Umweltzonen Nochamol...

Back in 2010, I commented on needing "Umweltzonen" car stickers to get into some German cities.
http://2cv67blog.blogspot.fr/2010/08/umweltzonen.html
Back then, I got stickers for €6 each.

Having now acquired a new car, it seemed like time to get a new sticker, so I Googled a bit, struggled a bit with several sites in German, then found some sites with French or English options.

Since 2010, European solidarity seems to have receded somewhat & charges are now higher for cars registered outside Germany.
This site looked promising:
http://www.eco-pastille.fr/en/shop.html
But the stickers work out at €29.90 (handwritten) or €39.90 (printed)!!

Various TuV sites appeared high on the Google results, so I tried this one:
http://www.tuev-sued.de/auto_fahrzeuge/feinstaub-plakette/feinstaubplakette_ausland/frankreich
Here, stickers are €5 if you collect, or €15 by post, according to the French-language version.
I couldn't find anything about stickers on the English-language one...

A different TuV site in English, offers stickers by post for €12.50:
http://www.tuev-nord.de/en/emissions-sticker/Order_2897.htm
so I settled for that one.
The procedure is a  bit odd, in that you have to download a non-saveable PDF order form, print it, fill it in, scan it & send it back as an e-mail attachment together with a scan of the registration document.
What I expected to happen next was an e-mail telling me which category I was entitled to & telling me how to pay.
What actually happened was I got a nice new (printed) sticker through the post... and an invitation to pay, preferably by bank transfer (with BIC & IBAN codes).

I wonder how many French (or UK) establishments send you the goods first & ask you to pay afterwards?

After paying for my new sticker, I re-read my 2010 post & idly clicked on the link:
https://www.berlin.de/labo/kfz/dienstleistungen/feinstaubplakette.shop.en.php
Surprisingly, Berlin still seems to be offering stickers for €6, at least for German cars!
I didn't get far enough through the ordering process to confirm the price for foreign vehicles, but it might still be the best place to start!

Parting thot: "Taxes grow without rain." - Jewish proverb

Gutenberg Reflections

 A statue in Strasbourg commemorates Gutenberg, credited with inventing printing with movable type there in 1440.

So you would expect that by 2013 printing text would hold few secrets.

But an otherwise-excellent book I am reading fails the most basic book test - you can't read it.


Or at least, to read it you need to keep changing the inclination of the pages, or moving your head.

They got the bit about 'black ink on white paper' right, but then 'improved' that by making the ink nice & shiny.
So in reflected light, the text disappears.

http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/french/7.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg

Parting thot: "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien." - Voltaire

Further Adventures with a Braun Shaver

A couple of posts back, I mentioned a Braun 3615 shaver which had never seemed to work from new.

After several more attempts, I decided it really didn't work at all & I had nothing to lose by opening it.

Inside, the electric motor drives a tiny crank, which drives a tiny connecting rod, which makes the various shaving blades oscillate.
At least it does if the connecting rod is connected to the crank, which it wasn't & apparently never had been!

Connecting it & reassembling (fiddly job, glad I have an illuminated magnifying glass) - I now have a shaver which shaves.
And trims.

Black mark for Braun quality control!

Parting thot: "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?" - Abraham Lincoln

Station with Veranda

Strasbourg had a striking railway station, dating from 1883 - one of the 'German' periods.
In fact it still has & although we know it well as occasional users, we were surprised on a recent open day to discover, amongst other exotic details well worth seeing, the lavish 'Emperor's Salon', built to receive Emperor Wilhelm I but which he never used...

Today though, the 1883 stone facade is covered by an enormous glass veranda.

At the planning stage, the usual whiners complained that this veranda might detract from the classical elegance of the listed building.
Of course, they were soon silenced when it was scathingly pointed out that the veranda was going to be all glass & that glass is, well, you know, transparent - you can see through it, so no problem.
Well - score one for the usual whiners, as the facade is now quite invisible behind the tinted, sloping, reflective glass.

The result looks like a big blob of mercury.
Like you used to play with in the good old days before Minamata.

The veranda does do quite a decent job of providing much-needed extra space & weather protection for milling travellers, not only for the main-line station, but for the communicating tram station & car park, built just underneath.

Not a perfect job though.
From the start, there were problems with rain driving in, at the junction between the veranda & the facade and also between the many glass panels.
I think that has now been improved, if not actually solved.

Then there was all-pervading grit, which seemingly originated when the trams in the underground station dumped sand on the lines to improve braking performance.
Now, as each tram enters the station, it switches on a wheel-level fog-bank which settles the sand & iron filings near the rails, instead of allowing them to billow up into the veranda.

