Category Archives: radio anglais

Monday 21st October 2013 – HERE’S SOMEONE WITH A SORE HEAD

renault clio in ditch pionsat puy de dome franceThis was what greeted me this morning on my way round to Cécile’s house. Someone clearly not paying enough attention last night.

Its not the first time that Ive encountered a car in a ditch of course. Keen readers of this rubbish will recall that on my way to the footy at Combronde a few years ago I encountered another one in a ditch near Menat. On that occasion the driver would indeed have had a headache as there was a head-shaped dent in the windscreen just above the steering wheel, but in the case of this car there was no such evidence (I did look).

But just for a change I was up early, as I needed to be. First stop was fuel at the Intermarche at Piosat, and second was at Marianne’s to pick up Cécile’s keys. Then, passing by the car in the ditch I went on to her house.

font nanaud hanging cloud gorges de la sioule st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceAt the top of the Font Nanaud there was this spectacular site waiting to greet me. Usually, quite early in the morning, there’s a hanging cloud that sits in the Gorges de la Sioule and when you pass by the Birdwatching Centre beyond St Gervais, you can see it.

Today though, it had well-overflowed the Gorges and St Gervais, just down there in that valley, was totally overwhelmed. I hadn’t seen it that dramatically before.

Once I’d sorted out Cécile’s affairs I went off chaud-pied to St Gervais to pick up Liz who had taken the Punto for its controle technique, and we shot off to Gerzat to record the Arverne sessions of Radio Anglais.

That wasn’t as easy as it might have been eiter as Bernard had forgotten that we were coming, and then everything that could possibly go pear-shaped did go pear-shaped and if we had had the time I would have done it all over again.

I took Liz for lunch afterwards as she deserved it, and then I came home. I should have gone to Brussels this evening too but what with a very late night last night (I can’t believe how stressful it is these days dealing with other people’s problems when they don’t really want them dealt with) and I wasn’t up for a 750km drive through the night.

I went to bed instead.

-5

Friday 18th October 2013 – IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG …

… for the battery issue to resolve itself. I’m not going to pretend that I’ve brought all the good weather back with me from Greece, but there’s no doubt that once the weather eye cottoned on to the fact that I was back, the weather has improved no end.

Yesterday I had 200 amp-hours of solar energy and today the batteries topped out to such an extent that I had almost 40 amp-hours of excess charge. Thats good news in itself. but it’s clear from the performance and the statistics that I’ve been keeping is that one of the batteries is on the point of handing in its hat. I have all of the new batteries that I bought – they are still there waiting and so when I finally return from Brussels (I’m heading off there early nrxt week) I’ll change them all over.

This morning though I was off to Marcillat and Radio Tartasse for today’s recordings of “Radio Anglais”. I did the rock programmes and then Liz joined me for the information stuff. We went for a coffee and chat afterwards and then I came home.

First job was to fix the letter box. You may remember from ages back that strange things have been happening to it, and when I came back from Greece it had been propped up against one of the cars in the car park. I spent a pleasant 10 minutes anchoring it back in the ground where it can stay until I have more time to deal with it.

After lunch I started work on another series of radio programmes. We’re recording the “Radio Anglais” programmes for Radio Arverne on Monday and the text needs to be written for that, but I also need more topics for discussion as the pipeline is running low. There were a variety of taxation changes in July this year so I’ve started to do a programme about that lot.

Apart from that, not an awful lot has happened. But I’m not in a rush to start anything because if I’m heading up to Brussels on Monday or Tuesday, it will be just something else that I’ve failed to finish and I have enough projects like that already on the go.

-6

Thursday 17th October 2013 – I’VE BEEN BACK AT WORK TODAY

Not much though – just gradually easing myself in.

I had a couple of radio programmes to write for Radio Anglais – for the rock music shows that we broadcast onn Radio Tartasse. It took me a while to find the hard drive with the music on before I could start anything, but that’s all finished and up and running. I’m using a few songs from the enormous pile of CDs that I bought earlier. Did I mention that I bought no less than 20 CDs from various second-hand stores in Canada and the USA?

