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dragonrouge

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Posts posted by dragonrouge

  1. We are avid supporters both of the Cancer Support Group both within France and particularly here in the Vendee.

    We have a Scots friend who is very doughty and she has had gone through the mill twice. She is now cleared and coming to lunch here on Friday.

    With a combination of your own approach and God's help you will get there.

    We send our very best wishes
  2. Had our electrician in yesterday and he said that due to the withdrawal of some of the 'green' credits people had paid in advance to obtain the credits and so he had lots of money in the bank but was under pressure to 'do' the work. He did not think in all of the circumstances that he could commence our work until the end of the year.

    Seems like a can of worms to me for surely the credit only arises if the work has been completed prior to the credits being withdrawn?
  3. Have you noticed how the next two strikes are destined for the end of the following two weeks and which of course are holiday weeks?

    In this respect and in an attempt to better understand things do the protesters and who are members of the syndacats have to pay 'dues' to the syndacats? Also do they lose 'pay' for the days they do not turn up for work. I wonder how employers legislate and control this by a system of clocking in or what?
  4. May I please take this opportunity of making an open apology in and upon reflection extending this thread to the history of the mining community.

    It certainly was not my intention so to do simply to make the point that the State (and certainly during the strike) has a role to play but how it exercises that role is a totally different argument. That I did not succeed in doing.

    Thus sorry:

    Final point and I will return to 'France' later today is that if you were to go to the Miners Library at Hendrefoilan near Swansea there you will find chapter and verse of all the disputes over the years. Churchill troops did fire and kill miners. Fact. The photographs are there for all to see.
  5. I will and without wishing to distract return to Betty's posting a bit later in that I am the son of a Welsh miner know something about Scargill was there during the miners strike of 84/85. Betty I am a lawyer and worked for the NUM during the strike. I do not and will not support Scargill. However think long and hard about this and as I say I will return to the French concept a bit later in the day having hopefully collected my thoughts.

    In the Rhondda we had someone who had a baby during the strike the Social Services were involved and they asked them for some emergency aid as in nappies and their response 'You should have thought about that before you had a baby' I soon had that particular Civil Servant on his back and not literally. When Russia supported the miners Baroness Thatcher reduced their payments based on what they thought was the value of the boxes of food and the like. I am not left or right I just believe in the difference between what I perceive as right and wrong. But miners have nothing to do with this posting. Of course Betty is was Mitterand who changed from 65 to 60 the age for retirement. No one else.
  6. I give mine either to our Anglican church or to the Cancer Support Vendee.

    Equally I have started to collect two euro pieces as part of the 'spending money' for holidays next year. Stupid I know.

    However now have over 300 euros in 2 euro pieces! Our bank is in Normandie and our local bank as we are not a customer will not accept them. Any thoughts
  7. I simply have to get back to the UK on the 25th of this month for a court case and am delaying the decision making until nearer the time. It is said that this week roads may be blocked by the Routiers? Also have to take my wife to CHU at Nantes on Wednesday have enough fueld but if the motorway is blocked then enough said.

    What to do is I suppose all the back roads but that would take hours and then fuel?

    The French certainly make themselves felt I wonder what they would do if faced with the Chancellors statement of Wednesday next another revolution like 1787?
  8. Sunday Drive is just about correct on this but centres of Economic Interests have taxed even the most brilliant of legal brains but again take professional advice (in the UK). There was once a law case in the Court of Appeal where centre of economic interest was recognised when a guy resident in France came over for Royal Ascot and his wife resident in the UK served a writ on him for divorce. He squealed the CA found against him for he had always but always come over for the Derby and Ascot.

    So it is not simply a few rules but SD is as I say is on the button. You are more of a traveller but where do you think you centre of economic interest is - nowhere? That is not possible.
  9. I come from the Rhondda Valley in South Wales and witnessed many aftermaths from rock falls and gas and then seeing six month later your friend's Fathers with bits and pieces of skin being attached here and there Then the siren going at the pit and days later miners in black clothes walking behind the hearses.

    I was also there in 1966 when we lost a generation at Aberfan and that too was an after effect of coal mining.

    My father died in the mine and they gave us £10 to bury him and then a week later reduced our coal. Again 84/85 strike and whatever the rights and wrongs all gone for ever and I do not mean pits I mean communities.

    There was nothing but mining in the Rhondda just after the war save for mining to earn money you had no choice but to go down. Nothing would convince me to go down and follow my Father and my two brothers.

    Wherever they are in the world miners are a tough breed. Enough said and Chile was such a wonderful all round effort and one cannot but be moved by the whole rescue effort. In South Wales in the fifties it was simply wooden pit props and budgies in cages to see if there was gas there.
  10. This positing is of considerable interest. We have a another house opposite our home and which is in the middle of two other houses. The house to the right has no guttering and rainwater runs down from his roof to our house and which is at a lower level and rainwater gets into the house albeit it hot inhabited.

    I have written to them (they are UK people) who say never been a guttering I am not putting one up now. What should one do please. His only access to the area at risk is through our garden.
  11. Hi read with interest the article on olives and I once went to a mill was it at Bize something or other near Narbonne.

    However off track.

