cajal

Either directly or indirectly, the UK army has a presence on the Polish /Belarus border with the sole aim of securing the said border against foreign national citizens who are attempting to enter Poland illegally. As I stated above, I haven't read anywhere of the UK army being tasked, with or without the assistance of Nato or Polish forces or any forces for the matter, in any program to secure the borders of the UK. Perhaps that would be a start and also send some sort of message to the smugglers and the emigrants that the UK army had now become involved. Forget cobbling together deals or arrangements with other nations to address the issue, as they obviously cannot be relied on, and take full responsibility for the problem that is pertinent to the UK and its own security.

Am I missing something here? It would appear the UK army is able to assist the Polish army to secure the Belarus/Poland border against people attempting to enter Poland illegally. However, at the same time there are people attempting to enter the British Isles illegally, with impunity, who are often assisted by the Border force to land and yet I haven't read of any incidences of the army stepping in to attempt to halt this flow of people.

Exactly. Checking google earth, around here you would be hard pushed to find a property 'sans piscine' and the size of those installed are probably visible with the naked eye from the international space station. I also doubt very much whether any of these pools are operated with 'eco' in mind, as succinctly described above. We had ours filled in, and a house extension built upon it eleven years ago. COP 26, a pseudonym for another global jolly. Can someone remind me how the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, nuclear weapons being a far greater threat to the human race, founded in London, England in 1958 is succeeding? Still a bit of a way to go yet apparently

So states 'the pool man'. The environmental impact of pools and also hot tubs invoke the trifecta of environmental destruction: high water use, high-energy use, and harmful chemicals. ☣️ Hypocrisy perhaps?

Your gestures obviously mean something to you and if it delivers the 'feel good factor' for you both, then stick with it. However, what all these climate change zealots fail to realise, acknowledge or understand is the reason for there being an increase in the manufactured production of carbon emissions. The simple answer is that more manufactured goods are required to satisfy more global demand, and more global demand is created by the real elephant in the room, an overpopulated planet. It is totally unsustainable and until this population growth has the brakes applied, and pretty damned quick, then all the COP (add your own number) conferences and demonstrations won't even begin to scratch the surface.

Much respect Ken. Anything is achievable with enough determination, if and when you put your mind to it. Well, that's always been my philosophy. Chapeau to you.

Chance for you to check out your family 'tree' tonight. Heritage

Thread Drift. It is indeed j. Now it is just another subscription investment advice and financial report site. I did, by mistake, omit to add the word 'forum boards' to the title Motley Fool. Their excellent free investment forums covered all feasible styles, topics and investment opportunities available. I started viewing in '98 and signed-up at the beginning of '99. It was frequented by the best most knowledgable and clued-up private investors around. Unfortunately in November 2016 the boards were closed. I suspect this was due to financial unsustainability. Within a month, two previous members, Clariman and Stooz had created a new forum platform which goes under the title of Lemon Fool and is still live today.

Saint-Quentin, Would you be the same Gengulphus who would post on the now defunct 'Motley Fool' financial investment site?

This is for Orange using their Livebox. The fibre cable should follow the existing route of your copper cable, and it should be possible to draw the cable through the existing gaine. You can locate the box wherever you choose. You will need to collect a new box from a pointe relais as they no longer post to home addresses. The only cost should be for the technician to couple the new cable to your new box and set it up. €50. If of course you elect to couple up yourself, the charge will be waived. I did it myself.

NormanH, if in fact you do happen to be of Russian stock then as long as you were born west of the top of Ngodyayakha Mountain in the Polar Urals nature park you are safe in the knowledge that you are European. Politicians of the 27 EU nations who are hoping to become the head honcho of their respective countries should learn a few basics and understand that the EU does not have exclusivity to the term 'European'. ?

Am I missing something here? I always understood NormanH to be of European extraction, i.e. he is British. If it transpires that he is, after all, of Russian descent I won't be at all surprised. ?

