Quillan

[quote]Compulsory voting?[/quote] Sorry I was under the impression from what I was told and read that it is compulsory for French nationals to attend the polling stations for national government ellections. They can either vote for somebody or just tick the abstension box but they have to attend. I know for local stuff and for MEP's you have to go and register as that is what we have done. Strange we can vote for our French MEP and mayor and not French MP's. I think we can vote in something else but my French is not that good to work it out. To be honest we are only interested in voting for our mayor as he is the only face of government we ever see. Prefer the French system to the UK one, at least you know where you are with them, good or bad.

Hi Mazan, On BBC News 24 the two cards were shown side by side and looked identical except for the language printed on them. It was implied that they were being developed by this company (didn't mention their name) with joint funding from England and France and that they will be the same. However history has shown that even the BBC is not always right.

Having had my French Orange 'Pay as You Go' number taken from me (after having it printed on all our stationary) due to lack of use, making not recieving calls that is, I looked around to find a cheap way of getting a mobile phone number but gave up in the end as the monthly charges even for high call cost phones was very high. I should explain that I want a mobile phone to transfer calls to when I and the wife are away from home as we run a B&B. I seldom if ever make a call and only then when I am coming back from the airport with a friend or guest to let the wife know we are on our way. Our landline is with Teleconnect and we are happy with them, their service is straight forward and simple to use. All their help services etc are in English. Just recently they have introduced MobiLight for just 11.95€ per month with calls at 18 cents a minute in France but only 12 cents per minute to the UK. Now I don't know if the call rates are good value for money in comparison to others but being that I mainly recieve calls and make very few it seems a good deal for me, certainly cheaper pay as you go. All you need is a unblocked phone and they will send you a new SIM card which costs 15€ and away you go. The other thing which is really nice is that it is all in English, thats SMS, answer service the lot plus you can check your voice mail via the internet (providing you have speakers on your PC of course). For me who speaks very basic French this is really very helpful. I am only a user of this companies products and have no business links with them and earn nothing from anybody using their services.

I guess the difference between France and the UK is that in general the French don't care who politions are screwing and if they are getting back handers or getting their mates out of prison. They are more interested in them 'getting the job done' and with compulsory voting turnout they have a lot of power. As can been seen in the last presidential elections where in the first round they voted heavily in favour of the ultra right wing just to wake the others up. Could you imagine TB getting his cabinate in once a week and giving each of them brown envelopes with 15,000€ (£10,000) in each just to keep then 'on-side'. Perhaps he does and we just don't know. Ok I know this stopped in France a few years back but I bet they have found another way of doing something to keep the cabinet in line. The nice little trick of the UK's leaders is the freedom of information act due to come in to effect in January. Is this designed to make people feel safer about identity cards in as much as you can see what the government has on you. Nice idea but as one tory mp said "how comes the amount of shredded waste from Whitehall sent for incineration as doubled in the last two months. Will there be actually anything to read or see when the act comes in to force?

[quote]A European wide ID card would be a really good idea. Include your driving licence on it. Maybe E111 (European Health Card or whatever its to be called now), plus probably some other useful things so...[/quote] It's an idea that has been around for a while but it is not in the interests of companies to do this. Imagine if you only had to carry one card for everything. As well as your sugestions why not add things like organ donor, blood type, credit and bank card details. With modern technology and the memory developments in the elctronic industry the technology is available now. The problem is what will happen to all the companies making credit and debit cards round the world? I suspect such a system would not be in their interest financially that is. It's abit like the idea years ago of putting peoples photo on credit cards, excellent idea but nobody was interested.

You don't have to dial any prefix like 0 etc. Here are some very basic instructions to try and get you working with a basic setup after which you can play around as you see fit. The filter should be connected to the first and main telephone socket coming in to the house and then the phones plugged in after that. Don't plug the phone in first then the filter. (the filter is the phone connector that is on the end of the ADSL modem. The most obvious question then is have you asked French Telecom to enable ADSL on your phone line, it is not a automatic function. I have seen problems with some versions of Windows which are in English when a French program is installed, it can over write dll's.

I was unaware untill yesterday that it is being developed in conjunction with the French hence on the BBC News 24 there were pictures of the card in both French and English format and they look identical apart from the language of course and yes they were two seperate cards not the same one with English on ones side and French on the other.

George, Thank you for your reply. If you do manage to sort it out please let me know the outcome. Regards

A post has been removed from this thread as it was deemed as a personal attack on another member, call it censorship if you will but we, the moderators, forum admin and LF, will not permit this form of behaviour.   Several other posts have also been removed because without the first they make no sense.   I would like to remind all members of the forum that we have 'guests' reading our forum for help and information about living in France. Members are therefore expected to keep within the 'Code of Conduct' and within the subject matter of the forum i.e. France and anything to do with it. I have pasted part of the C of C below highlighting some areas but a full version can be read at http://forums.livingfrance.com/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=40&MessageID=33243   Code of Conduct:   6. Users must not post messages which: 1.      - Are insulting, abusive, racist, sexist, or derogatory in any way to others, whether they are individuals or companies, users of the Forum or not. This includes material sent via personal e-mails through this forum. 2.      - Threaten, intimidate, victimise or harass others. 3.      - Make libelous comments about individuals or companies, including Living France. 4.      - Contain explicit language or vulgarities (whether written in French, English or any other language).

