Breaching the 90 day rule

Yes, responsibility is not just with politicians. We had guests staying in our gite six months before Brexit and the husband worked for one of the large container ports. He told us there were still no plans in place for post-brexit. It was if top management were hoping it was all a horrible dream and would go away.

Yup. Just don’t anyone say “Tata” or I will get upset.

So far at least the French have had the sense and managed to keep control of key industries to keep to preserve self-determination. Even if it has led to some transparently heavy handed protectionism, such as the clearly anti-Chinese crafted removal of subsidies for some electric vehicles just announced. It will harm consumers in the long term. But might give European car producers and all the rest of the economy that they support, some time to catch up and make a competitive offering against the plethora of better cheaper Chinese vehicles.

What’s that I hear? Is it @John_Scully saying “Well the Chinese nicked our intellectual property to get a head start on producing those better cars without all the costs : so fair enough” ?

LoL, that is what I think :face_with_hand_over_mouth:. If I am that predictable I needn’t post on here anymore, I’ll just bot myself. My work here is done :joy:

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Just remember that the real enemy of the West, isn’t Russia and it isn’t Islam.

It’s China. The CCP needs the West to be totally reliant on them for everything or their Ponzi scheme economy will tank to the point that The Long March will be remember as The Good Times for China.

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I think the French have always been more pragmatic over such things. A few years back I was pulled over for speeding. I had been trailing a long line of traffic behind a horsebox and a downhill stretch of road opened up with nothing coming the other way so I pulled out and passed 7 vehicles, pulling in safely and starting to slow back down, congratulating myself on my manouevre until I saw a layby ahead with a gendarme holding a speed gun, who of course waved me into the layby. He asked me how fast I had been going and I replied that I had no idea but had only been concerned with passing safely and I apologised and accepted that I will have been speeding and was ready to accept my punishment. He told me that I had been doing 117kmph on a road with a 90 limit but after a few more questions he told me that I could continue without penalty but to be more careful next time.

This is not an endorsement of speeding, but simply to say that if you are reasonable and not protesting, at least some in authority will cut you some slack. Not all the time, and never guaranteed, but my guess is that a similar approach was behind this decision.

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Police have quite a bit of leeway for most minor traffic offences.

Being polite and honest can often lead to a telling off instead of a ticket, especially late into the officer’s shift as they’ve no end of gobby idiots to deal with by then and they’ll appreciate your not being another. Known 3-4 coppers over the years and they’ve all said the same.

To be fair for much of that time no-one knew what the final deal would look like and the government kept telling industry that nothing would change - so naturally there was reluctance to lay preparations that might not be needed or might need to be torn up and replaced.

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I follow this guy on Twitter and remember reading about the struggles he was having trying to import wine from the EU into the UK (despite having lots of experience importing New World wines from various other countries around the world).

Since that article was written, he’s since given up and has relocated to Montpellier :man_facepalming:

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Those who just couldn’t be bothered to vote must take some of the blame. I don’t know what is worse. Not giving a shot or just plain wrong thinking.

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I’ve looked this up and yes, there is a connexion article on it

Seems each country is different in approach - the 198 euros’ is 2 x cost of consular fee for a long stay visa.

Google reports from 501 euro’s for Spain.

I managed to read the article and it does say that [a national police spokesperson] “stressed the importance of showing proof of residence upfront to avoid a stamp, which should only be given to visitors.”

So perhaps border guards may consider house bills etc as ‘proof of residence’.

The issue is of interest to me because we’ll likely want to explore Europe from France and probably flitting to / from the UK too.

I recall I had a conversation a while ago with someone who stayed in Poland in a town on the German border (Germany one side of the river and Poland the other side).
He often flies into Germany from the UK - he said he shows his polish residence card and wasn’t ‘stamped’, explaining he was on route to Poland.

Incidentally his business was road markings - he cuts some sort of vinyl or plastic which can be applied to the road - imported from somewhere, can’t remember where, possibly the US. He did this in the UK and then Brexit happened and completely scuppered his business so he moved it to the EU.

Why not just get a visitor visa? Saves a lot of hassle for £99.

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Good idea, thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.

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'I’d rather Padam Padam tbh.

55 years old and 35 odd years into her career and still manages to have the biggest song of the year. Iconic.’

The video’s more than a tad too red for me, but I’m an old person. Maybe all that red that makes it more exciting for younger people…

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From the iconic Sophie Muller if I recall. I’ll take too red if it’s from the woman responsible for all those Sade, Eurythmics/ Annie Lennox, Shakespears Sister, No Doubt and Blur music videos that are always near the top of the ‘best ever’ charts! I think she’s a CSM and RCA graduate so perhaps needs a refresher course… or an eye examination :sweat_smile: I won’t be telling her that though, she’s been quite… fierce… whenever I’ve worked with her :joy:

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Omg you do crack me up with the Dr Mark opinion on absolutely every f***ing thing and always from an ‘academic’ perspective :joy::joy:

But yes, iconic and thanks for sharing @kirsteastevenson and apologies to anyone else who found it too ‘red’ :joy::joy::joy:

It was an attempt at dry humour, but that obviously passed you by, maybe forget the ‘academic’ I’m also an artist and at least to this elderly person the overuse of red just seems simplistic.

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That’s a name I’ve not heard in a while… I absolutely loved Don’t Speak when I was younger (I just checked and I was 20 when it came out!)

Blimey, it’s had a billion views on YouTube. Clearly I wasn’t the only one to like it :smiley:

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I always thought this video had such an Annie Lennox ‘Diva’ era vibe to it, which with time and experience now makes so much sense given they’re both Muller classics. She has always done such interesting things with light to my untrained eyes, she makes people look ethereal and fascinating. The song was great too, and Gwen will always be a hottie. :joy:

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Oh yes I have zero sense of humour.
Perhaps you should consider changing your user name and also drop the posts starting ‘when I was in the X working on the Y for the Z’ if you want to be considered as less of a pseudo academic then!
Just saying :wink:
Signed
Catharine
MA Oxon

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FFS Lighten up ! Why should I change my user name or share your fondness for Kylie pop! Do you really want to come across as mini Musk?