Well we sat down last night after dinner to sample these two recordings and I must say that I did quite enjoy the 'Brits Abroad' programme. I've seen similar programmes in the past and these things do tend to satisfy a need for brain-candy, some nights, after particular busy days. I also hold a sneaky amount of respect for these people who have a dream or ambition and instead of harbouring a regret later in life, they actually get off their fat as*es and do something about it. Onto recording #2. What can I say that hasn't already been said? On the one hand whilst I do respect the lady and her husband for jumping in feet first to take on a fully functional olive grove I find myself unable to offer the same sentiments to them personally as a couple, particularly the lady. I don't know her, and she may be a perfectly charming individual, but jeez did she indeed come over as one self-opinionated, name-dropping, nauseating person. I believe she also speaks highly of me. ? We also recorded Angela Black and watched this on Monday evening, so for the next 5 weeks Ridley Road and Angela Black will be definite and Brits Abroad will be recorded for viewing during tv company scheduling barren periods eg. Christmas.

We watched 'Ridley Road'. Occasionally I would wander over to Ridley road market, in Dalston, when I lived in Islington in the early eighties. Mme. recorded the two franco' episodes for possible watching during this week to assess whether we follow the remaining 5 episodes.

Both are 6 parters. 21.00 (French time) Allo, Allo Brits in France. and 22.00 (French time) A Year in Provence with Carol Drinkwater.

Also, as an explanation of why it is unwise to open any link in a 'seems like phishing' mail, it might be worth your while casting a glance at THIS. I would also support suein56's replies. Basically, why take the risk?

Do you not think you took a leap of faith by clicking a link within an email which, by your post, you believed to be spam/phishing?

It would seem the gendarmes of Dunkirk have taken seriously the threat of the withholding of £54 million funding, by the UK Home Secretary, to the French government in their fight against traffickers aiding the crossing of Le Manche of undocumented migrants. Money talks

Or perhaps even

Last November, remember it? Winter looming and lockdown had already loomed which kinda' put the kibosh on any sort of travel plans I had intended on embarking upon. Confined to quarters, I needed a project that I could get my teeth into to alleviate any incidents of ‘gah gah’ I might succumb to. Well, fortunately, I had the much needed lightbulb moment quite quickly and with some lateral thinking, I thought I know instead of playing a guitar, I'll become a Luthier and build one. It was a no-brainer for me as to which make and model to build. My first pro axe was a 1968 Fender Telecaster bought the same year, so an original, which I still have and use. Now, what raw materials do I have on hand (remember, no travel allowed) to enable this project to get off the ground? A search around various nooks and crannies turned up a scaffold board, the builders left behind after extension works some ten years ago, for the body and the neck, an old discarded oak shelf for the fret board and a square metre of plastic panel of 'ramourque' advertising blurb, that I had found had been abandoned by some dork on a woodland walk we had done a couple of years earlier for the pick guard. I already had an assortment of hardware and electrical components at hand and everything else I needed it would just be a simple task to purchase on-line so, with no more ado, it was onwards and upwards. First task was to download a scale dimensional drawing of a Telecaster, set the printer to full-size and, 12- A4 sheets later, I had a full size drawing which just required taping together along ‘draw’ lines. I was now able to make tracings to cut out of an old roll of wallpaper for paper templates of the body, neck, fret board, pick guard, pickup and control plate housings. With these paper templates, I then handmade MDF templates for reproducing machined made templates to produce the real-thing. These photos are a selection from some of the build sequences during the production of the project. 1 Downloaded plan ready to be tapped together. 2 Machined body blanks. 3 Abandoned plastic sheet found in the woods. 4 Body blanks glued and clamped. 5 Paper body tempate taped to a section of MDF for sawing out. 6 Machining MDF body template for routing cavities. C 7 Finished MDF body and cavity templates. 8. Part cut out body. 9 MDF template pegged to body for machining to size. 10 3-stage body machining. 11 Routing out pickup and control panel cavities via template pegged to body. 12 Finished machined body. 13 Part carved and rounding of the neck. 14 Trimming down the thickness of the neck head. 15 Routing a slot in the neck to house the truss-rod. 16 Slotting the neck for frets. 17 Finished neck with frets and mother-of-pearl fret markers fitted. 18 Trial fit of hardware including scratch plate. 19 Hole bored to house output jack. 20 First of 12 coats (4x3 passes) of nitro-cellulose paint. 21 Finished neck, sprayed and machine heads fitted. 22 Soldering wiring for pickups, control panel and output jack. All cavities lined with anti-static copper tape. 23 Job done. With the end of lockdown long gone and other obligations and jobs occurring, I finally finished this project at the end of June when I put the guitar to one side for two months to allow the spray paint job to cure and harden. Am I pleased with the result? Yes. It kept me occupied and, I can only practice and churn out musical scales so many times a week after all. It plays well, I've given it a few workouts and with just a couple more tweaks to the truss rod adjustment it should qualify as a useable instrument. The tone of the output differs from my original, as they are built using different wood, Ash body and neck with maple fretboard '68 model and Pine body and neck with oak fretboard '21 model. If you've made it this far, thanks for your interest and when the next lockdown corrals us all again, I might consider taking on a Strat or Les Paul build. Watch this space. ?

