Strasbourg

My second trip on the TGV Est was to Strasbourg in the east of France, on the German border. I wasn't expecting too much because I thought it was going to be a very small city with not much on offer but actually that is not the case.

First surprise is that it's a really beautiful city. The historical centre is on a kind of island surrounded by canals. The typical houses are what they call half-timbered houses which can be seen everywhere and they centre around the huge pink sandstone cathedral.

There are loads of bars, cafes, and restaurants serving local and international food. There are a number of local beers and wines worth trying. I really enjoyed the Alsacian rosé wines I tried. The restaurants were quite touristy but the quality was fairly good and the prices reasonable.

The people were very friendly, not at all like your stereotypical French! They were for the most part happy to speak English with us and almost everyone spoke German to the thousands of German tourists who were visiting.

Cars are generally not allowed in the centre so the canal boat ride was the only tour on offer. The boat meanders around the canals giving great views of the pretty houses and gardens and well as the modern European Parliament and related buildings. The tour was well worth it, even if I did get a little sunburnt.

One thing to watch out for with all the canals around is giant rats. I was quite surprised to see one peacefully swimming along. It looked like a seal, it was that big. I'd heard about these giant rats in the Canal St Martin but was quite shocked when I actually saw one for myself. Someone told me the name of this common rodent but I didn't quite catch it so I don't know what it is called in English.

What I didn't realise is how close Strasbourg is to the German border. It's only 3 or 4 kilometres away. Ferbent and I love to walk so we walked over to the border. There wasn't much to see on the way there because you have to go through the port and an industrial area but it was nice when we finally got to the border, the Rhine River. There are parks on both sides of the river and we noted how much cleaner and better maintained the German side was. Typical!

So we spent a few hours in Kehl, the German town on the border. There were very pretty houses there, really well taken care of. Much nicer than the blocks of apartments on the other side of the river. We had a very cheap lunch and then couldn't resist buying some groceries because everything was like 20% to 30% cheaper there. This is the second time I've visited Germany and then second time I've wondered why I'm not living somewhere which has a lower cost of living and higher salary ie. Germany. Of course, I don't speak German but anyway...

So now I'm really looking forward to my next trip which is to Stuttgart.

You can see my photos of Strasbourg on Flickr.

Setting Up CFMail in Coldfusion

If you want to send email using the CFMAIL tag in a Coldfusion page then you need to set up SMTP server details.

The CFMAIL tag sends an email whenever the page is displayed and is often used in a custom error page. So an email is sent to the webmaster to say that an error occurred as well as the error details. This is how I use CFMAIL.

To set up the SMTP details, login to the Coldfusion Administrator then go to:

Server Settings > Mail

Mail Server: mail.securitytransfer.com.au [for example]

Submit Changes

coldfusion Mappings | Footer | CFInclude

So once you have the data source set up in the Coldfusion Administrator, you'll need to set up any mappings which may be required if you use CFINCLUDE tags.

I use CFINCLUDE to include a footer at the bottom of every page of the site.

To set up a mapping, login to the Coldfusion Administrator and then go to:

Server Settings > Mappings

Logical Path: /Templates
Directory Path: C:\CFusionMX7\wwwroot\[website]\Templates 

Add Mapping

Connecting Coldfusion to an AS400

Just so I don't forget next time my computer dies, here is a record of how to set up Coldfusion to connect to an AS400 or iSeries database.

Login to Coldfusion Administrator

http://127.0.0.1:8500/CFIDE/administrator/index.cfm

Password: *********

Data and Services > Data Sources:

Data Source Name: anyName

Driver: other

CF Data Source Name: anyName

JDBC URL: jdbc:as400://[database ip address]/

Driver Class: com.ibm.as400.access.AS400JDBCDriver

Username: username

Password: ********

Save the jt400.jar driver in the Coldfusion directory:

C:/CFusionMX7/lib/jt400.jar

Add this class path to Coldfusion:

Server Settings > Java and JVM

Coldfusion Class Path:

C:/CFusionMX7/lib/jt400.jar

Submit Changes

Restart the Coldfusion service:

Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services

Verify the class path:

Server Settings > Settings Summary

Check the last entry in CF Server Java Class Path

Verify the connection

Luxembourg

Luxembourg is only 2 hours from Paris with the new TGV Est so it was a relaxing trip when I went there on the weekend with Ferbent. We stayed at the new Novotel hotel which was great. I always try to stay in new hotels where possible as they are guaranteed to be clean and at €85 per night with breakfast included, I was really happy with it.

