MooN

Well done to you both, I've been her nearly 29 years but I was young free and single back then so only had me to worry about and had a job here that I came out to.

You should'nt have to renounce british citizenship Pete, you request Spanish, though some countries ( the us I believe amongs others) do require yuo to renounce other citizenships. In France there is a distinction between becoming "naturalised" in which case you renounce original citizenship and become French and aquiring citizenship, which implies you become a french citizen but don't renounce other previous citizenships. this is a longer and more convoluted process I believe, as this is what I am doing and wil, eventually have dual citizenship. this will mean that for the french authorities I will be French with all that that implies and in the UK I will be British with all that that implies, you cannot, in any circumstances play one off against the other.

Not the same problematic Bob, I'm married to a frog so the dossier is a bit different ( I have to provide between 4 and 10 years woth of "proof of common life" ie that we actually live together, on top of all the rest) and so far my problem has been needing a full and unabridged birth certificate. I was adopted at 4 months old prior to 1976, so requre councelling with a duly accredited adoption councellor and psychologist before i am allowed access to the information on that document. I now have found a way around having to go back to the UK for that councelling and have been supplied with the name of my biological mother ( so I'm actually biologically not who I claim to be at all). I now need to send of for a copy of the full birth certificate, once I get that I can send it away for translation. This has been a blocking point for me for about 3 years now...

what if they die from fright?

good luck with that! 3 of the people I work with and have been here for years started the process but have given up. 2 others are struggling on, 1 person I know has succeeded ( it took over 2 years form submitting the request with it's attendant dossier. I have been working on my dossier seriously for over a year now and am still awaiting on official document from the UK general registry Office, which I will then have to have translated by an authorized translator. I will then, and only then be able to organise to attend the language test and after that can begin compiling the french documants that are time senditive.. ie have to be issued within the last year, 6 month, month or whatever. it is soul destroying...

I know almost nothing about guns, and if I was an actor on a film set and was handed a handgun by a qualified professional armourer and told it was safe, I would probably take their word for it. I dunno how much Baldwin knows about guns. Can you tell a blank from a live round without unloading the gun?

I've never really been into concerts and really dislike crowds so have seen very little live music. I remember seeing The Boomtown rats at a theatre in London. They were playing in the interval in some show that my gran had taken us to see, i was far too young, about 8 or 9 I guess. I remember the song though, cos it was "I don't like Mondays" though I didn't recognise it till years later. I've seen various smaller bands at open air do's in my misspent youf, I think I saw Blodwyn Pig but don't remember it, Phil collins with Phl bailey, Stryper, The Pogues ( in a pub in southampton) and Bob Dylan in Dijon about 20 odd years ago. French bands like Renaud before his voice gave out and Ultra Vomit live in the parc in auxerre, but no really big groups. Dylan was... welll... Dylan not really a showman but genius lyricist and musicien. the Pogues were fucking brilliant, but you have to like that sort of thing.

Welcome in, but don't listen to Bob he's not all there. How does the T700 compare to the triumph?

Do it!

managed to get out for an hour this evening, clear skies but only about 7 deg C so I got me thermal knickers on, liner in me jacket and rode up into the vinyards west of Chablis. in the ongoing series of finding oddities amongst the vines, I found motocross track!

no idea. Goldwing? do they still make pan europeans? the new tiger 900 rally? i'd have fun trying loads of them...

Yes I'd buy the tiger again cos it's fucking awsome I kept the transalp for so long because I found no other bike on the market capable of doing everything the transalp would do ( kinda ties in with what @XTreme was saying ) but this tiger 800 does all that but faster smoother and better. most modern bikes are too small for me.

Bizarrely, that actually made the french news this morning ( obviously at the time as well but I wasn't born then) I couldn't make out why this year and not previously, like on the 50th anniversay for ex?

Same as Tango, 9/11 I was at work and we had a hotel barge full of US tourists in the port at the time. Start of the first gulf war, I was on a yacht in Geurnsey when the navstar GPS system was shut down ( satellites belonging to US military and either re oriented to cover the gulf or civilian access shut down)

You never saw the rocky horror picture show?

nobody around whilst I was there and the 1 or 2 people I know in Chablis have never heard of it. Pedro's sunday morning idea is plausible but a biker gathering I would know about, or somebody I konow would. I still think it's a hippy / new age/ anarchist/ knit your own wholemeal yoghurt whilst hig on drugs type thing.

