Bassman
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Posts posted by Bassman
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We have pretty much finished re-furbishing the interior of our house in Brittany, It was all in pretty good condition just needed a lick of paint and some decent flooring/carpet upstairs, new kitchen and bathroom[H]
Since we got the place I have ben looking to replace the internal doors as they are fairly cheap,nasty lightweight ones with a few dings and holes etc. I did look at taking some over from the UK but the sizes are way too different for that to work sensibly, the reason for this thought was that looking around in France it seems they only sell new doors complete with frames[8-)] and as there is nothing wrong with the frames I don't want to replace them and it's seems a waste to buy doors and frames then use the frames as firewood [;)] Am I correct or does anyone know where to buy just doors?? Or am I looking at heating the living room with "door frame" next winter?LOL
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[quote user="chessfou"][quote]On time delivery inFrance, when did that happen, the French make UK deliveries look punctual.[/quote]
Really?! While our experience in UK has not been totally disastrous, it has not been great.
So far, our experience in France has been tremendous (just as well, really, since we've been flying back and forth to receive deliveries). The worst, so far, was when we received a telephone call (just as the snow began to fall heavily) on the morning of a previously arranged delivery, asking where exactly we were and how to find us (we had sent a fax with all the details - we live in a village without street names - several weeks beforehand). Net result, the guys arrived about 10 minutes later than the 1 hour slot (NB to Tesco - must try harder) that had previously been arranged (and they had to drive through a snowstorm, then trudge through several inches of snow from the truck to the house to deliver fridge, freezer, oven & dishwasher - all perfectly installed & competently explained).
Maybe we've been lucky, maybe l'Aveyron is simply exceptional.
[/quote]Same here [;)] So far we are very impressed we have bought stuff from Gitem and as it wasn't in stock they said they could have it delivered to us at 3.50pm on the Weds, this was on Mon. OK we said thinking hahahaha well sure enough I look out the front door at 3.40 pm on Wed and there is the Gitem van pulling up [:O] the delivery man was very pleasant and unpacked the cooker outside ,putting the packaging back in his van, brought it in and connected it up and showed us how it worked. a much nicer experience than any I have had in the UK over the last 30 years.
I was also very impressed with France Telecom , my wife phoned them from UK to arrange connection and within a few minutes had an appt time for our next trip over 2 weeks later and our new number, Sure enough just before the appointed time an engineer turned up did his tests and connected the phone up, shook our hands and went on his way. beats BT into a cocked hat IMO real service with a genuine smile [:)]
When we moved the bulk of our stuff over that we had collected in the UK I bought a LWB Hi-Cube Transit with a tail lift for £1400 we did 3 trips over with it and used it for collecting the fridge and freezer from Gitem and the bathroom suite from Bricomarche plus lots of other things like wood and curtain poles etc. etc.I figured if I got nothing for it after all this I would have had my monies worth out of it but I have just sold it back to the trader I bought it from with the MoT expired for £700[H]
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[quote user="le bouffon"]What did the breton estate agent charge you,normally it is around E7500 per E100000,go on how much time did you spend with the agent,and what did they do to earn that5 grand, a couple of viewing,and how long had you known your immo??before they took you in to thier confidence.Five grand for what????????????/[/quote]
About that figure yes.
But where did I say the immobilier was Breton? I said the lady from the immo was Breton [;)] The actual "boss" owner was British and totally useless!, more in a minute [;)]
We spent quite a lot of time with them over a 6 month period from when we started looking and went on around 10 viewings with them, a lot more we just drove around and looked at locations as that is , to us at least the first and most important aspect as we had no intentions of buying a house in the middle of a chicken farm(yes we were shown one like that LOL) the deal was they would help us with setting up a bank account, insurance, sorting out phone, electric and water etc.
Now then....... the only real help we got was from the Breton ladies that worked for the immo, the Brit lady that worked for him was supposed to set up the bank account and despite giving her the neccessary info it never got done until one of the Breton women took it in hand and sorted it, the immo went bankrupt before we completed and we only found out because the same lady contacted us and let us know and carried on helping us deal with the vendor over getting a new septic tank installed and sorted out dealings with the notaire and arranged dates for signing with no thought of what if anything was in it for her, she even came with us in a personal capacity for the final signing and helped with the insurance and services etc. without asking for a cent for her time even though she was still owed wages from the immo. The notaire was not happy that we still had to pay the immo the second stage of the payment as we had not rec'd the full servoces from them and he looked into whether or not we could get out of it, unfortunatley we couldn't[:(] Yes we did give this delightful lady some money and a large bouquet of flowers for all her help and kindness as without her we would have been in deep kaka !
