AnOther

"and others perhaps to Spain". . . I wonder what makes you think that, I've neither seen nor heard of any such migration and post Brexshite it's no easier to live under the radar here than it is in France.

Are Brits really 'scuttling home' from France in noticeable or significant numbers? The same is alleged here in Spain but I see very little actual evidence of it.

Friends of ours only yesterday managed to get back to Spain after (misguidedly) going to UK for Christmas. Time after time their flight bookings were cancelled but being French resident, and in UK by car, not getting home by now suggests that either you didn't want to or weren't really trying. Going the other way it's strange how hoards of non residents who have been hanging about in Spain using Covid as an excuse for not going home have suddenly managed to find a way get back when faced with being recorded as overstayers and potentially fined and barred from future re-entry! I dare say a few have done the same from France.

The Letter of Entitlement make no mention of points because they are irrelevant and in no way impact or influence an exchange.

[quote user="chessie"]I can't remember clearly the 'why' right now - but I do know I obtained from the DVLA a statement from them confirming that I was entitled to drive - ie had passed my driving test and had a current, full driving licence.[/quote] That might have been as far back as Jan. 2013 which is when France finally got around to introducing the photocard licence, they'd known they had to since 1998 it but were STILL late! The controlling EU directive for that required that issuing authorities satisfy themselves that applicants for licence exchanges were entitled to be holding the national licence they were surrendering, for UK citizens that was evidenced by the Letter of Entitlement. If you passed your test in UK then you would normally be entitled to that letter on demand. As per its name the letter only states the recipient "has/had the following Full entitlement" (actual wording) and lists the groups they are entitled to drive, nowhere does it say that that the person actually holds a licence. I would presume that if an applicant were disqualified then either the letter would be refused of if were issued would say that they were subject to a disqualification and it's end date. Don't know how it works the other way (test passed in France or elsewhere) but if you did pass your test in UK and returned to live there then you are entitled to directly reapply for a UK licence, it's not a case of exchanging back.

One thing I promised myself when planning my move from France to Spain was to never get myself into the same situation I had in France which was being forever tied to tied to a crappy 2mb Internet from Orange. Perversely, despite actually having a rock solid 2mb, and a line who's ACTUAL attenuation meant it should have been good for 5-6mb, their joke of a database had it down as only good enough for 512kb which meant no other provider could or would offer me more so stuck with them I was. For those who understand these things when they built a new exchange in my town, which was only 100m away from the old one, according to their updated database that move added 10dB of loss to my line! In addition that 3g was next to non existent (not a lot of help when trying to contact Orange when their crap 'service' went down) and it was only in the final months before moving that a whiff of 4g blew my way which I took advantage of with a 4g router connected to a pair of cross polarised yagi antennas which pulled in 20mb+. In total contrast here in Spain the small enclosed semi rural development I live on (45 dwellings) is served by fibre to the site then CAT5 to each property, that gets me a symmetrical 75mB+ with a ping of 1ms. My actual ISP is a mere km away in the nearby town so on the exceptionally rare occasion I do have a problem I can either pop down to their office, or call or message them on their customer help line (Spanish and English), and usually somebody is out if not immediately then certainly within half an hour or so. With their service I get a land line phone with free calls to most of the world plus something like 100 HD TV channels including BBC,ITV.CH4,CH5, and numerous others English channels. For all of this I pay just €33/mth. I also have excellent 4g coverage and pay €12/mth for a PAYG package with free calls to UK land lines and mobiles and to much of the world, plus 6gB of date each month.

GO is French for Gigabyte so 30go is HUGE! There are a number of possible solutions though. 1. delete the mails then either ask your 'friend' to refrain from sending them. 2. bin them on receipt. 3. set up a filter to bin them automatically. 4. use the nuclear option and block their email address altogether.

Happened on this by chance. https://www.completefrance.com/home/can-i-stay-in-france-for-half-the-year-under-brexit-rules-1-6961302 What on earth do people think petitioning Mayors/Ursula von de Leyen/Macron/MP's etc. etc. is going to achieve! UK is now a 3rd country and it's citizens therefore subject to the rules applicable to that status, that's the long and the short of it and it a'int a changin' any time soon. Probably do better to petition Bojo to stop being a tw*t over granting the EU ambassador proper diplomatic status!

Alright so plain vanilla plebs (99% of the population) cannot hold two passports at the same time, how's that?

By law nobody is permitted to hold more than one UK passport at a time. Prior to 1993 the passport was a much bulkier affair (6" x 4") and more like a book with hard front and back covers, there was also a choice of how many pages you had, 34 or 50. Visas were still common so on renewal if the old passport contained active visas they joined the old and new together. If you'd chosen the 50 pager by the time you had two joined together it became a very unwieldy document, in some instances where owners had long term or indefinite visas some had three joined together!

That's very patronising. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, for some that might be learning languages - and good for them - but for others their forte's lie elsewhere. Can you build or repair computers, design and build communications and electronic gear, strip and rebuild car engines and gearboxes, gut a house and rebuild it including plumbing and electrics etc? I can do all that - and more - yet despite 11 years in France, and numerous attempts at learning the lingo, an abysmal level of retention meant that by the time I left I could still barely hold a basic conversation. It's the same here in Spain but being a decade older I'm not even trying to learn Spanish but then it's far less necessary here than in France.

Pleased to see I've not been totally forgotten! As I recall they were 'for life' but supposed to be exchanged for photocards by 2033 although with no address on them I always wondered just how they would go about actually contacting people who may have moved home a number of times. Sadly I had to give mine up here in Spain where licences with no expiry date are not permitted.

