The Bizness of Road Safety

The other day I was sailing along the road in my DB's car, on a stretch that I must have done a million times and thus was lulled into thinking about other pressing matters than watching my speedometer. Pressing matters such as how to pay for a new (used) car seeing as my Alfa is basically dead, and I was going through the options. The road was not busy but I was keeping an eye on what was going on, except that I didn't register that a van with blue lights, probably bearing a mobile radar, was coming towards me - the cops!

The information eventually struggled through my thoughts on credits, savings and banks and I realised I was speeding slightly, so slowed down. Probably not enough though, so I warned my DB he could probably expect an envelope in the post (which I would of course pay!).

Funnily enough, this week too, I was sent a link to a video made by the Ligue de Défense des Conducteurs on the over-zealous use of radars by the cops. The LDC are particularly incensed at the blatant manipulation of the truth by the government which declares that the new repressive regime is all about road safety and saving lives. We are all for road safety and saving lives, but let's face it, the only way for there to be zero fatalities is to ban cars and motorbikes, so there has to be a balance.

At the heart of the new imbalance is business, money and jobs for the boys (who'd a thunk). The ethylotest (to test for alcohol) was the first main example. Manufacturers of the test lobbied the government and persuaded ministers that by making them obligatory they would show how dedicated they are to saving lives, and be able to introduce a new PV (fine) of €11 for non-possession. For their part, manufacturers were guaranteed 100% of a market of 40million drivers... Luckily there was an outcry and the law was quietly dropped, especially seeing as the test didn't even work properly!

Giddy with the prospect of other, more successful ideas, the government called upon the private sector to come up with products to fill the market, such as radars. Last year, the PV harvest brought in €1.6billion. To cope with the avalanche of envelopes, a lovely new processing centre of 11,000m² was built where operators seize 500 license plates per hour and send out around 60,000 envelopes per day.

Repression on the roads is reaching epic proportions here. In 2002 drivers lost 3million points on their license; in 2011 they lost 12 million points. About 85,000 people lost their license completely, often losing their job at the same time, and not because they are speed junkies - 95% of all speeding fines concern speeds of less than 20km/hr over the limit.

But surely, the number of deaths is going down so this must be a good thing... no? We are told that repression saves lives, but that is a gross exaggeration. What has been saving lives since the early 70s are safer cars, improvements to roads, airbags, making danger spots safe, quicker intervention by the rescue services, campaigns against drink driving, and more awareness by drivers of the dangers.

The virtuous circle of road and car improvements has led to fewer deaths on the roads

Recently, the money spent on improvements to roads, especially secondary roads, has been diverted to buying radars. This is a shame because it's on these roads that 75% of lethal accidents occur. How dedicated are politicians really to saving lives?

The truth is, repression brings in massive amounts of money. But it's not just all about speeding. The police have quotas to fill too - a certain number of PV for each type of offence: jumping a red light, parking, not stopping at a Stop sign, not wearing a seatbelt, and even 51 'refusals to comply' which means that the policeperson will have to provoke drivers to the point where they stop cooperating - definitely an important one that will save countless lives, no doubt.

If you live in France and don't agree with this 'matraquage du conducteur', the Ligue de Défense des Conducteurs has put an 8-question survey online to ask drivers what they think. They need 5million responses, so please please take a couple of minutes to fill it in here: Consultation Nationale sur la Securité Routière.

One proof that this is all about jobs for the boys was visible on Facebook today. I saw that someone had posted a picture showing a radar that had been out of service for three weeks because the company that owned it hadn't paid the electricity bill, a company whose CEO was none other than the brother of Gilles de Robien, former Minister of Transport, as it happens...

Repression for road safety my arse, basically.

Life in France is good with friends

Last night I went out into town with the only French people I count on the exclusive group that makes up true friends, the ones you can count on the fingers of one hand, one and a half at most. We go back a long way so I value their opinions, and one of those was that I don't often talk about how much I enjoy living in France on my blog.

This is probably true but let's face it, a rant about the craziness of a particular incident, the result of some shoulder-shrugging, eye-rolling, pfft-saying fonctionnaire who is indifferent to your very real complaint is a lot more interesting that me warbling on about the joys of passing the time of day with Benoit the Boulanger.

