The French paper chase – update – and Tiny Tom Cruise

I am now the proud owner of a…wait for it… Certificat d’Importation d’un vehicule terrestre a moteur en provenance  de la commaunite Europeenne par une personne non identifiee a la TVA Armed with this document and a few others I can now go to the prefecture at Laval of the departement in which we live [...]

The French paper chase – continued

After yesterday’s abortive trip to the tax office in Chateau Gontier, we’ve managed to sort out the proof of address problem. A trip to the Mairie here this afternoon was very productive. Although Monsieur le Maire is on holiday until August 15th – nice work if you can get it – his very friendly and [...]

The French paper chase

Fuck, fuck and…er…fuck again… French bureaucracy has just bitten me in the arse. I’m trying to re-register my car so I can get the ‘carte grise’ and have French plates – no road tax then! – which is a legal requirement eventually if I’m staying here. I’ve done everything right so far, and at no [...]

From Kim Philby to Brian Clough

Another three books from the stash have just bitten the dust: Tim Powers – Declare I’ve read Powers before, but not for quite a while and my memory of that is somewhat hazy, so I came to this book without any particular expectations. I used to be a huge fan of SF and fantasy, but [...]

Flies in the ointment

I can report that Django is continuing with his protracted killing spree. Every morning the dead and mutilated birds, mice and voles we find strewn around the lawn are testament to his hunting prowess. We should have called him ‘Nimrod’.   “What can I disembowel next?” Not wishing to be outdone by the ginger bastard, [...]

Look East looks stupid

I might not be a Milton Keynes resident any longer, but having lived in the area for over 50 years I’m still interested in the local news. Indeed, I regularly watch ‘Look East’ on BBC1 – Sky channel 982 – to keep abreast of events there. I had thought we’d come a long way from [...]

Highway 82 revisited

I don’t think I’ve ever made a blog comment the subject of a blog entry before, so if this is a first for this blog so mote it be… Many thanks to Maria for her comment, which I quote below in full and unedited: Deelyboppers, legwarmers, the ZX Spectrum… Civil unrest in Northern Ireland? Surely [...]

Welcome back to 1982!

It’s hard to put my finger on it, but my observations of the current UK political scene, admittedly from a distance, seem to indicate that most people appear quite happy with the new coalition government and their proposed public service cuts. Of course there are the usual dissenting voices, but they seem curiously muted and [...]

Roman legionaries and Green Woodpeckers

After a trawl through the stash of new books we bought during our recent foray back into the UK, I settled on ‘The Forgotten Legion’ by Ben Kane. Tesco were doing a deal whereby you bought two books for £7 or something, added to which if you bought the new Kane book then you got [...]

Choice cherries from the Saturday’s 50 playlist tree

Mott the Hoople – The Moon Upstairs: Shit fire, Ian ‘Unter and the lads mined a heavy seam when they recorded this way back in the mid 70s. Verden’s distorted organ (oo-er, missus), Mick’s fat guitar tone and Overend’s farting bass all combine to make one of the heaviest riffs ever recorded. No-one else quite [...]