Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category

They say the grass is always greener but, of course, it never really is because sometimes there’s a whole lot of moss in amongst it.

Take for instance the off and on popularity of Brits moving to France….

The majority do it because they are trying to get away from the bad things in British life these days. They don’t like the rising crime and the bad schools and the too fast pace of life. So, they look towards France and it seems like the UK was maybe 30 years ago.

It is, but would you really have wanted to go back to the UK of 30 years ago?

Yes, there’s not that much crime in the areas in which Brits habitually move but then there’s not much crime in the UK countryside either. The schools are certainly more book based, but is that any better. Perhaps the best example for a Brit considering such a move is that the English teachers in France can barely speak English because of their own schooling ie it’s largely bookwork rather than the conversational skills which are mainly required.

The pace of life is certainly slower. However, the question to ask yourself is: can I stand waiting in a supermarket queue for 45 minutes every day when I’d not put up with that in Tesco?

It does suit some people for sure but many give up through frustration at the dreadfully slow pace of things like that supermarket queue (and 45 minutes is probably the minimum time if you do your shopping at 4pm as many families do).

So, yes, it is greener but don’t forget about the moss that you find amongst all that grass!

Don’t you think that some people lead incredibly interesting lives?

Oh, sure, the film stars and whatnot may do but so do a lot of “ordinary” people and now and again you get the chance to hear some of their stories.

For instance, this morning we had someone call by who had been born in the Bahamas which, for a start, is a place that many of us would like to go to someday and in our wildest dreams would perhaps consider retiring there if it weren’t so expensive. Yet, instead he has “retired” to France instead which seems a pretty humdrum place.

Since his father was a pilot, we had a snippet of some of his stories too and now know that it’s definitely best to drive through Jamaican markets with the windows up as they have a tendency to lop off your arm with a machette just to get your watch if you don’t!

We have been incredibly lazy over here on the whole but we’re planning on getting back into the swing of Tai Chi and Tai Combat in the not overlly distant future.

The snag is that when you’ve had a bit of a break from it, it can be quite extremely difficult to get yourself fired up to do exercise classes or even the thought of them for that matter. Not only that, but it’s obviously pretty crazy to start straight into a class at the gym when you’ve not done any serious exercise for a while.

So, the game plan is to ease ourselves back into it again and to start with we’ve already started on a little bit of hill walking which, much to our surprise, didn’t finish us off. After that, we’re going to work up via the treadmills and other machines to a nice gentle class to begin with (definitely not Tai Combat!).

In that insurance companies operate across national boundaries, you’d expect that the standards they adhere to would be international ones. After all, it would be too complicated to run with one set of rules in one country and a totally different one in another, wouldn’t it?

You might think that, but it ain’t so in France.

In France, once you’ve signed up for car insurance with one company it’s not possible to shop around each year as you’d do elsewhere in Europe because to change your insurance company, you must cancel your existing insurance by recorded delivery letter at least two months before your renewal date. However, as you might expect that’s before they’ve told you what it’s going to cost ie you’ve nothing to compare it against the price another company might quote.

We on the other hand are in the “fortunate” position that our previous car was wrecked and therefore could go into another insurance company for the quote. We’re also in the unusual position of knowing what the renewal premium would have been for the little car pictured and that our new and somewhat larger car was around EUR 200 cheaper to insure!

Not that you can totally walk away from the old company of course. You obviously need something to say what the discount you’re entitled to is and that’s what we’re trying to get now with, so far, no success.

What about the payout from GAN for the old car? We were wondering about that too. The car accident happened on May 23rd yet we still have had nothing from them which is why we’re now with a different company.

Most of the time it seems to be Eastern Time, the time on the east coast of America at the moment, at least for us.

However, it is something of a problem as in the 24 hour world of the Internet the time zone used most of the time tends to be in America as that’s where the bulk of the commercial Internet places appear to be. Want web hosting? If you don’t read the small print then chances are your hosting will be somewhere in America which will make quite a difference to the hits that you get if your main customer base is in Europe (the difference can be as much as 10 fold!).

OK, so we might be in a 24/7 world but few offices actually work those hours. Why would they?

Still, it does make quite a difference to us at the moment in that PayPerPost is based in Miami and seems to work roughly 0900 to 1700 Miami time which works out as 1400 to 2300 our time and that’s the timeframe when the paid post opportunities come online. Our original tactic of doing the posts in the morning meant that we effectively got the left-overs from the night before but now that we’ve moved closer to Miami time in our postings, we get a whole lot more money for the same amount of effort.