Since posting the above, I have found that when logged onto the site there is an option of 'Unread Content' available where the index, once the 'Condensed' option is selected, displays all the topics listed in chronological order of the original post of that topic. They remain in the list until you have read them or a new post is added to a topic. To me, it is much easier on the eye and the brain.

I don't know if this will help or not. One of our properties uses 'citerne' gas and last week Butagaz emailed notification of an impending rise of €150 price/ton from the 1st of November. Our last delivery was for 545kg, and it cost €835.

Yikes, who saw that coming! I'm still on a familiarization course. So far, hmm? When I first found my way to 'active topics', the index seemed just like trying to understand a bowl of alphabet spaghetti. Further inspection revealed a 2 button option on the right-hand side of the page, below the 'All Activity' banner, titled 'Condensed' and 'Expanded'. Once I had hit the 'Condensed' option, the index turned into some semblance of order with the posts being listed as Topic subjects instead of posts being listed by Time of post listed, regardless of topic. If anyone hasn't yet tried it, give it a go. Good luck with all your explorations and hope it eventually all comes together for you.

There's a certain sweet irony to all this mess.  I believe Macron won't lose too much sleep over the loss of this contract.  Although it fell apart during his term of presidency, the initial discussions were actually started back in 2010 and the first signs of any operational hardware appearing were scheduled for the 2030s, long after he will be gone, so the continuing escalating costs will dwarf the €90 billion during his watch. Therefore, any blame for failures within the 2016 contract can be foisted firmly upon the shoulders of previous administrations. However, what will irk and severely dint his ego is the fact that whilst he possibly had the ears of certain heads of state, who probably didn't want him to have their ears, on the last day of the G7 conference held in June at St. Ives UK, closeted away at another location screwing  together the nuts and bolts to a soon-to-be announced future 'aukus' alliance were president Biden and prime ministers Johnson and Morrison.  Not only would he not be aware of or informed about the outcome of these discussions the fact is, they actually took place right under his nose.  Humiliation of that kind, on a world stage, will remain with him forever.

[quote user="Martin963"]But the bit that puzzles me is Biden in all this.   It was thought that it would be a case of EU=GOOD,  Britain=BAD after Brexit,   but that seems to have gone.   Another proof that he is indeed completely senile?[/quote] I suspect Biden will have been informed, between naps, that there is more credence in building an anglo-saxon alliance over and above a gaellic-euro one in the US's push to  combat the threat of the Chinese economic thrust and shenanigans to the countries and islands in the south China seas and Pacific. Also, the proposed 'auukus' nuclear-powered weaponry is far less detectable in service than the French outdated diesel/electric powered. Additionally, let's not forget that along with this latest fiasco France has a history of losing defence contracts, as in the loss of contract to supply fighter jets to Morocco and Switzerland, both awarded to Lockheed in the US.