NickP

The answer to your question about moving a greenhouse. That's why the French love tall hedges or they cover that awful wire in green plastic. They can then do what they like and nobody can see what they are doing. [:D]

[quote user="busdriver"]Thats great guys , thanks very much. I think even with the paperwork effort of importing there is still a saving by buying in uk. The current car i am looking at is 3000 euro cheaper in uk. Thanks again[/quote] While you are correct in thinking that cars are cheaper to buy in the UK, remember you must factor in the registration costs etc. in France, the cost of travelling back and forth to the UK to buy the car. Also the fact that after a few years your car will be difficult to sell  in France if it's right hand drive, so; back to the UK to sell it ( more cost) only to find that second hand cars there have no value. My car (UK bought) is worth about £2000 scrapage value in the UK, If it was French purchased and left hand drive it would be worth around 6000 Euro in France. So although 3000 Euro seems attractive now, five or six years down the line? What ever best of luck.

[quote user="Pauline"]Hi A friend of mine would like advice on mobile phones, they live in France and have a french pay -as- you -go but dont use all the credit, they would like to get a UK phone and top up each time they visit the Uk and then use it the occasional time they need it in France, does anyone have any advice for them, I said I would get one and take it over on my next holiday. Any advice appreciated. Thanks Pauline[/quote]   From my experience using an English mobile in France tends to be expensive. Have your friends had a look at the LeClerc supermarket Sim cards they appear to be the cheapest. If you have an English mobile (unblocked) you can then put an English or French Sim card, and get the best of both worlds. The LeClerc card costs about 15Euro to buy, this includes some air time, and then 1.50 Euro a month and your credit rolls on. But beware if you let it run out I think you loose it. By the way if you have an English orange account you can top up on line.

If you have a good sense of humour, like country music and are not easily offended go to YouTube and look for Rodney Carrington or Tim Wilson. Word of warning some women might not like these two singers or rather their songs. [:D]

[quote user="just john "] [quote user="NickP"] But having said that someone has to pay for the bankers bonus perks, we couldn't expert the parasites to earn normal persons wages could we?[/quote] I'm surprised more bankers have have not to sprung to the defense of this erroneous assumption, my understanding is that all bankers are not the same and most of the guys who screwed up have quietly been offered a warm bath and a razor or been allowed to slip away; consequently the guys left are charged with making boodles in a different way to overcome the debt and build reserves. Presumably only the successful ones are getting the bonuses, even when the boodle made has not wiped out the deficiency in a single stroke. Where the bonuses are not suffiecient they have left to pastures new where the boodle is great enough . . . or am I being naive . . . [/quote] Sorry John but you are naive, because  my comment is not an erroneous assumption, it is an opinion, an opinion based on my dealings with the financial services. Also I am of the opinion that the banks have kept the gamblers in the hope of getting them out of the mess that are in, and if it doesn't work, well they will come crying to us again to bail them out.

Anything by Kris Kristofferson, but one I really  like is, "The Law is for the Protection of the People"    [:D] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6Rxjp6Pyu8

[quote user="Boscoe"]It basically comes down to this... If you were a reserve manager which would you rather hold, Sterling or Euro? The Eurozone has it's problems but Britain's are arguably much worse. [/quote] Yes I agree, but once the reserve managers and their mates in finance have ripped the "reed" out of Sterling they will turn their attentions to the Euro.They can't loose, the only  looser is the man on the street, who because of the money manipulators; gets a terrible interest on his savings and pays a high price for borrowing. But having said that someone has to pay for the bankers bonus perks, we couldn't expect the parasites to earn normal persons wages could we?

 Great Video, but if you really want to be impressed and I promise you will be, see the film in an Imax cinema.There used to be one in France (Futeroscope Poitiers), I'm not sure that it's still there. Definitely one in Waterloo London, and another in Bradford. Well worth a visit.

As British politicians are so adept at skimming off money them selves from the state, I am sure that they wouldn't allow any one else to steal anything. After all if another country or person pinched it; there may not be enough left for them. As for the cost of French health care, yes it is high but so is the service and treatment. The only reason we don't know the true cost in Britain is because there is no direct billing system as in France, but I would guess it's no cheaper.

I'm also intrigued by a so called reputable company advising debtors to how to  evade their responsibilities. Still call me cynical but I suppose even bad publicity is good.  [:P]    

I have just looked on the Nationwide site and the nothing appears to have changed .  The following information is courtesy of NationWide Building society web site today 4th March 2010 Nationwide continues to offer "commission-free" foreign transactions. "Commission-free" means that we do not add any additional charges for exchanging currency which are designed to generate profit for the Society. We do, however, pass on any fee we incur from our card scheme providers for processing transactions in certain currencies (generally those outside of the European Economic Area and Turkey and Israel) other than sterling. P.S Don't panic Derek!! [:D]  

[quote user="Bugsy"]Thanks for that. [/quote] Your welcome. Did it work for you?

[quote user="Bugsy"][quote user="NickP"] as I used Babelfish to "translate" the page direct,[/quote] Can you explain exactly how you did it Nick as I didn't get past the warning page. Thanks. . [/quote]   Well I just clicked on your link Bugsy, and up came the page from the paper La Nouvelle Republique. In my tool-bar (yahoo) there is a translate page button, Babelfish. Pressed the button and up came the "translation", but as I said the translation was not very good, it's interesting that sometimes they are good and other times very bad. You were right about copy and paste as I tried that with no success.