OK now then?
Well - no.
Having got rid of the grit, the shopkeepers now see a thick, black, sooty deposit all over their tables, chairs & sandwiches.
Not to mention in their handkerchiefs.
So yet another investigation is underway.
It's early days yet.
The veranda was opened in 2007.

http://www.archi-strasbourg.org/adresse-20_place_de_la_gare__gare_-_centre_ville__strasbourg-23.html?check=1&archiAffichage=adresseDetail&archiIdAdresse=23&archiIdEvenementGroupeAdresse=1311

Parting thot: "Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them." - Albert Einstein

Verglas

One bit of weather I don't remember from Britain, but we see here occasionally, is Black Ice (verglas).

Formed instantly when rain falls on hard-frozen ground, it can develop into a skin up to maybe 1cm thick and is VERY slippery, especially while rain is still falling.
No amount of skill can make driving reasonable on black ice, unless you have spiked tyres, which are rare outside mountain areas.
Even walking is extremely risky & best avoided, especially for brittle crumblies.
Don't even think of cycling!

Well today, as forecast, we woke up to black ice & were thankful that we didn't have to go to work.
The only immediate inconvenience was that the morning paper had not been delivered at it's usual 05:30, for the first time in 25 years.
Trusty Marcel turned up with it later, wearing neat strap-on studs under his boots!

Black ice usually occurs when a warm front moves in after a very cold spell, so that the ice gets melted again after an hour or 2 by the new warm air.
But today it managed to rain while the ground-level air temperature has not gone above -1°C & is now falling again for the night.
So the ice has not melted all day & the forecast is for snow to fall on it.
Should be chaos on the roads tomorrow...

Parting thot: "You never really know your friends from your enemies until the ice breaks" - Eskimo proverb

Shave Sir - or a Rip-Off?

Decades ago, I had a simple Braun electric shaver which worked OK for many years & for which I occasionally replaced the necessarily-fragile foils without noticing the cost.

More recently I have been using Gillette GII wet-shaver blades for a better, quicker & quieter shave at home.
Soon followed by "compatible" equivalents for a quarter of the price.

In a few limited circumstances, I think a rechargeable electric shaver might be more convenient than wet shaving, so I have started to look again at electric shavers.

In fact, we bought a new Braun 3615 rechargeable shaver a few years ago, when my father forgot to bring his own shaver out for a visit, but he never liked it, hardly used it & left it here.
So I thought that was a ready-made solution for me.
Unbelievably, I have tried it several times & although it buzzes away & seems to be working, it has absolutely no effect at all on my beard, whether tested on half-day, one-day or two-day stubble!
I keep wondering if I am doing something wrong, or if it needs cleaning or something, but nothing I have tried makes any difference.
It simply does not shave.

Thinking I would try a new foil, though really not convinced that would make any difference, I found the reference in a manual I downloaded, but:
1. They stopped selling just foils & only sell complete heads.
2. I can't even find heads in France & might have to order from UK.
3. A replacement head costs about £20 plus postage.

So I wondered about getting a new, simple, rechargeable razor instead.
The cheapest "reputable" one I can see is a Panasonic ES-SA40-S503 at 36€.
I can't see any spare foils or heads for that anywhere.
Maybe they expect you to throw it away after a year?

Funny - I would have thought this was a mature market with cheap, satisfactory goods & services by now?
It isn't?

Parting thot: "History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon." - Napoleon Bonaparte

999-Feuille

The illustration (from Wikipedia) is of the well-known mille-feuille multi-layered pastry.

The same term is often used to describe the  multi-layered French Administration system.

In our case, for instance, we have, at least:
- Village: "X" (400 people, but no actual administration, I think)
- Commune: "X-Y" (800 people, 2 villages, a mayor, local council, looks after planning permission, local roads etc)
- Community of Communes: "Com-com du Kochersberg" (new entity created in 2002, 28 villages, 26 communes, 20,000 people, looks after tourisme, sport, culture, refuse-collection so far, but probably more in future)
- Canton: "Truchtersheim" (24 communes, of which 19 happen to be in our com-com, over 20K people, electoral area choosing one representative at Department level)
- Circonscription: "4th circonscription of Bas-Rhin" (4 cantons, electoral area choosing one national MP)
- Arrondissement: "Strasbourg-Campagne" (8 cantons, including all our circonscription, 280K people, normally should have a sous-préfet, but ours doesn't. Not sure what it does, if anything.)
- Sous-Prefecture: "Strasbourg" (2 arrondissements in our case, main contact between people & administration, driving license, car tax, firearms etc)
- Department: "Bas-Rhin" (11 sous-prefectures, traditionally the first-level division of the state, since Napoleon, looks after main roads, education at college level etc)
- Region: "Alsace" (2-8 departments, 2 in our case, looks after tourism again, education at lycee level, transport, business)
- Metropole: "France" (96 departments [from 01 to 95 including 02 & 2a & 2b but not 20...] continental France + Corsica & nearby islands, looks after everything)
- Republic: "France" (101 departments, including overseas - La Reunion, Guyane etc as well as smaller territories like Wallis & Futuna)

Beyond that, we can look up to (& pay for, but I am not complaining):
- Eurozone: (17 countries)
- EU: (27 countries)
- Council of Europe: (47 countries)
- UN: (193 countries)

But the big news is that we are (maybe) going to get rid of one layer.
Alsace is taking the lead in a move to combine one Region & 2 Departments into one "Territory".
Theoretically, that could lead to big savings.
If all duplicated jobs & offices could be eliminated...
Practically, in the short term it will probably lead to a lot of squabbling.
The first decisions will need to deal with "where will the new entity actually be"?
From likely candidates of Strasbourg, Selestat, Colmar & Mulhouse.
Maybe we will end up with a travelling circus, like the European Parliament!
And negative savings?