For the live concert, I’m treating my listeners to a surprise in December. Together with Neil Young and Warren Zevon, I’ve been taking an enormous amount of mickey out of one particular group. Due to tragic circumstances that unfolded, maybe it’s not a very clever thing to continue it these days and so as a kind of homage, I’ll be playing a concert, the tape of which I discovered in a Salvation Army charity shop in Presque Isle, Maine. Rare is not the word unfortunately, but nevertheless there’s quite a twist in the tail of this concert.

Anyway, that took me the best part of the mornng, particularly as it took me an age to make the external CD Drive function properly.

This afternoon I’ve tidied up in here and reconfigured things a little. Tidying up was exciting of course, but I’ve not yet managed to make my new laptop work with the wifi on the Livebox here. However, as I discovered, it does work of an ADSL cable, so I’ve had to move my office around a little so the cable can reach the laptop.

I’ve also been doing another web page. A musician called Thom Swift has seen my sample pics of his performance at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival and wants to see more of them. The easiest way is to do a web page with them all on, and so I’ve been working on that. It’s not finished yet but hopefully I shall have it done tomorrow.

I need to get my pages up on line asap.

-8

Monday 26th August 2013 – WELL, I MADE IT TO THE AIRPORT

terminal 2 airport charles de gaulle paris franceBut it wasn’t half touch and go, I’ll tell you.

I didn’t manage to get anything in the way of sleep last night either, because I couldn’t find the keys to my storage box and my safety deposit box in Canada.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and so I put a couple of batteries for the Ryobi angle grinder on charge. It’s as well to be prepared, and that will sort out the men from the boys of course. After that, desperate measures were called for and I started going through all of the waste bins.

I’m glad I did because I found my missing personal telephone directory NOYE TO SELF – have a word with Cécile about her method of tidying up. I found lots of other disagreeable objects but no keys and at 08:52 I called it a day and started to pack everything away.

However, I had a thought. I definitely remember putting the keys in a zipped pocket and they ought to be in the zipped pocket of my “Canada Electrical” bag. But I didn’t remember opening the suitcase after I locked up the storage unit. I’d tipped out my sac banane where there are about four zipped pockets, and the keys weren’t there either of course, but there was a zipped pocket on the computer and camera hold-all.

And sure enough, with just a couple of minutes to go, I emptied that out, and there they were! Phew! That was a close shave!

So at Radio Tartasse I recorded two months of rock programmes, then Liz and I did 6 weeks of “Radio Anglais”. I stopped off at the Pionsat Intermarché to buy a pile of bread and salad and I’ve made a mountain of butties – I know all about the closed restaurant round the corner from my hotel and I have my suspicions about Air Transat and their choice of vegan food. It’s as well to be prepared.

caliburn at liz and terry messenger sauret besserve puy de dome franceAfter taking Julie and Clare’s furniture out of Caliburn, I garaged him right round the back of Liz and Terry’s where he can stay quiet for 6 weeks or so out of the way and be good.

Liz kindly prepared lunch, a salad and bread, and I shaved my head with the hair trimmer. There are First Nation Canadians, or Amerindiens, around by where I’m going and I’ve heard all kinds of stories about the Malicete. I’m not leaving them anything to pull off. Anyway, after all of that, we went down to Gerzat in Liz’s car to record 5 weeks of “Radio Anglais” for Radio Arverne.

diesel multiple unit sncf french railways riom puy de dome franceThat was for once quite straightforward and then Liz dropped me off at the station in plenty of time for my train.

I’ve no idea what make or model it is – I shall have to refer to my Jane’s Train Recognition Guide for that, but I can tell you that it wasn’t as rattly or as bangy as the one last time I came here. And as nothing at all exciting happened during the voyage, we arrived in Lyon, and Lyon is much more civilised than trying to go via Paris. I had time to eat some butties and drink a coffee.

double decker TGV Lyon part dieu paris charles de gaulle SNCF French railways franceIn the TGV though we were like sardines. I was lucky in that I boarded early and so I managed to grab a place on the difficult rail halfway down the carriage. Anyone who came after me was struggling for luggage space. It really is ridiculous – why don’t they have a luggage van and a baggagiste on each of the trains? That would make everything so much simpler.