So bouffon if that was intended as a snide dig at the French immos I'm afraid it backfired as the person that ripped us off was a Brit and the one that saved us was French[:)]
At the end of the day we are happy, we did get the house of our dreams, in a stunning location and compared to some horror stories I have seen and heard did quite well thanks to Sylvie [H]
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[quote user="Miki"]Paul,
However you came by the money, it is no good feeling guilty. The obvious alternative is not a player. It may not be morally right but come on, neither you, nor I (who have similar principles I'm sure) can put all the world to rights. We can but try to ensure, for own mental well being, that we try to walk an unselfish path. I don't entirely disagree about your thoughts Mr Benn but having read much about him, including his own works, I think senior post was as much as far I would have actually wanted him to go. Good man for sure but in a world market, not the main player one might want to front the country but certainly ideas and idealisms that were and are, far more for the benefit of the majority of people than what ever Mag.........(can't bring myself to utter the full name, sorry !) did for the country as a whole.
We are in Brittany but further to the east than you. Are you managing two places at the moment or ?
[/quote]Miki
Yeah doing the back and forth thing [:D] need the wife to get a bit(lot) more paid off the mortgage before we can sell up here and move to Brittany for good LOL
Yes we could have used the money to pay off some of the mortgage here but it wouldn't have paid it all off, and we would still be in debt and paying for holidays, it was another one of the things my dad wanted to do (move to France) and never did so I thought I'd use their money to that end and as for waiting till we had paid off the UK house , .....welllll who knows what tomorrow may bring at least if everything goes belly up in the UK we have somewhere to live[:)]
We bought the place last June pretty much around the time of the Brits Go Home outbreak in Brittany , which was apparently started and fueled by a ring the bell type Brit LOL. I have to say we have met with nothing but friendliness and charm by the Bretons and local Brits [H] we did say to the Breton lady from the immobilier that we were concerned about buying a house that "locals" may have bought but she said "locals" would not have bought it as it is too isolated, only two other houses in the hamlet, and that it was not the type of house they would want either, just can't wait to be able to live there permanently nowLOL
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[quote user="le bouffon"]We bought our first house in the early 80`s paid it up,kept the endownment and that with bonus was worth more than the house when it came in...nice little earner.The later problem was that some years later when everyone heard about how good they were,they nose dived.The mid to late 80`s were a good time for savers 15% interest,the good old days bring um back,now in france 2.6% on savings if you are lucky or .....................go see a french bank manager.[/quote]
Jeeeez talk about selfish that's exactly the problem I'm alright Jack eh? If you were getting 15% interest some poor sucker was being charged even more do you not see that????
We got our endowment in 1986 and I DIDN'T want it as I have never believed there is any such thing as a free lunch, it's paid for by someone somewhere!!!
The ring the bell I'm on the bus attitude is what we seem to be getting from some of les rosbifs ( hey back on topic eh?) the I've got my place in France now I don't want anymore coming here attitude [8-)]
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[quote user="viva"]
I wondered when the term 'yuppie' would rear its head.
It seems to me that Thatcher's Yuppies are called entrepreneurs under Blair, and are therefore generally held in higher esteem.
[/quote]
Not by me they ain't they are still a bunch of selfish arrogant ********'s LOLOL
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[quote user="Miki"]PS. We put a Carolina door on our first house Miki, they were cheap and better than the crumbling bit of wood that was already there(not an ex-council house by the way) LOLOLOL
Have no fear Bassman, we fitted dozens of 'em, along with Kentucky doors by the gross ! It's the customer is always right syndrome !!
I have to say though, Blair may not be many peoples cup of tea and as a socialist, he is out of sync but to go back to some old socialist policies, would not be a smart move BUT let's be fair here, all those that have come here in recent years have benefitted greatly from the huge hike in prices.
Us, well we bought our second place at the bottom of yet another Tory induced slump and the French house prices where we bought, were not (for the greater part, regardless of what one is told) reliant on Brits buying, so they were selling at French prices, not at a reduced slump related price, although the French have had years where prices have slipped but sadly, not when we have bought !!