In any case, us Alsatians do get a yes/no referendum vote, on 7th April.

Warning: Please don't blindly rely on anything in this post - confirm with other sources!
http://www.kochersberg.fr/index.php
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canton_de_Truchtersheim
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatri%C3%A8me_circonscription_du_Bas-Rhin
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrondissement_de_Strasbourg-Campagne
http://www.bas-rhin.pref.gouv.fr/site/Sous-Prefecture-de-Strasbourg-191.html
http://www.bas-rhin.pref.gouv.fr/site/Les_Sous_Prefectures-4.html
http://www.bas-rhin.fr/
http://www.region-alsace.eu/
http://www.service-public.fr/

Parting thot - "In politics stupidity is not a handicap." - Napoleon Bonaparte

Freewifi

 One neat aspect of our new ISP - Free! - is that their default setup not only provides a secure wifi network in the house, but also bleeds off a bit of semi-public Freewifi hotspot from each "box".

 

Having opted to provide that service (probably not very helpful out here in the sticks) I get a password which allows me to log in to all the other (3 million?) Freewifi hotspots throughout France.

What a good idea!

Parting thot: "A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?" - Albert Einstein

Free ! - by Name, if not...

I must have had my first taste of internet around the turn of the century.

Using an ISP called Oreka which had the strange business model of offering free internet access, even including free telephone time!
But limited to 4 hours per month.
For a family of 6...

Internet access was a tense affair then, with forward planning, gurgling modems, stop-watches, instant deconnection as soon as you had what you wanted on the screen & Excel charts of accumulated time per person.
Not suprisingly, Oreka soon bit the dust.

Next, we used Liberty Surf, which was initially also free, but later merely cheap.
Libertysurf was taken over by Tiscali, which was then taken over by Alice, taking us with it at each step.
Still at the low-cost end of the market, we have been paying 29.99€/month for unlimited amounts of something we simply could not do without these days.

Now Alice has been taken over by Free! (the exclamation mark is theirs, not mine).
Not sure how you can get away with a name like that, without doing what it says on the packet, but free they are not.

I expected them to simply roll Alice into Free &  force us to bigger & better offers (TV etc) which we don't want, and it was a pleasant surprise when they only pushed gently, saying we could stay with Alice (for how long?) or switch to Free for the same price.

So, for the same 29.99€/month, they have just sent us a new "box" (ADSL modem/router/wifi) with twice the speed of the old one.
They also sent a pair of PowerLine plugs & a set-top box for TV, with Hard Drive & Remote Control, which does not cost us anything if we don't use it - which we won't & said we wouldn't when we signed up.
The waste seems criminal.
And we get a free mobile phone subscription with 60 texto's & 60 min call-time per month.

I can't see what they get for pushing us to switch.
But they obviously know better than me, as they are worth 5.2 billion (5200000000) Euros on the stock market & I am not.

So I will just grin & bear it.

Parting thot: "My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate." - Thornton Wilder

From Dogpile to Duckduckgo...

After treating my PC to a slimming course with Lubuntu & a bit of muscle-building with extra RAM, I felt up to giving it an internal spring-clean.

Not that it is spring here yet -  12 nights in a row with temperatures between -8°C & -13°C.

One of the areas obviously needing a clear-out was browser bookmarks.
My bookmarks are well organised, but who needs 3500 bookmarks?

Like clearing out the attic, this exercise  brings back long-forgotten memories & it is only too easy to get side-tracked into re-opening chapters from way back when.

One area I didn't expect to reminisce over was the folder of Search Engines.
For the last 5-10 years (seems like always) I have almost exclusively used Google & had forgotten what came before.
But in my folder, I found all my previous favourites, like Copernic, NorthernLight, AltaVista, Lycos, LookSmart, Webcrawler, WiseNut, AllTheWeb, Go, MetaCrawler and of course the inelegantly named but effective DogPile.
More surprising was to find that most of these are still working, though probably just as fronts for Google, Yahoo &/or Bing.

I still find the performance of Google, particularly, to be amazing.
But I get more & more uneasy about their ubiquity.
I suspect their excellent motto "Don't be Evil" may be going the same way as Ubuntu's "It Just Works"...

I use Google's Blogger & Picasa photo-handler & Google Maps because they meet my needs best, but I don't really want to live in a Google bubble any more than I wanted an AOL bubble years ago.
So I am now using the ludicrously-named Duckduckgo as my main search engine.
http://duckduckgo.com/
The comments about "track" & "bubble" on their front page, maybe over-done,  do give food for thought.