I was surprised that there were so many tourists around, especially from Greece it seemed. There were also lots of French, American, English, and Scandinavians. The usual suspects I guess.

What I loved most about Luxembourg is how everyone speaks each others language. So you can walk into a shop and start speaking French and then they'll switch to German or English or Portuguese or whatever language is required and they're happy to speak your language, not like in some other countries, ie. France.

I think everyone speaks English, French, German and Luxembourgish plus their own language if they are not originally from Luxembourg, as is the case with 50% of the population. Most seem to be of Portuguese or Italian origin.

There's not really much to do in Luxembourg. There are loads of cafes, restaurants, and beautiful parks. So all there is to do is sit around drinking and eating. That's my kind of holiday really. The shops were of no interest so we just took it easy, walking around the old city, and relaxing.

We spent 3 nights in Luxembourg which I'd say was too much. I was pretty bored towards the end and was happy to be returning home to Paris. I won't be going back but it was worth a quick visit.

View my photos of Luxembourg.

Upcoming Trips

I'm not really interested in the European tradition of taking one month off a year to go sit on the beach somewhere. For starters, I can't take one month off from work. I work for myself and my marketing campaigns need fairly constant monitoring. I can take a few days off or even a week but a month is out of the question.

Secondly, I can't think of anything worse than sitting on a beach or visiting just one place for a month. How boring! I like to visit cities where I can walk around the old streets, visiting cafes and little shops, learning about the history of the city and the people. That's my idea of a holiday and that's why I like to live in Europe.

Three or 4 days is generally enough to visit one city although a week is better for great cities like Rome or Sydney and a lifetime is possibly not enough for the best city of them all - Paris. So over the next couple of months I have booked a few short city trips. I took advantage of the discount tickets on offer on the new TGV Est and have tickets for:

• Luxembourg
• Strasbourg
• Stuttgart

Then I'm supposed to be going back to Australia for a visit but I haven't booked that as I really don't want to go. My parents have offered me their frequent flyer points to book the trip so it's not going to cost me anything so I can't use lack of funds as a reason not to go. I suppose if I got a job I wouldn't be able to take time off. Do I really want to take that drastic action?

Quick Trip to Milan

Did I mention that Ferbent has gone away? Well, not permanently of course. He's in Albania visiting his mother. He wants to get a visa for her to come here to live but, being Albania, it's not easy. He has been gone for more than a month. Who knows when he'll be back. Hopefully in time for our trip to Luxembourg next month.

Before he went to Albania we spent a few days together in Milan. We've got some friends there which explains why I've been to Milan at least 5 times. There can't be any other explanation as it's one of the crappiest cities in the world.

Milan has the worst weather ever. In summer it gets extremely hot and extremely humid. I'm from Perth which is a very hot city but it's generally very dry. It's the humidity which I can't stand. We briefly considered living in Milan before moving permanently to France and I'm so glad we didn't do it. It would have been a nightmare.

Reasons to never visit Milan:

1. It's too hot.
2. It's too humid.
3. Milan is expensive (not when compared to Paris though).
4. The pollution is a nightmare.
5. There are no trees anywhere. Like nowhere!
6. There only seems to be 2 parks in the entire city.
7. There are no places to sit down. So forget about sitting down in Piazza Duomo or any piazza or street or wherever.
8. My friends are too cheap to eat out even though you can get pizza for €5.

Reasons to visit Milan:

1. Great shopping.
2. Great ice cream.

Well, the shopping isn't better than any other big city, it's just different and you can obviously get great ice cream anywhere in Italy. So don't bother visiting Milan.

I had to put all these reasons in writing so I remember to never ever go to Milan again, no matter who I know there.

Typical French Men?

I was pretty bored at the gym last night so when some short French guy headed over and started gossiping with the couple next to me, I didn't hesitate to turn down my iPod and eavesdrop on their conversation. It's not a good thing to do, I know, but anyway...

So first of he starts going on about Facebook and how great it is. That's the first sign that there's something wrong with this guy. Facebook is a complete waste of time. (Ok, I admit I do have a profile and login every day but it's still crap! Oh and you can add me to your friends list if you like, hehe).

Then short French guy starts going on about how he has to work out for 2.5 to 3 hours a day because he gains weight so easily and he couldn't think of anything worse than to be fat. Tall French guy responds by saying that when his wife gains 2 kilos she completely freaks out as it really 'shows' on her. Yeah, she's about 180cm and very thin so 2 kilos will definitely make her look chubby!!