[/quote]LOLOL I don't think Blair has ever hears the word socialist TBH
The only reason we have been able to fulfill our dream of owning a home in Brittany is that my parents ( dad was a brickie, mum worked in the Co-oP) died and left me a half share in their house and some money, which suprised me as for the last few years of my fathers life my mother was having to pay a fortune every month to keep him in residential care ( none of their children were in a position to help as we are split up all over the country/world ala the "get on your bike and look for work" idea and the nearest me (only 100 miles away) was in no financial state to assist) yes the country my father fought for in the war, suffered a serious industrial injury for , the party he supported all his life took most of what they had worked and saved for to look after him in his final years niiiiiice [:^)]
Yes I (by reason of their dying) have benefitted from astronomical house price rises but that still doesn't make it right in my view
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[quote user="KatieKopyKat"]
Sorry, I only recognise two classes in UK
Working Class Including Me, Her Madge, David Beckham, people who want to work but cant due to illness, retired people who used to work, Dai Bloggs down the chippie, and Paris Hilton who is lucky enough to have fun on family wealth which has employed people and paid taxes.
Social Security Scroungers Those to expect to be kept for a living including those who dont like work and laugh at those in the above category.
[/quote]
I'd actually go with that definition [;)]
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[quote user="Russethouse"]
Bassman re
Another thing I find strange being a member of other forums and being a moderator on some is the moderators here getting involved in the discussion, i.e. taking an obvious stance/side it must make unbiased moderating difficult
Not really - if I (or any other mod) needs to say something official we just say 'Mod hat on' it works pretty well. We have mod by the side of our names so we can be identified easily for other members to communicate. Don't worry I am scrupulously fair even (and often) at my own expense!
BTW - Endowment policies existed before Thatcher and we too will not pay off the capital when the policy matures, but I blame myself for making the wrong choice.
What would have been your alternative to 'Thatcherism'?
[/quote]
From time spent on other forums I would have thought it leaves you open to accusations of being biased in who and why you moderate, if that doesn't happen here then great [;)] thinking more of you than anything else as I have seen this happen all too often elswhere, a moderator gives their view then has to moderate someone with the opposite viewpoint and all hell breaks loose [:(]
You had a choice when you took out your mortgage??????? our first mortgage was a repayment we were very happy with it, when we decided to move house our second mortgage was a repayment which we were happy with, the third time the dear yuppie IFA said " oh you don't want a repayment in fact you won't get one as no one is doing them anymore, you will have to have this endowment and not only will it pay off your mortgage but give you at least £20,000 in your pocket," I pointed out that with the inflation at the time £20,000 could be loose change in 20 years and our main concern was that the mortgage be paid off, we were never warned that there was any chance this could/would not be the case . Now as these mortgage advisors were supposedly "independant" and working in OUR best interests and the EXPERTS ( I am not a financial expert as I would not expect them to be expert in my field of work) we were under pressure to get the finance sorted out we took the offered mortgage. All was apparently going well and on target to pay off the mortgage and leave us with a tidy lump sum until about 4 years before the final date when suddenly it's not only not going to pay the bonuses it's not even going to pay offf the original loan [8o|]
Now I never said that endowments were not around pre-Thatcher BUT they were not sold in the aggresive underhand manner of underThatcher get rich quick, screw everyone else, I want my Porsche now, selfish arrogant yuppie, we don't need to produce anything we can make money shuffling bits of paper, oh arn't I clever, by the time this comes home to roost I'll be long gone stylee
My alternative to Thatcher?
You won't like it!
You really won't like it!!!
Seriously won't like it one little bit!!!!!
A proper Socialist govt. led by some one like Tony Benn with a sense of social justice and social responsibility with the bottle to stand up to the crap managment that ruled British industry and still does
See I said you wouldn't like it LOL
An example of why privatisation didn't work, it's made a lot of people a bit of money and a very few stacks of dosh
Water--- if privatisation is so much better why are we already facing hosepipe bans in March???? because people are wasteful== to an extent, because the staff keep going on strike == not at all, because the shareholders take all the profit leaving nothing or not enough in the kitty for investment and stop more water leaking out of un-maintained pipes into the ground than is actually used by paying customers == TOO DAMN RIGHT
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[quote user="Russethouse"]
KathyC, Which constituency are you in line for ? Sedgefield ? [;)]
I don't think you really answered my question. There was surely no way we could have gone on as the 'Sick man of Europe' the country had to do something and logic tells me that some of the 60% (of employees, not population?) voted Tory too, otherwise how did they win the election.?
As a country we simply had to encourage enterprise. The Labour government of the time just wasn't doing that.
How many people on this site benefited under Thatcher? When she was elected we were just married, we worked our cotton socks off and furnished and improved our first home, then moved and did it again with the second (and we didn't have to queue up for a mortgage allocation as we had done under Callaghan)there was a feeling that any one who worked hard to get on and better themselves. Yes, there was a high price and personally I bitterly regret Norman Tebbitts idea that if there was no work locally you should 'get on your bike' because it ignored the role the extended family played in the community....but realistically would any party have been any different in that respect? (In any case members of my own extended family had already found work away from the immediate area, it didn't seem much different to me at the time)
Labour has been in power a while now, but actually which Thatcher policy has it rescinded ? In actual fact they had to invent 'New Labour' to get rid of the Conservatives.
