Fuck you, penguin

From "Fuck you, penguin"

French for penguin is "pingouin".

Except if you call a penguin a "pingouin" in France all the french people will shout at you and tell you that what you are looking at is not a "pingouin" but a "manchot".

They are very pedantic about it, "pingouins" come from the arctic and are auks and can fly, and there is only 1 species left. What everyone else on the entire planet calls a penguin, those tuxedoed bastards, come from the Antarctic, can't fly and are "manchots".

Now put "manchot" into google language tools and it will tell you penguin. Put "pingouin" into google language tools and it will tell you . . . penguin.

Bloody French.

20 words for snow

People often say that the Esquimeaux have 20 words for snow.

I've never been particularly impressed by that, after all; the English probably have 20 words for rain:
cat-and-dog weather, cloudburst, condensation, deluge, drencher, drizzle, fall, flood, flurry, hail, heavy dew, liquid sunshine, mist, monsoon, pour, pouring, precip, precipitation, raindrops, rainfall, rainstorm, sheets, shower, showers, sleet, spate, spit, sprinkle, sprinkling, stream, sun shower, torrent, volley*, wet stuff, window washer

In English there also exists these cunning things called adjectives, so in effect there's no need to have a word for every nuance of something because you can qulify the noun with adjectives: heavy rain, driving rain, cold rain etc.

Anyway, what got me onto all this is that I love andouillettes: sausages made from pig offal. I love them, but Fiona can't stand the smell (they smell like pigshit) and I'm only allowed to cook them outside on the barbeque.

So I was reading the list of ingredients on the packet and it's not complicated. Pig's stomach, pig skin, and "chaudins". Illoked up chaudins in the dictionary because I didn't recognise the word and found:

En France, en vue de son utilisation en boyauderie, le côlon de porc est divisé en deux parties; le chaudin, boyau bosselé, épais, tendre, rose clair, et le suivant, non bosselé, lisse, tendre, rosé ou blanc

"In france, because of it's use in sausage stuffing, pig intestines is divided in 2 parts: the large intestine, bumpy casing, thick, tender, light pink, and the small intestine, not lumpy, smooth, tender, pink or white"

That's the French for you: 20 words for pigs intestines.

The mother of all storms!

After another day of wasted effort on my part: I spent a day spraying grass and weedkiller around the stock yard only to have it all washed away in the mother of all storms.



Those pics, and the following is translated from Charente Libre, the local paper. I had to pay a Euro for the benefit of downloading the artcle.

An apocalyptic vision! 1000 hectares of vineyards in the Cognac shredded and Rouillac. Hailstones three cms in size in drifts in much of the Charente. A land that looks like a shroud. Roads turned green with shredded vegetation. Lights broken. Cars damaged. Houses flooded. Roofs blown away. Fleurac, Mérignac, Foussignac, Vaux Rouillac, Rouillac devastated. The storm swept the Charente from west to east between 17:30 and 20:00 yesterday. A storm of unprecedented violence.
"I've never seen that in thirty years. I crossed the courtyard tee-shirt to go to secure the vehicles. It ripped the skin from my arm. The power was impressive. The hail damaged the bonnets of the cars" said Alain Reboul, a wine grower in Fleurac, who has lost its 15 hectares of vines.
He finds himself with five of his colleagues at the Bois-Noble at Fleurac. The facts are bitter. "And the prunings are destroyed. We can do nothing for two years. We must wait for nature to resume its cycle. This is catastrophic" he said, still in shock.
Anger was mixed with dismay. "It's 80 to 90% of our income that has gone. We have already lost everything with diversification. We lose everything with the weather. "The same thoughts come back. There is talk of huge damage not covered by insurance."

Technicien à la Coopérative agricole de la Charente (ACC), Jean-Paul Dupouy attempts to take stock. He puts forward some figures "Six million, just for the vineyard. But there are also oilseed rape, wheat, the barley, sunflowers, which are destroyed."
The specialist had never seen a such vast area, stretching down from St. Cybardeaux touched.