But Google is only a click away - for the tricky stuff, where it is still best.

Parting thot: "It's better to be uninformed than ill-informed." - Keith Duckworth

Lubuntu

My "new" PC dates back to 2004, when it proudly boasted Windows XP, an AMD Athlon XP processor running at 2.15GHz, 256MB RAM & a 120GB hard drive.

If you are not totally gripped by the opening line, you should really just skip this post - see you later, I hope!

After a couple of years, I started to dabble in Linux, using Ubuntu which is probably the most user-friendly way to start.
Back then, their brilliant slogan was: "Ubuntu - it just works!"
For some reason, they don't use that any more...

Compared with XP, Ubuntu in those days was a mixed blessing.
Philosophically, I am all for the 'Free & Open' aspect, especially compared with the Microsoft near-monopoly, with all that implies.
That is reason enough to try it & to stick with it if possible.
Practically, some things worked better, others not as well.
Particularly, back then, it was a real struggle to get WiFi, Scanning & Printing to work well & reliably.
Generally, you had to expect to put in quite a bit of time & effort to keep things ship-shape, which for an enthusiastic retiree was not a problem.

One continuing issue which cannot be ignored is the 6-monthly upgrade process, which usually involves a very long download, quite a lot of little improvements & possibly some real disasters, like being unable to boot at all...
Actually, you can choose to avoid or defer this trauma by opting for the 'Long Term Support' cycle, where you only need to upgrade every 3 years.
But then you need to make a 3-year jump instead of a 6-month jump.

Over time, XP on my PC got slower & slower.
I still have XP (for sentimental reasons & as a life-belt & because it can still print photos fractionally better when really necessary).
But when I switch to XP, I know I may as well go away for 20 minutes while the anti-virus etc does its stuff, during which time the PC is nearly frozen.
And that is after an upgrade to 512MB RAM (OK - I know that is laughably small today, but read on).

Over that same time, Ubuntu has got better & better.
Particularly it handles WiFi & Scanning & Printing acceptably & without too much fuss, though maybe not quite up to the standards provided by Canon & co for Microsoft.
An incidental but decisive advantage is that Linux does not need any anti-virus (don't ask me why not), which frees up a lot of my PC's little brain & muscles for real work.
So Ubuntu went from strength to strength - until the last upgrade.

There seems to have been a change in direction from 'above' (read millionaire Mark Shuttleworth, to whom all praise, at least before the latest course-correction).
Instead of "It Just Works", Ubuntu now seems to want to take on Apple & co (my interpretation, I don't know).
Their latest Desktop, called Unity, appears to be aimed at Smartphones & Tablets, rather than old desktop PC's.
Probably it looks "cool" & probably it has no end of visual effects, including transparent rotating cubes & wobbly windows or whatever.
But it is too complicated for my old PC which gets automatically downgraded to the "2D" version by some invisible hand, with no arguing.
The 2D version maybe still looks "cool"-ish (I wouldn't judge) but it is "ergonomically-challenged" in my humble opinion.

I spent a solid week beating my head against Unity, in which time I found it really locks out a lot of old habits, like click-to-open menus & user-customizable launchers.
Nearly everything you do requires several clicks plus typing in a search bar.
All the usual activities seem to need more actions & more personal memory, like "what was that application called, so I can ask for it?" instead of just picking from a list.

So, after a week, I decided to revert to the previous desktop style, now called Gnome-Classic.
That is another very good point about Ubuntu - you can keep the latest updated software, but choose the interface you use it with.
Gnome-Classic was nearly as good as my previous Gnome, but not quite.
In addition, I was noticing more & more that the PC was beginning to slow down in Ubuntu like in XP a few years back.
Open too many browser windows at once & it would grind to a near halt.
I reckoned it was time for another RAM upgrade (to 1GB) & ordered one.
It has not arrived yet.

In parallel, I started looking at other options, and found (I knew but had never investigated) that there are several "flavours" of Ubuntu, suitable for different users.
You can have it as Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu etc.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the all-singing, all-dancing but power-hungry & unergonomic Unity, there is a thing called Lubuntu.
Its motto could be, but isn't "Keep it simple, stupid".
It is aimed at the older PC & maybe at the older PC user, but they are too kind to say that.
It uses about half as much RAM & less processor time, so that everything works much faster on small-brained PC's.
It is more flexible for personalization, but (negative point) less user-friendly in its customizing tools.
A bit like stepping back in time in the Linux world.
After a week fiddling with Lubuntu, my PC is now as frisky as new, or better.
It should be a star by my standards, with its upcoming memory boost.
It looks & functions the way I want it to & I am a happy bunny again!

Of course, I could just fork out 500€ on a new PC & play with Windows 7 & Unity, but where is the challenge in that?

