Richardbk
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Posts posted by Richardbk
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I dont dismiss this problem ,but this seems to be a rather sensationalist report.The percentages do not tally for what would seemingly be mutually exclusive answers or reasons. Hence I have some doubt as to the accuracy of either the report or the article.
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At my daughter's boarding school she (brit from france) and her non-brit/ non-european classmates are able to sign immediately to an NHS doctor and if they dont have one, are in the process, issued with a NI number as well. Once they have the NI number they can then get the UK EHIC card. There is no test of residency period, but perhaps there is some form of agreement to immediately cover all students in full time education.
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To prevent unauthorised access across meters between neighbours etc, you should enable the encryption on the home plug . Again a fault one exists by just pressing a button when the device is plugged in, but if you require more complex arrangement use the configuration tool.
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I have recently installed some Netgear - XAVB5001-100PES very very easy to set up and work superbly well, even out to our barn. Lieterally plug them in and it works immediately. If you are 3 phase you can buy a little adapter from Conrad to enable you to use each device on a different phase.http://www.conrad.fr/coupleur_de_phases_pour_produits_powerline_p_48674_49300_857062_857063_FAS With these homeplugs you can also create and manage more complex networks. I have now installed a 2nd pair to create 2 completely separate networks. One subnet for my freebox server to player and another for everything else. There is a great little setup tool from http://www.leacom.fr which lets you easily set up and configure complex networks using homeplugs.
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"Were you banned for a private disagreement?"no because there was no dialogue with the moderator. In fact they did not even send me a warning.They did send me a nice standard letter of "deactivation" "your recent behaviour and several breaches of the rules, have lead to this decision being taken" , but I am not sure which specific part of the rules I actually broke.I think they did not like the fact that I criticised the arguments used by a particular moderator to remove a post and that I thought they was not justified in removing posts that criticised UK companies when they did not do the same with French companies.They do seem overtly sensitive to on comments made about UK companies and services.Is this due to some previous legal action or do they not understand FR and UK libel law.
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It was the total one.20 years of living in france, 5+ years of contributing. Its their loss not mine. This is the forum I started on, so I'll just stay put and not try to venture out again :)
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If you have less than a certain number (20 I believe) they just need a vet certificate from the UK and then you are supposed to declare them to the department vet when you arrive, or if they are checked at the port. We did it properly with a vet check prior to departure and 2 days later one died from a infection contracted in the UK - so much for all the paperwork ! we didn't bother with the department vet as to be honest nobody is informed so they dont even know they have arrived.Subsequently friends of ours just put them in a cardboard box and drove them through the port with no problem whatsoever.
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I have tried and owned many over the past. I now only ever use Stihl. Lightweight, well balanced, reliable and excellent after sales support for parts and accessories.
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ha ha, I've just been kicked off that other French forum.Apparently my crime was to criticise a horse transporter that somebody else had promoted. It seems that when it comes to French companies they are all game for criticism, but when it comes to UK companies they remove the posts. Then when you point out the hypocrisy of this approach they kick you off.
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This response is a bit late for this year, but i would suggest getting in touch with an international school in your area. Many will be doing the French GCSE and sometimes others GCSEs as well.
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responses using the "quote" buttoin still do not render properly in Chome ( The html tags get displayed, rather than processed !) My other gripe is that the top of the page is still a mess in terms of the delineation between forum and other parts of the site. There is a another popular french forum (you all know it) that has managed to provide a much cleaner graphical integration of the forum into an overall site, such that it is very obvious when you are within the forum and when you are elsewhere. I would urge Complete France to please take note. PS also lavendar is still extremely annoying.Lets see all (transparency) of it or none of it please.
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"Only problem is - on their 2€ per month offer - no data / internet access is included - it's all extra (detailed on their tarif sheets). "the FREE package is either free or 2€ / month package depending whether you are a free broadband client. To this you can add 20Mb data for an extra €1.99.If you already have a data allowance on your phone, there is nothing to prevent you putting the SIM in a dongle and using that. Often the easiest option is to tether your phone, but some operators do not allow this on all packages and indeed on an iphone the operator may choose specifically to disable the function. I know that both Free and b-and-you (bouygues) do allow tethering on their 3Gb unlimited 20€/month packages.
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Remember that even if you contest the charge, you must still pay the fine straight away. Of course if you win, your'll get it back. BTW if you loose the fine goes up :s
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" how does that compare with French offers on dongles?"not very well when for €2 / month you could get a FREE subscription with 80Mb data. Simply put the chip in an SIM-unlocked dongle, or connect the PC to your phone.
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seedless grapes available up here (ile de france) in carrefour.
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For us , we just phoned them up and said it was not yet finished Electricity and water not yet connected). They said they would send another H1 in 6 months time. Remember that they are in regularly contact with the mairie with a list of all works in progress and the mairie will also inform them at regular intervals on the status of work.