Rofs made in Everite fell to pieces. The Center for adults with disabilities in the Gachère is plunged into darkness. The hairdresser at Marcillac Lanville a foot in the water. The market square at Rouillac green with sheared leaves
"Outside, it is like in January in the snow. On the roads, it is slippery" said a resident who does not believe his eyes.
A house collapses in Soyaux
Having attacked the Cognac, the storm continued its progress towards the south of the department and Angoulême before slipping late in the evening to the east and Charente Limousine. "The hailstones were as big as pigeon eggs. It was an unusual violence between 19.30 and 20:00" said a Rupificaldien. Telephone lines were cut. At Mornac, hail went through the roof. Smashed computers. Glass gave way. Around the church, the flood.
At Touvre, a few hundred meters away, the Montbron road is blocked by a meter of mud The council had to call out the backhoe excavators.
At Soyaux, firefighters broke down a home cut through by lightning at Mimosas Close.The first floor has fallen. The occupants, who were watching television, got out on time.
At Angoulême, La Grand Font tunnel was closed. Floods prohibit access.
At Villebois-Lavalette, residents of the old people's home took refuge on the first floor. There were forty centimeters of water at the ground floor. At Roumazières, the roof of the car dealership collapsed under the hail. The gardens are crushed. "Tomatoes, lettuce, potatoes, there's nothing. It has just started to calm down. "It was crazy" said a resident at 22:00.
The storm has flashed into the heart of the night. The stuff of nightmares

Voyante Véronique

Taureau
Confusion reigns in your household today because Saturn is ascending in the sixth house, and the Moon is dominant.
Confusion also reigns when you try and speak french because your accent is so shit.
Marteau, monteau, moto, mouton, menton and matelot all sound a bit similar to the English ear. But unless you want to try say that you hammered a sailor on the chin while wearing a sheepskin coat on a motorbike, best practice first.

More Jobsworthyness

After the debacle with the gate our next mission was to paint the inside of the mould workshop. We took most of the first morning preparing the site, moving stuff away from the walls, sweeping out etc.
We wee supplied with 4 10 litre pots of white paint, 3 tired rollers and some cheap paintbrushes. The walls we were to paint were unfinished grey concrete blocks. when this workshop had been built, instead of plastering it or painting it, the machinery and stuff had been moved into the unfinished room, the water pipes, power lines, enormouse water resevoirs put in place in front of the unfisnished walls. As a result the room has always been dim and dingy because of the raw grey walls.
The unfinished cement just drank our paint. I'd dip the roller in the paint, roll it down half a metre and ther'd be no paint left.
I tried diluting the paint. It rolled onto the wall better, but the grey came thru and the coverage was too poor.
Because of all the pipework, machinery and elecric cabling we were buggering about with paint brushes in the areas where the rollers wouldn't fit. By the afternoon we had painted a small corner of the room and used a shit load of paint.
Once again the director came by and told us to stop. He got on his mobile and ordered some more paint, exterior stuff that should cover better. We packed up for the day.
I missed the next day because of leave and when I went back, the guys had got hold of 2 spray guns. What a difference! with the right tools you can really get a job done. We whipped thru the rest of the white paint and then went around again with a 2nd coat of the exterior paint to finish. the place looked much better.
After finishing we were told that some guys would be coming round with a high pressure water pistol to clean off the floors.
AFTER we'd painted the walls. the hose will blast crap all over the work we've done! Cart before horse again.
With the workshop painted and the sun shining it was time to retry the gate.
Now we are armed with spray guns, but the factory air lines won't reach the gate, so we wasted more time while a compressor was found.
A dinky 50 litre compressor, that couldn't keep up with the demand of 2 guns. So we took turns painting until we had run out of paint. The gat looked quit smart, all white and fresh.
Now, the hollow bars of the gate take water in the rain, andthen, full of water, in winter they freeze and it bursts the the bars. So our genius chef tells us to get a drill and pierce holes in the bottom of the bars to let the water escape.
We do so, and black, stinky water comes pouring out all over the undried paint of the gate leaving it stained and nasty.
The cart firmly attached to the front of the horse again.
Ils sont même pas capable d'organiser une fête dans une brasserie is the English expression which doesn't translate too well in French. Un bordel de merde is the French phrase that doesn't translate at all into English

Ouch!!

