Blue5
New member
Ok, what about the cost of anti foul abroad,
There you go that should keep you going for a day or two, I'll check back on Friday.
I need a good rant!!
- Thread starter Nostrodamus
- Start date
Ok, what about the cost of anti foul abroad,
There you go that should keep you going for a day or two, I'll check back on Friday.
Nostrodamus
New member
Someone is bringing it from the UK for me so I don't even have that to complain about.
I am starting to get a stiring about SWMBO and her need for recyling. With me when the bin is full it is disposed of in the appropriate place. Now she wants to save the planet and collects all the stuff back out the bin and puts it in bags to be recycled when she can find somewhere to do it. They seem to build up. It has got to the point where I say I will walk the 80 miles to get rid of it and then dump it where all the other rubbish goes. She feels good it has been ecycled where I feel good it is not cluttering the boat. Am I wrong?
Sybarite
Well-known member
There was an expat I knew in Kinshasa Congo who had a Maserati and used to airfreight it back to Italy for servicing.
Baggywrinkle
Well-known member
1 - British & culture - 'nuff said!
2 - 2 generations and you can't be bothered to learn the lingo! How terribly British Ex-pat of you sir!
By British culture I mean Monty Python, Faulty Towers, Spitting Image or whatever todays equivalent is (don't have U.K. telly anymore) - there is no German equivalent to British humour.
To address point 2, I speak 3 languages, one of which is German but I am not nearly so eloquent in German as I am in English. I seem to have terrible difficulty with the genative and dative and all the definate articles der, die, das, dem, den. So although I am fluent (most of the time), sometimes my vocabulary fails me, I miss-pronounce words or my british accent shows. In the end native German speakers always notice I'm not a native - my kids don't have this problem. Hence I am destined to be a "strange grandparent that doesn't speak German quite right"
I think it's very rude to go and live in another country and then refuse to learn the language.
mjcoon
Well-known member
We got caught by one in a French port once. An old singlehander, living aboard, looked a bit lonely.
Expecting somebody with an interesting life story to tell, I invited him on board for a drink. He turned out to be The Daily Mail incarnate and, after politely putting up with his bigoted nonsense for an hour, we said we would have to say goodbye as we were going ashore for a meal.
"Ah, mind if I join you?", says he.
"Sorry, we were anticipating a romantic, intimate dinner for two and were not looking for a gooseberry!". Might be blunt enough to work? Maybe needs a liitle pre-arranged acting to make really convincing...
Mike.
PlanB
Well-known member
We like to start the day listening to the "Today" programme - we have a shout at John Humphreys and feel quite set up for the day.
Nostrodamus
New member
The last good rant I had ws a while ago and was about the difference between French and English food.. this is a copy from our website minus the photos
France is renowned for its cuisine but to be honest, the menus we have read when walking past the never ending lines of seafront restaurants are pretty basic. It is the quality of the ingredients that makes the food taste wonderful. Beef burgers are made from pure steak and the animals here must be on the Karen Carpenter diet as there is no fat in the meat at all. In the UK if you put a burger in a frying pan you have to cook it in a flame proof silver suit and put the local burns unit on standby. You end up with a pan and kitchen full of fat and something that looks like a coal miners tongue the morning after a good night out.
Just remember if you order anything rare in France it will be warm but only because it is still breathing and running around on your plate. I kid you not. Everything seems fresh whereas in the UK the food has more additives than there are components in a Rolls Royce RB-211 jet engine. Go to the fish market and the seafood has to be corralled in to stop it walking off the stall. The people here will put up with nothing less as “Mr Burger King” found out. His last fast food shop in France has closed, basically because the French don’t like warm, fatty cardboard as a snack.
So what does this food do for the French Republic of Jean- Pierre’s and Lolita’s? Well, besides making their lives longer, it makes the shoes here more attractive. I know this has you puzzled but the French, unlike the English can see past their stomachs to their feet so they take more pride in what they are wearing. Describe a French woman as having a few extra pounds and it is probably because she has been to the bank. Women do really keep their figures and from behind you cannot tell the difference between a sixteen and a sixty year old. When a British woman blames her “good living” on her genes it is only because they don’t make them in a size 68. Does your bum look too big in that dress? Too right it does, it is around your shoulders. Now I am not having a go at overweight people here, more at the type of food that is available in the UK. If we are in the common market someone needs to show us the entrance and stop rummaging through the offal bins round the back.
There has been an outbreak in the UK of those annoying little electric seats that buzz round on the pavements trying to knock down those who are still able to walk. Who are they driven by ….. Anyone over sixteen stone who would most benefit from exercise. They even put mirrors on them because the occupant would be engulfed and smothered by their own neck fat if they tried to move their head. Go to a McDonalds anytime and there will be cues of them at the drive through getting their mid-morning calorie count above 60,000.
I blame the Americans. Not only are all the television programs making us sound like them, but the food is making us look like them. We might as well shoot ourselves in the head now.
