JMB

I live in Cape Town and transfer money here from my UK HSBC account, but it's an expensive way of doing it.  I think one of the best ways of doing it is via one of those brokers mentioned - or set-up accounts with more than one and use the best prevailing exchange rate.

Nothing here

Spectateur I'm sure you're right .  Guts and glory. Scheming devious politician is a tautology btw :-)

Just a caveat I want to add to my comment about Czech pilots above.  Many of them served with the French airforce until the fall of France and then they made their way to Britain.

A bit down on the French aren't I?  I'm sorry, but I just find it hard to stomach French soldiers standing aside while others took the brunt from June to August in a drive to liberate France from an unwelcome occupier.  I know the Falaise Gap was a very nasty affair, but IMHO it should have been French soldiers storming the Normandy beaches not Americans, Brits and Canadians.  You would have thought French soldiers would be queuing up for the job - I'm sure there were enough French soldiers in Blighty to cover the first wave of all six beaches.  I just don't understand why DG wasn't more insistent that Free French soldiers play a more prominent role on the 6th of June.  He was certainly most insistent about most things he wanted and was a constant pain in the neck to Eisenhower and Churchill.  Then DG had the gaul (groan) to announce, on his arrival in Paris, that he and his French troops had liberated France.  What cheek! Once again, if 1500 Czech pilots, most of them travelling through France, could make it across the channel, then why didn't more French combatants regroup in Britain?  And I know someone will come back with comments about memories of WW1 and sympathies with the Vichy position etc etc, but I still think it is shameful.

Many thanks Quillan.  Sauvage is an appropriate name for a successful fighter pilot.  :-)

Very interesting.  Do you mean Cranwell rather than Camberley?  You've obviously done a lot of homework (I'm not being facetious btw).  Do you know any Free French pilots that I could photograph for my book about WWII pilots?    http://gallery.mac.com/johnmartinbradley#100142&bgcolor=black&view=grid By the way, my Czech general, General Miroslav Standerer, fought in the French airforce until the Germans arrived and then he sugared off to Liverpool via the Pyrenees and Portugal. Germans coming in through the front door as he was disappearing out of the back door - all that sort of stuff.  A truly great chap in my view.

Baypond I have a formula for that GBP/USD and EUR/USD thing somewhere.  I'll try and find it and post it. 

P2, Baypond is absolutely right.  Keep your exchanges down to the bare minimum and it is also worth bearing in mind that you will probably get a better deal changing large amounts than small amounts. If you change currency from GBP to USD and then USD to EUR you will get ripped-off not once, but twice!  

Quillan, I must call you up on your claim about the French and the Battle of Britain.  Seven Free French pilots died in the Battle of Britain.  Only 13 French pilots fought in BoB! 1500 Czech pilots managed to make it to Britain from a little country to the east of Germany, how bloody difficult could have been for the French to make it across the Channel. More Norwegian combatants died on D-Day than French.  Shameful.

lol

Well the US dollar took a pounding tonight so that will provide some relief to the pound.  In fact the pound is at a key level against the dollar and it looks to me like it's going to go up not down.  Now you may wonder why I'm going on about the pound and the dollar and what does that have to do with the euro and the pound?  And the answer is that the relationship between the pound and the euro has more to do with the relationship between the pound and the dollar and the euro and the dollar.  To make things a bit more complicated the euro also rose significantly against the dollar today and so you may be thinking well that may not change the relative disparity between the euro and the pound - are you still with me? Now the very encouraging thing about this is that the euro and the pound rose against the dollar today.  Which is much much more encouraging than the euro rising against the dollar and the pound not. The optimists among us may take this as light at the end of the tunnel.  The pessimists might say this all about dollar weakness rather than pound and euro strength.  Who knows what will happen next?  Watch this space.  Personally I'm encouraged.  I was going to change my pounds into euros, now I'm considering leaving them where they are.

