Weedon

The point is well made that the programme is not for prime time viewing however I have watched a bit of it and was in complete admiration for the youngsters on the (short) bit that I watched who managed to spell quite difficult words including many they had clearly never heard before. One of them stumbled over kerfuffle (not surprised) and had obviously never heard it before and who was the wally that invented the word anyway and who says his spelling is correct in the first place? I worked with a chap who didn't like failing cars on an Mot because he didn't like writing, one of his best was INSERFISHENT and although wildly inaccurate is easily understood. I remember my own children showing me their homework which very often contained many spelling errors and when I asked the teacher why they never corrected it I was told I was out of touch with modern teaching methods! At least after watching the said spelling programme it reassured me that at least it balances out for the simpletons that get on "Weakest Link" Incidently it took me 4 goes to type kerfuffle. Weedon

[quote]...........If the show had been on in Frank Blunstones day..................... Crikey Weedon, you have got the grey cells on overdrive now. Do you remember Dickie Foss as well ? He started the...[/quote] I come from an age when I believed everything was above board so it has never occurred to me that Leslie Welch cheated, please don't tell me there isn't a Father Christmas either as I have already written my letter and sent it up the chimney! My memories of Chelsea come from the 61 ish time when I was living at Putney so it was Chelsea 1 week and Fulham the next,  in those days you just meandered along to the turnstiles, paid yer couple of bob (or so) and joined the crowds on the terraces.  Names from that era I think were Bonnetti, Ron and Alan Harris, Shellito, Venables, Mortimore, Murray, Brabrook, Bridges (wasn't he a schoolboy sprint champion?) and Tambling. Then at Fulham were Macedo, Keetch, Tosh Chamberlain, Haynes................  I also went to Highbury Feb1958 when Man U played the week before Munich, luckily for me most of the babes were playing on that occasion Edwards, Byrne, Coleman etc and Charlton had blond hair as I recall. And...... at White Hart Lane when the Spurs played Liverpool, the highlight for me was when Joe Baker KO,d Ron Yeates during a fracas and if you remember them Yeates was at least twice the size of Baker...........the last game I saw at Stamford Bridge was when Ian Wright played for Crystal Palace there. Weedon

I watched it when they showed the couple who had their roof timbers half-inched, or should that now be 12mm, I am sure I saw a posting on that problem some months ago on this forum and I was a bit sceptical at the time but on the programme they showed all of the roof trusses sawn off and the place open to the elements. weedon

I am not sure that Mastermind means anything except an ability to remember information, useless or otherwise. If the show had been on in Frank Blunstones day Leslie Welch would have won it time and time again and been "over the moon " and all the others would have been  "sick as parrots" Weedon 

If your house has any age it is unlikely that you will be able to fit the plasterboard directly to the roof timbers as they will be all shapes and levels.  You will have to batten against the timbers first in order to get a flat surface to work to. Weedon

Maybe its just part of the settling down of the "more money than sense syndrome".  I suspect that the people who buy and stay put are the ones that think more about the implications of what they are doing with their money and lives. In our case we simply could not afford to throw hard earned cash into some sort of media driven must have and so when we made our life changing move it was for the long term which I suspect was not the case for the "fly by nights" who will simply move on to the next in thing. Weedon

[quote]Well I have thought that TV was being made on the cheap for a long time but when the boxing finished (Amir Khan), I pressed a few buttons and found a spelling competition on BBC for kids. It was 8.29...[/quote] I didn't think you would have been able to get passed the forum censor with Muffin the Mule!! Weedon

[quote]Hello I have fancy dress outfit. It is a very large canary suit. It stands about 2.25m high and is luminous yellow with very large red feet, it also has flashing red eyes. The question is do you thin...[/quote] I don't think you need bother with asking a border policeman just wear it on the motorway when you break down and if you get prosecuted wear it in court to show the nice judge that it is much more appropriate than a silly little yellow jacket  Weedon

Its called Une Petite Croix Rouge and is often found on old barns as Mick found on an earlier post. Weedon

Following on from my original post, and thanks for your all your replies, I went to CPAM today and asked for a E111 as we are going to Spain??  and much to my surprise was told that they knew that the E111 was obsolete and that we should receive the new EHIC in about 10 days. I took the view that should either of us need to involve the UK National Health system while we were there they probably wouldn't know what the Carte Vitale was let alone be able to read it as Miki pointed out. Weedon

After a day with not much to occupy myself and upon reflection maybe I did make an unavoidable error in pontificating at length about your original posting PC.  In future I will make sure "Bert" tunes up before replying. After a working life spent in a service industry I must say I found the general public, very often, to be a real pain in the wotsit which is why even though we have a renovated building suitable for renting out I won't contemplate doing so.  Maybe the problem is me you might say and you could well be right but I thought the original posting was expressing a view that some clients were a "sausage short of a barby" and in that respect was not right to air it here. Weedon

The general public comes in all shapes and sizes and with all likes and fears and if you make a living out of them you would do well to remember that its one thing to make jokes of them within the confines of your family circle but quite another to all and sundry.  Perhaps when your bookings dry up you may wonder whether it was in fact you that left your brains behind. Weedon