Next these 2 idiot guys start going on about how all women start to lose their looks after 23. They were completely serious. Then tall French guy turns to 25 year old wife and says, 'but not you honey'. He's got to be close to 40 so I can really see that marriage lasting.

It makes me wonder what these guys think of women like me. I'm 33 and more than chubby. They must think I'm repulsive. Although I did catch short French guy checking me out the other day so who knows.

This is the image I have of the typical French man. Obsessed about his appearance and that of his girlfriend/wife. Being overweight shows a lack of discipline or interest in life or I don't know what. I read something once that French men like to go out with curvy women, just not in public. Nice!

New Machines at the Club Med Gym

I paid around €1000 for my gym membership (for 1 year) and even though it's a lot of money I really think it was well worth it. It gives me access to 22 gyms around Paris but I've only ever been to the one, in the 16th. It's quite a large gym with a swimming pool, 3 aerobics areas, a huge cardio area, 2 weights areas, and one spot for stretching or doing ab exercises.

There have been a couple of little upgrades while I've been there (8 months) but a couple of weeks ago they changed ALL the machines for new ones. So new cardio machines and new weight machines. The cardio machines have individual TV's with around 20 channels which you can listen to with headphones.

Although I was quite used to the old machines and there is less variety now, I'm pretty impressed with the new ones. There were always big screen TV's around but they were all on the one channel and there was no sound. I use my iPod when working out but having a bit of TV to watch makes the time go that little bit faster, which is important when you're virtually the same exercise day in day out. Of course, neither the iPod nor the TV is as entertaining as watching the most attractive guy I've ever seen if my life working out! Hehe. Oops, now you my real motivation for going to the gym every day!

Nice Young Plumber Boy

I just had a very nice young French boy stop by to fix my leaking shower. He did put a big hole in the tiles and the wall but at least he found the problem. Water is leaking through the tiles or the grout or something so it will have to be retiled or grouted or whatever. He put some silicone around and now it's up to the building syndicate to send someone to do the tiles.

So it took them (Century 21) more than 6 months to send someone to open up the shower to find the problem. I wonder how long it will take them to send someone to actually fix it? Another 6 months? I won't hold my breath.

I had a bit of water leaking from my hot water system and the very kind plumber boy replaced the broken part and fixed it for me free of charge. It's amazing what happens when you smile nicely at a young boy! You should have seen his face light up when I said how much I loved France. So sweet!

More Dirty French People

When the plumbers were here earlier, they asked if it was just one person here taking showers. I said there were two of us and they responded so that's 2 showers per day. I corrected them saying that's 4 showers per day seeing we each take 2 showers, one in the morning and one in the evening. You should have seen the shock on their faces. Like only complete lunatics would take 2 showers per day.

They guy we stayed with in Italy only takes one shower per day and I read that this is fairly common but I can't understand it at all. You've got to have a shower in the morning, you just have to. There is no way I would leave the house without having had a shower, not even just to go to the boulangerie.

Obviously if I go to the gym I'm going to have a second shower but even if I haven't been sweating like a pig doing cardio, I would feel so dirty if I didn't shower. How could you spend time in the filthy, disgusting metro and not shower afterwards. Even just being out in this highly polluted city, I'd want to shower before bed.

Of course I wasn't surprised when these guys were shocked as I know very well that the French rarely wash their hands, let alone shower often. I wash my hand on arriving at the gym, because I've been in the metro, and I wash my hands before I leave, because I've been touching the machines. While I'm in there, washing with soap, I generally see 2 or 3 women leave the toilets without even getting close to the hand basins. So they go to the toilet, don't wash their hands, and then use the gym machines and whatever else. Ferbent confirms the men are the same. What's wrong with these people?

I was very pleased to see that wasn't the case during my recent trip to London. I used the very busy public toilets in one of the department stores and saw every single person wash their hands afterwards. I never would have thought the English were so much cleaner than the French but there you go!

When Will The Nouvelle Star End?

I spent last week in Italy so missed the last episode of the Nouvelle Star. The only reason I'm following it is due to the project I'm working on and while I am making money (not much), it is so boring, it's killing me.

I've been blogging about all the shows, putting up YouTube vidoes on each of the blogs, commenting on other blogs, participating in forums, all for less than $100 so far. My hourly rate is extremely low on this project. Unless things really pick up in the next couple of weeks, I won't be taking on something like this next year.

