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Chrisdubna

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  1. The only thing that happens round here in Winter is Breton dancing, though you do see the odd bar which has a lively young clientelle.  There are several clubs offering tuition and some are even quite patient with non-Bretons and beginners. CHRIS
  2. What really pisses me off is when someone posts asking for something to be brought from or taken to the UK, or a lift to or from some port or airport.  A friend who lives near me and also myself go back to the UK quite often so we used to volunteer to provide this sort of service.  Usually there is no response.  Though once I got a response from a guy who must have thought that Nottingham is somewhere near Newcastle.  He expected me to pick it up from Newcastle and as a freebie. The other day on another forum I responded to a small ad and two weeks later am waiting for a reply. Rude is what I call it. CHRIS
  3. We are holding our third Fest Noz in the Maison des Fetes at Belle Vue, Redon on 22nd March.  Starts at 9pm and continues until 2am with three groups giving of their services free of charge.  Er Lan Eur, Ar men du and Dans 'Teurjou.  Bar and some cakes.  Entrance 6€, children free. The profits go to support the education of African Children. CHRIS
  4. [quote user="Bob T"]Do you break down very oftern in the UK then? Your car should be just as reliable here as there. If you do break down you may find that the many small garages and petrol stations here are more able to help you out than in the UK. Parking is the same, there are plenty of (mostly free) car parks in towns and loads of laybys here. [/quote] Well maybe that is so, but not always.  A car that is only used for fairly short journeys is going to face a big challenge if it has to face not 10s of miles but 100s of miles.  That usually sorts out any car.  Let me give you an example.  I drove to Moscow in my Land Rover 110.  A water leak that had probably been dripping for months but not noticed even by the pre departure service at a main agent burst into full flow just after leaving Poland.  Thanks to the fact it had a Nissan Engine I limped into Moscow and got a new rad flown out from the UK. I would always recommend taking out foreign cover as it gives peace of mind and you can rely on English Speaking assistance.  I live here so know how to deal with such problems as might arise but even then I am going back to the UK in a few days and I am taking out foreign cover on my French insurance. CHRIS
  5. [quote user="Opalienne"]We have one but the problem is that most of the nuisance calls we get (veranda salesmen etc) withhold their numbers.......[/quote] Err why is this a problem, if callers can't display their number then don't answer them.   When I was in the UK this successfully avoided me speaking to double glazing salesmen, bank managers, credit card companies and many other disreputable characters. CHRIS
  6. [quote user="Deimos"]Is it OK to cut ff the lower branches and if so when is the best time.  [/quote] I always prune apple and pear trees in late October, my French friend swears you have to do it in March.  I get loads of apples - he gets very few. CHRIS
  7. [quote user="Lautrec"] Could someone advise me when chestnuts start falling and can be gathered? Thanks. Lautrec. [/quote] Depends upon the part of France you are in.  In Brittany October - there is a Fete des Marons held at the end of October in Redon.  A great week - come and join us next year. CHRIS
  8. "If you swap your Sky dish for  a French dish, you'll loose C4 and Five." NO, reception is not dependant upon the DISH you use and most dishes sold in France have a universal LNB which will happily receive almost anything out there including all the channels you normally get in the UK.  I have installed many French dishes without problem.  However, and I think this is what was meant, if you also use a French Receiver insteal of a Sky digibox then there are restrictions on what you will receive and if you don't point the dish at the Sky sats - well you won't receive the Sky broadcast channels. CHRIS
  9. "They had an upload/download ratio of 30:1 and therfore spent a fortune on a dial-up connection, taking hours to send content to their customers at 56kps and had a patchy download experience (Ranging from perfect to pathetic) for occasional browsing." That is not a problem with the Sat system they bought but with the advice they were given.  Basically there are two types of Sat System - 1 two way via sat - good download speeds and upload speeds from 256K depending upon how much you pay. 2 download only, upload via telephone in which case the upload speed is no better than an analogue telephone line. In these circumstances I would have recommended a dual bonded ISDN line which is available on nearly all France Telecom lines and gives 128k upload - the maximum you can get without ADSL. The answer, having bought the system, is not to sit there and watch it upload but to do it during the night. CHRIS
  10. I presume you are receiving your signals from Sky.  There is more than one sat up there and the dish has to be aligned for the best reception on all sats otherwise you can tend to lose signal in poor weather conditions on some channels.  In bad weather, heavy rain, snow or even really wet fog it is normal to lose signal but that would affect all channels.  The way round this problem is to increase gain at the receiving end ie the dish by increasing the size of the dish.  90cm in Brittany is best but in SW France maybe up to 1.5 and even then you are likely to lose signal in really bad weather.  If you really want to be sure of receiving a signal at all times maybe you need to borrow one from Goonhilly Down! CHRIS
  11. [quote user="Liz"] I was listening earlier to an item on BBC Radio 4 'From our Own Correspondent' about the imminent change from Department based car number plates.  You can see the text at .http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4549542.stm  the recent programme doesn't yet seem to be available to 'listen again'.  I will certainly miss these localised plates, I love to know where people have come from. Liz [/quote] Oh gosh that could be a tragedy, how will we know to avoid Parisians on the road who drive as though they are participating in the 24 hour Grand Prix rather than on the beautiful Brittany roads. CHRIS
  12. Has anyone experienced the cardinal sin of opening a bottle of wine in a French Friend's house?  I was invited to friends' house for New Year's Eve, the husband is a reformed alcoholic and does not drink at all and he has been quite ill through most of 2005, so much so we thought we would lose him in July.  His recovery has been miraculous and hopefully long lived.  During this period he has needed a lot of support and also his wife who was at her wits end.  Several times she went to pieces and on occasions a couple (one French one English) of us have picked her up and got her going again. I have got to know the house pretty well and especially the kitchen where I have prepared meals for visitors whilst the husband was not capable of even eating etc.  I still help wash up because he is not really capable of standing for periods, though he is getting better. On New Year's eve a Spanish man and his wife came along and I was asked to help which I did very willingly. On 2nd January they all accepted hospitallity in my home with a good peice of roast beef and yorkshire pudding etc. Later I learnt from a French friend, also at the party, that the Spaniard had complained to the host that I had committed the cardinal sin of opening the wine.  Apparently it is for the host to do and not for a guest.  There were all sorts of other inuendos as to how come I knew the house so well.  The host was very happy for me to help and has told me so and he actually asked me to open the wine, I guess being an alcoholic he still has unhappy memories of what he went through and there is always the risk of starting drinking again. This is not the first time that this remark about opening the wine has been made previously by a born and bred frenchman.  Is anyone else aware of this and what it means, also any other customs I should watch out for? CHRIS
  13. [quote user="geno"]Not working for me either since late Friday. I did notice they haven't been taking money from my account since July though! [/quote] Not sure it is good to know I am not the only one having trouble but thanks for the reply.  CHRIS [:'(]
  14. I recently needed two 250Gb hard drives for my server and decided to order from dabs.fr but couldn't find what I needed that was in stock so I looked at dabs uk site.  There I found a huge range and tried to order for delivery to France.  Operation refused. I emailed dabs and they indicated they could not deliver to France from their uk operation so I eventually waited for stock and duly ordered from the French site.  The parcel was delivered from the UK so why couldn't dabs deliver from the UK to France on their UK site? Quite odd. CHRIS
  15. Is anyone else having difficulty this weekend connecting to NetbySky?  Well I suppose if you are you are not in this forum unless you have an alternative connection like me.  The help line is constantly engaged and they are not replying to emails.  The error coming up is username and password not valid on this domain but they are the username and password that worked when I reinstalled only 2 weeks ago. CHRIS
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