But in the interests of balance, let me tell you that we spent a very pleasant evening. We sat outside in the incredibly balmy air until 10pm eating delicious tapas and admiring the swarthy thighs of the waitress who got an extra tip as a result. The little square was full of happy folk all enjoying their Friday night drinking and eating, un-bothered by traffic or other disturbance.

After lingering awhile chatting, we left and went to the ice-cream bar for dessert, mine a cone of heaven in the shape of passion fruit sorbet and Madagascar bitter chocolate ice-cream. We mooched down towards the Place de la Comédie where tourists and locals (presumably) filled the square and watched the various street artists. Lovely.

Living in the south of France has some advantages - evenings out like that being one although the essential ingredient to my full enjoyment was being with my friends. Had I been on my own it wouldn't have been half as pleasant. I think you can make the most of anywhere as long as you have good friends. If you have no friends, life is hell whether you're on an island paradise or the middle of Slough.

So thank you my friends for reminding me that life is good, even here in France where that lunatic Hollande is doing his best to destroy the Frenchness of France and who has recently been voted the world's worse politician. I'm making the most of it while I can... I promise...

Protect your savings from global looting - read this

If you haven't already read John Ward at The Slog's blog post on global looting by banks, I suggest you do so because you could well be seriously affected by the new law on European banking that was passed while everyone was around the pool on Aug 1.

Basically it states that bank customers are no longer customers but creditors. This means that your money is not your money, it belongs to the bank and you are allowed some of it to live on. In the event of a bank collapse, you will be allowed to withdraw only a small amount.

If a global banking collapse is generated (wilfully?), banks could then issue a highly devalued currency and tax all cash payments. Getting your money out of the bank in this case would be pointless because it would be worthless. What everyone should be worrying about now is what to do with their savings, and if you thought you wouldn't be affected because you have less than €100,000, think again, because you'll have to pay a penalty tax.

There should have been uproar at this scandal, but it was passed in quasi-silence by the media. Our politicians are merely puppets of the EU and can do nothing without being on the sharp end of a tug on the short and curlies.

I don't know where you can put your money. I have no idea what to do with my meagre savings which I thought were safely tucked away in assurance-vie and some other scheme. The only thing that comes to mind is to spend the lot and be damned. Spend it while you can, while it's still worth something.

AND FRENCH

Can we start up a movement of uproar and action? We should be taking to the streets with placards, saucepans and effigies of bankers. At the least, write to your MP, and get voodoo dolls of Barroso, van Rompuy and Dalia Grybauskaite to stick pins in.

Follow-up here: Imminent bank collapse

In short, thinking that the bailin template is a hastily flung together and somewhat academic exercise is fine if you want to lose the shirt off your back. Otherwise, withdraw such money as you can, and buy any asset that you can. It doesn’t matter if its canned food, gold or a motor bike: just do it – and get a move on.

More follow-up here: Regulations can become law without MEP involvement 

Grand Days Out

My mum lives on the Essex/London border which means that as I can no longer afford the exorbitant rentals in Mumbles (Wales), we stay home and visit what's on offer locally. What I love about the UK is the number of things to do and see, and you just have to check out your county's web page, or Trip Advisor, to discover brilliant days out.

From Essex we have easy access to London, and one of the things we did on our trip was to visit the Bank of England Museum. First of all it's free, and I mean really free - there's no one trying to get you to cough up a 'contribution' as you walk through the door. You have a thorough security search however (no, not THAT thorough), after which you can make your way inside to learn all about inflation, the history of currency, and try and lift a gold bar. This is very handy if you ever thought of robbing a bank to steal its gold. Let me tell you, gold bars are VERY heavy, so you'll need strong bags, trolleys and vans. Remember the ending of 'The Italian Job'...

There are lots of hands-on activities for flippant teenagers who don't have the attention span sufficient to read the information panels, and despite breezing through without seemingly touching the ground, the ones I went with had a great time. Their favourite moments were competing to put together magnetic jigsaws of oversized bank notes, and doing the computer quiz without having discovered the answers en route. Meanwhile, I went around and read lots of stuff and found it very interesting.