And a good 25 minutes late, due to a tardy connection, we hurtled off into the night with kids screaming and all kinds of things. And not even a place to swing a cat. I hate to think what this would be like on a Saturday evening.

That 25 minutes ended up as being a whopping great 44 minutes by the time that we arrived at the station at Terminal 2, and although that might seem like bad news, it is in fact the first bit of good news that I have had for about a week because it entitles me to a refund of 25% on my ticket – something that I shall be following up with vigour.

paris charles de gaulle airport terminal 2 waiting for hotel shuttle bus franceUp in a crowded lift from the first floor to the fifth floor and into a heaving mass of people waiting for the hotel buses. Last year I stepped out of the station and onto the bus – this year I think that everyone else’s bus must have done 5 or 6 trips before mine came. But at least that had dispersed the masses and we were a mere 12 on the bus.

Having now had a shower (and we aren’t talking about the OUSA Exeecutive Committee here), configured the new laptop for the internet and downloaded a pile of files as well as a FTP program, I can post this load of rubbish and go to bed.

-12

Monday 22nd July 2013- I’M OFF

But then again you knew that already.

This morning I was up bright and early (just for a change) and did all of the domestic chores around the place before shooting off to Marcillat-en-Combraille to record the Radio Anglais sessions for Radio Tartasse.

As usual we had total and utter chaos – they had a printer and after much searching we found the USB cable, but as for the power lead, no hope for that. I ended up reading the text off the computer (I had taken that along in anticipation – one has to be prepared at Radio Tartasse).

Liz and I went on to record the information programmes, which passed off almost without incident, and then we set off back to Liz’s house for lunch.

I called at the bank to pick up the new bank cards but, as you might indeed expect as it’s Monday, the bank is closed.

At Liz’s we had yesterday’s leftovers for lunch and then went down to Gerzat to record the Radio Arverne version of “Radio Anglais”. That passed off without much incident too.

However, in a dramatic change of plan, we went there in Liz’s car. After all, the hottest day of the year and it has air-conditioning. What more can any man desire?

Back here though, not so good.

I melted in Calibuen on the way back and there was no hope of me going on to Brussels. I crashed out for a couple of hours, loaded up Caliburn with the dirty washing and a pile of empty cardboard boxes.

Just after 21:00, with the weather still absolutely roasting, I was on my way.

See you soon.

-8

Monday 24th June 2013 – I HAD ANOTHER …

… vivid dream last night, and I remember telling Cécile about it when I woke up. But 5 minutes later it had gone completely out of my head and Cécile hadn’t been paying too much attention to it anyway, so that’s one that got away.

After breakfast I went to Marcillat en Combraille and recorded my Radio Anglais rock music programmes for Radio Tartasse – and have I got a belter of a live concert for the month of August – but more of that in due course.

I was able to harvest a pile of radio programmes to put on the net, and then Liz and I did another series of radio programmes in the “Radio Anglais” series.

However, we have a minor hitch – I forgot all about “On The Beach” and we ended up starting “identity controls”, and so we are now all out of synch. Ahh well …

Back at Liz’s I gave Terry a hand to fit some of the windows into his new extension, and then we attacked the left-over pasta from yesterday.

Down at Gerzat we recorded another 4 programmes for the Radio Arverne version of “Radio Anglais” and then Bernard arranged for all of the outstanding programmes held there to be copied onto my memory stick.

But here’s an issue – his main computer wouldn’t recognise the stick. It seems, after investigation, that it’s formatted in RAW data and not in NTFS (or in FAT 32 either) and so we had to do a few manipulations in order to get the data onto it.

Once I’ve taken the data off, I’ll have to reformat it all into FAT 32 or something.

I gave Terry another hand back at Liz’s and then came back here to help Cécile carry on sanding down her ceiling. One of these days I might even be able to make a start on my house, and won’t that be nice?

