28th November 2020
What to call this month’s blog?
I started writing this blog entry on 16th November but things and events overtook me and I’m now trying to play catch-up (again!).
Anyway, as usual, there’s lots to talk about but let’s start with some good personal news – no my legs haven’t grown back but we do now have what is in effect an extra room to the house. The terrace is, to all intents and purposes finished. There are still a few stones to lay and a coping stone to fit – delayed due to a constantly dripping tap – but our English builder Barry has done a great job and we’re really pleased with him and his work. He’s had to figure out what our French builder was trying to do, undo what he’d done wrong and he’s played a blinder. He’s started on the base for a conservatory, again having to figure out what Christophe was planning and, surprise surprise, re-work the absolute mess he’d made of laying the pillars for the concrete beams that support the floor – basically re-lay the concrete foundations and pillars. All at some cost to us I’m afraid to say – but more about that later. I was hoping the supporting concrete and pillars for the base would be finished by the end of next week (which is now, as I write, 28th November) but other works got in the way – namely the car-port. More on that in a while. When the concreting for the beams has been finished we will have to wait for a month for it to fully harden before the pre-cast reinforced beams can be positioned and the blocks can be put in place and then concreted over. This will give a layer of concrete, insulation and then more concrete all ready for a structure to be erected and the floor finished off. It’ll be Spring before the conservatory will be finished – another room to look forward to – and then we’ll be having long discussions over how best to use it over a glass or two of vin rouge.
Here are a few pictures of our new terrace / outdoor living room:
When I was writing on 16th November 2020 Barry and his mate Garry were busy putting up a car-port for us. Again this is a job started by Christophe who laid the concrete base – an enormous slab of concrete measuring 9m x 4m (or so we thought). It took four of them to lay it – him, two of his sons and a farmer friend – and guess what? Yep – he messed that up as well. The uprights are supported by metal plates and brackets, bolted to the concrete and in his infinite wisdom he chose to concrete them in as he laid the base, rather than drill the holes for them when the concrete had hardened. Have you guessed what’s coming next? Gosh you’re good aren’t you – yep – all the fixing points were in the wrong place so that meant more re-working, more wages, for Barry, Garry and Marco (their Dutch labourer) and more cost to us. Anyway the main frame is now up and Barry has clad the sides so we can turn the car-port (for which we have permission) into an open fronted garage (for which we do not have permission) – I’m being a bit sneaky but heh ho. I’ve designed the roof structure and am busy getting quotes for the timber and roofing materials as through all of this me, Karen and the English guys have had to try to figure out just what Christophe had planned as nothing was drawn and shown to us.
We haven’t seen sight nor sound of him since I fired him in August – not even to pick up his hand tools (shovels etc.), power tools, wheelbarrow and concrete mixer. We’re probably looking after the best part of 1,000€ worth of kit for him. Karen has worked out we probably owe him 500€ in wages but I’m not concerned about that as we’ve lost at least that amount in wasted or spoilt materials (now buried under the terrace but with lots of photos as evidence) and the cost of Barry putting his dropped b######s right. When I called him to fire him I had to leave him a message as he’d stopped picking up for me but I did tell him to call to arrange to pick up his stuff. I’m still waiting and am looking forward to him trying to explain himself. Friends have wondered if he’ll bother, given the crap job he’s done so far which he must have known he’d done, and sheer embarrassment will keep him away. Looks like I’ve got me a concrete mixer and a decent angle-grinder!
We’re trying hard to make all the construction works look like they’ve been around for generations and so not look out of place. With regard to the car-port (which will over time transform into a garage) that would mean slates or pantiles. Slates run at 1€ each and the roof will probably come in at something like 65m2 – times that by 12 per m2 – allow for breakages – so call it 800 slates at 50 cents per for a cost of 800€ (400€ if we use fake slates) plus labour for the day. Slates weigh so the actual roof structure would have to be built accordingly – more cost – tiles are heavy as well so keeping it in the local style, one might think, will be expensive. Except that the local farmers are nothing if not frugal and most roofs on agricultural buildings are covered in metal sheets. Given that it’s only a car-port of sorts that looks like the way to go and I will be investigating the price per m2 and then see if Karen can be persuaded. More on all this next month as Garry the Builder is unavailable for two weeks so progress has had to come to a standstill – but we only need a roof now – have a look at this:
That’s not quite all the good news though. The French confinement has a couple more weeks to run yet but there is talk of Christmas getting kicked into the long grass with bars and restaurants staying closed until 15th January 2021. This would send shivers of terror through the UK, Farage’s mob would be rioting and the right-wing media and all their supporters would be apoplectic with rage – profit will always trump the health of the poor – but here in France it will all be put up with – for a couple of simple reasons. One – it makes sense to restrict social mixing whilst the virus continues to rip through communities, and two – Christmas remains very much a religious festival, yes to be shared with nearest and dearest, but it isn’t a two or even three week binge of booze, gluttony and other over-indulgency. Here it’s Mass on Christmas Eve night, home for a meal and the exchange of modest gifts. Christmas Day is very quiet – almost a normal day as the local Bakery will be open – and they don’t do Boxing Day, it’s all hands back on deck on 26th December. That all makes a whole lot of sense to me – and not just because of the money saved.
