Dan Golding

Hi Dave, I've had one of these boxes since last October and I got it from the same place you did (expatcomputersupplies.com). It has saved me an absolute fortune in phone calls - good ol' Skype Dan

Bloody hell - I only wanted to see if anyone fancied a pint down the pub with someone who doesn't need a zimmer frame to walk around HyperU [:D] I really couldn't care less about stuffed kittens, stale bread or lack of taxis - I just fancy a pint with someone who is on the same wavelength as me (Dave - see you on Friday [:)] ) and as the rest of you are not in my region, age group, on my wavelength or interested in a beer on Friday night in Parthenay then I really can't see why you are posting on this thread. By the way, Renaud - my previous job meant I spent most of my time abroad and as such I am fluent in Arabic, Turkish, Portuguese and French. I don't need to socialise with PhD's, millionaires or anyone else with a status problem - I want to have a pint, with someone with a decent sense of humour and not someone who's going to bore the pants of me with tales of WWII, French Resistance, Swinging Sixties and the Winter of Discontent. So, to reitreate - the purpose of this thread was to see if anyone under the age of 45 fancies meeting down the pub on Fridays in Parthenay (department 79). If you do, let me know, if not - can I respectfully request that you refrain from posting on this thread. Thanks Dan

Hi all, Time to be blunt but honest - no offence intended to anyone. France is great if you are retired but for those under the age of 50 and want a bit more out of their social life other than apertifs with their neighbours or other retired ex-pats then there isn't a lot to offer. I live near Parthenay (department 79) and although I've met some nice people, very few are of my generation (25-45 yr olds). In a nutshell, I'm wondering if there is anyone else out there who feels this way and fancies meeting down the pub on a frequent/infrequent basis. [B] If you've taken offence to what I've said, then this proves my point about socialising with 50+ group. [:D] Anyway, if you're interested, let me know.

Hi all, Time to be blunt but honest - no offence intended to anyone. France is great if you are retired but for those under the age of 50 and want a bit more out of their social life other than apertifs with their neighbours or other retired ex-pats then there isn't a lot to offer. I live near Parthenay (department 79) and although I've met some nice people, very few are of my generation (25-45 yr olds). In a nutshell, I'm wondering if there is anyone else out there who feels this way and fancies meeting down the pub on a frequent/infrequent basis. [B] If you've taken offence to what I've said, then this proves my point about socialising with 50+ group. [:D] Anyway, if you're interested, let me know.

Try www.first4france.com They offer free advertising for 12 months so at least you can try before you buy.

I have to say, I don't agree with Deimos on a few issues. Skype have been around for quite a while and with the venture capital backing that they've had I can't see how they could not have the money to develop servers and so on. From a nerdy, techy point of view, peer to peer neworking is actually the most efficient way of distributing data and the whole underlying infrastructure of the internet is based upon avoiding bottlenecks. From the speculation in the professional IT press, it appears that the "motivation" for ebay to buy skype (for £2.4bn or so) is because ebay also own PayPal who are the card payment processors for Skype and as such "cream off" handling charges for credit card payments. With over 150million people worldwide using skype, a little here and there off of a lot of people makes a lot of money. On a personal note, I've been using Skype for a little while now (only had broadband recently) and can honestly say that I've never had a problem phoning anyone. My ISP is wanadoo but my friend is actually on neuf and when I call him there isn't a problem at all. Anyway, for what it's worth, that's my opinion  

Slight variation on a theme - friends of ours this afternoon received phonecall from UK mobile. Bad English accent, especially from someone called "John Ball" - wanted to book their gite but asked if my friend would book their flights for them as well and they would pay for their time. For what it's worth, my friend isn't listed on FrenchConnections. Dan