[quote user="FairyNuff"] Having seen the inside of our hot water tank, we're in the process of putting in a new one, we were discussing the possibility of having a water softener. Speaking to different people and searching the internet I can't find out if you can drink the water after it's been through a salt-based system. Does anybody out there have the definitive answer? Thanks in advance FairyNuff  [:)] [/quote] I think you will find that it's advised that you have a separate tap that does not go through the softener for drinking and cooking purposes. Edit 21.01:  I have spoken to a couple of friends of mine in the UK who have water softeners, and both have separate taps for drinking and cooking water, hope that answers your question.

[quote user="sharkhunter"]You know what, perhaps i have grasped the wrong end of the stick here but i always thought that this was an English language based forum here to help people in their transition to France or help- with all things French. Why do people insist on posting links that are in French and therefore, to people who come on here for assistance cos they don't understand French, impossible to read. You may think that you are doing a service by posting a link and saying ' read this ' but it really winds me up when you go to ' read this ' and you can't ' read this ' cos its in FRENCH. Why not say 'copy and paste this into a translator and then read this ' cos the original text is in French .............. [/quote] I wouldn't get too upset Sharkhunter, as I used Babelfish to "translate" the page direct, and I understood less of the English than I did of the French. [:D] But it seems to me and I may well be wrong, they are accusing Ryanair of being racketeers.But as someone else says if it's not making a profit can you blame them for pulling out.

[quote user="DerekJ"]Nick.   Just watching the autopsy of the Italy v England match on the BBC HD Channel and they just discussed the Wales v Scotland match and that restart. They all agreed that all Scotland had to do was to drop out on the full to touch. Apparently the match would have finished there as the result of the kick on the full would have been a scrum not a penalty.  [/quote] Your reckoning was dead right Derek as proved yesterday by the French. Kick straight out, game over!

Kitchens and house design is very much what you need for the family. When the kids were at school we had a separate kitchen so that when my wife was cooking the kids didn't get under her feet. When we got rid of the little blighter's ( or we thought we had) and bought our holiday home in France  it was an old barn, one huge room and a tiny French kitchen stuck on the side, and because the woman of the house was so small all the worktops were a three inches lower than normal. But after a while we realised that I was in one room and my lovely wife was in the Kitchen, and as her hobby is cooking she spends a lot of time in there; it was a little unsociable, so we moved the kitchen into one end of the big room and I must say it really works for us. The added benefit is now when the grandchildren are with us Easter and Summer we can both keep an eye on them. And we need two pairs of eyes, as  it's funny; but as you get older they get quicker, and you worry more. So sweet, do what suits you and your life style you know it makes sense. Don't worry about the future as the buyers then will only alter it. [:)]

I think a couple of the comments on this discussion are a little unfair, you have to take into account that you are talking about people who are settling into a very different environment to the one they are familiar with, so it's only natural that for a while they will cling on to familiar ways of life. But hopefully as their language skills improve and they get used to being in a foreign country that their interest in local issues will pick up. As for people who come over to France to buy a holiday home, while they like the French way of life they are still mainly involved with the UK. Having said that both sets of people join in with forums like this one to learn about France and hopefully get some of their questions answered by normally helpful people who give information to the uniformed willingly, rather than scoring points. [:P]

Thank you Norman you're very kind.

Wish you hadn't posted this information, I'll now be offering to do the shopping. [:D]

[quote user="NormanH"]I would recommend adding: http://www.lemonde.fr/ http://www.liberation.fr/ http://www.latribune.fr/actualites/actualites.html http://www.marianne2.fr/Actu_r1.html http://www.slate.fr/ http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/index.html and change between  them from time to time to get a broader spectrum of views. I agree that it is depressing to see how little interest is taken in the affairs of the host country by people who either live here or have a sizeable investment in the place. For example there wasn't a single reply to my post about Wednesday's demonstrations on behalf of raising pensions, even though I imagine a good number of British people in France are themselves retired. [/quote] Now Norman maybe you could help me out here? My French is far from perfect and when I read in Lemonde about the Total strike it appears, to me, to say that the company had huge amounts of government funding in 2009 around  8 billion Euro. Have I got that right? Hope you can help me or correct my misunderstanding .[B]

Polly wrote: "Lots do: with the batteries disconnected otherwise they keep going off when they stoke the woodburner!" I have smoke/fire and CO2 detectors fitted with the batteries connected,[:D]  both purchased in France. As for stoking the woodburner, if you use the woodburner correctly you should never need to "stoke" it. Having said that Polly you are probably right, people who  don't use them all the time will tend to stoke them, they think it's part of the ritual. [:(] 

Could be handy if the old Argies chance their arm again. [:D]

Krusty Wrote " "A general strike in Greece on Wednesday shut down ministries, the public sector and transport  " Do you really think that anybody noticed ?  [:D]

I get no satisfaction from the fact that this man being has been criminally attacked, because what ever he's done he doesn't deserve this treatment. I was under the impression that serving Police officers who were convicted of a crime and jailed were segregated, obviously I was wrong. I just hope that this incident is not the beginning of a successful appeal due to this person being discriminated against in prison. I would prefer that this man served his full sentence, and loses his pension and the privileges of being an ex police officer.