And talking of working on my house, Liz gave me a tub of really vicious weedkiller – something like the commercial variety of Agent Orange.

I’ve been trying to avoid using weedkiller at any price on my land but I just can’t cope with the weeds and so on.

There are some parts of my land that will be under black plastic sheeting and gravel or even tiles (looking at that lovely lot of tiles that Terry used on his new patio) and so, regrettable as it might be, I’m afraid that that is exactly what will be happening tomorrow morning, if the bad weather holds off.

-2

I’m exhausted

I had another difficult night as far as sleep went, and it wasn’t half a struggle to crawl out of bed this morning, but after breakfast and a shower (I have one once a year whether I need it or not) by 10:00 I was at my (or rather, Marianne’s) desk ready to work.

There’s the third part of the radio programmes to do and I was planning on doing something on “who can check your identity”. For once though, the thoughts ran freely (not quite sure why) and by 14:00 I’d done a mere 3000 words on the subject.

That was the cue for shopping. First port of call was at the bank where I handed over Marianne’s death certificate and they promptly closed her account. and it is indeed as I feared – no life assurance policies, no burial policies, not a trace of anything else. Ahhh well – you live and learn. And I thought that I had learned enough by now, but you would never have guessed.

After the food shopping I called again at this electronics shop in the neighbourhood. Here I had another lucky find – two packs of 2×12-volt MR16 LD light bulbs – reduced for quick sale at €10 the pack. I know that I can but them at €3:99 each but the ones I get are rated at 1.2 watts – these are rated at 2.4 watts.

You might be thinking that that’s not very bright, but you wuld be surprised. The “watts” is quite a misleading measurement as it relates to the amount of current consumed. And in a traditional light bulb, much, if not most, of the energy is wasted as heat, as anyone who has touched an incandescent, or a halogen, light bulb will tell you. LEDs are quite cool even when they are lit, indicating that almost nothing is wasted. LEDs generally give out about 5 times the lumens per watt that an incandescent gives out, and while that might sound not an awful lot more (2.4 watts x 5 compared to, say 40 watts) the light from an LED is much more focused.

Anyway, I digress. Back here I carried on with my magnum opus and by the time I’d finished it (23:00 with an hour out for tea) I’d done over 3700 words on indentity checks, followed by over 2700 on “who can enter your house”. I really was having a good day today.

1306001As for tea, it was gorgeous. I might have mentioned that I made a potato pie last night while the pizza was cooking, and there’s half of the aforementioned. Add to that a heap of peas and carrots in butter and mint and it really was the most delightful meal that I’ve had for quite a while (excepting anything that Liz has cooked, of course). I’m going to have to watch myself here – I’m becoming far too civilised. At this rate I shan’t want to go home.

In other news, I’ve been invited by the Scientologists to go to watch a film at their headquarters. All to do with self-assertiveness and taking control. Hardly the sort of thing that Scientologists are famous for, of course. I wonder if there’s anything in this film about the use of pick-axe handles? They are always good for self-assertiveness and taking control.

And finally – “hooray” … ed – they say that retail therapy is always good for the soul when one is suffering from a little depression. For me, music is the key to my state of mind (provided that it isn’t The Thieving Magpie (La Gazza Ladra) by Marillion of course) and I have been feeling considerably depressed just recently, as you know. Consequently when Amazon announced a special promotion of 2 CDs for £9:00, over 1000 albums on offer, many of which I owned on plastic and haven’t yet replaced, well, I rather pushed the boat out a little and now I’m … errr …£63:00 (plus postage to Belgium) lighter.

But there’s some cracking stuff in there and I don’t consider it money wasted at all. I need cheering up right now. I’ve had a difficult Spring.

 

 

-5

We had our first …

… letter today addressed to “les héritiers de Mme Orban Marianne”. It was from her Insurance Company – the “Mutualité Chrètienne”.

