Foreign Perspectives

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Is global warming a good thing?

May 16th, 2007 |

Author: Arnold

Thames River frozen over

Almost all of the press coverage that you see is of the view that global warming is a “bad thing” and we should be getting the finger out to stop it happening. But, is it?

This is a painting by Hondius in 1684 of one of the regular Frost Fairs taking place on the Thames. In fact both the Thames and the Baltic Sea froze over quite regularly in the 1600s.

That was prior to the industrial revolution of course and combined with a much lower population, pollution at that time was considerably less than it would have been 150 or so years later. The “Black Country” wasn’t named that for nothing as it was filled with major league polluters during the industrial revolution.

Did the industrial revolution stop us getting into another ice age? Nobody can really say as there are just too many variables in the equation: you’ve everything from the industrial revolution raising pollution levels considerably to sunspot cycles and to top it all the records over the period simply weren’t accurate or complete enough to really give a definitive answer.

What if the alternative to global warming were global cooling? Would that be a “good thing”?

The war graves in France

May 5th, 2007 |

Author: Arnold

I find the cemeteries in France really fascinating.

Naturally there are loads of military ones around the sites of past battles in the two world wars. The second world war ones up around the Normandy beaches are perhaps the most impressive in terms of the sheer scale of carnage that they represent. However, in addition to those there are many much smaller WW1 cemetries dotted around the landscape. The area of the Somme has untold numbers of these from the large Thiepval and numerous smaller versions in that area from the Ulster Tower to relatively small Australian ones.

One thing that they all have in common is that every single grave in them is still well tended for, no matter how long ago the death occured. As we were going through the Somme cemeteries last year, every one looked as though it was only filled a few weeks ago. Don’t forget that these graves are getting on for 100 years old by now too. The reason for this is simple of course: the Commonwealth War Graves Commission really live up to the phrase “they shall not be forgotten” and are constantly caring for the graveyards and refurbishing the headstones.

Of course, they don’t just look after the major graveyards and the photo here is that of the brother of my grandfather sitting in a cemetery in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, one of a couple of dozen or so scattered around that particular graveyard.

How to be an illegal immigrant in France and avoid deportation

April 25th, 2007 |

Author: Arnold

One wonders whether that title will attract the attention of the French authorities but it probably won’t.

We’ve been living here for over three years now with no residence permit (Carte de Séjour) for Wendy and now pretty much accept that she’ll almost certainly never get one. Now, in every other country that would be something of a problem in that Wendy would be deported indeed she would already have been deported. Not in France though.

How come we can do that?

Well, what we did was apply for her Carte de Séjour within 90 days of us arriving here. Actually, we applied for the European version of that ie the Carte de Séjour Europeenne but that wouldn’t really have mattered as it turns out.

The CdS is something of an unusual beast in that the only documents that the authorities are legally allowed to ask for are a passport and a proof of relationship. This being France, they actually asked for around 30 separate documents which we refused to provide and there things stopped. We received no further contact from the Prefecture (who are responsible for issuing it) but did enquire a few times and they said they were awaiting for documentation from us (ie the documents that we had refused to supply).

About a year later, we thought we’d have another go. Different staff this time, and we managed to get somewhat further, eventually ending up with a letter from OMI (the immigration department) asking for EUR 220. As noted above the only things that they can legally ask for are a passport and proof of relationship, there’s no mention of money in the European law because they’re not allowed to ask for any. So, I sent off a letter pointing this out. No response.

Late last year, we made a start yet again. Turns out that they had lost the file (although, funnily enough, they seemed able to refer to some information that it contained!). Anyway, different staff again and we were assured that the permit was on its way. The temporary permit arrived in due course and, as it’s about to expire, we enquired. That in turn triggered off the letter from OMI with a bill this time of EUR 275 so I must dig out my own letter again.

So, if you fancy being an illegal alien in France, it’s really very easy. Once you get here, apply for your Carte de Séjour but leave out a few documents that they’re asking for. This totally throws the system apparently as we were told several times that our file had been put to the one side awaiting the documents which, of course, were never going to arrive. Eventually, your file is put away and nobody is ever likely to follow up on it after that happens.

This relies on one aspect that seems innately French: they obey authority and said authority assumes that it will be obeyed ie if they demand some document, then obviously it will arrive. Step outside that framework and it totally throws the system.

So, if you fancy being an illegal immigrant in Europe, don’t bother with the UK as they’ll deport you for sure. Head for France, apply for your Carte de Séjour but omit at least one document asked for and then just settle into life here.

Why do people convert hotels to B&Bs?