At least I'm ranking number 1 in google.com for Julien Dore although I'm not doing quite so well in google.fr. My only hope of making a decent amount of money is if Julien wins as I'm not ranking that well for the other contestants. I'm generally on the second or thrid page of the SERPS.

I just hope the show will end soon so I can go back to my regular work. I think there's only a couple of weeks to go. Fingers crossed Julien wins and I rake in the money!

More Stupid French People

Seven or 8 months ago, our downstairs neighbour knocked on our door complaining of water leaking through their bathroom light fitting. They seemed to think the water was coming from our bathroom and with a little investigation we agreed they were right. We got a plumber in and he 'fixed' the problem. A few weeks later it was leaking again.

Since then we've had numerous plumbers and architects and engineers and building officials come by to look at the problem. After many, many discussions they determined the water was coming from our shower. Really? That took us 5 minutes to work out.

Next came the endless discussions about who should pay to fix the problem. In Australia, structural or building maintenance is taken care of by the landlord (as far as I'm aware) and I would think that would be the case here but my landlord insisted that I should have to pay. I gave him my 'that's bloody ridiculous' argument and eventually he saw it my way and he paid for all the plumbers, who did nothing anyway.

A few months passed and they poor sucker who lives below me brought me a billion documents to sign so my insurance company would pay for the damages. I still think it shouldn't be my insurance who pays but whatever, the insurance companies can fight it out amongst themselves.

More months pass and today 6 more people came to look at the problem. They want to pull the shower apart to find the leak. Of course, I agreed to the work because I know it's coming from the shower. They'll be back next week to pull it apart and check it out.

The stupid architect guy thinks the problem stems from the fact that there isn't enough ventilation in the bathroom. Now while there may not be enough air passing through, it's pretty obvious that is not the cause of water gushing into my neighbours apartment. He insists it is and we need to cut of 3cm at the bottom of the bathroom door. What an idiot. Does he have a brain or what? I keep the bathroom door open 99% of the time anyway, including when I have a shower, so making a huge gap in the door won't solve anything.

He wouldn't listen to me and is going to send someone to chop off the bottom of the door. I'm pretty sure my landlord won't approve of that and neither will I so I won't be letting that guy inside my house. They can do that after I leave if they want but not while I'm here.

We'll see what happens next Monday when they come back and if they ever decide to actually fix the bloody pipe. I just feel sorry for my neighbour. He's been so patient. I would have moved out already if it had been me.

Qumana vs Live Writer

I've been using Qumana to write my blog posts for the last 9 months or so and it has been fantastic. It saves me so much time when blogging, especially seeing I have more than one blog. I can create posts offline and then publish and then start writing the next post for the next blog without having to login to each site. It has been a real time saver. Plus it's free!

It does have a few bugs though. I would find that if I closed Qumana and then later tried to open it again, it wouldn't open. I'd have to go into the Task Manager and stop the process, which would still be running. This was a small problem which was overcome by not closing the program!

After getting my new computer a couple of weeks ago, which runs on the Windows Vista operating system, I installed Qumana and it was working perfectly. Then 2 days ago it crashed and it wouldn't open again. I tried rebooting, uninstalling, reinstalling but no luck. I suspect it's a Java related problem. It just won't start up. So I had to find an alternative.

I looked at quite a few editors and BlogJet was looking like the way to go but $40 seems a little pricey when there are so many other free blog editors. Then I came across MS Live Writer. Live Writer is free and gets good reviews and so here I am writing my first blog post with my new blogging editor.

Setting up a blog is easy, as with Qumana, and was ready to write within minutes. The best thing so far is that it uses the blogs CSS file so I can see exactly how the post will look. Plus it is faster. I had problems with Qumana where I would type faster than it would recognise what I had done and I'd have to wait for it to catch up to me. That was kind of strange. I don't have that problem now.

Another little thing I like about Live Writer is when highlighting something to create a link. If you try to highlight a word in Qumana by double clicking it it would also pick up the comma or full stop which followed it. That constantly bugged me. That's not an issue with Live Writer.

One negative with Live Writer is that it doesn't detect when I have copied a link. So when I go to insert a link I have to paste it into the dialog box whereas with Qumana it would automatically insert it, making linking easy.

Let's hope all goes well when I publish. Fingers crossed...

Update: Success, it posted, yay!

Another thing worth mentioning is that Qumana used to put an extra line between paragraphs with Blogger. I couldn't figure out why. That problem is no longer, yay again!