“We have heard about the death of Mme Orban and we would like to express our sincere condoleances. Mme Orban reeived payments from us due to her incapacity to work, and was paid for the fortnight 1st May – 14th May before we learnt of her death. We would therefore be obliged if you could refund the overpayment before the 27th June next”

That is the “Mutualité Chrètienne” – the Christian Mutual Insurance Company. It totally beggars belief. I’m convinced that Marianne would have been far better off with the heathens for all the good that the Christians did her. What happened to the “forgiveness of sins” and “turn the other cheek”? Poor Marianne must be turning in her grave.

Apart from that, what else have I done? Yes, I’ve updated  few web pages that I had rather let go for a while. Most of them concerned the administration of the site but one of them had a rather large role to play in my visit to Labrador in 2010 and I had never brought it up to date. It was high time that I did something about that, seeing as how I wrote it a mere 8 years ago.

I also finished the writing for the next rock programme and formatted it. That’s one more thing out of the way. And then I made a start on the next lot of additional notes, but I haven’t gone all too far with that right now.

Apart from going out for my baguette at lunchtime, that’s really about it, so exciting is my life. Tomorrow is shopping day so bring on the excitement!

-5

Monday 17th December … WHAT WITH MY …

… late night last night – not returning home until 01:35 this morning – it was freezing cold up here and so I went straight to bed.

And I was up early too, for today we were doing the radio programmes.

This morning it was out to Marcillat-en-Combraille and the Radio Tartasse sessions.

Down to Liz and Terry’s for lunch and then Gerzat and the Radio Arverne sessions this afternoon. That involved the regular series of programmes followed by the Christmas Special.

Just as I predicted, we haven’t used half of it either. But that’s no big deal – it saves me a job for next year, doesn’t it?

And much to everyone’s surprise, including mine, everything today went off without a hitch. How often does that happen?

Back to drop off Liz a – something that naturally involves a coffee (followed by a slice of vegan ginger cake of course) and then I came back here.

And here I’m staying too, and the reason for that is simple. I’ve not been feeling to well for a couple of days and last night a heavy head cold erupted, hence one of the reasons why I had no sleep.

It now seems to have developed into a fully-blown man-flu and so that’s me up here in the attic for the duration.

I hope that I’ve cut enough wood to last me out.

-5

Friday 14th December 2012 – I ALMOST HAD …

… of shock today!

When this white Ford Transit came chugging down the lane, I thought at first that Terry had come to visit and not warned me. It was however Sophie the boulangère. Instead of a Saturday tournée, she’s now coming on Fridays.

And she was lucky that she caught me in too – I’d not long been back.

Earlier this morning I had been in Marcillat-en-Combraille radioing with Radio Tartasse. It’s the Radio Anglais rock music programmes for the month of February that I was doing and once again, it only took a very short while.

Mind you, much of that was due to the fact that the introduction for the live concert that I feature took a mere 20 seconds.

The reason for that was because, rummaging around in my drawers, I came across a live concert of “a well-known artist” which, when I’d edited it all together, came out at 59 minutes and 40 seconds.

That doesn’t leave much time to do an intro when you only have a 1 hour programme.

After that, it was non-stop on the Christmas Special for the rest of the day.

I reckon that I could have called a halt on this some time during the afternoon. There would have been quite enough, I reckon. But when you have the inspiration and the motivation, it’s best to keep churning it out, which I did.

It won’t be wasted of course, because there will be other years too, and if necessary I can use the stuff in other programmes.

But I’d rather have it than not have it that’s for sure.

0

Monday 19th November 2012 – WE WERE RADIOING …

… today

But I almost wasn’t.

Coming into Marcillat-en-Combraille I encountered a large red lorry, and the closer I approached it, the farther it drifted out across the road into my path.

I ended up with two wheels on the pavement and a big bulge in one of my tyres. And just before I come to the UK too. I could have done without that.

Just for a change, things went according to plan at Radio Tartasse and we weren’t there long. I put some diesel into Caliburn and then went down to Liz’s for lunch – hot-pot, apple crumble and custard.

