That frosty covering makes for rather slippy pavements of course yet you don’t seem to really get the pleasure that proper snowfall can bring. No snowmen to built, no snowball fights. Just slipping and scraping the windows on the car.

And, yesterday, an unannounced closure of the school for the day. Instead of a final lie-in before school started we’d everyone up early to make sure we weren’t late with the slippery roads and found ourselves in front of a closed school. Oh, sure, if it had been way out in the country we’d have expected that but there wasn’t any big problem in getting to it so it was just closed for no apparent reason.

Still, with the weather forecasts continuing in winter mode for the remainder of the week perhaps we’ll get a proper snowfall one of these days.

Related posts:

1. The human biology course vs the cardiovascular diseases one
2. Progressing too fast with the OU course?
3. Back to school so, of course, we’ll all sick
4. The library as child minder
5. Back to school with yet another time change

Sounds like a bit of a nightmare I’m sure but it’s even worse than that as one set is in the UK and the other is in what seems likely to become our holiday home in France in the next month or two. Unfortunately, it means trawling round two sets of places to find all the stuff to do the work as it’s not really a runner to buy it all in one and ship it to the other.

Since we’re looking to decorate both places in a similar manner we’re currently trying to find a ceramic tile design that’s available in both sides of the water but, of course, that’s not as simple as you would think.

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1. How DO you measure the effectiveness in attracting traffic of a change in your website?
2. Isn’t it amazing the way even some non-tech products have dropped in price?
3. What about the tile issue?
4. Mulling over several competing options for 2010 courses
5. Finally making a serious start on TMA6 for ED209

For instance, something like seven or eight years ago a colleague in work happened to mention that he was sure I was wondering why he was wearing a poppy. Frankly I’d never even given it a second thought as it was a commonplace thing in that it was in the period just coming up to the November 11th Remembrance Day when, of course, wearing poppies is fairly common. In fact it wasn’t until some time later that I found out that the poppy was considered by Republicans as a British symbol and therefore political thus something that he “shouldn’t” be wearing since he was a Catholic. I’m sure that I’m not the only one from the Scottish descent community who simply couldn’t understand this reasoning at all.

However, just a few days ago Wendy received this as a final statement on a comment on her blog “And for the record, Northern Irish people are not British.”. Well, actually as far as those of us of Scottish descent goes I don’t think anyone even considered that there was such a thing as “Northern Irish” and actually we ARE British (as indeed, at least legally, are those born in Northern Ireland who consider themselves Irish). It seems peculiar that someone living in Belfast could possibly think that nobody in Northern Ireland was British these days, but there you go.

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1. Getting into the United Kingdom legally without visas and residence permits
2. Just how important is the pre-birth development environment?
3. Some thoughts on avoiding the ELQ fee sting
4. Another year, another potential documentary: this time setting up a B&B in Northern Ireland
5. A disapointment for the burglars

Whilst you can obviously leave many things to the last minute that can cost you dear. Just consider what seems on first thought to be a simple matter of parking the car. Last time I tried that in our local airport the price ranged from £2.50 a day with no additional charges through to £10 a day with charges for the airport shuttle.

That was at a small local airport and it’s a lot more complex when you’re looking for gatwick parking as the people over at Essential Travel reveal on their website. I knew that Gatwick was quite a large airport facility but I’d never have dreamt of it having as many as 17 car parks and, of course, they all come with different rates and offers. Even stingy ole me wouldn’t dream of pricing around that many car parks so it’s just as well that their site does that hard work for you as there’s quite a bit of money to be saved if you get the right car parking for your holiday.

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1. Picking your ideal RV vacation base
2. Where’s the ideal spot for a motorhome vacation?
3. Where’s the best university to do a part-time degree these days?
4. How complete should a holiday destination be?
5. We’ve finally gotten going on the gym

We’re following European Directive 2004/38/EC which is the directive which gives European citizens and their family members and dependants the right move to any other European country. In general terms to take advantage of this directive you need to be moving your family from one country to another. For example, if you are only British and are living in the UK then you can’t use this directive to get any residence rights for a non-European wife. However, in the special case of those who count as “people of Northern Ireland” it’s possible for a British citizen to exercise these rights by requiring the UK authorities to consider them to be Irish (see the British-Irish agreement).

Who counts as a “family member or dependant”? Basically it’s:

• the European citizen plus their spouse (or registered partner or partner in a durable [2 years or more] relationship) and
• the direct descendants of either one up to 21 (or older if they are dependant on the parent) and
• the dependant direct relatives in the ascending line of either (ie parents, grandparents, etc.) and
• any other dependant relatives or members of the household of the European citizen.

Which essentially translates as anyone who lives in the house of the European citizen in the country from which they are moving, regardless of their nationality (which paraphrases Articles 2 & 3 of the directive).Most people think they must have a visa to move to another country but if you are one of the people covered by the above paragraph then in fact you don’t courtesy of Article 5, paragraph 4 which lets you prove “by other means” that you are covered by this directive. For example, in our own case Wendy has an expired European Residence Permit in her passport thus proving that the directive applies to her so she doesn’t need a visa and neither does she need to go down the “Non-European citizen” queues at immigration control even though she’s Australian.

Now you might think that you’re sure to need a residence permit but even that’s not the case because  Article 25, paragraph 1 also has the option to “prove by other means” entitlement to the rights granted under this directive and specifically forbids possession of a residence permit to be used as a precondition for the exercise of any rights or completion of any administrative formality. Which means that, in practice, you never need to have the residence permit.

