Category: General

One likes to chip one’s two bits in
Even when they’re very thin
To add one’s insult is delight
Even with no dog in fight!

The fact that two face maunders on
On histories long upon and gone
Forgotten in the daily round
Consigned by humans to the pound

Some kind soul should pity strife
And tell him soundly  GET A LIFE!
Suggest to him an antidote
Not ALL his life to be a SCROTE!

Sorry about the last line, a bugger to rhyme with antidote!

PS Some of us are 12 hours behind or whatever but we do like to be able to contribute!  Otherwise we become read only, not a lot of fun in that is there?

I am fed up with the ridiculous reporting by the press and their continual idiotic following of celebrities and pointless information.

In today’s Telegraph there was an article about a village where metal thieves had stolen a number of iron/metal gates from peoples drives overnight, so far okay, then as an aside “the village is near to where Kate and Pippa Middleton grew up” who bloody cares, it is a pointless line that detracts from the story.

In the same way I was born in the same universe as they were is that news NO.

It appears to me that the press have decided not to create another Diana with Kate, but they are doing their best to make one of of Pippa by having her photo in the papers at least 4 times a week.

I hope she avoids tunnels and drunk drivers.

We’ve no shortage of rhinos down here, here’s a recent video of the efforts made to repopulate other regions. (E.P.Herald report here)

They moved nineteen of them!

The facility to watch the video on The Chariot has been disabled, simply click on the ‘Watch on YouTube’ button (bottom right,) to view.

A Happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers.

Do not overdo the turkey, cornbread or the green bean casserole. 🙂

And finally, I hope you will all be up at midnight to get all those bargains on Black Friday! 🙂

If you had purchased £1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have £49.00 today.

If you had purchased £1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you would have £33.00 today.

If you had purchased £1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you would have £0.00 today.

But, if you had purchased£1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you would have received £214.00.

Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle.

A recent study found that the average Briton walks about 900 miles a year.
Another study found that Britons drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year.
That means that, on average, Britons get about 41 miles to the gallon!
Makes you proud to be British, doesn’t it?

Long, long ago various Germanic tribes began migrating from their northern European homes pushing ever further and deeper into the lands once settled by Celts replacing them with no lack of brutality. This went on for some time before the same peoples, seeing the splendour, affluence, and modernity of Rome decided they wanted a bit of it for themselves and moved en masse into the empire. At first the new settlers didn’t cause too many problems. Many were welcomed as warriors by an empire that was simply not able to inspire its own people, especially in the empire’s cultural hearth, to take up arms. Eventually, however, they overwhelmed the weakening and increasingly rudderless empire causing its eventual demise in the West. A more brutal fate would await those Romans who had assumed that they could hold out in the East when a more ferocious people emerged from the steppes of Central Asia. Continue reading “Germania”

When I received an e-mail from the English Osteopath in the south of France asking me to vote for her in the regional round of the Prix des Femmes, I naturally did so.  I looked at the other three candidates sponsored by Nice-Matin and was convinced a Brit would have no chance against French opposition, especially since one of them seemed to be a politically correct, human rights type.

Today I received this e-mail.

Well with your help… we did it!!

Rachael, our osteopath who was nominated by the Nice Matin, to be this regions candidate for the Prix des Femmes, to find the woman who has contributed most to her community, WON the public vote…

Rachael has not only set up two osteopathic practices, runs a community pilates class for those with back pain, but she also set up and is the current President of a charity whereby she and other osteopaths give their time for free to treat disabled children, children from low income families and young african children brought to France to undergo life saving heart operations.

So in 3 weeks time the Nice Matin is flying her to Paris to meet the other 14 regional finalists and to have a (non competitive), (yeah right) lunch to meet with the jury to decide the  top 3 with a prize of 10,000 euro.

As the only British woman to have ever got this far we are understandably really proud, and would like to thank those of you for reading the previous email and acting on it or by reposting it to your friends and putting it on your social networking sites, which we heard that some did.

Apparently Rachael won the most votes out of the entire nationwide candidates, which says a lot for our lovely international/expat community and the power of a mass marketing emai!!

Thank you again.

Rachel is a delightful lady, full of energy, and treats the injuries of those who work on the boats along the Riviera as well as all her charitable work. I am delighted she has won this round and wish to apologise to the French for my unworthy thoughts. They are not, thankfully, all like Sarkozy.

Observing the EU’s travails from a comfortable distance I’ve started to think about the pointlessness of regional blocs in the contemporary world. Naturally there are some things which could be done on a regional basis that might be in the general interest of everyone. Easing international trade and standardising documentation in a continent with a number of small countries such as Europe is helpful. Trying to force them all to conform to common policies will not work, however. We’ve already had this proven several times over the past two centuries.

The reality is that technology has moved us beyond contiguous borders. It’s no more difficult for me to order a CD from London, a book from Melbourne, and a few pounds of coffee from Sao Paulo than it is for me to order the same from a neighbouring county. In some instances it is easier as I am able to communicate with them in the same language, something which doesn’t seem to be possible in the Bay Area where one  must be conversant in Cantonese, Tagalog, Castilian, and PC Newspeak to simply function.

Perhaps some, especially on the European Continent ( I do not consider the UK to be part of Europe), are so married to the post-Second World War order of continental blocs that they simply cannot recognised just how much the world has changed. It’s not uncommon for people to have family on three continents, it’s not uncommon for people to form enduring personal and business ties with people on the other side of the world. This seems to be especially common for people blessed with the ability to speak English.
I, for one, have an easier time getting on with people in Taiwan, Australia, or Brazil than dealing with people from Germany, much less France.