Here is today's lesson:
When using a chainsaw, always use two hands to hold the chainsaw, and wear gloves.

I should be relieved I didn't cut my bloody hand off. Quel con!

In full Spring mode, I had cut back a hazel nut tree and was using the chain saw to cut up the trunks and branches for firewood in a few years. My chainsaw is quite light, it has a 40 cm blade. Fiona was using shears to cut off the smaller branches, some of which we'll keep for kindling and the rest will be put on the bonfire.

I had developed the lazy and dangerous habit of sometimes holding a slimmer branch in my left hand and the chainsaws one-handed in my right, and using the chainsaw to trim off twiggy bits.

Suddenly the chain bit into the junction between twig and branch and pulled the branch (and my hand) into the chain.

Some choice swear words followed, followed by the immnse relief that my stupidity had only inflicted a small wound and not left me handicapped and unemployable.

Because I'm a craven coward I decided immediately that I didn't have to see a doctor. A doctor might decide to stitch it! Lots of thick dark blood pouring out of it convinced me that it was flushed clean. Obviously I wasn't going to be catching tiles at the factory the next day. I phoned in to tell them, and the next day saw the doctor to get signed off for a day or two. The toubib signed me off for a week! Happy days! The weather report says subshine through to Sunday.

La Créativité dans la Cuisine

Vous prenez deux pommes de terre dans son filet. Vous prenez également un saucisse de Strasbourg. Il faut que les patates ne doivent pas trop grandes. Si leur peau est un peu ridée tant mieux.
Puis, vous faites de votre mieux pour être aussi créative que possible. Reflichissez bien des toutes les possibilités.

Moi, je me suis régalé.

Financial Crisis & The Tile factory

"La Crise"

What with La Crise & the erosion of our "pouvoir d'achat" the french are more depressed and pessimistic than usual.

Pessimists! I swear, every time I go into the café to ask for advice or opinions all I get is "o la la" and hand waving. Like when I was after advice on installing an arial aireal aereal une antenne. But that can be another post another day.

Because of the big recession, nobody is building any new houses. So the demand for roof tiles has dropped. We have a yard full of product and sales are way down. So the factory has to cut production. But it would be mad to have staff hanging around being paid to do nothing, so the first thing they did was drop all the interim staff. That enabled them to cut a team.

We usually run with 5 teams and the presses turning 24/24. Last year on the accessories lines we even had a sixth team running during day shifts. In January it was announced that they need to lose 18 more people. If they can find these 18 through voluntary reduncancy, early retirement etc then there won't be any need to fire anyone.

The worrying thing for me is that I was one of the last people taken on full time contract. So if the operate a "last in, first out" system I'm at risk.

Rumour is that they already have eight or nine who have agreed to leave. In the meantime though I'm going to get the whole family down to the dentist and the optician to get the maximum out of the company's medical aid just in case I am axed.

The last few months I've been really hating this job, but there's nothing like the threat of "chomage" to make you appreciate employment.

La crise

As the building sector has been hit by the financial crisis, the knock on effects have finally reached the factory floor.

The investment company that bought us out a few years ago bought iur 2 billion debt as well. Not a wise move in hindsight. PIA now has 11 billion of debt.

It's not just us though, our competitors ovef the road are closing for 4 weeks over Christmas and next year will close 2 lines, one for 7 months and another for 5 months.

Like us, their sales are down and they have a park full of stock, so they have to cut back on production.

We are going to axe one of our 5 teams. To do this without firing any full time employees we will first let our temps go (bye-bye Sad Sack) and then offer early retirement to the guys who are close to 60/65.
Apart from Sad Sack, who is a miserable little shit, it's a real tough break for the temps, to get the push just before Christmas. "Jouyeux Noël et allez-vous faire enculer".

The plan will then to run the factory with a different line closed each shift. That should enable us to run at a lower turnover, with fewer staff and do more maintenance on the lines that are not running. Hopefully we can ride the thing out. PIA have announced that they do no forecast any improvement until the end of 2010.