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/whichbuntu
http://www.osnews.com/story/24476/
http://lubuntu.net/
http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu 

Parting thot: "So busy cutting through the undergrowth, we do not realize we are in the wrong jungle." - Stephen R Covey (7 habits)

Retirement without Threshold Effect?

With upcoming Presidential Elections in France, one of the recurring big topics is Retirement Age.

Having passed that hurdle some time ago, I don't follow the details very closely, but all the headlines talk about "Retirement Age" & "Retirement Age for Full Pension".

So there are endless battles between politicians all talking at the same time & all concentrating on whether THE retirement age should be 60 or 62 or whatever & whether you should get a FULL pension at 60 or 65 or more - or less in case of particlularly arduous jobs.

It has become, as they now say, a cleaving issue between left & right.

I don't understand why we/they don't drop the idea of "Retirement Age" & just leave everybody to decide freely how soon or late they want to retire.
In the internet age, it is obviously feasible to generate & update a smooth curve for every worker & make it available on a secure Government site.
Everybody could then see at a glance what pension they would get for any chosen retirement point, whether at age 25 or 125.
There should be no steps or preset ages, to avoid threshold effects.

Generally, threshold effects should be avoided in all taxation & benefits schemes.

This would save a lot of wasted time, energy & especially emotion.

Politicians could concentrate on other important issues.

I think there are plenty...

Parting thot: "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to get the most feathers with the least hissing." - Jean Baptist Colbert

All the 2's

1999 Suzuki Wagon R+ 1.0GL.
One (mostly) careful owner.
Never raced or rallied.

222222.2 km

Offers?

Parting thot: "The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be." - Paul Valery

Is that Quite Clear or only Quite Clear?

In physical or mental translation, we often stumble upon English-language quirks which we have just accepted for decades without really noticing.

 

The latest is the very common word "Quite".

Has it ever occurred to you that it has 2 mutually-exclusive meanings?
That everybody uses it without specifying which meaning they have in mind?
And that nobody ever seems to be confused as a result?
Some kind of miracle!

Here are pairs of meanings from various dictionaries:
Cambridge
1. Completely
2. A little or a lot but not completely
WordReference
1. Absolutely; completely
2. Fairly; moderately
Wordnet
1. Rather; to a degree
2. To the greatest possible extent; completely
Macmillan
1. Fairly but not very
2. Completely
WordSmyth
1. To the greatest extent; completely; entirely
2. To a large degree

I have a lot of sympathy for foreigners struggling with English.

Parting thot: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte

Down the Drain?

Googling anything about coffee & plumbing, in English, will throw up pages, mainly American, of dire warnings about the dangers of blocking your drains if you put coffee grounds down.
Intuitively, that is easy to accept.

In France, it is a well-known "fact" that putting coffee grounds down the drain can often help unblock it & will certainly help prevent future blocking...

Different coffee or different drains?

I never saw a reasonable explanation for either result.

We have had a chronically partially-blocked drain for over 10 years, which seems to have been miraculously cured since we decided to risk the French approach.

No garantees, and these could well be famous last words...

Parting thot: "Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature." - Paul Valery

Take Your Pick...

Back in the UK, I/we used to think 21st December was (about) the shortest day, so things would only get better from then on.
It was like the bottom of the trough.

Here in France, 21st December is - the first day of winter.
Three months of cold struggle before the beginning of Spring...
Brrr!

Think I will stick with my old idea!

Parting thot: "A pessimist is just an optimist with experience!" - Anon

Intangible?

French has a number of well-known pitfalls for English-speakers.
Words which look as though they obviously mean one thing, but actually mean something else.

Probably the most frequently encountered is "eventuellement" which looks as though it should mean "eventually" (sooner or later; in the long run) but actually means "possibly" (maybe or maybe not).

Recently, I was confused when several Government Ministers started talking about plans to reduce deficits being "intangible".
I naturally assumed this French word meant the same as its identical-looking English counterpart (immaterial, hard to grasp or define) but that didn't make sense.

A selection of dictionaries showed that whilst basically meaning "untouchable", that can be used either in the sense of "immaterial & hard to grasp" or as "sacred & must not be altered".
The Ministers were using the second sense.

How can you spend 35 years immersed in a language & still discover blind spots?

Parting thot: "Language is the source of misunderstandings." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Only an Idiot...

...would drive into a bottomless 60cm-diameter hole in the pavement, in broad daylight, wouldn't you think?
 

So I don't know what my excuse is!

Actually, I blame Jean-Pierre Pernaud.
I mentioned previously that we often watch his 1-o'clock niaise program, in spite of our better judgement.
The day world war 3 breaks out, Jean-Pierre will still start with the weather, then an item about the cost of school satchels & maybe a piece about yet another village losing its last grocery shop, before mentioning that unfortunately...
But he does include good cameos on France & the French.