Open Office

I wrote yesterday about how I couldn't get the spell checker to work after installing Open Office on my new computer. Obviously, with it being open source software it doesn't come with everything pre-installed so I had to download the relevant files and install them myself. This took virtually no time and now there is no chance of me posting articles with misspellings in them. Not that I would ever spell words like colour or organise as color or organize but typos can happen (fairly regularly with me!).

So special thanks to the very kind people who pointed me to the Australian English (Kelvin version) dictionary files.

Soma Out of the Nouvelle Star

Finally Soma got voted out of the Nouvelle Star. I thought he was going to be one of the best performers when I saw him at the auditions but it was all downhill from there. I can't believe he got as far as he did.

So I did the weekly wrap up over at my Nouvelle Star blog or you can visit the individual blogs to see the performances of each of the contestants.

So you can watch and listen to Tigane sing Elton John's Your Song, Raphaelle singing Hurt by Christina Aguilera, Julie singing some boring French crap, Soma singing completely off key to Walking Away by Craig David, Pierre in an unusal performance of Grace Kelly, Gaetane attempting to sing Ironic by Alanis Morissette, and Julien in another great performance with Moi Lolita.

New Laptop

I spent last weekend in London. I desperately needed to buy a new computer and seeing I couldn't stand the thought of using a French keyboard, I headed north to pick up a middle of the range laptop. Not that I really like the English keyboard either but at least it's similar to the one I'm used to. I set it to the international keyboard setting anyway so I think it's ok.

I really wanted to get the latest and greatest computer but at 2000 pounds, that was a bit over my budget. In the end I went with an Acer laptop with 17 inch screen, 1.6 GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, and who knows what else, for 700 pounds. It's not the best on the market, by any means, but it is significantly better than what I was using. The increase in speed in incredible and so is the LCD screen.

The first thing I had to do was set up a network so Ferbent can use the old computer at the same time as I use mine. It took me ages to figure out how to do but in the end it was very simple. Here are the steps for adding a computer to an existing network using the Livebox and internal Wi-Fi. This is really just for my reference because I think I'll buy another computer in the next month or so for Ferbent. The old has so many problems and he's helping me with my marketing efforts and he needs a new computer to be more productive.

Full instructions with screenshots can be found at Orange.

1. Push the little button on the bottom of the Livebox, next to the connection for the electricity. The opens up the network to allow you to connect the new computer.


2. On the new computer click Start - Connect.


3. Select the number of the Livebox (which is written on the bottom of the Livebox.


4. Enter the WEP password which can also be found on the bottom of the Livebox.


5. Wait a few seconds and the connection is made.

Yay, that was easy. Now if only I can figure out how to set up the wireless connection to the printer...

Oh, and it doesn't come with Microsoft Office so I downloaded the open source package Open Office. It was recommended by someone but the spell checker on the Word type program doesn't work :( That's the whole reason I wanted it. Don't tell me I'll actually have to fork out cash for Word and Excel? I wish Qumana came with a spell checker (with Australian English) then I could live with Open Writer. Although I prefer to check my grammar too before posting. Looks like Word it is.

Translate English to French

I created blogs for each of the contestants for this year's Nouvelle Star and so had no choice but to write them in French. I don't have the time or inclination to sit around trying to write in a language other than my own so I used Google Translate to translate what I wrote into French.

I have to say Google Translate works really well, much better than other free online translators which I've used. It wasn't perfect of course, it translated fan to ventilateur rather than, well, fan, and it changed Dove, the guy from the Nouvelle Star to la Colombe. At least I've learnt a new word in French. The bird, dove, is une colombe. Great, that should come in handy.

So next time I have to write a letter in French I'll just write it in English first and then throw it through the translator and cross my fingers.

Alex Out of La Nouvelle Star

Another episode of La Nouvelle Star is over. I quite enjoy blogging it live and I picked straight away that Alex would be the one to go out. I don't think there was much doubt about it - he was crap.

Julien and Pierre are still going strong, as is Gaetane. Soma was rubbish again, although marginally better than last week, but was pulled through by his numerous fans, again. Raphaelle and Julie only just made it through. I wasn't surprised about Julie, she should be out next week but I thought Raphaelle did alright. So that leaves Tigane who did a horrid version of U2's One.

My prediction for next week is either Julie or Raphaelle to be out.

Take the Tram in Paris

Today was a public holiday in France so, seeing the gym was closed, we decided to go for a long walk around Paris. We live around 30 minutes from Parc Andre Citroen so we headed there.