I believe the situation is that people apply for licences to cut the forest from, ultimately, the Department de Foret who are part of what could be best described as the environment agency. Once the trees have been felled they will come and remove the stumps, allow the ground to settle then replant. This can take one to two years as the equipment for removing the stumps are large and expensive and each area probably only has one or two. The French 'farm' wood and have been doing so for years and they are considered experts in this field often visiting other countries to give advice, Scotland being one of them, Canada another. Of course this does not help the visible effect of having a large chunk of forest removed especially if you had previously enjoyed walking through it, mind you there are large areas of forest in the UK which are fenced off with no access, not even to walkers so I guess we are lucky to be able to walk in the forest in France.

A post has been removed from this thread because it was not relevant to original post.   I have also deleted a post beneath as without the first post the second means nothing.   Moderator

[quote]Tim Have also posted this reply in another section:- (I am referring to a situation where I have 2 machines one which I could access the site without problem and one at home where I was not running ...[/quote] Tim is away till the early January. This has nothing to do with the server, it is a problem at your end as you have no doubt worked out by compairing both PC's. I would sugest you get a PC guy to sort it out for you. Unfortunatly there is nothing LF can do for you as we don't supply a user PC support service. Sorry

11 times trying to get back to the forum then 2 times trying to get back here to check if my previous post had worked. I shall try again to get make to the forum.

Reading This Thread 5 times 21/12/04 08-50 cet Same error message.

Thats what I like about France, the choice to be stupid. If he wants to kill himself it's up to him. No government busybody telling him not to be stupid.

I can only assume that canals are the same in France as in the UK. The plugs are often use in the 'closed' season to drain the canal for work on thngs such a locks. The high side of the lock normally has vertical slits in to which planks can be placed to dam it back (in the UK you normally find them stored round the side of the lock somewhere). The plug is then removed on the lower side of the cnala and the water drained. When the plugs are put back a special type of clay is used to make the seal although I expect they use more modern equivelents these days. As to the lake, I cannot answer unless it's for maintanance.

This thread is for keeping a record of this problem, please do not add any complaints about the service in general (you can do this in the thread http://forums.livingfrance.com/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=29&MessageID=53261  If you can please copy and paste the error (if you didn't make a copy not to worry just answer the rest of the questions) in to your post along with the date and time it occured and a description of what you were doing at the time. An example of what is required is given below.: Thread name.: http://forums.livingfrance.com/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=13&MessageID=53594 Action.: Trying to read post Date.: 20/12/04 Time (approx).: 09:00 Number of times it happened.: 3 Error Message.: Server Error in '/' Application. Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown. Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. Exception Details: System.OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown. Source Error: An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below. Stack Trace: [OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown.] Many thanks in advance for your help in this. If we find duplicate posts we will email you asking if the above is the reason why it happened or you can leave a message about the error here and email ME to delete the duplicates.

Hello All, I have started a thread on Memory Errors as this is effecting everyone including us moderators, so every time you get one can you cut and paste the error in to the thread following the instructions given. Perhaps when the IT guys see  how many there are it will speed things up a bit.

Without mentioning their actual name could you give an idea of where in France you are looking and where the 'Hunter' is based. Somebody might know who you are talking about and can give better feedback. I know of one based in my area, and american lady, she is very good but tends to go for the higher end properties and I have met some of her very happy customers. Like all businesses there are some that are good and others that are bad and rip off merchants.

I know we had a list a couple of years back in a thread but I can't find it so......... Can anyone give web addresses of online car insurance companies.

Ford was one of my clients years ago and I had a Mitsabushi Colt Lancer, they always made me park my car where it couldn't been seen when I went for a visit.

I need to kill grass and weeds growing through our gravel path. Is there a good weedkiller that not only kills the weeds but stops things from growing for a very, very, long time. The French name would be nice please.

Dear Chalky, I to am very sorry to hear this sad news and would like to add my condolences. My wife lost her mother recently through the same terrible disease except unfortunately she was in the UK and her treatment was not as good as in France. I know this as a close friend also has the same problem in France and her treatment and care is much better. I wondered if you, or any body else, might know if there is bereavement counciling in France (and what it is called) as my wife would be very interested in this because she is not coping very well at present. Kindest Regards Chris

When I went they opened the bonnet and did that sharp intake of breath through their teeth so I knew they spoke English, well it's the same sound as the guy in Quick Fit made anyway before he tried to flog me a new exhaust to replace the one his mate had sold me 3 months previous.

Sky TV is one reason (thats how I got my new card last year and they are suppose to be changing them every few years). Some UK banks (Abbey Nat) won't allow you to have a non UK address if your account has less than a certain amount and thats where the Sky bill goes. Also some of the new 'Chip and Pin' cards will send the card and statements to France but not the chip number (Mint for example). I also need it for the car to get the paperwork (new logbook with export cert attached) to register it in France. My wife has business reasons for maintaining a UK address. My wife has spent the money.