Chris Alden the PDG of Paribas Affaires Industrielles said "A little garlic and parsley really help to bring out the flavour of an omelette aux morilles"


To cheer us all up here is a sketch by Patrick Bosso about Marseilles grammar. The Marseilles accent is the french equivalent of geordie.

Apparantly in Marseilles grammar they replace the comma with "putain", the full stop with "enculé" and instead of the conditional tense to indicate uncertainty thay grab their balls "couilles"

enjoy.

Grammaire_marseillaise
envoyé par chopin_du_21

I get to vote again

I've just voted in the 2008 élections prud'homales.

The what?

France has a unique system of industrial tribunals. Employees and employers vote to select their representatives in these tribunals. The elect are called "prud'hommes" - "valiant men".

The French industrial tribunals are different from other European systems because they are wholly elected and jointly-run courts. The 271 tribunals are composed of elected non-professional judges, half of whom are employers, and the other half paid employees.

They mainly decide pay claims, compensation, descrimination etc and apparantly tend to rule in favour of the employee. The elections are held every 5 years and the last time round turnout was poor, just over 30%. So there has been quite a bit of publicity this time.

I voted Force Ouvriere FO because they get the most done at the factory.

The French Minister for industrial relations said "Have you tried these croissants? They are magnifique". Bernard Thibault, the general secretary of the Confédération générale du travail (General Confederation of Labour, CGT) the largest of France's five main trade unions added "This year's oyster harvest has suffered from bad weather, but the No. 3 "Pepins" from Ile d'Oleron are delicieux"

Plant Exchange

Last weekend we went to our friends, Philippe & Christine Egalité, near Villebois Lavalette for their annual plant exchange. They've been doing this for thast 4 years, friends arrive with seeds and cuttings and cake. Everyone takes home new plants. It is such a fine plan.
Philippe & Christine are well whacky. He plays a pile of instruments and makes a living hosting workshops and going around schools showing kids how to make instruments ouit of anything, vegetables, junk, old tins, pipes.
His alter ego is "Père Cucu" who is a malignant forest gnome. As Père Cucu he puts on a pixie hat, a green beard and french blues, and clogs strapped to his knees as he kneels in front of the audience. So he appears dwarf height. It's horrible. His shows are excellent. he has produced a few cds which he has sold to friends. For you I have uploaded L'Oiseau Migrateur and Petit Cougna. It has an African sound because of the marimba.

L'Oiseau Migrateur
Petit Cougna
Mousse


In this pic unfortunately Phillippe has his back to us. You can see Fiona and our snake gourds over on the right.

"I would like to withdraw 5 million Euros in cash please"
"Yes, can I have 27 proofs of identity please?"

So there's this french block who's got The Fear because of the financial crisis, and he goes into his local branch of Credit Agricol to withdraw all his money. All five million.

As the article points out, there are logistical problems with his request: using 200 Euro notes, 1 million Euros weighs 10 kilos, so his haul would weigh 50 kilos. But then there's insurance. Brinks Mat are only insured up to 2 million per truck.

He could try taking it out of the cash machine, but with a limit of 200 Euros per day it would take him 68 years.

Incroyable, impensable, inimaginable mais vrai! En tout cas, de mémoire d'employé de banque, c'est du jamais vu au guichet d'une agence. Et pourtant, cela s'est passé en Charente il y a quelques jours. A Angoulême, dans une agence du Crédit agricole, un très gros client paniqué par la situation financière mondiale est venu exiger dans les plus brefs délais et en liquide tous ses avoirs et placements.

Rien de très exceptionnel en soi, si ce n'est le montant de la somme que représente ce retrait: 5 millions d'euros. Or ni le Crédit agricole, ni la Banque de France d'Angoulême ne disposent d'une telle somme. «C'est légal et possible techniquement. Nous avons les liquidités pour une telle opération, assure-t-on à la direction de l'antenne régionale de la Banque de France de Poitiers prête à effectuer l'opération. En revanche, il est hors de question que nous prenions les frais de ce transport exceptionnel à notre compte.»

C'est à l'établissement bancaire concerné de banquer. Et c'est là que le bât blesse dans l'histoire. Si un virement à un autre établissement ou un chèque remis en main propre ne pose pas de problème, le réaliser en liquide nécessite une logistique qui à un coût et non des moindres.

