I travelled via Belgium last week and decided to stay overnight at Dinant, where I have stayed previously and found to be marginally less bad than most towns in Belgium.To anyone contemplating a similar stop - don't.The whole of the town is being
At La Dolce Vita exhibition at Olympia this year I bought a jar of garlic cloves preserved in a pizzaiola type oil and vinegar mixture.It is just amazing for snacking, the whole cloves are really crunchy with a fairly mild flavour of the garlic an
I need to buy a tyre for my car. I googled all the usual words but came up with nothing. Back in UK I would simply go to Kwikfit, or ATS etc and it would be done on the spot.
Does anybody have a contact for a sun blind maker?Think of a conventional, rather old-fashioned roller blind with the roller fixed at the top of the window and the blind hanging vertically down.
Whereas the other day it was lovely here, it's now snowing quite heavily. Normally we don't get snow at lake level but it is settling so I'm guessing that elsewhere in the area - away from the lake - it's probably pretty poor conditions for anyone intending to drive near Como/Lugano area.
Gala, if you troubled to read and understand, that's exactly the point I'm making - your posts make it look like I'm saying the exact opposite. I didn't ever think I'd agree with "Esme" but her last post hits the nail on the head!
"As I asked earlier, would it be a good thing for Italians to launch themselves into personal debt? I still think no.Which probably means Italy is out of kilter with Europe, and should probably not be part of it. Similar to UK really, though UK still try to pretend it's in their best interests.'' Gala, you really need to read right through to the end before shooting from the hip.
Steve, I'm not sure I agree. The difference is the French, Germans, British all bought stuff on credit, which made their economies grow. The Italians didn't buy on credit so they could only achieve economic survival through Government spending on things that people may or may not have chosen for themselves. Of course the Government had no money to pay for that spending, so they borrowed it. Hence Italy has huge Government borrowing because the people wouldn't borrow for themselves i.e. live on credit, whereas people in other European countries did - and continue to do so. As I asked earlier, would it be a good thing for Italians to launch themselves into personal debt? I still think no. Which probably means Italy is out of kilter with Europe, and should probably not be part of it. Similar to UK really, though UK still try to pretend it's in their best interests.
"Brain-washing can only be successful amongst uneducated people" Which is exactly why they start the process at birth - babies are, by definition, uneducated. Not just catholics, all theists rely on it. Also the 3rd world is generally relatively uneducated. Old ladies with cats are not so easily defined, though the word "naive" tends to raise its head. All of which ties in with who the majority of the followers of catholicism are, in today's world. And why the sect will eventually fail in the face of other, more aggressive religious groups.
And the priests don't have approval from the Church to fiddle with small boys but it does seem to happen quite a lot. I guess you needed to be heartily brainwashed from birth in order to have blind faith in them. That, they are good at.
Italy has always been out of step with France, Germany, UK etc because Italians don't do credit to the same extent. Italy has been left behind in economic growth terms because the other countries' economic growth has been based on credit. Is that real growth? I suspect no. Which means that Italy could enjoy similar economic growth only if Italians would be happy to accept a level of personal indebtedness similar to the French, Germans and British. Does anybody in Italy want that? - I suspect no.
Just a polite request - could I ask that any personal squabbles be done by personal message rather than in the forum, otherwise we might think the squabblers are only trying to impress the rest of us, rather than just squabble with each other. Which they aren't. And that includes both sides of the squabbling.
"Except that its illegal. If you make a load of promises and then commit perjury in some cases, in order to save some money you can get fined, lose your property and be deported". Ram, with respect, it seems to me that you may be being a bit too black and white on this one. Many people take residency on the basis that they will be spending more than 3 or 6 months per year in Italy, but situations change which prevent that, so residency cannot be maintained. How in your definition can that be illegal and subject to fines, jail sentence, castration etc?
I drove down on Wednesday. England was bloody awful as they had "Operation Stack" in place. Which apparently means they close the M20 and stack lorries on it to prevent them clogging the ports. As most of you will know, Europe stacks lorries all the time, using specially designed areas off the motorway, or at least only using one lane. In England they haven't the sense to do any of that so you are taken through a tortuous detour, badly signed, which costs an hour. The French motorways were as bad or worse, with massive lines of lorries parked up throughout northern France. On the (possibly) A26? there was a 26 kilometre blockage. Fortunately we had just passed an exit so were able to reverse back off the motorway and rejoin near St Quentin about an hour and a half later. I don't know if the problem was snow, or yet another strike - you can never tell in France. The worst of that was that we normally come via Belgium, but as I didn't feel great when we set off, we opted for the more expensive French route to save time and fuss. Drat and double drat. We got to Nancy eventually, in the freezing cold with snow forecast. Had a lovely beer or so and an excellent Japanese meal. Next day it was sub-zero and snowing but perked up later and we had a trouble-free run through Switzerland down to Lugano, which is where we leave the main road. I'm guessing that northern France is probably clear by now, but don't know for sure. Further south is well OK.
