Albert the InfoGipsy

Dunno what they're like but I passed a big scierie just outside Questembert yesterday. Soulaine  1 av Bel Air 56230 QUESTEMBERT 02 97 26 11 57

There are some 124Gs on eBay for about £150. That seems to be the going price depending on condition.

Which one of you is 60? Does that one qualify for a UK OAP when the time comes? Have either or both of you been paying NI for the last few years? If so, was this as employee or self-employed? Is either of you prepared to work at least part time in employment (if you can find it) or as self-employed? The answers to questions like these will decide where you stand on the health insurance front. 

[quote user="5-element"] But I believe Albert is so well integrated that he is practically French. [/quote] No need to be insulting! [:P][:D]

That's a shut-down offence. I'm a volunteer with the banque alimentaire and we have to obey the same hygiene regs as commercial outlets. Funnily enough, I believe that the food safety department is a branch of the government Vetinerary Service.

[quote user="Balham"]But why no future for it (the XD7)? I have a Minolta X700, it has been all over the place with me and I still use it. It is a shame that people give up on older working material.[/quote] I think that for most people the convenience of digital outweighs the nostalgia value of 'real' cameras. I would guess that most camera users just want something that gives them relable snapshots. Then there are the ones who want to take things further but would have never bothered with a wet darkroom. There's also the cost factor. Effectively digital photography is free once you've got the kit. With 35mm film it costs  about 25-30p per frame for a 36 exp B&W film and lab development; that's before you get anything printed. Colour costs slightly more. Those prices are based on specialist suppliers & labs in the UK. You wouldn't necessarily save much doing your own processing.

[quote user="JohnM"]I've got a lovely 120 twin lens reflex which I'd love to be able to find a good reason to use again, but I guess it will sit in it's case unused, but not unloved. I think it's a Yashica Mat (with some numbers that I can't remember).[/quote] First guess is that it's a Yash 635 -- it had an adapter to use either 35mm or 120 IIRC. I would give it a good home. On the subject of the thread as a whole, for most people there's no point in going back to film. If you're one of the keen types with access to a darkroom and enjoy sploshing about in hypo then it's a different matter. For anyone who's intending to send their films off for printing I'd say 'don't bother' because the overall cost is high and there is practically zero chance that the results from commercial D&P will look better than digital prints. I strongly suspect that the few people who believe that film gives a different 'look' from digital could actually achieve the same result with a bit of prodding around in something like lightroom. It would be interesting to do the equivalent of a blind tasting to see how many can pick out film-based images from digital. By the way, I'm the owner of 3 x 35mm SLRs, two 6x6 120's and a Durst enlarger, but I'm a bit of a luddite in this area.  

Thanks for the thought, but I'm not much of a thread-starter. I tend to get involved with technical stuff like IT, building, photography, business regimes. At one time this forum was quite active in some of these areas but now it's much more of a chat room. Also, some of the more entertaining types seem to have vanished -- haven't  seen FurryKnickers since I can't remember when.

Over the last year or two I've found less and less of interest to me on this forum. If this stupid pop-up stays I think I'll just stop visiting.  

I very much doubt that auto-entrepreneur is a viable regime for a mail order operation. AE allows a fixed, arbitrary level of costs against your turnover, rather than permitting you to offset expenses such as postage. It may be OK if you are shipping small, high value items where the cost of postage is quite a small part of the transaction value. It may also be worth using in the short term to allow you to test the market before going to the expense of setting up in a réel regime (which uses real cost/profit figures).

[quote user="EuroTrash"] I have a feeling that if you start mid-quarter, you don't make your first déclaration until the end of your first COMPLETE quarter, i.e. you would have been going for a quarter and a bit. But I could be wrong on that.[/quote] I'm pretty sure the rule is that you declare and pay at the first end of quarter following the 90th day after you register. This means that unless you registered at the very beginning of May you will need to declare at the end of Q3, i.e. the end of October for all turnover up to the end of September. http://www.lautoentrepreneur.fr/questions_reponses.htm#Couts En cas de début d'activité, quand vais-je payer mes premières cotisations ? Le premier paiement de vos cotisations et contributions sociales (y compris votre versement libératoire de l'impôt sur le revenu) intervient après un délai minimum de 90 jours suivant la date de début d'activité. Périodicité trimestrielle La première déclaration trimestrielle porte sur la période comprise entre le début d'activité et la fin du trimestre civil qui suit. Exemple : début d'activité 1ere période déclarée 1er paiement 01 février 2011 Du 1 février au 30 juin 31 juillet 10 juillet 2011 Du 10 juillet au 31 décembre 31 janvier 2012

Only just heard about this. Coops is one of the Web's saints, so wish her well from Albert.

Fisherman, Yes, you are right. Absolutely nothing is deductible under AE because the cotisations have already got an allowance built in. The cotisations on a 'commercial' AE are reduced to 12%, compared with about 24% for a service-based one and about 45% of profits for a réel regime business. This allows for a certain amount being spent on stock. If you have low costs and a healthy markup then AE is a good route -- say for someone selling home made wooden toys at the local market. For a business where you buy in products and re-sell then the margins are likely to be too small to cover your costs. It should be easy enough to calculate for any given business whether AE works or not.