    Supreme is the breast of the chicken but with part of the wing bone? and really is a classic French way of cooking breast of chicken. I holds it better today than simply fillet de chicken. Pierre if you (I cannot send photographs here for I do not know how) but if your Google for photographs of supremes of chicken you will see what I mean.

    rdgs
  12. Hi am grateful as always. Yes we have 3ph throughout the house and this summer and due to the heat and our grandchildren and a small paddling pool suppose we did use it quite a lot.

    But had a look at previous figures.

    March 2009 consumption 5712 = 88 euros a month

    March 2010 consumption 6259 = 93 euros a month.

    This time the meter was read but simply a letter indication new prelevements received and no consumption figures.. So looked at closing number in March 2010 it was 31742.

    Today it is 36888 thus a usage of 5146 in some six months?

    Surely using the pump to draw up water to fill a water but and then to fill up a small paddling pool would not account for this hike which is obviously 50% But if you extrapolate the figures it does seem that we are on an annual basis heading for a 50% increase?

    Equally will get EDF in to see how we can reduce our tariff etc for just two people here most of the time and indeed for two to three months none at all.

    Any thought anyone please?

  13. Hi we went to Fontenay le Comte(85) market last Saturday and as usual went to one of the local restaurants. For a change my wife had supreme of chicken stuffed with red pepper mousse. Then a thought ten people coming over for lunch shortly supremes! Yesterday Leclerc Hyper U Super U plus our local butchers. Yes chicken legs chicken breasts etc but shrugs of shoulders etc. Yes I know I can buy chickens and do it myself but with ten people coming to lunch? Breasts of chickens do not work so well but I thought that France was the gastronomy capital of the world?
  14. Hi thanks to everyone. We have had our meter read every year since we have been here since December 2007. In 2008 our bill was 60 euros a month in 2009 90 euros per month and now 146 per month. Simply put just the two of us over that period no increase in electrical appliances and ok c/h on a lot last winter but that is only to keep the boiler ticking over. It is a good idea to get bills out consumption wise and if that remains fairly constant that its a talking point?

    rdgs and thanks again
  15. We purchased some few years ago a house to the rear of which is a courtyard and was once used for a coach and taxis enterprise. For inspection pit purposes etc the old proprietor had three phase and we still have three phase coming into the house. All phases have been rewired to new boards and EDF have been here but I am not sure of the puissance that we have but I understand that all phases attract their own standing charges.

    However we admit to using the cylinder and pump in one of the outbuildings for watering the garden during the summer.

    The meter reading has now taken place and our prelevements have shot up to 146 per month. Please and in the simplest of terms can someone explain to me how I can reduce this amount in that my experience of such matters is limited at best and probably non-existant. There are just two of us and the c/h is oil. We have a cooker a hob a deep freeze and a fridge plus the normal stuff.

    Really would appreciate some help here for we do need to get to the bottom of this and to understand what is going on.
  16. Dear Dog still (just) in harness and I from time to time wear a nice suit and yes advise clients who in my experience are genuine clients who simply wish to reduce their (legally) liability to taxation.

    Here a question is this wrong?

    Another question behind limited liability companies and not ones with £2 issued share capital and lots of Directors Loans are shareholders who invest and is it wrong that they seek to protect investments and to receive reward for investments? Here I am not talking about those who were are one-time supporters of the Conservative Party with alleged links to some island somewhere in the West Indies region.

    Then of course one Philip Green and it is not he but his wife who receive most of the dividends from his investments and he of course has been brought in by the Coalition to advise on business and efficiency? I find that amazing and he of course has a calendar in front of him every day with someone with a calculator and the calculation is of course days spent in the UK

    Here I must stress that this is entirely legal and some bigwig in London drafted a very expensive paper for one Philip Green..

    Sometime earlier in the piece it was the then norm to have unlimited liability companies and where those who ran the business were responsible for all of the debts of the company. These were traditionally agents let us say for shirts and the like and they did not wish to disclose to their competitors the amount of their commission and thus no accounts at Companies House.

    Finally and something that I was very closely involved with. Now a PLC and with a share price of £11.00 and very profitable. Quickly moving on the Directors charged their houses to the bank put capital in and developed an idea. They were exposed! However first year £1M turnover bottom line £500,000 profit. IN those days one could claim 100% writing down allowances for investments. There was no way that the profit could be shielded. I was part of a transaction where we put together within house a leasing business and we leased to A covenants such as local authorities and the like. We continued with this profitable side until 100% allowances were withdrawn. The Directors did not wish to avoid tax they simply wished to continue R % D within the business.

    They now employ 4000+ people in the UK and overseas have received countless Queens awards for export and both Directors (not me) Knighted.

    Is what we came up with morally ethically wrong?

    Essentially what I am saying good bad everywhere including lawyers including Barristers including Bankers and indeed labourers!
  17. My French is ok for day to day events but with the OP I am now faced with renewal with Groupama and unfortunately my French is not up to it. We have cover for hospitals blood test xrays and most of the other needs. However we are paying some 200 euros per month. I am 66 and my wife 63. We both benefit if indeed that is the word from 100% long duree with Rheumatoide Arthritis and I have a long standing problem with my spinal column.

    We have never been hospitalised here so have no knowledge of their costs but know we have 150% cover but of what?

    I do wish there was a simple and pragmatic way of approaching such matters.
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