Another day we went to the Royal Gunpowder Mills at Waltham Abbey on 'Secret Island'. This was a brilliant day out. We (my mum and us) met up with my brother and his family (kids same age), and they had a lot of fun. We started off learning how to make gunpowder, and I read the panels on the history of gunpowder manufacture, then it was on to the armoury where we could handle a number of guns, and try on military outfits including a bearskin. My boys were in heaven.

Our tickets gave us tokens for an airsoft range and kiddy archery target practice, plus the opportunity for the kids to make their own rocket and fire it on the firing range using compressed air. They had a wonderful time firing their rockets and chasing after them. There was also a water/compressed air rocket to fire up, and fun science sessions with Professor Nitrate who showed us experiments with fire and rockets. Brilliant. We also went on a ride on a military truck into the more secret parts of the 'island' and saw some deer, and visited the exhibition on life in the 40s with mock shop/Post Office, Anderson shelter, and home life. I recognised a number of the items both in the shop and in the homes!

We had lunch in the caff which took a long time coming but the bacon sarnies were tasty and not expensive. My eldest said the burger was tasteless however. I bought lunch for the 4 of us for less than £20.

Our other day out was to use up our tickets for the Historic Dockyard at Chatham. Last year I bought a year's ticket for us all as we didn't have time to visit the whole place, so we went back last week to see everything else. We took sarnies which I had to carry although they have a caff there, but I didn't see what the prices were beforehand so preferred to take our own lunch and have a picnic.

We got round all that we hadn't seen - the lifeboats, the ropery, the exhibitions, the smithery and the military vehicles. There was filming on HMS Gannet, the sailing ship, about the painter Turner, with lots of faffing about from the look of things. We didn't actually see any cameras so maybe they were just preparing the ground. Anyway, it meant the ship was out of action for visits but that didn't matter as we'd visited it last year.

My youngest made some rope in the ropery, and was interested in the exhibition on model ships some of which were made by Napoleonic prisoners using bones from their meals and sold to earn money. There was also a brilliant exhibition on Arctic explorers where you could try on the kit and sit inside a tent. The staff were all helpful and interesting, especially the guys in the ropery and model ship exhibition. It is so worth the money because there's enough for a whole day out and more. There's a nifty shop too.

My mother had left a pamphlet from Sussex in my bedroom giving information about days out there, and similarly, there were loads of things to see and do.

Well done all the places we went to for appealing to the difficult teen age group. We had a marvellous time.

We will eat more veg, dammit!

The other evening, freshly back from a merry holiday in the UK, my DB and I watched a documentary on trendy Arte about the production of meat and the effect of said production on both the animals concerned and the planet.

I know that eating too much meat is not good either for our health or the planet, and I have tried to cut down our intake before, an effort which was met with some dismay by my carnivorous sons. But after watching the documentary, I thought I'd have another go, and make an effort to buy more humanely-produced meat when I do buy it (where from however is another matter!).

Then I thought about the practicalities and what my boys will eat, refuse to touch with a bargepole, and are merely highly unenthusiastic about eating. The first list is quite short, the second pretty long, and the third limited to a short list of carrots, spinach, squash, and leek.

On the first list are: tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, onion, potato, broccoli, peas, beans, corn, asparagus, parsnip (my youngest), beetroot (I think, but I don't like it), bean-sprouts.

On the second list are:  mushrooms, courgettes, aubergines, peppers of all colours, celery, cabbage, swede, turnip, avocado, cauliflower, celeriac, fennel, parsnip (my eldest), sweet potato, chicory, okra.

They won't eat cheese either. You can see my problem. Recipes on local cuisine are full of aubergine, peppers and courgettes. I like Mediterranean food but I eat it alone which is not really the point. Luckily they will eat pulses of all sorts so all is not lost, but it would be a boring diet if we stuck to a boy-friendly list of veg.

I also eat French-produced veg in season as much as possible which adds to the fun of limiting the selection. Bugger it, just pass me a chop...