Tinabee is right that all money you receive from customers is counted as turnover, and hence used in calculating your cotisations. I don't know where you got the 8% figure from. Standard cotisations for a 'commercial' AE are 12% of turnover, plus 1% (IIRC) if you want to take the option to pay tax at the same time. Regardless of where the web presence is based she would be doing the work in France. This means that she is liable for tax & cotisations in France.

We've got a C4 diesel with about 80,000 km on the clock and it hasn't needed any unusual expenditure yet. Just keeps trundling along.

Thanks, patf. I was beginning to think nobody played bridge here. I last played about 40 years ago in England using Acol. Michel Lebel seems to be the dominant influence on the club bridge scene at least. He calls his system 'La Nouvelle Super Majeur Cinquieme' and describes it as ''le bridge standard francais'. It's strongly oriented towards finding a fit in a major suit. If you have opening values and a 5-card major it's practically compulsory to bid it; however, there are loads of conventional bids that I find make it difficult to find sensible contracts in a minor. Here's a commentary on him from a different point of view. Comme l'avait annoncé la rédaction du "Bridgeur": à tout seigneur à tout honneur et on va le voir : quel seigneur ! : Michel Lebel ! On le sait, je déteste la majeure cinquième car elle m'ennuie. Je déteste surtout le monopole que la F.F.B. lui a donné et je déteste enfin l'exploitation au delà du ridicule qu'en a faite Michel Lebel "La nouvelle majeure cinquième", "La super majeure cinquième", "La nouvelle super majeure cinquième", "La mini super majeure cinquième", etc. etc... Evidement, il faut bien vivre et, faute de rester créatif, on est conduit à se répéter. http://le.gagneux.chez-alice.fr/edito22.htm    

Does anybody know if there are any books in English covering the Michel Lebel 'Majeur 5e' bidding system? It's very much the standard around here. Failing that, do you know of any other French authors with books about it. The way he mixes red, bold, CAPITALS and COMBINATIONS of all three totally puts me off reading his books.

[quote user="AnOther"]Retrieval is one thing, sending another, I receive email on my iPhone but still had to enter the SMTP server to be able to send, i.e. smtp.mail.yahoo.co.uk [/quote] But you don't need to change that when you move from one country (or ISP) to another, do you? I own two domains (one UK, one French) accessed through different hosting companies and the SMTP details in my Outlook settings refer to each them by the appropriate hosting company's (Fasthosts and 1and1) server name, with no mention of my ISP (Orange). When my son comes to visit he just plugs into my box and his email works fine incoming and outgoing.

If she's bringing her own Mac and just using it with your broadband connection then any SMTP configuration will already be in place. The easiest thing is just to use a cable connection from her laptop to your internet box and it should work, unless she has some unusual stuff like a proxy server set up. If you need any help with tweaking the settings you could start here: http://kb.mediatemple.net/questions/535/How+can+I+setup+email+in+Entourage%3F#gs   Not Alfred  

Can you get at your Hotmail account by way of a shortcut or something? Do you know anybody who would have written to it? If the answer to both of these is 'no' then I suggest you give up and start again.

[quote user="Georgina"] The hospital has told me that the transport is included but I am reluctant to use it as it is not an emergency. [/quote] That's about as sensible as offering to pay for all your other treatment 'as it is not an emergency'. If you need to stay in hospital will you be taking your own camping stove or laundering your own sheets? [quote user="Georgina"] Val I think Cpam won't cover it being as I am now covered by my work's health insurance? Should I ask anyhow? [/quote] CPAM would seem to be the best people to advise on this. Usually I'd expect 'work's health insurance' to just cover the 30% that the state (CPAM) doesn't reimburse. What happens at the moment if you need to claim for doctor, dentist, pharmacy or whatever?

Yup. It can really go paridae-up.

I had several trips to hospital reimbursed after my cancer op. Talk to the taxi-ambulance company and to the hospital or your medecin traitant. Essentially you need a 'bon de transport' that you'll probably get from the doctor treating you at the hospital. The first time I went there was a mix-up and the driver sorted everything out for me. I was hardly in a fit state to argue the toss in English, let alone French.

I must admit to a soft spot for coypu/ragondin, but they are invaders from S America and cause a lot of damage in a european environment. That's why they wiped them out in the UK. I do think that if you can't put up with them you should kill them rather than exporting the problem. Indeed, they might even find their way back otherwise. Have you asked at your Marie if they have any suggestions? I'm never keen on poison bait because other critters can find the body. We lost a spaniel to sudden acute anaemia and the vet said it might have been due to eating a poisoned rat.  

[quote user="Benjamin"]Welcome to the forum Daniel01. Albert I feel an orchestra is forming here. I'm in the wind section. Where are you? [/quote] I'm quite well known as a bit of a fiddler, Benjamin. Do you think there are some who should be in the band (sp?)?