That was followed by some of Cecile’s chocolate cake and Liz’s carrot cake, all the leftovers from yesterday evening, and very nice they were too.

Radio Arverne was surprisingly well-organised too and we didn’t stay long there.

I’ve been planning a new format for the presentation of the programmes and that seemed to work quite well – a vast improvement on piles of scattered papers all over the place.

Bernard the engineer finally managed to track down some of the programmes that were lost following his technical hitches in March and September but the rest are, unfortunately, irretrievably lost which is something of a shame.

Back to Liz’s for more coffee and carrot cake (I really am so lucky) and that was that

Tomorrow it’s back to work and I’ll be doing the flooring in the shower room I hope, unless I have any more interruptions.

That should keep me out of mischief for a while. 

-4

Friday 16th November 2012 – I’M BACK HOME NOW.

which is something of a surprise.

What isn’t a surprise though is that it’s long after midnight, which is some kind of indication of how much I had to do today.

I nipped out at 09:15 to drop the football club photos off at the new printer’s in Pionsat and then to go to Marcillat-en-Combraille to record my Radio Anglais rock music programme for half an hour or so.

For once, the people at Radio Tartasse were properly organised and I managed to have everything finished by 10:25, and that makes a pleasant change.

From there I went round to Cécile’s, She was having problems with one of her electric radiators – it didn’t seem to be working – and wondered if I could help her out.

So off I duly went to find that lunch had been prepared, which was very nice of her. I’m all in favour of that as you know. I’ll do almost anything for a cup of coffee and a home-made vegan salad.

Anyway, as far as the radiator goes, the fuse seemed to be fine but there seemed to be no power to the appliance. I disconnected the radiator, fitted a standard plug and plugged it into a standard socket.

Sure enough, it fired up as it should so there must be a fault in the wiring in the wall somewhere. Either that or there’s a bad connection at the fuse box end.

So that was that, and then my attention was drawn to a couple of other things that a quick turn of a screwdriver would put right straight away.

But to be quite honest though, I think that we spent more time talking than working, and I didn’t return home until just now.

I’m really going to have to get cracking chez moi though if I want to make any reasonable progress.

-5

Monday 29th October 2012 – I’VE BITTEN …

… the bullet and lit the fire up here this evening.

Coming back from radioing, the temperature up here was 12.4°C – that’s about the limit for heat but what clinched it was the fact that I had Sunday’s pizza and garlic bread to cook.

It’s cheaper (like “cost = nil”) to cook them in the little oven on top of the woodstove. In no time at all the temperature up here was a balmy (or is that “barmy”?) 20.4°C and the pizza and garlic bread were done to a turn.

Not only that, the kettle on the top of the stove heated the water to a respectable washing-up type of temperature and so this is not only the first day of heat for winter 2012, it’s also the first day of no bottle gas.

A bottle of gas for cooking costs me about €32 and lasts me roughly 200 days. That’s about €0:16 per day that I’m saving.

Add to that the fact that a bottle of gas (at €32) lasted about 20 days in the old gas heater, then I’ve saved €1:60 per day on heating – a total of €1:76 per day in total.

The stove cost me €279, which means that at €1:76 per day it will be paid for in about 160 days. And as I use the stove about 100 days per year, it means that sometime round about Christmas it will be paid off.

A shrewd move, purchasing this woodstove.

We’d been radioing today, and that wasn’t without incident.

Radio Tartasse at Marcillat en Combraille forgot that we were coming (despite me reminding them on Friday) and so nothing was prepared, which meant that we had to make it up as we went along.

But at Radio Arverne in Gerzat the wheels fell off completely and we had to re-record one of the programmes a couple of times, as well as do some heavy editing, before we had a decent take.

But there’s a reason for that.

Liz didn’t have much sleep thanks to a hyperactive mind, and I had about one hour because, presumably, I have a guilty conscience about something or other.

Walking outside beating the bounds of my property here at 05:15 in the freezing weather because I can’t sleep – that’s a new one, isn’t it?

sunset site ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceOn the way back from Liz and Terry’s as it was going dark, I stopped at my favourite spot – the birdwatching site at the back of St Gervais d’Auvergne – yet again.