I went for a spin last week as the weather was reasonable just following my nose... and was intrigued to see this sign in the middle of nowhere, down a very minor back road in the vinyards about 15km east of Chablis so I just had to go and have a look. bearing in mind that this is in the Chabls vinyards, which are mostly good to high quality wines owned by wealthy domaines in what is frankly a pretty chic area, I cannot imagine how this can exist in that environement There was no one about and it was all locked up but there being no running water or mains electricity I cannot believe it's very legal, though it's obviously been here some time as the steps to the rear of the trailor are concrete built and the ground is clearly well beaten all around it. There's a primitive sound system, or one big ampli & speaker anyway, left outside, cigarette butts in the ashtray which is still dry so not more than 12h old The yellow tape says on it " enter if you dare"... but it was locked, so I couldn't. It looks to me like a well established pot head dealership and can only imagine the hippy, psychadelic shirt wearing, dreadlocked wasters that congregate here from time to time. I am determined to return on a saturday night if I can and see what goes on. Though I suspect it may just be a summer affair.

thanks for sharing the pics Earache, so me great shots in there.

Paris Special "Point Zéro" the point from which all road distances in France are measured. On the forecourt of Notre Dame. Evening shot of Notre Dame ( before the fire) taken from the Ile Saint Loius Aaaaaand, the tourist shot and because it "is no more" a closer shot of the Notre Dame spire

London Special. London skyline from the river, approaching the barrier from downstream. The Thames Barrier from the water. Tower bridge from the St Catherines Dock entrance pontoon. Waiting for the tide. The tourist shot, Westminster palace.

Joigny, from La cote Saint Jaques Ile de Bréhat Rocamadour La Rance at Dinan. Brittany. Mont Saint Michel at dusk. before they removed the causeway. La Fourberie, channel coast, west of Dinard Somewhere uo the Col de la Forclaz between France and Szitzerland Bienzee, Interlaken, Switzerland. The Jungfrau, from Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

that's why I didn't go to one of the big stores Bob, they just try to sell you stuff, the independant bloke here, though he does sell some computors, makes his money from repairing and restoring.

The French are not as anarchic and revolutionary as most people believe. The French have a right to demonstrate written into their laws and constitution, so there's nothing illegal about it. The big demonstrations are perfectly legal and organised in conjunction with the law, having had a declaration made to the local authorities a couple of weeks prior, the route taken by the cortege is planned and agreed with the organisers and the authorities, including details of assembly points, routes taken, timings and dispersal points.The authorities provide a certain amount of security on top of the organisers security ( all of which has to be declared and notified in advance to the requisite authorities) The last two times I have participated in biker demonstrations in Paris, it has been organised by the FFMC ( french equivalent of MAG in the UK and affiliated to the FEM) the local branch assembling at the entry to the autoroute. The group was met by a 4 man police outrider team in a layby south of paris and we were escorted to the main assembly point at the Chateau de Vincennes. The main demonstration rode at a snails pace around the peripherique with police outriders front and rear and descreet ( but I suspsuct heavy) police prescence hiding in the wings at strategic points along the way ( as they had been informed in advance of the route and the timings) I had to stop for fuel at one point but was never able to rejoin the main group as the rear police escort was a double cordon blocking all attempts by other motorists to approach the cconvoy from the rear.

Formation flouncing. we should form a team for the olympics

I'm on fibreoptic here now and getting 75 download and 105 upload. @boboneleg the laptop I use at home ( an old lenovo X201) which I got free from a friend about 5 or 6 years ago had got reeeeaaaallllllyyyyy slow over the last year. I took it into our local independant computor place and he took it apart, cleaned it, replaced the physical harddrive with a "whatsit thingy" ( SSD?) replaced the 32bit OS for a 64 and reinstalled my stuff on it. 180€ and it 's faster then it's ever been, faster than either of the other 2 we have at home which are far more recent.