Blunt Guillotine
Archive for 'confessions' Category
Paperless dinners
By Englishman - Last updated: Wednesday, August 31, 2011
My experience of French bureaucracy has lead me to become somewhat of a worrier when it comes to dealing with paperwork inside the ‘Hexagon’. Having spent a good six months of the year providing and re-providing our local Caisse d’Allocations Familial (CAF) with attestations and exemplaires (see previous post) in order to get precisely nothing at the end of the… Read more…
Laughter at the Kafteur
By Englishman - Last updated: Monday, August 22, 2011
One sure fire way to improve your level of French in France is to start fraternising regularly with French people. This may seem like stating the obvious, however it is easy, particularly in a town with a large and active expat community, to stick to a largely Anglophone circle of friends. This may even be the case after you’ve learned… Read more…
Un morceau de chaos
By Englishman - Last updated: Monday, July 18, 2011
Is it proper to write a review for your own book? It’s not illegal. One supposes, if prepared to admit the conflict of interest up front, there’s no reason why an author shouldn’t at least have a go at persuading people to buy their own work. (Guess where this is going!) A Little Bit of Chaos is the title of… Read more…
Certifiable
By Englishman - Last updated: Wednesday, June 1, 2011
While you may already know just how pointlessly bureaucratic France and the French can be, it is worth noting that the British are hardly the model of laissez-faire either. In Britain the ‘certified copy’ acts as the linchpin to most bureaucratic processes. That is, a photocopy of your passport stamped and signed by a tie-wearing official of some description. The… Read more…
The last Attestation
By Englishman - Last updated: Saturday, May 28, 2011
After five months of trying we have finally been denied income support (RSA). The reasons for which are complex, but suffice to say that the fact that our dossier took five months to compile did not help our cause. While we may have applied on time, the fact that it took URSSAF and RSI a good three months to come… Read more…
Time is not money
By Englishman - Last updated: Wednesday, February 16, 2011
As far as I was concerned the short-sightedness of Britain’s attitude to Europe was frustrating, as it seemed to be based on little more than xenophobia, corporate greed and a generation still obsessed with the Second World War. An attitude neatly summed up by John Major’s conservative government who ‘opted-out’ of the social chapter of the Maastricht treaty. The social… Read more…
The Euro: the people’s currency
By Englishman - Last updated: Monday, January 17, 2011
On the first of January 1999 we found ourselves sitting in a little restaurant in a village in eastern France talking animatedly over a menu of mouth-watering local specialities. It wasn’t the food that was whetting our pallets however, it was the prices; because the restaurant was having to present them for the very first time in Euros as well… Read more…
Two easy predictions for 2011
By Englishman - Last updated: Friday, December 31, 2010
1. The United Kingdom will not be joining the Schengen zone in 2011. What’s the Schengen zone? You’re not the first person to ask. Put simply, it is the geographic area within the EU where there are no internal border controls next to the sign saying “Welcome to (insert name of country)”. It was conceived in 1985 in a small… Read more…
The final frontier
By Englishman - Last updated: Saturday, December 4, 2010
The first real French friend I made, albeit briefly, was David, a fellow traveller I met while backpacking through India on a year out. We shared a few short days together on the edge of the Thar Desert in Jaisalmer, Rajisthan. How much exposure I’d had to French culture I wasn’t sure, but obviously there was enough common ground between… Read more…
Integration verses the long holiday
By Englishman - Last updated: Thursday, November 25, 2010
Not everyone would be so ready to leap across the channel, as we were, to look for somewhere to raise a family. Indeed most that cross the channel looking for property are those seeking a second home or a summer retreat. Making home in a country other than your own requires not just imagination but a philosophical disposition towards foreign… Read more…
