Tango

The NCT1100 hasn't really taken off, certainly over here.

Stop signs are a good little money earner for the Gendarmes! Make sure you come to a complete stop and count to 3 before moving off again. Some departments have fitted speed cameras in private vehicles as a nice little earner too! So keep a close eye on your speed. A lot of villages and towns are 30kph. Watch roundabouts too. Just because someone is in the righthand lane doesn't mean that they're not going all the way round the roundabout! This has nearly caught me out several times now! Also watch out on righthand bends, as traffic coming the opposite direction often come well over the middle of the road! This has also caused me a few heart stopping moments too. Safe to say that the standard of driving over here hasn't improved in the last 50 years or more!

It's pretty rare outside of villages and towns these days, but there's always exceptions!

When I first went to the Royal London Hospital, around 1990, it was in that old building. The pathology lab was on the first floor, directly above the old main entrance. I used to blag a parking spot on the ramp to the entrance. The medical school was spread across several old buildings in the surrounding roads. Most of that has now gone. Pathology moved to the new building a couple of streets back from the Whitechapel Road a good few years ago. Spent many an hour in there installing and repairing their chemistry analysers! Parking was always an issue around there!

Here's another article, apparently updated for 2023, but there's a couple of flaws that I spotted. Firstly the country stickers have to be GB now and not UK. The other thing is he fails to mention that gloves must be CE marked. This is mad, because I've got 2 pairs of gloves. The spring-autumn ones are HELD and are CE marked, but my winter gloves are relatively expensive Triumph ones, which are not CE marked, even though they are more substantial than the HELD ones! I still wear them and take the risk of a fine if ever challenged! But that's my choice. https://www.drive-france.com/faqs/motorcycling-france/

This is from 2017, but the law hasn't changed significantly since then, so it could be worth a look. https://www.infinitymotorcycles.com/news-and-events/motorcycling-in-france

My understanding is that this only applies to new helmets, but I could be wrong. I got stickers with my new lid, which I've stuck onto it, but I've never put stickers on my old lid that I brought with me from the UK. I think that it's something that isn't rigorously enforced, but if you get pulled over by a couple of bored Gendarmes they could start looking for stuff. The same goes for CE marked gloves.

I've heard about this too, although I've got a French bank account and debit card, so it's not happened to me. The thing to note is that many filling stations are pay-at-pump only and don't have a kiosk to pay at. Supermarket ones seem to have some kind of machine where you can use cash, but it's not normally at the pump and I don't know how it works unfortunately. Definitely something to be aware of when filling up in France.

It's what you get from wearing face masks!

I've been out for a couple of bike rides recently, but not actually got around to posting on here. Anyway, we went for a little walk round one of our circuits that we like on la massive de la clape yesterday afternoon. It's a 10 minute drive from here. There was plenty of evidence of wild boars rooting around in the soil and stones, but we've not actually seen any there. I suspect that they're more active in the early morning or evenings, when there's fewer people about. It's a nice walk and the weather was perfect for it.

For that special someone in your life!

A lead zeppelin?

Yeah, love a bit of Porcupine Tree.

Always avoid having a curry before putting on a wet suit!

Misplaced Childhood and Clutching at Straws are my favourite Marillion albums. Can still listen to them now quite happily.