«En dix ans dans le transport de fonds, c'est la première fois que j'entends un pareil retrait pour un particulier», glisse-t-on au siège social parisien de la Brinks, la société spécialisée dans le transport de fonds. Pour autant, les responsables refusent de communiquer les conditions ultrasensibles d'un tel transfert. Il faudrait monter une véritable opération commando estiment des spécialistes.

Cinquante kilos de billets

dans trois camions

Cinq millions d'euros, ce n'est pas très volumineux. En coupure de 200 euros, il faut compter environ deux kilos pour 200 000 euros, dix kilos pour un million d'euros. Cinq millions, cela ferait donc 50 kilos de billets. La difficulté vient plus des assurances. En effet, les camions de la Brinks ne sont assurés qu'à une hauteur maximale de 2 millions d'euros transportés par camion. Il faudrait donc affréter trois camions avec au minimum quatre transporteurs par camion. Ou prévoir trois navettes, discrètes.

Du coup la banque, qui ne désespère pas de parvenir à raisonner son client afin qu'il renonce à son projet, négocie toutefois avec lui l'organisation et les conditions de ce transfert de fonds. D'autant qu'il faut peut-être envisager une escorte policière. On imagine mal un tel convoi traverser la région pour rallier Poitiers au domicile du particulier. Car, sauf à ce que le client fasse la navette tous les jours à sa banque pour retirer des petits montants, comment lui remettre autrement une telle somme en liquide?

L'histoire, aussi cocasse qu'elle apparaisse, n'amuse pas la direction du Crédit agricole. Pour des raisons de sécurité, de confidentialité et d'image, elle se refuse au moindre commentaire. Les responsables de la caisse régionale Charente-Périgord se bornent à dire «qu'il n'y a aucun mouvement de panique de masse enregistré à ses guichets». De masse peut-être pas, mais à cinq millions d'euros c'est au moins un coup de bambou!

I'm on a roll!

After the gate, I'm now progressing nicely with the trailer. It's ridiculous how expensive a new trailer is. I little one will cost 500Euros.
My little blue trailer (you can see the carcass beside me) was made of wood. Because I had been given it, I was a bit careless with it, left it outside too often. So it got rotten, and one day recently, when the guy at the sawmill was lowering a charge of wood into it with his forklift it cracked underneath.
The wooden one also had the axle bolted to the blue box and the towbar bolted to the box, so it was possible for the towbar to come away, and leave the trailer careering down the road.
The new version I've welded up has the towbar integral with the frame. I've also welded on four nifty threaded chain links on the sides that can be used to attach ropes or chains.
Today I must finish decking the floor of the trailer so I ca at least use it to fetch more wood.
Then I must work out a cunning way to build the trailer box, and I want the hinged tailgate to be removeable, so I need to find a plug that can take the 5 wires for the lights/indicators.

The trailer's first job will be to cart the old blue box down to the tip.

In other news, France is in a panic over Tunisian supporters whistling during "The Marseillaise" during the International friendly the other day. This lack of respect for the national anthem is causing angst because it is evident that the Tunisian supporters are in fact French born, children of immigrants.
The locals are full of "send them all home". When I point out that they ARE home the response is "send the whole family home".
The government's response is to abandon any future match where such whistling takes place. the difficulty is that matches are played under FIFA rules. Only the ref has the authority to cancel a match and whistling during the national anthems is not one of FIFA's criterea for abandonment of a match.
There is an added difficulty of trying to get thousands of dissapointed and angry fans out of a stadium after the game they have paid to see has been abandoned because of te actions of a few hundred.

It is EXACTLY like the cricket crisis in the UK a dozen years ago. English people were appalled to discover that the children of immigrants were supporting Pakistan or India during Test matches against England.

Some Criminal Activity

First the good news - Sad Sack is gone. What a pleasure! Someone from another team requested transfer into ours. he's been with the firm longer than I have and he has worked on the press before, so it was goodbye Sad Sack. The new guy, Stéphan is a really nice bloke. He's also slow, but it's slow like a big bear, rather than slow because he's shiftless and can't be arsed to pick up his feet. Always smiling, always happy.
Plus, the press was well adjusted and it was a real pleasure to turn a shift without having to nursemaid someone.