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Difficult to go into too much detail. Most of this is covered throughout the stickies in this forum.go to http://www.ariase.com/demenagement/test-adresse.html and put in the exact or approximate address. if you put in a general address e.g 86300 Chauvigny it will give a map of the speeds to be expected. at different distances from the town. It will list the connection point/s for your potential line ( bournes = dslams) and the services available. Click on the detailed info for each dslam to see which villages or lines it serves. Bear in mind that rural france is big, so sometimes speeds are sometimes not great. IF you are in a degrouped area you can choose to maintain a fixed analogue phone (separate line rental) and have broadband (with a 2nd internet phone), or you can dispense with the analogue phone and have a internet only phone. Remember that in addition that you can also port your UK phone number to a VOIP supplier (before you leave the UK) such as sipgate.co.uk or draytel.org and have your UK phone working in france just as if it were in the UK !!Most broadband operators offer packages of unlimited fixed line (french and international calls) and most include calls to mobiles for around €35-40/month. Which you choose depends what services you want. The free.fr broadband box is probably the most advanced, includes blue ray player, NAS storage, and heaps of other features, but all now include TV over broadband if that is what you want for a small addition. Main suppliers are orange.fr , free.fr / alice.fr , neuf.fr, sfr.fr bouyges.fr , dartybox.fr Go for a supplier that is offereing ADSL2+ at your particular dslam to get the maximum speed.If you can get your phones unlocked (get it done before you come so you can sign up immediately) there are plenty of mobile deals for unlimited everything (including calls to international fixed lines) for around the €20 / month, all on easily changeable rolling month contract. (e.g free.fr, b-any-you.fr, sfr.fr, neuf.fr). For BBC TV - bring yourself a freesat box over from the UK (no subscription needed), or if you want sky channels, bring over a fully paid up (not subsidised) skybox, and keep your uk bank account open for the subscriptions.
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For me the fundamental problem with this set up is not so much the forum itself but its INTEGRATION with the rest of the site. The header section of the main web site "intrudes" on the forum pages itself. E.g the blue banner with "Home", "French Property" etc is not well enough differentiated from the forum. These two aspects need to be clearly distinguished, such that it is clear that when you click on forum or "community" in the site banner heading that this part of the site is being viewed. An initial simple way to do this is simply put a header across the page (above the "edit your details") that says FRENCH FORUMS (or similar), but even with this more work is needed to show the differentiation between the forum (and is complexity of subheadings, search etc) and those of the site headings. Currently the tab down in the site banner headings for ALL of the various sections, is too subtle. Why is the tab down for the Forum in the site banner is marked "Community", whereas all other links in the site say "Forum" this is inconsistent.I would also remove the background photo. Nice as it is, it is frustrating in that little of it shows (on a smaller screen), and that you may only glimpse it momentarily when the page refreshes. Was a professional design team used for this. I have designed sites for many years from an engineering point of view, but we always use a separate team of designers and graphic designers work on the flow, and ergonomics and useability of the site. What I see before me is more an engineer's approach to integration (just add more tabs) , rather than a site that has been considered from a user perspective. :(
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[quote user="cooperlola"]
I had a great painter/decorator/handyman in Britain who offered to come over and do a few bits and pieces for me but once he'd looked into the social security aspect and we added on the cost of his travel it just was less viable a proposition than we had thought, and rather too complicated for him.
[/quote]I'm not too sure why the social security aspect is complicated. If it is for short duration work and they are based in the UK, then tax and social security are paid in the UK. The person is still resident in the UK, s/he is covered by UK health care etc. They presumably have only temporary accommodation in France (hotel, B&B etc). Why would they need to pay social security or taxes in France ? For large companies they do exactly this. There is no "deal" They are perfectly entitled to send a team to France to erect a house, fix a roof or whatever. The only "issue' in France is that France does not really recognise (or refuses to understand) a UK self employed status, so that it could be seen that it is you as a client that is directly hiring somebody. However , any self employed person should be able to provide (if called upon) a "contract of work" that looks no different from that of a Ltd company. As well as France based workers , we've used UK based workers and even had a Polish team that put up a barn.The mayor, our neighbour and friend certainly did not think it was unusual nor did our gendarme friend. In fact nobody in the village even raised an eyebrow. Problems arise because a) the person is really resident in France b) they do not have their own 3rd party insurance and health care (e.g EHIC) and c) as mentioned above that they do not do the job according to the national regulations. -
There is absolutely no problem in employing contractors from the UK. The only issue is that they must be based (resident) in the Uk and do most of their work in the UK. It helps to get yourself a proper written estimate before they start from (just in case somebody comes round to check).There is in my view much to much scaremongering about employing workers from outside France, mainly this seems to be related to dodgy brits living and working in France (on the black).Of course the downside is that you need to weigh up the savings against the risks of possible guarantee problems and ensure they provide work to any local regulations, but that is your choice.
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A farmer friend of ours dumped several buckets loads of pig slurry into a local CA, after they refused to make an insurance payout. The place was unusable for a few days - well worth the couple of hundred fine ;)
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An interesting resurrection of this topic. My view has nothing to do with the morals but rather that this is a problem created by having a high labour cost base. It is well known that the higher the taxes the more the black market flourishes, and few , if any country, in the world has managed to address this problem through regulation and enforcement.The only way for France to tackle this problem is to reduce the labour cost base and simplify the structure of enterprise and business. Moreover, it is not just black market that is putting French artisans out of work. Why should I use a French artisan when I could get somebody quite legally from the UK, Poland or Spain for 1/2 the price. OK I have to factor in some additional risks and ensure they meet local standards, but that's my choice.
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I'm using some axis 207W internal cameras (wireless or wired), but will upgrade to getting a couple of outdoor ones with cases. axis are not cheap but IMHO the best IP camera's around.
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[quote user="halfblind"]I have used CPL for a while and they are good, just one word of caution though, the CPL plugs need to be on the same phase of the electrical circuit to work. This is not a problem if you only use one phase of your 3 phase supply for your house/barn wiring.You can overcome the problem with a piece of kit to "link" the phases together.[/quote]You can couple the 3-phase to enable CPLs to work across phases very cheaply by just connecting a 22nF capacitor (500Volts or more) between each pair of phases. Of course please don't do this if you don't know what you are doing !
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