Comments posted
Whereas the other day it was lovely here, it's now snowing quite heavily. Normally we don't get snow at lake level but it is settling so I'm guessing that elsewhere in the area - away from the lake - it's probably pretty poor conditions for anyone intending to drive near Como/Lugano area.
Gala, if you troubled to read and understand, that's exactly the point I'm making - your posts make it look like I'm saying the exact opposite. I didn't ever think I'd agree with "Esme" but her last post hits the nail on the head!
"As I asked earlier, would it be a good thing for Italians to launch themselves into personal debt? I still think no. Which probably means Italy is out of kilter with Europe, and should probably not be part of it. Similar to UK really, though UK still try to pretend it's in their best interests.'' Gala, you really need to read right through to the end before shooting from the hip.
Steve, I'm not sure I agree. The difference is the French, Germans, British all bought stuff on credit, which made their economies grow. The Italians didn't buy on credit so they could only achieve economic survival through Government spending on things that people may or may not have chosen for themselves. Of course the Government had no money to pay for that spending, so they borrowed it. Hence Italy has huge Government borrowing because the people wouldn't borrow for themselves i.e. live on credit, whereas people in other European countries did - and continue to do so. As I asked earlier, would it be a good thing for Italians to launch themselves into personal debt? I still think no. Which probably means Italy is out of kilter with Europe, and should probably not be part of it. Similar to UK really, though UK still try to pretend it's in their best interests.
"Brain-washing can only be successful amongst uneducated people" Which is exactly why they start the process at birth - babies are, by definition, uneducated. Not just catholics, all theists rely on it. Also the 3rd world is generally relatively uneducated. Old ladies with cats are not so easily defined, though the word "naive" tends to raise its head. All of which ties in with who the majority of the followers of catholicism are, in today's world. And why the sect will eventually fail in the face of other, more aggressive religious groups.
And the priests don't have approval from the Church to fiddle with small boys but it does seem to happen quite a lot. I guess you needed to be heartily brainwashed from birth in order to have blind faith in them. That, they are good at.
Italy has always been out of step with France, Germany, UK etc because Italians don't do credit to the same extent. Italy has been left behind in economic growth terms because the other countries' economic growth has been based on credit. Is that real growth? I suspect no. Which means that Italy could enjoy similar economic growth only if Italians would be happy to accept a level of personal indebtedness similar to the French, Germans and British. Does anybody in Italy want that? - I suspect no.
Just a polite request - could I ask that any personal squabbles be done by personal message rather than in the forum, otherwise we might think the squabblers are only trying to impress the rest of us, rather than just squabble with each other. Which they aren't. And that includes both sides of the squabbling.
"Except that its illegal. If you make a load of promises and then commit perjury in some cases, in order to save some money you can get fined, lose your property and be deported". Ram, with respect, it seems to me that you may be being a bit too black and white on this one. Many people take residency on the basis that they will be spending more than 3 or 6 months per year in Italy, but situations change which prevent that, so residency cannot be maintained. How in your definition can that be illegal and subject to fines, jail sentence, castration etc?
I drove down on Wednesday. England was bloody awful as they had "Operation Stack" in place. Which apparently means they close the M20 and stack lorries on it to prevent them clogging the ports. As most of you will know, Europe stacks lorries all the time, using specially designed areas off the motorway, or at least only using one lane. In England they haven't the sense to do any of that so you are taken through a tortuous detour, badly signed, which costs an hour. The French motorways were as bad or worse, with massive lines of lorries parked up throughout northern France. On the (possibly) A26? there was a 26 kilometre blockage. Fortunately we had just passed an exit so were able to reverse back off the motorway and rejoin near St Quentin about an hour and a half later. I don't know if the problem was snow, or yet another strike - you can never tell in France. The worst of that was that we normally come via Belgium, but as I didn't feel great when we set off, we opted for the more expensive French route to save time and fuss. Drat and double drat. We got to Nancy eventually, in the freezing cold with snow forecast. Had a lovely beer or so and an excellent Japanese meal. Next day it was sub-zero and snowing but perked up later and we had a trouble-free run through Switzerland down to Lugano, which is where we leave the main road. I'm guessing that northern France is probably clear by now, but don't know for sure. Further south is well OK.