Now to the scandal. I post a news article from Charente Libre dated 27/09/2008. You'd better bloody read it because I paid 1 euro to download the article from their web site

L'ouvrier vendait ses ordinateurs pour arrondir ses fins de mois

Il est quadragénaire et ouvrier d'usine. Son hobby, c'est les ordinateurs et l'homme semble avoir un véritable talent en la matière. Au point qu'il s'était fait spécialité d'approvisionner le secteur en ordinateurs assemblés maison. Il avait pris l'habitude d'acheter des composants sur internet, de les assembler, puis de revendre ses machines. Dans la foulée, il installait les logiciels adéquats et proposait un produit prêt à l'utilisation contre un petit millier d'euros. Un business d'appoint qui n'a pas fait que des heureux. En mai dernier, l'un de ses «clients» est venu se plaindre à la gendarmerie. L'enquête s'est poursuivie jusqu'à lundi passé et l'interpellation de l'informaticien amateur.
Au cours de leurs recherches, les gendarmes se sont rendu compte que l'affaire était juteuse. En 2007, l'homme aurait ainsi fourni clés en main dix-sept machines. Pour les enquêteurs, la notion de travail dissimulé s'est vite imposée. L'homme posait même quelques affiches de pub sur son lieu de travail ou dans les colis livrés pour inciter le bouche à oreille. Et son activité n'était bien évidemment pas déclarée.
Surtout, les logiciels installés n'étaient en fait que la copie de l'unique exemplaire que l'homme avait acheté. Tous ses «clients» avaient donc le même numéro de licence, ce qui leur interdisait les mises à jour. Mieux, il téléchargeait sur internet des logiciels de jeux gratuits qu'il facturait néanmoins aux acheteurs. Et les machines ne bénéficiaient bien sûr d'aucune garantie. Les gendarmes n'ont pas tardé à traduire tout cela par abus de confiance. Lundi, ils sont allés interpeller l'homme. Placé en garde à vue, il a reconnu les faits. Il a été laissé libre mais sera convoqué en justice. Avec un adversaire de poids: Microsoft s'est constitué partie civile.

Here's a quick and dirty translation:

A labourer sells computers to make ends meet
He's in his 40s and a labourer in a factory. His hobby is computers and he seems to have a real talent in the trade. To the extent that he sepecialises in providing the neighbourhood with home built computers. He would normally buy the parts on the internet, then assemble and resell them. He would also install the required software and offered a product, ready to use for about 1000 euros. A business that could only make everyone happy. Last May, one of his complained to the police. Their enquiries led to the arrest last Monday of the amateur technician.
During their investigation, the police realised they had got a juicy one. During 2007 the man must have supplied 17 machines. For the investigators this led immidiately to charges of undeclared earnings. The man had even posted adverts at his place of work to encourage word of mouth. And his activities were obviously not declared for tax.
But above all, the software installed was made from the single copy that the man had bought. All his therefore had the same license number, whiche prevented them from getting updates. Better still, he had downloaded free games from the internet and charged for them. And the machines, of course, had no guarantee. The police didn't delay in seeing all of that as abuse of trust. On Monday they went to arrest the man. detained at the station, he admitted his guilt. He was released but will be brought to trial, against a heavyweight opponent. Microsoft is the civil party bringing suit.

It turns out to be one of the shift bosses. I had seen the ads, they were a regular feature on the noticeboard of the canteens.
Nothing wrong with supplying homebuild PCs but using a single copy of the operating system was silly and charging for free games was just greedy. It only took one disgruntled customer to bring the whole thing down.
He'll probably get a suspended jail term, but an ENORMOUS fine between the tax man and Microsoft. he'll be paying it off for life.

