Foreign Perspectives

Every time that the issue of ID cards comes up in the UK, there are questions asked about how securely the information collected will be held and every time the government says “trust us”.

Well, today we’ve seen just how much we could trust the government with our information. Not that far at all as it happens as they’ve just managed to lose the complete ID records of just about everyone in the UK. Had it been anyone other than the government that had lost it, those places providing ID theft solutions would be advising everyone to change their bank accounts. When you’re talking millions of people, that’s not really a runner of course.

Still, there are encouraging signs in this fiasco. For one thing, it’s a great example to refer the government to when they say that the ID card information will be perfectly safe. And, of course, it’ll be a brilliant excuse to use when your bank claims that you’ve overspent on your credit card as you’ll be able to say that your identity was stolen.

Perhaps TNT aren’t the best company to use if you’re sending really valuable items in the post!

Don’t know why, but today is turning out to be the best day for income from the blog ever and by a long way too.

If I’m quick enough, it looks like I might be able to double my previous record at a stroke.

Still, no doubt tomorrow will be pretty dry in comparison as indeed was the weekend.

Poor little John is scared to go out of doors at the moment as he can barely stand up in the wind at the moment!

So far we’ve had no snow though sometimes it has seemed cold enough for it. That’s a bit misleading of course in that the wind chill factor makes it seem a good deal colder than it really is and in fact this morning it was actually warmer outside than it was inside the house!

It is pretty dreadful weather for this time of year though. Ordinarily, we’d not be expecting such severe winds until February and even then only for a short period rather than for days at a time as we’ve been having lately.

I’d like to say that we’ve been using all the time indoors to get caught up on the Winter schedule of activities but instead we’ve been busy organising our Christmas holiday over the last week or two. Still, at least that’s booked now so we just need to source a turkey to take to Spain at some point in the next month or so (Wendy won’t get it in Spain as they do unspeakable things there including leaving the head on!).

A long time ago, I was brave enough to ask the question which many are afraid to ask: do you need to speak French if you want to live in France?

It’s not such a simple question to answer as it might appear. For one thing, there are many expat enclaves throughout France where, by and large, English is the only language used. Within these enclaves, the shopkeepers and so on can be expected to speak English and indeed even if you speak French to them, they’ll reply in English. So, yes, you could live in France without speaking French.

However, in many other areas (most of France in fact) you couldn’t do that. The locals either cannot or will not speak English. After all, why should they be expected to? It is France after all. Except that everywhere else in the world the locals DO speak English: that’s why people expect to be able to move to France without speaking French.

Funnily enough, just a few miles south in Spain the locals won’t speak Spanish and actually insist on using English. Well, to be fair that’s Catalonia and few people outside it ever have the opportunity to learn Catalán which tends to dictate the use of English with foreigners.

In times gone by people met at work or on holiday or whatever but these days everyone is so busy with their life that they’ve very little time to allocate to the search for that perfect partner.

With so much of your life being online already it seems only natural to begin your search for “the one” online too. It’s easy enough to fit in the time to run up a profile for yourself even in the busiest of schedules and before you know it you could find that you have more offers than you know what to do with.

Years ago it was taken as read that only losers ran to dating agencies but with the hectic lifestyle that we all lead these days that image has long since gone out of the window. With the online dating sites chances are that you’ll find quite a selection of professional people looking for someone just like you. Moreover there are many people online who you’d just never come across by chance and yet one of those could well be your ideal match.

Quite important is the number of people signing up for the site. It’s probably not much use to sign up for a site with few people already there as it could take a very long time for it to build up a sensible membership and in the meantime nothing’s really happening for you. That also applies to many sites that concentrate on, say, America if you live in Europe or vice versa. That’s where a truly global site like Date.com comes in as it has quite a large membership in most countries therefore chances are you’ll have a good selection of people locally to you.

These sites are very much like real-life dating in that the more you put into them, the more you’ll get out of them. Whilst this might make the initial signing up something of a challenge, you’ll usually find that they work best when you write loads of stuff about yourself and complete all the tick-boxes after you’ve thought out just what the right answer is for you (which I find isn’t always quite so simple!). Then, of course, there’s that all-important photo. Get a good one taken if you can manage to as the photo is going to be what people will see first: nobody really reads through all that stuff that you wrote initially (although, if they’re serious, they will do in due course) but they will make a quick yes/no decision about you based on that photo. Yes, I know, that’s very superficial but it’s the reality.

Anyway, give it a go. You might be surprised at who you will find there!