Surely you are not implying that America would have entered a major war in Western Europe just to stop one of its major markets from being taken over by the Soviet regime.  My goodness how cynical. I thought it was because Winston Churchill went over to Washington and charmed old Franklin D. and threw in most of Britain's silver (patents - the intellectual property of an industrial giant) to sweeten the deal.  Anyway whatever the reason, it saved us from speaking Russian - which I believe is even more difficult than French.

lol

Tip of the iceberg.  Read 50 Reasons to Hate the French by Jules Eden & Alex Clarke.  Also The Discovery of France by Graham Robb in which he argues that France as we know it is a recent construct.  

"I'm home Dear".

I wonder if it is like those super duper petrols you can buy with additives that clean your engine as you drive.  Plus if it burns more cleanly, then it will leave less residue beind - making for a more efficient transfer of heat. 

I have just looked at the chart for the pound dollar.  I'm afraid today was very bad news for the pound.  The pound had bottomed out against the dollar and showed signs of heading upwards (possibly to that longer term target of 1.7), but today a key level of price support was broken and this means the pound probably isn't going up in a hurry.  If price breaks below 1.3505 and stays below there, then I'm sorry to say the pound will drop like a stone.  The mooted target is 1.0643 against the dollar.  In other words the pound will be a gonner.  Now what will this mean for euro?  The euro is in a similarly calamitous situation against the dollar.  If it breaks below 1.2330 and doesn't bounce back up, then that is bad news for the euro too. So, as Captain Jack Aubrey was fond of saying, with the euro, you are looking at the less of two weevils. In terms of the pound euro, they may both tank and so the relative disparity may remain much as it is now. The pound falling significantly may fuel the political call for the pound to be abandoned in favour of the euro.

Lynda & Richard, I thought there was an insect on my monitor when I looked at your avatar lol. The Aussie dollar looks like it has bottomed against the US dollar for the time being, so, once again, if the Aussie dollar increases or at least does not drop any further against the US dollar and the euro drops against the dollar then you should have a big smile on your face.   Commodity based economies like the Australian economy are in for a rough ride.  The question is, does the current value of the Aussie dollar reflect that fact already, or is there still further to go to the downside. Me thinks it has taken an absolute caning is likely to creep back up. But in reality, anything could happen.

There is also speculation by the some major forex traders that the pound will rise to 1.7 to the dollar by September or October and that this may be a stable longer term level for the pound in relation to the dollar (the pound is currently 1.4 ish to the dollar). So if the pound goes up against the dollar and the euro goes down against the dollar, then the pound will go up against the euro. But no one really knows what is going to happen.

I've been to places in Africa where people just stop their car in the middle of the street and walk off.

Liberators were heavy bombers and used by Bomber Comand and Coastal Command, not SOE.  I don't think dog was saying they were used by SOE.  Lancasters were pretty much kept for Bomber Command.  SOE used Sterlings, Wellingtons, Halifaxes, Manchesters, Whitleys, Lysanders and pretty much anything else that nobody else wanted. Where is this Carpet Baggers place as a matter of interest? I wonder if it is Old Sarum, and if it was, I wonder if the Liberators could be heard from Boscombe Down?  Just a long shot ...

Do you know how I could contact him? 

Dog Is the old codger still with us? Those bomber guys went through hell.

Jimmy your English is excellent. I have a question for you.  I am writing a book, it is really a photographic book, where I interview and photograph pilots from World War II.  I am looking for one or two French aviators who flew in the French Airforce or who flew with the RAF in WWII.  Many of these guys would have worked closely with the army, for example with the paratroop regiments in Indochina and North Africa during the conflicts in these regions.   Some of my pilots are high ranking officers.  It is not my intention to interview senior officers.  They can be of any rank. Do you know any pilots who "fit the bill" (conform to my requirements) and would it be possible for you to assist me in making contact with them? For your information I have interviewed four British pilots, four Germans, a South African, a Czech, and two Australian pilots.  Examples of some of my photographs of pilots may be seen at  http://gallery.mac.com/johnmartinbradley#100142&bgcolor=black&view=grid Please accept my apologies for being so forward in making this request and thank you in advance for any assistance you may be able to provide. Best regards John