Building a gate

There never was a gate into our garden. Two big stone pillars, but no gate.
Four years ago I strung up a fence, a temporary fix that in typical Paterson fashion became permanent.
Because the grass got too long for our mower, a nearby farmer with a ride-on mowed it for us, but I had to cut down my fence to let him in.
So a gate had to go up in its place.
I initially thougt of welding up a fate in steel, to save some money, but finally decided even more money could be saved with a wooden, picket type gate. And since our neighbour has a gate similar it would look OK.
Well in typical french country style, nothing is easy. The stone pillars which are over 200 years old if they are the same as the house are not straight, either with respect to the ground, or each other. the ground between the gates is not level, so the left gate is nearly touching the ground while the right gate is higher up.
the problem is that black bitch Bella, highly strung poodle/whippet/rat who will dig under the gate given half the chance.
So now I have to go to BatiLeclerc to pic up some "parpang" which will go in a trench under the gate to both make the ground more level and give some resistance to dog claws.

Tomorrow morning it's a 4:00am start at the factory for another 6 day cycle. I hope to not see Sad Sack, because the planning showed a week of shit tiles and I don't need it to be made any shitter.

On the other hand there is some juicy gossip of a colleague taken away in handcuffs after being caught working on the black and defrauding a major global enterprise.
More details tomorrow....

France - not very internet savvy.

The latest trends in web traffic have been released and I find it very revealing about french internet habits.

Comscore lists the sites most visited by french internauts for the months of July and August 2008.

It's not merely the NATURE of the sites visited that is revealing, but also the number of hits.

This pic shows the sites that have had the most improvement in traffic.



So the most popular sites are sports, music download, social networking, TV listings, music lyrics and an online bank. The high score for the sports websites is down to the Olymic Games

Most visited sites by French net users?

Google, Microsoft, Orange, yahoo, Yellow Pages
Where's the porn?

DailyMotion is like YouTube

An experiment in beaurocracy

We've been in France 5 years now.

Officially I can now apply for French citizenship. And I will. I want to. It bugs me that I can't vote here. It will make me feel like I belong. Ever since I was little liked joining clubs and organisations.

So I went to the mairie and asked the wise woman, Yvette, what I need to do. She gave it heaps of "oh la la"'s and much tongue clucking. Luckily for me she had some application forms in the office. Apparantly someone else had once entertained the idea, but had given up because it was too difficult.

There are 2 forms to be filled in. Full of the usual stuff about me, the family dates of birth etc. The dossier will also require my parents birth certificates.

They also want a list of addresses and descriptions of all the jobs I have ever done.
They want a list of all the addresses I have ever lived at.
They want my last three payslips and the payslips for the months of December for the last three years.

All certificates: my birth certificate, Fiona's, the kids' birth certificates, our marriage certificate have to be translated into French.

Then, armed with all this they will ask the police to run a background check on me and request any UK police records. They will interview the mairie to ensure I am a person of good morals.

I will then be tested on my understanding of my civil rights and understanding of my civic duties and finally, my mastering of the French language.

AT the end of all that I can become French. I can hold dual citizenship so no need to renounce anything.

I will be able to vote but I will still be unable to donate blood. Crazy french.

The baby with the bathwater

New York dog sucked into street cleaner

These machines are supposed to sweep up the dog-shit, not the dog as well!

The 57-year-old said he believed the truck had exceeded the speed limit in the area and was investigating legal options.
The city Department of Sanitation called the incident "a rare and unfortunate accident."

I'm sure these machines are more complicated to manoevre than you might imagine.

I while ago I made a post about the guy at the factory who got his head crushed in the machinery.

Apparantly he was a bit of a numpty before the accident. His air-headedness was probably a major factor in the accident occuring. Anyway, he's back at work and more doolaly than before. So the bosses are thinking what they can do with him so he won't be a danger to himself and others.

"I know", says one, "we can put him on the sweeping machine. He can drive around, sweeping up. What harm can come from that?"

So we'd gotten used to seeing him driving around on this machine, a bit like the ones you see at airports, it's got rotating brushes and a big vacuum cleaner and an orange flashing light. The guys at work swap stories at the breaks of his latest exploits. For example, he was seen driving the thing outdoors, taking it to one of the tips, to empty it. It had been raining and he was driving it, with brushes and vacuum going, through all the mud and puddles, great clods of mud flying about. The machine had to spend a day having the mud cleeared out of it and having the brushes replaced.