Just next to the park is the last stop of the new Paris Tramway so we thought we'd hop on that instead and see where it took us. Before we even headed off it was full and by the time we got to Cite Universite we were packed in like sardines. Thankfully most people got off there or at the Stade Charlety where there was a political event going on. Why am I not surprised that when Parisiens have the day off they choose to run around shouting things like 'Stop Sarko' and 'Les jeaunes pour Segolene'!

A few stops later we were at the end of the line in the 13th. Boy am I glad I don't live there! All you'll find there is row after row of massive apartment blocks or ghettos, as I prefer to call them. What a hell hole.

A fairly short walk, 20 minutes or so, took us to the Jardin des Plantes. I read recently that the Mayor of Paris had changed the law to allow people to sit on the grass areas in Paris' parks. That is clearly not the case because I saw at least 6 people working there running around with whistles telling people to get off the lawn. Nice.

After picking up some Greek food from my favourite Greek deli 'Le Piree' in the 6th we then ate what we bought in the park behind Notre Dame overlooking Ile St Louis.

I wasn't feeling too well due to the level of pollin around and the constant sneezing and eye watering finally got to me so we headed home - by metro. I never had allergy problems in Australia but both last year and this year it has been a serious problem.

I would add some photos to this post but I forgot to take my camera comme d'habitude.

Chansons Francaise | Nouvelle Star

The theme for last night's episode of la Nouvelle Star was 'Chansons Francaises'. So all the contestants had to sing a French song. Obviously they all chose well known French songs but, not being French and not having lived here for very long, I didn't know any of them. I don't think I even recognised one of the songs. So all I could do to judge the performanes was to judge their vocals and presentation.

Canelle was up first and was ordinary as usual. I expected her to be out before the show even started because she didn't even belong in the top 10 let alone make it to the final 8. So yep, she got the least votes and is out of the competition, probably never to be heard from again.

Pierre Darmon was up next. I think he has a great voice and even though I didn't know the song, he was fantastic. I love this guy. He got a red from Dove becuase he felt Pierre doesn't sing with enough emotion but I think that was unfair. I can see Pierre getting better and better as the weeks go along. Pierre came in at 6 after the voting which was a shock for me. I don't think it helps to be one of the first singers.

Alex was his usual funky self. He sang a song by Yannick Noah. I still can't believe Yannick Noah is a famous singer in this country as I'd only ever known him as a tennis player but whatever... Alex sang and performed well but he wasn't outstanding. Alex was voted in at number 5 so that confirms his mediocre status. I'm sure he can do better but will he?

Raphaelle sang an old French song which showed off her beautiful voice. She sings well but is lacking character or personality. I think she'll continue for another week or two but I can't see her winning the comp. Raphaelle got plenty of votes and came in second. She deserved that I think.

Next up was Julie who sang Si Seulement Je Pouvais Lui Manquer. She was great. She did so much better than last week and thankfully the judges and public thought so too. Julie was voted in at number 4. I thought she did better than Raphaelle but 4 out of 9 isn't too bad.

Popular boy Tigane sang J'en Reve Encore. Everyone loves him - except me that is. Yeah, he sings well but he's just not appealing to me. I don't see what he has that is unique. He got the most last night and looks like he'll be safe for a while.

Poor Soma. He started out with such promise and now he's way over his head. He made an attempt at singing Mon Pays by Faudel but he can't sing for shit. As Marianne said, the only reason he's still in the comp is that the young girls who do most of the voting think he's cute. I really thought he was in with a chance when I saw him at the casting but unless he can make some radical changes, he's going to be out soon. He just made it to the next round.

The brilliant Julien Dore sang Comme d'Habitude. He was fantastic last night. I loved his performance. I can't decide who I'd prefer to win, Julien or Pierre but they are both great in my opinion. Julien was voted through at number 3. I thought he would have been first but maybe his style isn't to everone's liking.

Last to perform was Gaetane singing Au Cafe Des Delices originally by Patrick Bruel. I didn't like her performance at all but was surprised that she only just made it through to the next round, coming in number 7 out of 9.

My prediction for next week is that Soma or Alex will be out.

Nouvelle Star | Videos | Interviews

I've been watching all the videos of the Nouvelle Star contestants on You Tube. I thought TV shows were removed from You Tube but there are heaps of Nouvelle Star videos available to watch.

You can check out the videos of some of the contestants including the castings, auditions, and all of the recent live shows from Baltard.

Alex seems to be a pretty fun and easy going guy who can sing reasonably well but I don't think he'll have the support to win the Nouvelle Star.