This week's series was on The Route des Vins in Alsace.
http://www.tf1.fr/jt-13h/magazines-semaine/la-route-des-vins-d-alsace-6662887.html
On Monday, they visited Niedermorschwihr & we realized that, although we have "done" the route des vins many, many times, we have never seen Niedermorschwihr or heard of its spiral church tower. 
So on Wednesday, we set off to have a look.
We drove to Colmar & followed a sign towards Ingersheim, only to realize we were heading east instead of west.
Wanting to consult the map (remember those?) & probably make a U-turn, I drove onto a wide pavement & stopped.
The need for a U-turn confirmed, I started to drive off & was dumbfounded, like a nonchalant bear falling into a bear-trap, when the supposed-earth dematerialised under the front of the car!
With the car resting on its sill, I thought we would need hoisting out, but in fact it backed out easily.
A careful look all round the tyre showed no obvious damage, but a couple of km further on, the heavying steering warned of partial deflation & I had to change the wheel.
Not surprisingly, the tyre had in fact been cut by the sharp edge of the cast-iron tree-surround it had just visited.

Oh well - chalk it up to experience.
Not too bad as the tyre had cost 65€ 49 000km ago & was about 60% worn.
Ah - but you cannot have more than 5mm difference in tread depth between tyres on the same axle...
So - make that 2 new tyres = 130€.
Then, I run all year round on Winter tyres (long subject of future post?) & my garage could not find any Pirelli SnowControl 190's in the 165/65-R13 size needed to match the other tyres.
It was 29°C at the time & they suggested trying again nearer Winter...
Checking Pirelli's websites, I found the situation was worse than that - they no longer make Winter tyres for 13" wheels!
Goodyear? - same thing!
Continental? - nope...

As far as I can see, the only 13" winter tyres available are from Firestone (not a favorite make) or from various third-world never-heard-of's.
I suppose that is the cost of the stupid fashion for ever-bigger wheels.
Come back Issigonis - all is foregiven!

Parting thot: "Qui trop s'excuse, s'accuse." - French proverb

Cash Out?

Back in March, we skied in Plagne Bellecote.
Not a very remarkable or innovative sort of place.
So I was surprised when, at a supermarket checkout, my change came showering out of a machine instead of being handed over by the cashier.
First time I have seen such an arrangement.

You also feed your coins into it, but notes still pass via the human interface.
They must have had a good salesperson pass through, as several of the (not many) shops there had the same device.

Yesterday, on a Brompton bike ride, I stopped for coffee & cake in a patisserie in Neuhof.
An even less remarkable & innovative place, to put it kindly...
And there, standing imperiously & incongruously in the middle of the counter, was the same "CashGuard" I had seen in Bellecote.

CashGuard's website http://www.cashguard.com/en/ says they are Scandinavian, have been in business for 20 years & sold over 16000 systems, so maybe I have just not been looking...
They point out advantages in hygiene, security, speed & accuracy.
Not mentioning that cashiers no longer need to be able to count...
I suppose most of what they say is broadly true.

But all of it will be rendered obsolete if Mastercard (& Visa?) get their way.

They just changed my credit card for a new one with contactless, PIN-less operation (http://www.paypass.com/) for amounts under €25.
Aimed at replacing cash for even the smallest transactions.
At participating stores only, of course, which so far is none.

Obviously, the possible success of this venture depends on them being willing & able to operate the system without charging shop-keepers too much.
Time will tell.

Although I strongly dislike the duopoly of Mastercard & Visa, I have to believe this is a more elegant solution than CashGuard's.

And hides a lot less croissants.

Parting thot: "The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled." - J K Galbraith

15 cents a kilo...

We now (temporarily) have what look like "his & hers" wheely bins.

The big scruffy one has been in service for maybe 15 years.
The demure little one next to it is the latest high-tech, low-decibel, computer-chipped miracle which is aiming to curb our profligate tendencies.

It all started with warning salvo(e)s in the letter box.
The Community of Communes (local authority for waste collection etc) had decided to introduce "incitative pricing".
Followed several leaflets giving the general reasoning & rough proposals.
- Preserve the environment
- Reduce incineration
- Reduce costs
- Be fairer
Charge per collection & per kilo...

We were then invited to a presentation & discussion at the village hall.

Never have so many inhabitants been crammed into that hall!
Not even for free beer at the Social & Sports Club AGM.

Never has audience attention been so wrapt.
Certainly not at the Social & Sports Club AGM.

Never have tempers been so near to fraying!
Never has neighbourliness looked more flimsy!

The presentation showed the current situation, with ever-increasing quantities of waste & even-faster-increasing costs for disposal.
The efforts which have already gone into closing tips; providing bottle-banks, paper-&-plastic skips in each commune; opening "déchetteries" where you can take your garden refuse, wood, metal, rubble, batteries, oil, paint etc etc to be recycled or disposed of as well as possible.

Then the new proposals:
- Smaller bins (120L for 1-2 people, 180L for 3+ people)
- Keep the weekly collection, only collecting bins put outside.
- Automatically weigh each bin & record number of collections in the year (each bin has identification chip, as well as big printed address label)
- Allow 12 collections per year free of collection charge.
- Collections over 12 charged at €1.50 each.
- All rubbish (even in free collections) charged at €0.15 per kilogramme.
- Annual fixed charge per house unchanged at €30.
- Annual fixed charge per person, reduced from €70 to €35.