I was at my press when I heard him in the corridor behind me, seemingly stuck on tight lock, the machine whirling round like a mad thing, with him clinging on, mouth open, eyes half closed. There was a great burnt rubber scorch mark on the floor after he'd gone.

It's very sad really.

The end came, we had just left for our break, and Mr Sweeper Man was in action nearby. We came back from the break, and the press was dead. No power to the console. or to any of the other consoles on the line. How mysterious. Pascal immediately asked Mr Sweeper Man if he had accidentally bumped anything. He pointed to one of the bank of electrical cabinets that line the wall.
Bugger.
We called the electricians. They poked about with their testers trying to find the answer. The answer was in front of us. If we had only followed the clear vacuumed path of the sweeper we would have seen it leading directly to one of the electrical cabinets. And we would have seen that 4 banks of circuit breakers had been "swept" by the machine as it did a tight turn. the end result was 2 hours of the presses out of action and an electrical engineer having to upload the presses' programs from a laptop.
And while that was going on, Mr. Sweeper Man went and DID THE SAME THING at the other side of the factory, taking out the robot arms that pack the tiles onto pallets.

It's not funny, it's tragic. I haven't seen him since. Those sweeper machines weigh a ton. they have steerable rear wheels like a forklift and are avery bit as dangerous. I hope they find a decent solution for him.

It is of such things that legends are made. The still tell of the maniak fork-lift driver, who, while loading a german lorry, put his forks through the tyres, bursting them with a loud explosion. He also knocked over a lorry load of tomatoes while putting tiles into a truck that was going to carry a shared load. And also put his fork-lift through a brick wall, and when found, in his fork-lift, surrounded by bricks and dust said "It wasn't me"

It's in the stars

I make no apologies for my opnion of astrology and astrologers. It's bullshit and they are either deluded or hucksters. Or both.

imagine my surprise and disappointment to find that the French football team manager Raymond Domenech is a keen astrologer and uses astrology to help choose players for the team.

Domenech has admitted to distrusting Scorpios, such as Robert Pirès. This led to the choosing of Vikash Dhorasoo who played an important part in qualifying but not in the finals. He later fell out with Dhorasoo after he made a behind the scenes film called "Substitute".His decision to leave out FC Barcelona star Ludovic Giuly in favour of Franck Ribéry, and subsequent refusal to explain that decision, left many French players and fans mystified. [1]. Domenech chose Pascal Chimbonda, a low-profile player with no international experience, for the squad. Domenech's selection for the France's World Cup squad was further criticised when he publicly announced that Fabien Barthez would start ahead of Lyon goalkeeper Grégory Coupet. This decision was met with derision in the French press and also led to Coupet walking out of the national squad before the tournament, though he was later to return. [2] His exclusion of A.S Roma back bone defender, Philippe Mexès, has also raised a few eyebrowes. Mexès, named Hope of the year in 2000 and being an all star defender for A.S Roma since his arrival to the team, still has to participate in a competitive senior tournament under Domenech.

from Wikipedia

His mistrust of Scorpios means he would never have rated Maradonna (Born October 30)

Revisionist History

In the same manner, that is is a crime to deny the Holocaust (or Shoa) as it is called in France, a french blogger will go to court on 17 June in Tulle, Haute Vienne, for publishing an account on his blog of the massacre at Oradour sur Glane.
According to his site, the massacre took place because the SS, while searching for a cache of arms, known to them to have been hidden there by an active Maquis, had not searched some of the men who were packed in the church with all the women and children.
It was these armed resistance members who kicked off the massacre.
That a massacre took place is of course undeniable. 642 men, women and children. Revisionist versions like this one take root because:
a. There were very few surviving witnesses.
b. Many questions remain unanswered, even after the trial of the SS soldiers (who were French, from Alcase & Lorraine, and got off very lightly

The author of the blog gives no source material for all his information, which is a great shame.

He is being brought to trial in a civil action by the collectif Maquis de Corrèze. They say they came across the blog in March. They feel that the content of the blog as a whole is false, and want to maintain correct history on the web, so that children researching history won't find corrupt history.
See also (in English) Oradour-sur-Glane 10th June 1944