Even though we are ‘locked down’ it is only after a fashion. The French authorities insist people behave accordingly and accept their responsibilities so before you can leave the house (for anything) you have to fill in an attestation – basically honestly stating why you are out and about. Your word is your bond – something someone like Johnson will never understand. The attestation can be a printed out form, signed, timed and dated or completed using an app on your smartphone. The app generates a QR code which the Gendarmes can scan. It’s all very simple and seems to be working. Being out and about without face-masks is frowned on – shop workers will turn you back if you’re without one and even schoolkids (over 6 years) wear them.
Karen and I took to eating out every Sunday lunch – it saves all that preparing, cooking and cleaning up – and it’s basically our weekly ‘date’ but the confinement has closed all the restaurants – except that they can still do ‘take aways’ – which one of our favourites is doing (Le Damier) – it’s called service traiteur and to fully understand it imagine someone like Tom Kerridge or one of those other UK Michelin starred chefs doing take-away. Three courses of top quality, Restaurant quality food, for £15 per head. We tried it last Sunday – the main course was bouef en croute – in a gorgeous mushroom sauce and perfect pomme de terre gratinee -the beef was from a friend of ours called Joseph who has a fully bio herd so we knew what to expect and weren’t disappointed – it was delicious so we’re trying it again tomorrow
The next few paragraphs are from 16th November – but remain relevant given the ‘chumocracy’ that is running amok within Downing Street.
We watch the UK news every night and Wednesdays’ Prime Ministers Questions is a ‘must watch’ event but, as you would no doubt expect. I’m getting angrier and angrier at the cavalier way Johnson’s mob are handing out billions of tax-payers money to their friends, with no due process or accountability. You might wonder why this annoys me so much given that I live in France, as you might wonder what it’s got to do with me any more? Well I’ll tell you. I remain a UK tax-payer – it’s as simple as that. Until my last employer signed me off their books last year I was a 40% rate payer, I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve never been unemployed and so I have an almost 50 year history of PAYE and National Insurance payments. I contributed all this money willingly, for the benefit of the society in which I lived – not for Tory t##ts to give away to their mates! All the money Sunak is borrowing on our behalf will have to be repaid sooner or later and how can it be right that he’s borrowing money that we’ve got to pay back only for billions of it to be trousered by his mates!?
Talking about Sunak as we were – have you seen this? The crook could buy and sell a small sized country but is awash in sleaze!
Have a look at this link to a Guardian editorial – especially the reference to Liz Truss and Ayanda Capital – it all makes scary reading. I’ve banged on about the years of austerity UK citizens have suffered for 10 years after bailing out the Banks. Can a society still reeling from that, the impact of Covid-19 and the economic impact heading our way on New Year’s Day 2021. I think not.
There should be riots on the streets about this – seriously – mass civil disturbance is the only action that they’ll listen to. Who remembers the Poll Tax riots in Thatcher’s time? It’s time to wind back the clock people. As George Monbiot asks – why aren’t the rest of you incandescent with rage – because me and George bloody well are!
The mainstream media aren’t helping either – how much have you heard about this on the BBC for instance? I intend writing (e-mithering) Johnson and his mob on this issue in the next few days – it cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. Instead the media want to seemingly take Corbyn’s side in the ongoing Labour party anti-Semitism row – strange how the one time pariah of the media now shows as a hard done by product of the continuing (and continual) Left v Right power struggle for the Labour Party. For what it’s worth I never voted for Corbyn as Leader but accepted the result. I totally opposed his position over Brexit (and remain convinced that Lexiteers have totally let down ‘ordinary’ people by abandoning them to the consequences of Brexit for the same ideological crap the Brexiteers pedalled) but always believed he was a man of principle. Unfortunately his principles are wedded to a bygone era. The world has moved on, he hasn’t. He lost us the election and he continues to divert attention from the main task in hand – to hold Johnson and his mob of morons to scrutiny. His response to the investigation into anti-Semitism wasn’t good enough, remains not good enough and, if Starmer is to root out the cancer that is anti-Semitism within the Labour Party then he has to stand firm on this as a point of principle.