The Blair Institute piece is hypothetical as it was penned in November so is of no more than a passing interest but whether you care for the man or not, or his institute, it's still a point of view and to dismiss it on such irrational grounds is symptomatic of the blinkered and partisan attitudes which led the country to the brink of catastrophe, and some would argue with the deal as struck, over it. I too loathe Blair but I loathe Boris and his gang of 'Trumpesqe' sycophants and enablers just as much but if I were to follow your lead I would have read nothing and learnt nothing about anything! Whether it's a good deal or a bad one is not really a question as the devil is in the detail and until we see how it pans out in practice in the coming months and years it's impossible to call either way, if forced to opine at this exact moment the best I could say is that a deal - any deal - is vastly better than the alternative and leave it at that. Time will tell then but I think one thing which is abundantly clear is that things will never work out better to what we have kissed goodbye to and because of that beyond any shadow of a doubt both sides are net losers.

For fairly obvious security reasons passports are always delivered by courier and AFIK always  DHL. +/- the same time but separately you should get your old passport back also by courier.

Yanis Varoufakis"Remember: no despot, oligarch, or entrepreneur has the power to rule over the millions, the billions of us without our consent. The truth about despotic power does not lie in the despot’s weapons, bank accounts, or data servers. It lies in the minds of those the despot controls. It lies in our inaction." Shades of Niemoller! https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists Warranted or not starting a campaign to boycott Amazon on the day before their biggest potential sales event of the year seems a tad 'en retard' wouldn't you say? Worth a watch: DOCUMENTARY: The Truth About Amazon On: Channel 4 (104)    Date: Tuesday 1st December 2020 (starting in 2 days) Time: 01:10 to 02:05 (55 minutes long) How to Shop Smart. Series 1, episode 1. Helen Skelton and Sabrina Grant investigate the online retailer, offering consumer advice and exposing questionable practices with insight from executives, tech analysts and experts. The first episode takes a look at how to get the best deals possible, reports on review hijacking, and reveals how the company pushes customers towards products offering poor value for money. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DOCUMENTARY: The Truth About Amazon On: Channel 4 (104)    Date: Tuesday 1st December 2020 (starting in 3 days) Time: 22:00 to 23:00 (1 hour long) How It Took Over the World. Series 1, episode 2. Sabrina Grant and Helen Skelton investigate how the online retailer's dominant position in the marketplace and wealth of consumer information forces other companies to adapt their retail strategy to keep up. The programme also reveals how Amazon is rapidly replacing Google as the biggest gateway to the Internet and examines the company's plans to enter the grocery trade.

True but it doesn't absolve insurance companies from sending out renewal notifications in a timely manner. In any case IIRC the 'Loi Harmon' now allows you to cancel at any time after the first 12 months so even if it does roll over you can cancel without having to wait for the next renewal. Be careful to avoid a break in cover though as you could then well find no insurer willing to take you on and the only way out of that I know (or rather knew) of was a transfer of ownership via a notional 'sale' of a car and a buy back. Even before the Loi Harmon though it was easy to switch insurers, all you had to do was arrange alternative cover then tell your current insurer that you'd sold the car and give them a made up Certificate de Cession. Does that still work in the ANTS era, don't know.

[quote user="chessie"]I do remember genuine concerns about the new 3 in 1 MR jab given to children, and from which some children did have adverse side effects.[/quote] Genuine, you think? It's a dry read so skip to the end and "The Bottom Line" https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/01/21/witness-view-vaccines-autism/

[img]https://i.imgur.com/4buJguA.jpg[/img]

[quote user="nomoss"] Don't ask me what all the abbreviations stand for[:(] [/quote]MS had me foxed at first until I twigged that it means Member State. Still not figured out exactly what DDL stands for but it seems to be a reference to the end of the transition period on Dec 31st.

A TV knows nothing about where it is and plugging in external devices such as satellite boxes etc. cannot and will not change that. A smart TV will know where it is by virtue of the IP address your router allocates it but that will only affect what's available online and won't change anything else.

Reminds me of the time, some years ago now, when Chris Evans broadcast an appeal on the radio in London for someone to pick up a car (I think that was a Jag) he'd left parked at CDG airport in France, somewhat rashly he mentioned that the key was one of the wheels, of course he never saw it again! Many may remember the scabby wreck of a Merc which sat in virtual pole position in Bergerac airport forever too.

Wasn't saying it wasn't Judith, only that one of the ladies at the sous prefecture was more familiar with ANTS and was able to navigate through it and solve the problem which had thwarted us. Can't remember exactly what it was but I do recall that she logged in with my credentials meaning that whatever the problem had been it was something which I/we could have fixed ourselves if we'd known how.

"there’s no point in going to the sous-prefecture. It’s ANTS or nothing I’m afraid"..... I wouldn't dismiss the idea...... I was an early user of ANTS when I sold a moto and even with the buyer being completely fluent in French the system still defeated us so we went to our sous prefecture where they sorted it out very quickly...... Don't know if it's still the case now but back then the prefecture had computers and helpers who would walk you through it................. Formatting seems FUBAR'd hence the............!

Expanding listening to music while cooking or doing the washing up to "a "connected" house with speaker groups in different rooms" and the convenience of calling up titles with Google somewhat changes the dynamic of the argument!

Why on earth would you use Google Play Music in order to stream music to devices connected to your own home network?