Gaetane is very, very popular but I can't work out why. She'll probably be one of the last remaining contestants.

Raphaelle isn't a bad singer but is just so damn boring. Hopefully she'll get better because I quite like her.

Tigane is even less interesting than Raphaelle but the judges love him. I don't think he sings that well and his accent needs a lot of work when singing in English.

Still more videos to come then it'll be time for the next round.

My Carte Vitale

Quite by surprise today, I got a letter in the mail from the Assurance Maladie stating that I have been added to Ferbent's Carte Vitale health card. So I can finally go to the doctor if I need to without having to worry about paying the full cost.

I originally applied for a carte vitale about a 8 months ago when I received my temporary carte de sejour. I had to fill in some forms and prove I was married to my husband who was employed in France. They then needed to see his carte vitale which he was still waiting for.

When his carte vitale finally arrived I wrote back to Assurance Maladie with a copy of the carte vitale but then they needed my carte de sejour, not the temporary one I had shown them.

So I'd kind of forgotten about the whole thing. I then stumbled upon my 'dossier' the other day so I thought I'd send it back with a copy of my carte de sejour (which I received in February). I didn't even send a covering letter, I just put all the documents in an envelope and that was it.

It turns out that was enough so if I get hit by a bus tomorrow it won't cost me a fortune!

I wonder if they'll reimbourse me for when I went to the dentist last year? Probably not but it's worth a try. I'll send off the documents tomorrow and see what happens.

Nouvelle Star | Ilyes Out

Ilyes is out of the running for the Nouvelle Star 2007. He didn't really deserve to continue so I think the voting public got it right this time.

I've added videos and interviews for 4 of the contestants which you can check out if you're interested.

Canelle makes a slightly better performance than last week, as did Soma. I thought Julie did well singing in Spanish but she made it through by only 17 votes.

Videos for the rest are still to come.

Cologne | Germany | Photos

I completely forgot to post my Cologne photos from my recent trip to Germany (which is not so recent now) so here they are:

I'm not a fan of Gothic architechture but the Cologne Cathedral is pretty impressive although clearly in need of a good clean.



Most of Cologne was destroyed during the war so a lot of the architecture is from the 1950s. This of course translates to a very ugly city. However, there are some character buildings along the river.



Yes, this is a photo of a building with an icecream cone on top of it. I don't know what those Germans are up to here:



Ferbent doesn't seem to be too happy about the cold weather:



They like to ride their bikes a lot in Cologne which is great:



That's it for Cologne, there wasn't much to see but I had a great time anyway. I'm looking forward to my next trip to Germany.

Wonder Cooker

A quick update on the Wonder Cooker which I've been promoting for a few weeks.

I had my doubts about whether people would be interested in this kind of thing and more to the point, whether people actually buy As Seen on TV products but in fact, it sells really, really well. My conversion rate is around 5% which is great. Well, I think it's great. Other affiliate programs I work with only convert at around 1 to 2% so needless to say I'm pretty happy with the Wonder Cooker.

The only reason I'm not looking at retirement any time soon is that I'm not getting enough volume. People just aren't searching for the Wonder Cooker. Maybe it's only a new product or it isn't being promoted on TV at the moment; I'm not sure. So I'm only getting around 1 sale per day. Yeah, I won't be going on a 5 star holiday anytime soon.

This has motivated me to try promoting other As Seen on TV products. As soon as I finish with the Nouvelle Star campaign I'll be working on promoting other products like with my One Cooker website.

La Nouvelle Star

I'm not that interested in reality TV shows, especially French ones but I have been following the Nouvelle Star with mild interest. Actually my interest in this show is more from a marketing persepective than anything else as I'm interested in the possible money making opportunites it presents.

I know that in the US, American Idol is hugely popular and many marketers do really well promoting the last 10 contestants and especially the winner. They do arbitrage or CPA offers around ringtone or cd offers. So I thought I'd give it a go here with the Nouvelle Star 2007. Naturally the demand won't be as high here as in the US but I won't know exactly until I try.

So my pick to win La Nouvelle Star is Pierre Darmon. He's one of the more experienced singers, has a great voice and is well liked by both the jury and the public. The most unique and talented singer and talented is Julien Dore. I think he's great and the jury loves him but I don't think he'll win. He's a bit too alternative for the voting public I'd suggest.

