Tag Archives: noz

Wednesday 30th December 2009 – You may remember …

neris les bains allier france illuminations… a few weeks ago that I was in Neris-les-Bains looking for a shower (of course they were all in Milton Keynes but the less said about the OUSA Executive Committee the better) – anyway, here’s a pic taken there in the dark earlier this evening.

In the dark???

Yes, I had just come out of the swimming baths where I had a really good soak (and I’m not taling about anyone from the OUSA …. “you’ve done that already” – ed) but even so, I was only in there for an hour.

So what was going on?

This morning I braved the torrential rainstorm that we were having (we had 21mm of rain today and it’s still going) and went to Montlucon for Caliburn’s new tyres. And of course, now that we have two new ordinary ones on the back and two expensive snow tyres on the front it isn’t ever going to snow again, is it? That took me to midday and so I went for a wander around NOZ, the grot shop, where I bought a pile of cook-in sauces, and then to the Auchan where in between all of the shopping I bought 2 DVDs in the sale, at €2.99 each. One is the John Wayne classic Fort Apache and the second is the legendary Return Of The Pink Panther. Easily the best of the Pink Panther films and that by a long chalk too. So imagine my consternation, if not horror, at Christmas 2006 when I discovered to my chagrin that the film was for some unaccountable reason not included in The Pink Panther Film Collection (6 Disc Box Set). And here it is, at €2.99!

That took me to about 13:50 and I was planning to go home then but I was irresistibly lured to Brico Depot, and wasn’t that a big mistake? I was rummaging around looking for cable connectors as I’m not very happy using chocolate blocks. I saw some things that looked suitable and asked to speak to a vendor. And waited. And waited. And waited. eventually someone appeared, served a few other people, and then came over to me.
“Is it you who is looking for assistance?” she asked
“Yes, for about 15 minutes” I replied petulantly.
“Well, I’m all on my own” she said
“So am I” I stated “so why don’t we get married so that we can be together?” No wonder they all hate me in these French shops.

But that wasn’t even half of it. Every so often they have what are called “arrivages” – products that they buy in specially and are priced to sell. And on offer today were kitchen worktops – 1800×600 for all of €15:99 instead of the usual €49:99 or so. Most of the colours were pretty awful but there was one that caught my eye – a kind-of false marble effect of light grey, white and pink speckle. I need just under three for my kitchen but this is also the colour that will go nicely in the bathroom, which, you may recall, for reasons of other products having been bought in Brico Depot’s clearance sale and also a pile of second-hand tiles I have lying around, is going to be … errr … pink. Anyway, I need about four of these lengths all told – and they just happened to have four left.

I also need some 500mm pine shelving to make the bases of the units in the kitchen. Three of these in fact, and they just happened to have three left. So even though I am a long way away from making my units I now have a lot of the stuff that I need. I also have a wallet that is considerably lighter.

At the cash desk there was this ever-so-sweet young girl cashing up. She had a really difficult job looking for the barcode labels.
“They’ve been put on in the wrong place” she lamented.
“I bet it’s all Pierre (one of the guys who works there who plays football for Pionsat)’s fault” I replied
“Do you know him?” she asked.
“Ohhh yes, he plays football for our local team“.
“He was in my class at school” she chirped.
The world is getting too flaming small for my liking.

neris les bains allier france christms illuminationsAnd so, having left Brico Depot at 16:15 that was how come I ended up leaving the swimming baths at Neris at 18:20. And I encountered a cat – a huge black moggy – in Neris. it came for a stroke and a cuddle and even let me pick it up. It’s a long time since I’ve stroked a nice pussy like that and it was ever so contented and looked set to stay there for ever. I really must get a cat when I settle down. But then a car pulled up across the road, a woman got out and went through the gate and up the path towards the front door of this house, and Minou leapt out of my arms and legged it up the path after her. Cupboard love!

I was musing earlier, like I do every so often. In the comments section of this blog, yours truly (who lives in France and is white-skinned) was discussing with Rhys (who lives in the USA and is white-skinned) have been having a discussion about where is the best place to leave a bomb in a Boeing 747. Now just imagine if we lived in the UK and were brown-skinned? we would be hit with a “possessing information likely to be of use to terrorists” and “conspiracy” and hurled into Belmarsh before you could say “Al Qaida”. Such is the situation in the UK at the moment and it’s a reflection of the racist nature of the society that the UK has become due to the level of fear and of hate that Gordon Clown and the B Liar have stirred up. And they call it a “free country”. Doesn’t it make you laugh?

