Rod Jones

My wife has over 3,000 Science fiction and fantasy books. Rather than try to ship them back to the UK to sell, I wonder if anyone may be interested in making an offer, or failing that, has any advice about selling them in France? We're based in Limousin and would be prepared to deliver within departments 19, 87, 23, 63, 15, 46, and 24. Thanks for any help.

We're in a village location with a small garden so not much scope for solar or ground source heat pumps. I gather the air source heat pumps only produce 'warm' water. I can see the advantages in a new-build for (say) under floor heating, but I'm not sure there's much benefit for us. So I suspect it'll come down to a choice beteen an electric boiler or replacement oil boiler, but I'm not sure of the relative merits of each. (I assume what's good advice for the UK doesn't necessarily apply in France)

Our oil fired boiler has just expired, and before we leap out and replace it like for like, I wonder what conventional wisdom is regarding types of boilers and comparative running costs betwee oil, LPG and electricity. And are there any grants available? (We live in Limousin). Any info will be gratefully received!

I'd be more inclined to take the train if it were possible to avoid the trek across Paris... in our case, from Gare d'Austerlitz to Gare du Nord. I'd like SNCF to make more use of Lille. From the Toulouse/Brive/Limoges line, there's just one train per day which allows for changing at Lille.

I'm not sure Ryanair's particular business model is sustainable. When other cities get their 'International airports' (Brive for example), they're going to look at the way RA have treated other cities, and hopefully think twice before getting into the same situation. And their customer base is the result of pragmatism rather than loyalty. They're not making any friends, but they are making some high-profile enemies.

Yes, when I'm connected to the Voyager network, I can go to 'Voyager.home' (or “http://192.168.1.1”) via Internet Explorer, at which point I'm prompted for my Broadband User Name and Password. When I enter the Orange xxx/yyyyyyy identifier and password, it tries to connect to Orange, but gives up after a minute or so. I remember when I used the Voyager in the UK, the User Name was of the format [email protected], where the nnnnnnnnnnnnnnn was our phone number. It has never been used with any British Telecom ISP... Rod

I'm thinking of sending my Livebox back and using a two year old BT Voyager 2110. My PC can talk to the router quite happily, but when I try to connect to the Orange network, it seems to have difficulty with the xxx/yyyyyyy format 'Identifiant de connexion. Has anyone had any succes with this approach? Thanks, Rod

95 in a 90 limit and 114 in a 110 limit. I know it's my own fault, but I'm not arguing in favour of speeding. I'm just questioning whether road safety is the primary goal here.

I don't know if anyone else has fallen fowl to this purge, but during my return journey from the UK to Limousin last week, I managed to pickup two speeding tickets for marginal infringements, both on the urban motorways around Paris, and within a short time of each other. Apparently, the police were enforcing the policy where 1kph over the speed limit is an offence, ie 111 in a 110 limit (it’s on the ticket).   As I’m sure everyone knows, the major roads around Paris are labyrinthine and busy, and as well as the demands of self-navigation, there’s much lane changing, constant braking for the inevitable ‘bouchons’, and of course motorcyclists overtaking on both sides. You need to keep your wits about you, and preferably have eyes in the back of your head, so I’m curious to know if the Parisian police really believe that road safety is best served by forcing motorists to obsessively watch their speedometers.   If the authorities are serious about an absolute maximum speed, perhaps it would be better to have lower maximum of (say) a 100kph and allow the motorist a little more leeway.   The current 0% leeway begins to look like a transparent attempt to generate revenue.