We were being presented with the most magnificent sunset as the sun slowly sank beneath the heavy clouds.

If ever a moment called for the camera, then this was it.

sunset site ornithologique st gervais d'auvergne puy de dome franceIt was even more interesting to stand there in the dark and watch all of the lights swich on one by one, like some kind of carpet of bulbs spreading out across the landscape.

And of course it called for a repetition of that well-worn old saying –
“Red sky at night – shepherd’s delight”
“Red sky in the morning – Les Ancizes is on fire”.

And that’s not all of it either. I also fixed the non-working flasher on Caliburn and readjusted the fan belt on Liz’s car.

It’s been a busy day today and I’m off to bed now – thoroughly exhausted.

-4

Friday 26th October 2012 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about one thing.

And that was that I didn’t do too much today.

Up with the cock this morning (but that’s enough about my disgusting habits) and after breakfast (I’m back to 3 meals a day now so I’m clearly feeling better) I cleared off to Marcillat en Combraille.

Today’s the day for Radio Tartasse to record the Radio Anglais rock music programmes for the following month – get them out of the way as quickly as possible.

It didn’t take long either – a mere 28 minutes – and I was back here by 10:45.

Paperwork was next and then I carried on with the website – I’ve almost finished my walk around the city of Québec and it might even be on line by the end of next week.

I did intend to go outside today but the rain, that started as a slight drizzle, was by now a torrential downpour, and so I made a butty and came up here to watch a film. The Lady In Cement, starring none other than Frank Sinatra as a Philip Marlowe-type detective but with Attitude.

This film was a sequel to Sinatra’s Tony Rome, which I found in a junk shop for €1:99 and which so fascinated me that I bought the sequel full-price.

If there ever are any doubts about Sinatra’s acting ability then The Lady in Cement will dispel them completely. There are a few scenes in there that are magnificent, and it’s been a long time since I’ve said that about an acting performance.

These two films are so good that it did make me wonder whether or not they were ever going to make some kind of series out of them.

Anyway, after that I went downstairs and carried on working on the shelving for the cupboard.

Part of the problem with the wood that I buy is that it’s rough-cut stuff and so much of the time was spent sanding it all down ready to assemble. Given a few days of heavy weather though next week even that lot might be finished.

It won’t half be nice to have somewhere to store all of the stuff down there when the shelving is completed.

Tomorrow though I’m off to Montlucon if I wake up early enough. I need to make a mega-shop as I’m running low on stuff.

And that reminds me – the next monthly mega-shop that I do isn’t going to be in France. I might well be having my long-earned break 😉 

-4

Friday 28th September 2012 – WE WERE RADIOING …

… today

And just for a change I was up with the alarm clock – I’ve been just a little lazy just recently.

After breakfast I went off to Marcillat-en-Combraille to record my Radio Anglais rock music programmes for Radio Tartasse for the month of November – we are trying to keep a good two months in advance.

Back here afterwards I had yet another quick clean-out of Caliburn. Somewhere is the spare battery for the Nikon D5000 camera and I reckoned that if I was going to be on a roll for finding stuff I might as well try to find that too.

But no such luck as yet. That needs further work, I reckon.

While we are on the subject of finding stuff, on the way down to Liz’s to pick her up for Gerzat the Nokia phone rang – it was Liz reminding me about this afternoon.

But that goes to prove that the SIM card works, and so does the old Nokia and so that’s progress of some sort. And also that Liz is still reading my blog. Anyway at least I’m wired to the world again.

At Gerzat we ran through the 5 Radio Anglais radio programmes for Radio Arverne in no time at all. Bernard was squeezing us in between a couple of other things and so we had to get a move on.

We were back at Liz and Terry’s for before 17:00 and that doesn’t happen too often.

Tomorrow, if I don’t fall asleep again, I’ll be off to Commentry.

The weather has improved again and it might be nice tomorrow, so I’ll go for a swim if I’m lucky.

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