And in other news, hello and welcome to Kate who has found her way here. Kate was part of a group of miscreants which which I was associated back in days of yore in the Open University and we all had many exciting adventures in the OUSA Conferencing system. It’s nice to “see” you after all this time.

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Saturday 5th December 2009 – I’m all nice and clean for a change.

90 minutes in the swimming baths at Neris today followed by a nice warm shower – did me the world of good and when I change the bedding in a few minutes it will be wonderful. I’m going to have a nice lie-in as well tomorrow morning and make the most of it.

Montlucon shopping this morning, and I spent a fortune. Mind you, much of that was stuff for Christmas so it’s not unexpected. But I didn’t get myself a present though. Strange as it may seem, I couldn’t think of anything that I wanted and there definitely isn’t really anything that I need. I did however find some interesting DVDs in NOZ, the cheapo rubbishy shop that sells all kinds of end-of-range stuff. Their music selection is at times pretty good. Most French people haven’t heard of many obscure British or American musicians – that’s how I managed to buy that Nice triple-album a couple of months ago. But today, in the music DVD selection they had a huge collection of DVDs of live concerts. Most were rubbish but there were concerts by Tom Petty, Steve Winwood and by Steppenwolf. So at €3:50 a time I’ll be having a megamusic session on Christmas Day.

I’ve got some better prices for my new tyres too – a saving of about €40 and that includes Michelin “Alpine” winter tyres as well. Even at … errrr …. €360 for three tyres I reckon I might go for this.

fcpsh football club de foot pionsat st hilaire montfermyThis evening I saw Pionsat’s 3rd XI draw 1-1 with Montfermy. And they will be kicking themselves for the 2 points dropped rather that the one point gained, for Montfermy were by far and away the worst side I have ever seen and Pionsat’s 3rd XI had some good players out this evening too. And for once the defence played an immaculate game with the central defenders being in position and not wandering away for the whole of the match. They should have demolished this side.

Anyway, an early night beckons. And so does my clean bedding.

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Saturday 3rd October 2009 – GRRRRRR at Pionsat

I went down to the footy ground tonight as there was a match at 20:00 – FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI v Chatelguyon. But the place was all locked up and in darkness. No idea what was (or was not) going on there. Maybe the match has been rearranged for tomorrow but I’ll be having a run out to Sayat as the 2nd XI is playing there and I haven’t been to Sayat’s ground yet.

beautiful red sunlight puy de dome france But it was a nice drive down to the ground at Pionsat tonight and as I came round the corner to the eastern side of the mountain I was met with this most stunning sunset. Isn’t this impressive?

We had an old saying when we were kids –
“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight”
“Red sky in the morning – Stoke on Trent’s on fire”
You can argue something like this here, can’t you? That direction is roughly Montlucon.

And talking of Montlucon I reckon I now have everything I need for my room. Even the glass, as Brico Depot had some sheets of perspex on offer at €17 for 80cms square by 4mm thick. I can make some nice windows out of that.

But highlight of today’s trip around the town was in NOZ – the end-of-range bucket shop where they were selling fast battery chargers for €3.90. They are just AA and AAA and take 800 milliamps and such is the rate of charge that they are rated as unsuitable for NiCads – just NiMH. I’ve seen (or felt) how hot NiCads can get in a normal fast charger.

The charger works off a DC adapter which – surprise surprise – is 12-volt.

And talking of 12-volt DC adapters, this next point is all Terry’s fault. We were talking a few days ago about televisions and how low-powered some of the flat-screen TVs are. In the Auchan I had a look at some of them and found a big cheap €275 flat-screen TV that is rated at 40 watts (that means it probably draws half that) and runs off 12-volt DC.

Now how much current does a DVD player draw?

At the Bio shop in Montlucon I bumped into Kate. Haven’t seen her for ages. She tells me that at the end of the month she is going back to the UK. Had enough of the quiet life, she says. It’s 10 years since she was last in the UK and so she will notice quite a difference. It won’t be long before she’ll be back.

But there are a lot of Brits returning to the UK just now. Financial issues play a big part in it. When I first came to the mainland the Pound was getting about 11 French Francs (I can even remember it being as high as 13) but with no raw materials for prime industry and no manufacturing industry to make use of the raw materials the Pound is at the mercy of world markets and it’s been taking a right hammering as the Arabs fight back against the west.

Whenever the West or the Zionists do something nasty to the Arabs the Arabs smile inscrutably and triple the price of oil. All the money then flows to the Middle East where they spend some of it on these new cities like Doha and so on, and the rest is then flooded into the banks of a country of their choice. The banks, awash with cash and needing to generate the interest to pay the Arab depositors, lend it out on increasingly high-risk ventures that return the most interest.