They showed several "typical" cases, indicating that most people will pay less with the new system.
People who take paper, bottles etc to the containers will pay quite a bit less.
Anybody putting all their rubbish in the bin will pay quite a bit more.

The subsequent discussion was very heated.
- "You mean I am supposed to leave my shrimps & fish-heads rotting for a month till the next free collection?"
- "I want a lock so nobody else fills my bin, leaving me to pay..."
- "What happens if somebody dies part-way through the year?" (I think they were worrying about charges, not disposal).
- "We all know lots of houses who don't declare all occupants..."
etc etc.

We left before anybody got hurt.

Now the new bins are here, but we get 6 months "free" trial with dummy bills before the new charges come in - to iron out any difficulties.
The whole thing seems quite well thought out, except it penalizes old/infirm/immobile people who can't run their heavy rubbish to the bottle-banks etc.
I think the lesson is, that you really grab people's attention when you bring their money into the discussion!

Full details:
http://www.kochersberg.fr/Vivre/Dechets_menagers/La_redevance_incitative__RI

Parting thot: "Taxation with representation ain't so hot either." - Gerald Barzan

Strawberries & ... huh?

It's the strawberry season again.

At least it is in Tunisia, judging by the shelves in our local Super-U.
So we are torn between our ecological conscience which only approves of zero-km fruit (last years apples?) & socio-economical pressure to support budding democracy.

Throwing our lot in with democracy, we bought a few grammes of Tunisian strawberries.
Not sure how far that will push the cursor from the political end-stop, but at least the thought was there.

The strawberries were surprisingly good.
Whereas early strawberries are nearly always disappointingly tasteless.
To the point where, every year, we say "must remember not to do that again".
But always give in too soon.

Traditionally, one always links strawberries & cream, doesn't one?
Especially when one is at Wimbledon.

But I find cream just smothers, dilutes & hides the strawberry flavour.
And we rarely have thick cream handy at the right time anyway.
So we normally prefer ours with vanilla ice-cream instead.
That has been our "norm" for decades.

For some reason which I can't remember now, I recently tried my strawberries with, of all things, coconut yoghurt.
And the combination is (for me) brilliant.
I would certainly never go back to ice-cream or mere cream, now.

This is as near as you are likely to get to a recipe in this blog, so make the most of it.

Parting thot: "Save the earth.  It's the only planet with chocolate." - Anon

Need Visa for Germany

Back in February I ordered a horrendously-expensive new bike.
Made in Germany.
Their only outlet in France is in Paris, so I chose to order it from a dealer in a village near Baden-Baden.

The ordering process seemed to go OK, in a mixture of German, French, English & gestures.
Though I was a little surprised & dubitative when they didn't ask for any deposit or ID at that stage.

So I was relieved when they eventually rang to say it was available & I was again surprised when they suggested I take it for a ride, still with no deposit.
Unfortunately, the German/French/English/gestures had failed to get over the message about the non-standard chainwheel I wanted, resulting in a couple of weeks delay while they found & fitted the right parts.

I went to collect it, finally, this week.
Naturally enough, I pulled out my Mastercard.
And was more than surprised to be told they only accepted Visa!
"In fact, Germans usually pay cash" said the assistant, adding that Visa-only was common in small towns, though I don't know how true that is.

Of course I am aware that, in Germany, low-margin supermarkets often don't accept credit cards, instead usually having convenient cash-dispensers available.
But not high-margin sports goods dealers.
That must be the first time in 30 years I have heard of anybody accepting only one of Mastercard/Visa.

The happy outcome was that I left with the bike, merely promising to transfer the money to their account!

All I need now is their IBAN number & I am still waiting for them to e-mail me that.
I can't imagine such trust in France.

The bike is fine, if depressingly black.
The brightest bits are the tyres & chain.

Parting thot: "If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." - Jean Paul Getty

Saucer (soh-say not sor-ser)

I don't know how things are in Anglo-Saxon circles these days, but when I pulled out at age 33 I had never mopped up my gravy with a piece of bread.
At least not in polite company.

Here, happily, such behaviour is, to coin a phrase, de rigeur.
As much part of the great French cultural heritage as, say, peeing at the side of the road.
Anybody seen leaving good gravy on his plate when there is good bread in the basket, must be assumed to be ill.
Or foreign, which comes to the...

There is even a special verb for it - saucer.

I have not read the details of the recent Unesco World Cultural Heritage award to French Gastronomy.
But I am sure mopping up the last of the gravy with fresh French bread must figure prominently.

Parting thot: "You can travel fifty thousand miles in America without once tasting a piece of good bread." - Henry Miller

French Burglary 101

I hesitated before posting this, as I don't approve of disseminating potentially harmful information.

