EU countries. So the argument that if you did plug your set into an aerial it would only receive wiggly b&w lines is unlikely to cut much ice! If you really intend to only watch (sorry, split infinitive!) videos and DVDs then what you need is a monitor; like a computer-type flat screen for instance (saw a brilliant one in a Dutch caravan recently; so much easier to pack and took up so little valuable table space), with a video input, built-in speakers, but NO tuner. But make sure your video is a 'player-only' or the authorities could legitimately claim that monitor+tuner (in the VCR) = TV. The bottom line - as I see it - is: if it does not contain the electronics to receive off-air signals, then it's NOT a television and doesn't require a licence.  

Wow ! this is the first I've heard of ADSL 2 ... tell me more. Does it hold out real hope for those of us out in the sticks ? Although since my line is reporting (degrouptest.com) 6281 metres and 64.69 db I suspect I'm lucky to have an analogue service let alone anything with digits! paul