When all the money is actively engaged, the Arabs then ask for it back. The banks need to attract more money from elsewhere to replace the money the Arabs want back so they have to offer higher interest rates, the loan repayments thus go up, people can’t afford to repay, the banks foreclose and find themselves with a load of valueless assets and the economy goes tits-up.

This is 21st Century warfare and you can all see just how effective it has been. The West and the Zionists are still fighting a 19th Century war (and hopelessly losing, but that’s another matter entirely. What odds would you have had on Hamas smashing the Zionist farces a couple of years ago?) and they do it every time and they don’t learn from the previous encounters.

Anyone remember the turmoil of 1992? And the collapse of the western economies and the 3-day week in 1973 just after the Yom Kippur War?

And here the West is, threatening Iran. The economy hasn’t recovered from the most recent crisis yet. What will happen when oil triples in price next time?

So all of these expats are retreating to the UK because their money isn’t going as far as it used to in Europe. But what they haven’t realised is that it’s Europe where things are much more stable and it’s the UK where the economy has collapsed, and they are confronted with what for them has been rampant inflation in the UK over the last few years.

When I left the UK I always fuelled up at Dover as fuel was 2/3rd the price than on the mainland. Now it’s the other way round – everyone fuels up at Calais. And it’s the same for most other products too.

House prices are now starting to return to their previously extortionate levels in the UK and as most of the ex-pats sold their houses to fuel their new lives abroad, where are they going to live if they go back?

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Saturday 29th August 2009 – I WAS UP …

… early this morning. Long before the alarm went off, actually. Not like me, this. But at 08:45 I was on my way to Montlucon for part I of my mega-shop.

Nothing of interest in Carrefour or Vima, and only some new vegan burgers in Amaranthe. But Noz came up trumps again. A copy of an old Donovan album at 1:90 was something, but a triple-pack of Nice CDs at 3:90 was even more exciting – especially as the whole lot was reduced by 50%.

At Auchan I bumped into Rob and Julie and their kids. This was a complete surprise – older readers of my organ at its previous location will recall that it’s usually at Brico Depot that I bump into them. And poor Julie has been quite ill for a few months, although she’s recovering slowly now. That’s nice – I like them and their daughter Ashleigh is quite a big fan of His Nibs.

Brico Depot was exciting. I had two constraints – firstly money and secondly (and more importantly) space inside Caliburn. Interior space was important as I had forgotten to take my ladder with me so I can only reach a very short distance onto the roof-rack to tie stuff on. That stymied me a bit.

But we have the two windows (one of which needs some planing down to fit the hole), some more paint, loads of polystyrene and plenty of wood battens, as well as quite a bit of other stuff. That’ll keep me out of mischief for a week or so and I can go and get another load of stuff next weekend. It’s all very well buying it all in one go but firstly you have to transport it and secondly you have to store it.

I did also pick up a 70x70cm shower base. This was crucial as I’m building the bathroom around the shower and the dimensions need to be worked out fairly soon in my plans. It was the last one in the shop as well so I was quite proud. But as you might expect, as I was walking around the shop it slid off my trolley and smashed into a hundred pieces. Ahh well.

I also went to the “Conforama”. It’s a big furniture shop and it regularly sends out its publicity. Even though it’s only just across the road from the Auchan, in all the years that I’ve lived here I’ve never ever been there, but today I had good reason for going.

They are having a sale on these “click clack” sofas that transform themselves into double beds with a space underneath for storing your bedding. Now, I had one of those in Brussels and I was quite impressed with it for what it was. And so I’ve decided that I want another one to put up in my attic to sit and to sleep on.

The raised bed that I built here works fine but after nearly two years it’s fairly uncomfortable and so I’ve decided to push the boat out and get a really good quality one with a decent mattress. There’s 15% off until the 14th September and delivery is within 3 weeks so if I order it in 2 weeks time it should be ready for when my room is finished. It’s going to be expensive but a good bed is worth its weight in gold.

One problem though is that they don’t do a blue cover – one that will go with my room when I’ve painted it. The assistant who minced over to talk to me talked to me with a lithp, so I was on safe ground talking to him about colour co-ordination and soft furnishings. I suppose I should have profited from the situation to discuss curtains with him.

Talking of beds, tomorrow is Sunday, but no lie-in. A prospective customer wants to come round and talk to me about solar panels. Well, I’ll get out of bed early if there’s a possibility of amounts of folding stuff changing hands in my direction.

And it’s Virlet brocante in the afternoon. Always a good one, that.

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