April 22nd, 2007 |

Author: Arnold

Le Crocodile Rouge We’ve been following the progress of two of the hotels that we looked at before settling on the place we’re currently running.The first of these that we saw before we met up with the estate agents was a bit large for us in that it was a 30 bedroom place though very central in Perpigian. They were only selling the business too which put us off it as well. Still, quite a thriving place that had been running since around 1850. Just over two years ago, it sported a big sign that said it had been converted into apartments which seemed fair enough as there are loads of apartments in Perpignan and they generally seem to be doing quite well. Not so the hotel though as within the last year, that plan has been dropped and they’re now doing some serious conversion work on it for yet another purpose.

The second of these was the first that we were shown round by an estate agent. It’s the Hotel Maillol which was a four storey 13 bedroom place that was very much on our shortlist as it ticked pretty much all of the boxes on our requirements list. Not only that but it was going for EUR 300,000 which seemed incredibly good value in that it was pulling something like EUR 100,000 a year (very little of it declared though). Occupancy was good and growing and it was pretty much right in the heart of Perpignan yet positioned at the end of a short street so very quiet.

In fact, the price was so good that there were a number of people bidding on it and it didn’t sell for several months ie just over three years ago. Not too long after that, we noticed that there was some serious redevelopment work being undertaken on it which is still ongoing, much to our surprise. Well, after all it was in such a good location that an upgrade to a more luxurious place was an obvious thing to do and would probably have let them keep the occupancy figures up whilst taking the price from EUR 40-odd to around EUR 60 or so.

However, what they’ve actually done is to convert the place to a B&B as you can see. This means that they can’t run more than five rooms so the income will drop considerably.The 100k income was made up, roughly as follows: open 10 months ie 300 days x EUR 40 per room x 13 rooms x 60% occupancy = 93k. However, as a B&B the equation works out as 300 days x EUR 60 x 5 x 60% = 54k. Ordinarily, a B&B in France can pretty much double their income by doing evening meals but that’s only because most B&Bs are in the country and this one is surrounded by restaurants so they won’t be able to do that.

Actually, it’s a little worse than that as the Maillol had been running for quite a number of years and had built up the business considerably. The B&B version has changed the name, closed for three years (it’s not opened even now) and probably taken the room price up a fair bit. The combination of those factors mean that it’s almost certainly lost virtually all of the customers that the Maillol had so it will be reopening from a standing start and will need to build up to that 60% figure.

The final problem is that the occupancy was quite biased towards the summer with getting on for 100% occupancy of the 13 rooms for three or four months and, of course, since the B&B has only five rooms to play with the income over that period will be much lower.

So, why do people do it? Le Crocodile Rouge is far from unique in converting from a hotel to a B&B and we’re just singling them out because we’d looked at it ourselves.

Well, basically because they’re all aiming to create luxury B&Bs and charge a fortune for them. Snag is that there are limits to how much you can charge. Even quite luxurious chateaux only get away with EUR 100 or so and the luxury B&Bs can generally only charge EUR 70 at best. The biggest problem though is that five room limit because the holiday season in France is very much concentrated on around six weeks during July and August when you’d really need to be able to go to more than 100% occupancy but obviously you can’t do that.

The Expat/WE List – bloggers living in Western Europe

April 20th, 2007 |

Author: Arnold

Everyone and their dog seems to be running up lists of blogs these days, so I thought it was time us expat bloggers got in on the act. Why though? Well, it helps everyone on the list get a few more links for their site and thereby improve the visibility and hence traffic of their blog.

The idea is a simple one and was pinched from the idea of the T-List which lists travel blogs itself copied from the Z List, originally launched by Mack Collier of Viral garden. I shamelessly pinched the original of this from Ministry of Propaganda.

Coming soon are the rest of the world… there are wayyyyy too many expat bloggers to put in one list!

What you do is:

Write a post titled “The Expat List”
Copy the links below into it
If you’re an expat blogger not on the list, add yourself
Add any additional expat blogs that you know of (English language only please for the moment)
Notify the blogger you got the list from in a comment to their post.

Note that cut & paste doesn’t always work with links ie check that the list you have has clickable links.

Austria

    Novalas Europa
    Life as it happens
    Metamorphosism
    Nerd’s Eye View
Belgium

    Tomato And Basil Sandwiches
    A lawyer’s dream of heaven
    My Boyfriend Is A Twat
Denmark

    Observations of a globalite
    Desirable Roasted Coffee
    Moron Abroad
France

    An Australian Lass, a Frenchman & a Burmese
    Textism.com
    Les filles in Glasgow (oops) Paris
    Non Tibi Spiro
    Anders Jacobsen’s Blog
    Petite anglaise – lost in france
    Foreign Perspectives
    Peregrinations
    Blethers.com – Weblog
    Perso.fraise.net
    Home in France – News for family & friends –
    Wicked French Kiss
    From my French Window
    Dispatches from France
Germany