But then - anybody can find it in 5 minutes Googling & burglars already know it.

Innocent householders like me though, maybe don't.

And maybe should.

We recently returned from a week's absence to find we couldn't unlock the usual door to get into the house.

Fortunately, AA had stayed home & had found the problem when inside trying to get out, rather than outside trying to get in, and had been able to use a second entrance, which is normally double-locked & chained.

So we had a problem, but not an emergency.

Had we been stuck outside, we would probably have called out a locksmith, which is notoriously expensive & (as I now know) pointless.

I knew nothing about French (or any other) door-locks, but a bit of Googling soon made things obvious.

See top picture.

The lock is in 2 parts:

1. The big rectangular latch mechanism, which can only be removed from the door when the door is open & after the barrel is removed.

2. The lock barrel, which is inserted in the keyhole of the latch mechanism & held in place by a screw which can only be removed when the door is open...

So nice guys can't remove the lock without unlocking it.

I had not previously realized that there are actually 2 separate lock barrels; one for the key from inside & one for the key from outside.

They are joined together by a very small section of metal, the rest of the keyhole section being cut away between the 2 barrels to allow rotation of the lug which operates the latch.

That very small section of metal is then drastically weakened by being drilled & tapped for the screw which holds the barrel into the latch mechanism.

So you don't need to be much of an engineer (or much of a burglar) to see where to attack this lock.

I used an adjustable spanner, clamped it snuggly on the rectangular section of the protruding barrel, and pushed sideways.

The barrel instantly broke at the ridiculously fragile center portion & the 2 halves fell out of the door.

A screwdriver was enough to slide the latch open & we were home.

Sobering to realize that any burglar with 5 minutes theory/practice could break in silently in less than 30 seconds!

I don't think our lock was unusually fragile either.

They all seem to have much the same weak link.

Even the ones with extremely fancy unreproducible keys & astronomic price tags...

Examples borrowed from http://www.hellopro.fr/

http://www.hellopro.fr/cylindre-europeen-abus-et-abloy-2000864-1471981-produit.html

http://www.hellopro.fr/cylindre-europeen-de-haute-securite-satyx-2000864-325088-produit.html

http://www.hellopro.fr/cylindre-europeen-de-securite-fenyx-2000864-325089-produit.html

http://www.hellopro.fr/cylindre-de-serrure-surete-europeen-y200-2000864-325083-produit.html

Conclusion?

These locks will only keep out people who don't really want to get in, or have only bare hands available.

I have to think seriously about getting something quite different.

Maybe you do too?

Parting thot: "Locks keep out only the honest." - Jewish proverb

Tea-for-Two Bags?

I regularly drink Redbush or Rooibos tea.

At least I do when I can find it, as it is not common here.

It is cheaper to order it from UK by internet & pay 50% extra for postage, than to get it locally.

Best is when kind UK visitors bring a few boxes, free of p&p.

It is supposed to have great soothing capacity.

But as soon as I open the box, I am un-soothed by the inexplicable fact that the bags are in twos...

So, in transfering the 80 bags from the original cardboard box to an air-tight caddy, as recommended, I have to patiently tear apart 40 pairs.

They are not even decently perforated, so care is required to avoid ripping them open, especially if you try to do several at once.

OK - this is not one of life's great tragedies, but why on earth would anybody do it like that?

Don't try to tell me it is a significant cost saving.

Do they think it somehow increases customer satisfaction?

Did nobody ever tell them?

Parting thot: "Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone." - Jim Fiebig

My 3 MWh

Actually 3138kWh.

That's what our solar panels have produced in exactly a year.

Very satisfactory, compared with the 2560kWh suggested (as a conservative estimate) by the salesman.

Or the 2793kWh estimated by the very sophisticated PVSYST simulation program.

But I have to expect about 1% efficiency loss per year.

Already included in the budgeting.

All I have to do now, is to enter 3138kWh on the form kindly sent by Electricité de Strasbourg, send it back & wait for the Euros to appear in the bank...

As we signed up early, when the government was still enthusiastic, we qualify for 0.58€/kWh, so should get 1820€.

For future PhotoVoltaicists, the conditions will be much less attractive.

The tax credit has been slashed from 8000€ to 4000€ & the price per kWh (for new producers) has dropped a lot & will continue to drop.

For once, it looks as though we did something right!

Famous last words?

Parting thot: "Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you." - Maori Proverb

Watch Out for Hens' Nests!

Not really a very common road sign, but I did notice one today, which triggered this short post.

The normal, and graphic, French expression for a pothole in the road is "Nid de Poule" (Hen's Nest).

Much more frequent are the warnings "Trous en formation" which always conjure images of holes (trous) in the road in some artistic regular array, like the Red Arrows or La Patrouille de France.

The reality is less glamorous - just random potholes.

The "en formation" bit doesn't mean "in formation" - just "in process of development".

Parting thot: "You and I come by road or rail, but economists travel on infrastructure." - Margaret Thatcher