I read today that a new system will operate to replace the E111 with a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC). As we intend to go to the UK over christmas and did intend to obtain an E111 for our stay does anybody have any very recent experience of asking for an E111 and finding that here in France the health authorities are issuing the EHIC?  Or am I being too optimistic in expecting staff in local offices to be aware of the change. I was intending to go to my local CPAM this week but do not wish to complicate the matter by asking for  the EHIC instead of the E111 as I expect it will be difficult enough. I have read the recent discussion advocating that it is best to say we will be going to Spain and was intending to do just that. Weedon

I can only support the info already supplied. The D Day memorials and sites are what I think most people associate with the area and I find them most interesting but they may not be everybodies idea of a "fun day". As a previous answer said Pegasus Bridge and Cafe is a must, if that is your thing, and Ouistreham is also my favourite port and worth a stop for lunch. If my experience is anything to go by you might find your first day is taken up by finding your way out of Caen though. Weedon

Thanks both of you for your replies and I think I am reassured as being a bit naive about email I didn't appreciate that people have different addresses for different things. I think I am doing well to have just the one to use. So as Winston Churchill apparently used to say "keep b*******g on". Weedon

My neighbour farmer is the one in the village for making Pommeau, Poire William, Prune and Calva. The last 3 seem to me to taste the same, sort of like a cross between petrol and thinners with a hint of fruit.  I have seen him on his travels towing his still behind his tractor, the still looks similar to Stephensons Rocket. The locals speak of him with extreme pride and who am I to argue when they say his stuff is "magnifique".  I went with my family once to his house for a tasting and came out after about an hour and a half later rosy cheeked having purchased a few bottles of each and it was still only 11 o'clock in the morning. Weedon

I have advertised a piece of garden machinery for sale and have had 2 replies which I am not sure whether are "bona fide".  The 2 replies have Yahoo.com addresses and have Yahoo ads at the bottom of the emails, and me being paranoid about weirdos on the computer and don't know enough about the technology, are suspicious of them.  Am I right to be suspicious or what? Another problem I have is that 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. It maybe that the answer to the first problem is ....perhaps but how do I reply to them without leaving me open to invasion.  My reply involves sending a picture. Weedon

I read Dick Smiths topic on sending a goat to a Bangladeshi farmer for christmas and immediately thought what a great idea. Then came the realities of trying to wrap the animal in christmas paper and sticking the sellotape on it which then got me thinking about another topic on the forum of being nice to each and the other one about Fox Hunting, who cares. Bear with me for a moment because I am getting to my point which is.....what do the rest of you think about a Living France Forum Fund.  If every one of us was to give say...10€, and now coming up to the christmas period would be a good time, that could make a little difference to some good charity. As far as how it would be collected I haven't really got any other intelligent suggestion other than perhaps the magazine might be the custodians of it, I appreciate it would be a bit of work for them but I expect they could get some publicity on the back of it because if enough of us contributed it might be a tidy sum. How much to contribute, who would collect it, how it should be dished out and any other important issues could perhaps be expanded on by you lot.  I only suggest it because I feel that I should give more to others less fortunate and could be something to unite enough of us for once a year and then we can slag each other off again in the new year. What do others think? Weedon  

The worst part is the people you meet in supermarkets at 3 a.m. Apart from the stoned ones with the munchies and the twitchy ones on speed there are the nutters, the paranormals and the plain insomniac. Not a straight head in sight. It's a weird and unsettling place, I can assure you. Damn you Mr Smith, you promised you wouldn't tell anybody you saw me! Weedon

If you are in the habit of fiddling with the remote (I have been known to) and you press the, I think its the TV button, you can prevent the remote from then doing its normal job.  Just  press SKY at the top and normal service is resumed.  Otherwise its as others have said and unplug the main socket for a few minutes. Weedon

If you do a Google for Euromayenne you will find an organisation that caters for brits as well as french although I believe more brits belong. They organise outings as well as classes to learn french. They meet in the town of Mayenne and also I think in Chateau Gontier which is in the Evron area. Weedon(53)

The only diet that works for me is the "Truckers Salad". Double egg, double sausage, fried bread, baked beans and a bit of lettuce. Weedon(53)

[quote]Bumpy...........slap and dash .................Tivoli or even Tyrolean perhaps[/quote] Yeah..that's the one. I knew it was something to do with yodelling and leather shorts.  Frank Ifield used to do it I seem to remember. Weedon(53)

[quote]Hi Weedon, will definitely try what you recommend when we visit our house over Christmas. I assume you mean the small sheets that you purchase in a box for your tumble dryer that are coated with fabri...[/quote] Yes that's the things. I think I read about them with regard to somebody putting them in a vehicle when he laid it up over the winter so we tried it in our house. Sorry can't help with the polecat if they are anything like a pole dancer maybe somebody that hasn't led a sheltered life like me could help you with that one. Seriously though it sounds as if you will not have problems with mice in your roof void as that is another problem we have encountered. Weedon(53)

Could that possibly be what I think is called "Tivoli". I don't really now much about it except to say that I have seen the small gadgets that apply the plaster in the builder merchants here in France. Perhaps you already know about it and it is not what you refer to but if you do not know it is a metal box with a handle on the side and you put the mixture inside it and turn the handle flicking the mixture onto the wall. If it is what you could use maybe somebody else could explain more about it as I have to render a block wall and was considering using this method as against using a plasterers trowel and hawk to carry out the job. Weedon(53)