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Home  Talking Points |
Opinions and subjects of interest to Riviera expats as well as
letters sent to the paper magazine. You can comment any entry without registering but you must register on the right in order to post your own subject by using the "Talking Points Dashboard" link.
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Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
Mar 08, 2010
We assume that we can trust our so-called friends, and yet, in my lifetime, although I've only been conned twice, both times it was big money and both times by so called friends. The first was a friend who'd been scammed by Nigerians who had robbed him of his life savings despite our warnings that it was a scam. I was left with the choice of
Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
Jan 19, 2010
Some days go past without my wondering just how low the human species can descend in its barbarity towards its own species. Comparing humans with animals tends towards insulting our four-legged friends, for they only prey on each other out of need. Yesterday was not such a day, for I came across something which sickened me. From the death and
Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
Oct 30, 2009
“Broken Britain” seems to become a little more broken every day. It's not just the violence on the surface, the worst manifestation of which is the nightly yobbish behaviour in city centres, the 'road rage' which seems to surface over the most trivial of situations, and the defensive approach that so many people have adopted, but there is a
Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
Jun 27, 2009
According to Jean-Paul Sartre, 'Hell is other people', and whilst I would go along with that to a large extent, there are some people whose company I enjoy, although whether they enjoy mine is another story. I may be destined to go to Hell for many reasons, but as yet have no first hand experience of it, despite often wondering what it might be
Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
Jun 26, 2009
It has long been a contention of mine, much to the annoyance of those who have wanted to preserve the illusion of France as the bastion of good taste in all things, especially food, that the French are amongst the world's greatest consumers of junk food, more politely known as fast food. The proliferation of MacDonalds, Quick, and so on,
Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
May 19, 2009
There are many urban legends circulating about 'a friend who' ..... and I've just received yet another one about 'A friend who went to the local gym and placed his belongings in the locker ..... he still had his credit card in his possession ..... a few weeks later his credit card bill came - a bill of £14,000 of which he had no prior knowledge!'
Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
May 12, 2009
There have been many articles in the UK press recently extolling the virtues of the French life style, and presenting the usual statistics about how the French work less hours, but do more work, sleep more, have more fun (there may be a correlation there), eat unhealthy food but don't get fat, and so on. I suppose from the perspective of Gordon
Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
Feb 17, 2009
Many of you will have seen the now famous 'Dear Richard' letter of complaint from a passenger on a London-Bombay flight to the Virgin Atlantic supremo. It can be found here for those who haven't seen it.
Whilst undoubtedly a classic of its time, it's quite mild compared to some I've written, but ..... I digress.
Earlier this week I had the
Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
Feb 09, 2009
As the labelling on the box can sometimes be confusing, I thought this information might be useful to those who prefer to buy real 'free range organic' eggs, as opposed to just 'free range' ..... and you thought it was the same? Each egg has a stamp on it and the first digit (0-3) tells you : 0 = Organic free range 1 = The hens can go outside (free
Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
Jan 10, 2009
This information may be of use.
If you receive a text message on your French cellphone asking you to call back an 0899 number it is a scam - you almost certainly know that!
Usually the message will be something like :
"Vous avez gagne le Lotto ........."
"Bisou j'attends toujours ton appel ....."
"Quelqu'un que tu as rencontre veut
Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
Nov 18, 2008
I believe it was in Victorian times that some people's idea of a fun day out was to visit a lunatic asylum and ridicule the inmates, taunting and mocking them. We are supposed to have moved on since then. ‘Lunatic asylums' as such no longer exist, and more politically correct terminology is used for the institutions that replaced them.
I would
Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
Sep 22, 2008
One of my great pleasures in younger days was travelling by train, not with an Ian Allen notebook and an anorak, but simply to enjoy the countryside from those lovely old coaches with windows that opened so that you could smell the sulphuric tang of the engine’s exhaust mixed with farmyard, and the bits of sooty grit got into your eyes and hair.
Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
Jul 23, 2008
Sitting in a terrace bar in Barcelona at the weekend, I overheard the conversation amongst two English couples at an adjacent table, as they sorted through several piles of Euro bank notes.
It went something like this :
"These are the ones wot Fred brought back from France last year, so these must be the Spanish ones .... "
I wasn't quite sure
Posted by: MikeP in Uncategorised on
Jul 15, 2008
An election, and I’m using the term purely because this is how it has generally been referred to, has just been held in Zimbabwe. Of course it wasn’t really an election, as there was only one candidate, and in order to make sure that nobody thought of not voting for him, he made sure that people were beaten into submission. Just in case that
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