Having said all of that, if Starmer then insists that Labour support the s####y Brexit deal that is the best we can expect from Johnson and his mob of morons then me and the Labour Party are very likely to come to a parting of the ways. Under no circumstances should the labour Party be seen to be accepting and collude in a crap deal – it’s Johnson’s baby and he should be made to take responsibility for it – but then hang on – he doesn’t for any of his others does he??
Moving on I suppose we should all be breathing a sigh of relief that Cummings has been consigned to history but unfortunately the damage he has caused will live on for a long, long time. It’s not even safe for us to assume that the ‘real’ Johnson will emerge from this shambles as it’s apparent now that he has merely swapped one sort of evil influence for another. Instead of Cummings and Cain controlling him his gonads are getting squeezed by Carrie, Allegra and Munira – we’ve gone from Dom and Dimmer to Macbeths three witches, busily stirring their cauldron. I’ve got to ask – has the man no original ideas of his own, no sense of?? Well, any sense at all?
One consequence of Carrie inhabiting Cummings’s old pants is that Johnson seems to have gone ‘green’ – although his green promises seem to include money already allocated. Sunak’s autumn statement did little to put people’s fears about their jobs’ and futures to rest and it contained lots of little hidden gems – such as Johnson conveniently forgetting his election promise about superfast broadband. The funding has been slashed so it wont happen. Corbyn got slated for promising free broadband in the Labour Party election manifesto, Johnson then promised it and as soon as he could dropped it! Where are the Roosevelt’ian projects the country needs? Where are the plans to fund and drive, for instance, a massive infrastructure build to lay the cables and charging points that we will need for all the electric cars approaching on the horizon? Private enterprise wont do it – the government can and should. Part of my plan for my new car-port is to get EDF to drop me a power cable from the little pylon next to it so I can put electricity for sockets, lights AND a charging point so that our (Karen’s) next car can be electric. If I can think and plan ahead why can’t the Eton Bullingdon Club brain-box?
Similarly a proper superfast broadband network. As an ex-BT employee of over 33 years I can’t see Openreach doing it and none of the other Telco’s as was, ISP’s as
are now are have the capability. Even my little backwater part of rural France is ploughing lots of money and effort into providing fibre broadband – mile after mile of new pole routes are being constructed to put fibre overhead to the smallest of villages (like ours) and real money is being invested in providing underground routes to the larger villages and small towns. They are even resurfacing roads to make the new groundworks necessary for underground fibre easier to build. And where’s the money coming from I hear you say – well being a member of the European Union has its benefits.
Covid continues to spread and kill people – which comes as no surprise given the free-for-all that Johnson enabled over the summer. Now we have to worry about the forthcoming Christmas ‘celebrations’ which, I’m sure, will lead to a third wave in late January / early February – just when the NHS is historically most busy. The obviously flawed ‘Tier’ system has put over half the population under lockdown by another name and even the medics have said Tier 1 doesn’t work. Does this government have no idea the chances they are taking with people’s lives? What annoys me is that the UK isn’t really celebrating a religious festival, for the vast majority of Brits Christmas is just a two week booze and eating binge, the winter equivalent of two weeks p####d on one of the Costa’s. Take a moment to think about all those amongst us who gave up, or will give up their (truly) religious festivals – Hanukkah, Eid and Diwali for instance – with regret but willingly – because they knew it was the right thing to do. Sometimes I just gasp in disbelief!
All I’ll say is that people need to be fully aware that enjoying a slap up Christmas dinner with family and friends could well mean one of your companions this year might be missing in 2021 – it’s your choice and you’ll have to live with the consequences.
On a lighter note – my application for my UK Old Age Pension is ready to go. We’ll go to the Post Office tomorrow and get it sent off, registered post. Fancy that – having to apply for your own, deservedly earnt pension. It’s not like HMRC, DWP and the NHS don’t know where I am but still I’ve had to apply for it. What’s really funny is that the French, laughed at by many as being overly bureaucratic, wrote to Karen last week advising her that as a consequence of having worked in France for a year or so back in 1976 or 77 she would be receiving a French State Pension as of her birthday next year. It might well be only 30€ a month but the French saw her on their systems and contacted her. How good is that?
Well that’s all for now but I will write again before Christmas. My parting message remains, as always, the same – Covid kills, it’s out there, it knows no boundaries and doesn’t know what date it is. Please, please, please be careful.
Thanks
Jem