We were once in a famous Chinese restaurant in Soho and a rather large American woman asked the waiter what he suggested. His reply was, and this is true, cross my heart, “I suggest you have f**k all because you are too fat”. I don’t know why she walked out. Now if I had the choice I would make that man Mr Prime Minister or even Mrs Queen. We need someone who can drop kick political correctness in the head, beat it to death with rice flails, throw a few death stars at it and tell it like it really is. I agree that something’s are an affront to dignity and should never, ever be tolerated but that brings us back again to the difference between English and French food.
France is renowned for its cuisine but to be honest, the menus we have read when walking past the never ending lines of seafront restaurants are pretty basic. It is the quality of the ingredients that makes the food taste wonderful. Beef burgers are made from pure steak and the animals here must be on the Karen Carpenter diet as there is no fat in the meat at all. In the UK if you put a burger in a frying pan you have to cook it in a flame proof silver suit and put the local burns unit on standby. You end up with a pan and kitchen full of fat and something that looks like a coal miners tongue the morning after a good night out.
Just remember if you order anything rare in France it will be warm but only because it is still breathing and running around on your plate. I kid you not. Everything seems fresh whereas in the UK the food has more additives than there are components in a Rolls Royce RB-211 jet engine. Go to the fish market and the seafood has to be corralled in to stop it walking off the stall. The people here will put up with nothing less as “Mr Burger King” found out. His last fast food shop in France has closed, basically because the French don’t like warm, fatty cardboard as a snack.
So what does this food do for the French Republic of Jean- Pierre’s and Lolita’s? Well, besides making their lives longer, it makes the shoes here more attractive. I know this has you puzzled but the French, unlike the English can see past their stomachs to their feet so they take more pride in what they are wearing. Describe a French woman as having a few extra pounds and it is probably because she has been to the bank. Women do really keep their figures and from behind you cannot tell the difference between a sixteen and a sixty year old. When a British woman blames her “good living” on her genes it is only because they don’t make them in a size 68. Does your bum look too big in that dress? Too right it does, it is around your shoulders. Now I am not having a go at overweight people here, more at the type of food that is available in the UK. If we are in the common market someone needs to show us the entrance and stop rummaging through the offal bins round the back.
There has been an outbreak in the UK of those annoying little electric seats that buzz round on the pavements trying to knock down those who are still able to walk. Who are they driven by ….. Anyone over sixteen stone who would most benefit from exercise. They even put mirrors on them because the occupant would be engulfed and smothered by their own neck fat if they tried to move their head. Go to a McDonalds anytime and there will be cues of them at the drive through getting their mid-morning calorie count above 60,000.
I blame the Americans. Not only are all the television programs making us sound like them, but the food is making us look like them. We might as well shoot ourselves in the head now.
We were once in a famous Chinese restaurant in Soho and a rather large American woman asked the waiter what he suggested. His reply was, and this is true, cross my heart, “I suggest you have f**k all because you are too fat”. I don’t know why she walked out. Now if I had the choice I would make that man Mr Prime Minister or even Mrs Queen. We need someone who can drop kick political correctness in the head, beat it to death with rice flails, throw a few death stars at it and tell it like it really is. I agree that something’s are an affront to dignity and should never, ever be tolerated but that brings us back again to the difference between English and French food.
mprat001
New member
Hi, there. I joined this forum not because I'm big into yachting (although, I'd certainly love to yearn about it if someone would furnish the yacht), but because my name happens to be (believe it or not) Marina Pratt. If I ever visit the U.K., or if I ever take up yachting seriously, would you advise me to change my name?
mprat001
New member
Hi. I'm an American who happens to be named Marina Pratt. Should I change my name if I ever take up yachting or travel to the U.K.?
snowleopard
Active member
Save it, you'll have plenty to moan about when you get there - marina prices, French boats anchoring inside your swinging circle, sudden F9 winds from any direction......
GrahamM376
New member
But you should be worried about what happens in the UK, we need to keep all these forumites in work to pay our pensions in the sun. Plus of course the winter fuel allowance for the Eberspacher.
Don't worry about the marina pratts, once summer comes, just look out for defaced blues and tenders tied up alongside to stop rafting.
Sybarite
Well-known member
As an ex-pat living abroad I take exception to the stereotyping displayed by forumites in this thread.
I miss proper bacon, proper tea ... I can't get turnips for haggis, neeps and tatties and they all speak a fiendishly difficult language here.
Life was much simpler in the U.K. .... but where's the challenge in a simple life eh?
I might come back some day, but then I might not.
The wierdest thing about moving abroad long-term is that the kids are growing up with no British culture. In two generations I'll be the strange grandparent that doesn't speak German quite right. A sobering thought.
I find that when you move abroad three years is about a hinge duration. You get into a new circle of friends and you distance yourself from a lot of your old acquaintences.
Sybarite
Well-known member
I knew an expatriate in the Congo who used to air freight his Maserati back to Italy for servicing.
Sybarite
Well-known member
I was in a very good Parisian restaurant one day and an American was at the next table. He ordered oysters and then asked for ketchup. This was washed down with Coca Cola. At the end of the meal he asked for a hot chocolate. The waiter remained imperturbable; I don't know how.