PS. Crikey, Miki, I remember Carolina Doors, nice bit of mahogany.........
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Well we certainly didn't we had just bought our first house and got married, the interest rates shot through the roof and due to her meddling in the TV industry my wife lost a good job when Thames TV lost their franchise due to dear Maggie not liking a programme they made, enterprise seemed to consist of financial advisors foisting endowment mortgages on people for their own benefit making wild promises yes promises of future wealth that are now turning into actual financial disasters e.g. our mortgage should have been paid off this year but guess what we have had to convert to a repayment with another 15 years to pay[8o|] as it wasn't until we queried it a couple of years ago that we were informed the endowment was never going to pay what was initially promised ( I really love paying twice for the same thing dontcha know) another Thatcherite debacle coming home to roost along with utility privatisations and council house sales, twas' all about "get rich quick" and sod the future... oh and everybody else[8o|]
I was one of those that "Got on their bike " although I had already done it by the time Tebbitt said it. I moved from the NE to Surrey and instead of applying for 100 jobs with with no result got offered 3 jobs within a week.... BUT the only reason I could do it was because my brother already lived in Surrey so I lived with them for 2 years, I could not have done it otherwise, I knew many others that tried and ended up in financial ruin through it[:'(]
The person that was talking about unemployment figures( sorry I can't remember who[:$]) was correct, for my sins I worked from 1978 to 1999 in the Employment Service and can confirm that the figures bear as much relation to reality something penned by Hans Christian Anderson or Walt Disney[;)]
So why do I no longer work there? well I was thrown on the scrapheap after 21 years and after much arguing by my wife, GP and even their medical advisors(on my side) they retired me on a crappy pension because of aforesaid dear Maggies policies and Blair's continuation of them driving me and many others half way up the wall.
So yeah I really benefitted under Thatcher and her rightfull successor Tony Blair
PS. We put a Carolina door on our first house Miki [;)] they were cheap and better than the crumbling bit of wood that was already there(not an ex-council house by the way[:P])LOLOLOL
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[S][quote user="Miki"][quote user="le bouffon"]
, what a wally,..... rip van idiot !
You talk utter rubbish,.
Now if miki`s comments are not a personel insult I do not know what is,once again he/she is allowed to get away with it,there is forum rules and then it seems like there are rules for miki.[/quote]
Gotto give you it buffie you have some front, you consistently go around insulting folks and contact people with venom but have a little laugh about you and you go off on one. People in glasshouses eh ! More like buffies doing a little bit of micky taking eh....PM'ing mods to complain about others, best laugh of the day.
Have no fear, if it makes your day better, the mods do send me PM's.[/quote]
Hi folks newbie alert [:D]
Just joined after sitting here reading this thread till 4am [S]
Miki dude I have to agree with just about everything you have said you crack me up mate [H]
As a newbie not knowing anyone here and past history etc I feel I am able to maybe offer an unbiased view on a few things if I may ?
le bouffon
Miki is right you seem to run around this thread insulting folk and making remarks and as soon as Miki responds yo get huffy about it [8-)] as I said no axe to grind here just an unbiased view from a newbie I mean take a look at the quote from above
[quote]
, what a wally,..... rip van idiot !
You talk utter rubbish,.
[/quote]
[;)]Another thing I find strange being a member of other forums and being a moderator on some is the moderators here getting involved in the discussion, i.e. taking an obvious stance/side it must make unbiased moderating difficult in particular the comment about the "days of the working class being flat cap wearing, pigeon fancying, manual labour being history" really ??? take a trip to some working class areas in the North( my place of birth) still alive and kicking as far as I can see and a question " so who is doing the manual labour these days, the aristocracy???" LOL
Oh well I suppose I just shot myself in the foot as a newbie [:$]
France overrun by les rosbifs?
in The Complete France Post Bag
Posted
[quote user="Val_2"]Remember this case well as it was the talk on all the local Brittany forums and in the local papers. You are not that far from us then Bassman but beware there are still brit rogues working as agents in the region.[/quote]
You mean the case of the disappearing Brit Estate Agent [;)] It seems we were the last people to actually buy through this agent [^o)] If I could have got hold of him he would have been very visible [8o|] LOL Thankfully Sylvie came to our rescue and made sure all went well with our purchase but it did stick in our and the notaire's throat that we still had to pay him[:'(]
Do you have a link for the local Brittany forums please?