But, what rights does this directive actually give? Well, in practical terms it translates as giving anyone covered by the directive almost all the rights that a national of the country would have with limitations only in areas such as national security (eg you probably couldn’t work as a diplomat) and voting (although the European citizen can vote in local and European elections). Thus the authorities are required to treat Wendy as though she were British and had always been British.

That’s the theory, but how does it work out in practice. Well, Wendy doesn’t get any UK stamps in her passport these days and avoids the massive queues at some airports which simplifies our lives no end as we can all go through the “EU Citizen” immigration queues. She already has her National Insurance number from when we were here before but temporary ones are allocated once you start work in the UK if you don’t have one already. One current complication remains in connection with the doctor (and I suspect the dentist) which is that although the doctor’s office don’t have any problem in treating her, the Central Services Agency (CSA) are still asking for copies of her visa and residence permit which, of course, we can’t provide as we have neither and we just found out this morning that because of that they’ve told the doctor to take her off his list. That’s not really a big problem as worst case scenario from the doctor’s office end is that we fill in a temporary resident form every time we go to the doctor. It does have a potentially major upside in that as the CSA are breaking the law we could get quite a sizeable compensation payment…

So, overall, an easy, legal and free way to live & work in the UK.

Related posts:

1. Are there any Northern Irish people out there?
2. Just how free is freedom of expression?
3. How DO you measure the effectiveness in attracting traffic of a change in your website?
4. Choosing an appropriate sequence of courses in your studies
5. Where would YOU go in an RV?

Motorhomes aren’t things to confine to towns and cities but rather to use on the wide open road and few places get more wide open than the likes of Arizona and Texas. OK, it’s a bit of a struggle for the big beasts to get up some of the hills around the canyons but it’s the modern day covered wagon and the old timers had a bit of a struggle up the very same mountain ranges.

Monument valley is, of course, John Wayne country. That’s the backdrop that you’ll see in countless westerns and even today you can park your rig in one of the remaining indian emcampments. It’s miles from anywhere too so you get to see the stars in the night sky just as the old-time pioneers did.

Move a little further south and you can even tie your “hoss” up right in the centre of Tombstone just a little ways down from the OK Corral. Next morning you can even stroll down the very same wooden sideway that Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the Clancys did because that section of Tombstone has been preserved just the way it was in those days.

So where would YOU take your RV?

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1. We’re starting to think of holidays for the first time in ages
2. What about a holiday in South Africa?
3. Have you thought of Argentina for your holidays?
4. New Zealand’s charms
5. The expenses of being a “noshow”

The quality of what’s on offer varies enormously of course. Normal redbrick universities will put on anything from small samplers through to pretty much entire courses in the case of Yale. Ironically, the sample from the more open universities is at the other end of the scale with, for example, the Open University offering very small segments of a wide range of courses in contrast to Yales complete versions of a small number of courses.

Why the difference?

For Yale, the course samples on offer are something of an advertisement for the university and creates quite a bit of good PR too as segments of some of the courses currently on offer have been used by a range of educational establishments to liven up their own course presentations. The situation with the Open University is quite different. They’re not so much advertising the university as the courses themselves thus whilst in the Yale selection you’ll find the complete introductory pschology course (which is absolutely fascinating), from the Open University you’ll find just four units from their equivalent course.

The “problem” with all of these offerings is that they’re quite addictive and it’s tempting to seriously consider signing up for the full thing. Now, that “full thing” is $35,000 a year in Yale (that’s for 8 to 10 courses similar to those that you’ll see online ie around $4,000 a course) or around $4.500 for the full credit course in the Open University (assuming that you’re paying the full price, $2,000 if you live in the UK and get the subsidity). Interestingly, it’s actually cheaper to do the course in America which is contrary to what most people would expect.

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1. Pottering along with a degree vs racing ahead at the Open University
2. Where’s the best university to do a part-time degree these days?
3. Preparing for course entrance tests
4. Is the Open University too open?
5. Choosing to learn about yourself

Almost without fail, they start off in French which is fair enough as they’re phoning a French hotel. However, we know they’re from the UK since we see the phone number before we answer the phone so we always start off in English.

What’s really surprising is how long the brits keep going in, usually, bad French before it dawns on them that we’ve been talking English to them from the start. Even when the penny does drop, their first question afterwards is “do you speak English”!

Isn’t it peculiar how our brains work like that?

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1. At last onto semi-familiar territory with the ED209 child development course
2. Isn’t it scary how much medical treatment has moved to the over the counter market?
3. What about a holiday in South Africa?
4. Administering French life from afar
5. Choosing an appropriate sequence of courses in your studies

I’ve just had quite an enjoyable night chatting with an old work colleage (DG) who’s staying with us this evening. What’s perhaps even stranger is that some of the old fixtures in the workplace are still very much fixtures although sometimes it seems like if I went back there I’d be the only one left of the “old guard”!

Related posts:

1. How DO you measure the effectiveness in attracting traffic of a change in your website?
2. What about a holiday in South Africa?
3. Sorting out the lights
4. Dredging up the memories…

Nowadays, inflation is largely driven by the oil price either directly through increasing the cost of your own petrol or indirectly through increasing transport costs generally. More to the point though is that it isn’t driven by the banks handing out money as they used to as anyone who has tried to get credit lately will tell you.

Yet, the Bank of England persist in using interest rates as their seemingly only means of driving down inflation. It isn’t working and it won’t work because it’s not bank lending that’s keeping inflation up (as is clear by the “credit crunch” that we’re all experiencing): it’s the oil price. Even if they took interest rates to 50%, inflation would still remain high.

What those high rates are doing though is killing the economy; they’re certainly not killing the inflation.

Related posts:

1. Egg Money goes downhill after Citibanks changes kick in
2. Some good signs on the financial front