As for the girls there is Gaetane, who is pretty useless but seems to be popular because she's pretty, if you like the look of French girls that is. Canelle is even more useless than Gaetane but someone managed to get through to the final 10. She doesn't deserve to be there but anyway, that's how they voted. Raphaelle seems nice and has a pretty good voice but I don't think she'll win. She might make it to the top 5 but she's a bit too plain Jane to win. My favourite of the girls is Julie. She's pretty cool and can sing well and I think she's popular so she could go far.

The rest of the line up includes Alex who was saved by the jury at the last minute. He definitely deserved to get through. Soma is hugely popular with the girls. He can sing well but his performances so far have been utter crap. Hopefully he'll improve this week as he could win if he gets it together. Tigane is pretty boring if you ask me but the jury seems to like him. That leaves Ilyes who again is pretty popular with the girls but he's a bit limited in his abilites so probably won't win.

So they are my predictions, we'll see if I get close. I'm still working on getting the sites up and running and will start the AdWords campaign in a couple of weeks.

The Wonder Cooker

I haven't had too much success in the past using Google Adwords with affiliate marketing but I'm giving it another go. In the past I have managed to break even and that's about it. I've got a bit more information now so hopefully I'll be able to do better this time.

As seen on TV products seem to be doing well at the moment so I'm trying to sell the Wonder Cooker. The landing page goes something like this:

If you’re anything like me, you want to prepare healthy, tasty meals for your family but it just doesn’t happen often enough. You know fast food is bad for you but you lead such a busy life that you simply don’t have time to cook. You want to be sure your children are eating the required servings of vegetables every day but it’s hard to find recipes they love. You want to prepare gourmet meals for your family and friends but you don’t know how. When you do finally get the time to cook you’re then left with a massive pile of dishes to wash. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be so difficult.

Then it goes on about the benefits etc. Writing sales copy isn't really my thing so we'll see how it goes. I've just got the write the ad and then wait for the results. My first goal is to break even and then try to drop my bids to less than 10 cents per click. I'm looking for a 1:2 or 1:3 return on investment so wish me luck

Natural Fashion | Review

Do you ever do something without thinking too much about it, thinking all is going well, that you're doing the right thing, only for it to turn into a complete nightmare? That seems to happen to me quite a lot.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been dealing with a wholesaler of organic cotton clothing in Australia. They asked me to review one of their t-shirts and I agreed. They then wanted to advertise on my site, great I thought, so they paid me for 3 months advertising and I put up their banner ad. Then they wanted me to exclusively sell their organic cotton toys through my site. Great again. Then they wanted me to exclusively sell all their products through my site. What more could I have asked for. I was to get 10% on all sales. While I didn't expect to make loads of money through them, it would have added a couple of hundred dollars a month to my income, which would have grown over the next couple of years.

So I wrote a couple of posts about them, one of which got picked up by Treehugger, the number one 'green' site. That was great exposure and great to get a link from a PR 7 website. Things were going really well, too well.

So then I wrote the Natural Fashion review. This is where the not thinking too much part comes in. I cover the item one point at a time. I mention the quality of the fabric, how it washed, how it ironed, that kind of thing. Then I mentioned that I didn't really like the colour. It's that natural, undyed colour which probably only suits half the population. It doesn't suit me and I said so. I then mentioned the crappy, old fashioned designs. I tried to be nice about it and did mention that not all the designs were rubbish but I was in trouble.

When the idiots people at Natural Fashion found out they went crazy. Demanding to know how I was going to sell their products with such a negative review. Good point. The problem is I wrote what I thought was right. I don't like their crappy website and their crappy clothes. Sure the organic toys are pretty cute as are the children's clothes but the women's stuff is just rubbish. Who in their right mind would wear those dresses? If you want to see them just search for natural fashion in Australia. I won't waste a link to them.

I said it wasn't that bad, it was just the review of one top after all, it wasn't a sales page. I agreed to add a few more positive points but not to change what I wrote. They emailed me analysing each paragraph, highlighting all the negative things I said. That was a shock. I was pretty pissed off by their attitude. I tell you they pissed off the wrong person. My website ranks much better than theirs so I can write whatever I like about them and loads of people will read about it.

So naturally, I updated the post with everything they said to me. That sure made them angry, if they weren't before. They then demanded I remove all the images and logos about their site, including the banner ad they had paid for, that I remove all links to their site (meaning they would lose all traffic I was sending them; yes they are stupid), and that I remove all mention of their trademarked name, Natural Fashion.

That last point is pretty ridiculous and there's no way I'll be doing that. Why should I? I didn't go to all that trouble to just have to remove the post. Plus I want my visitors to see how stupid those people are - Renata and Doug Giles that is. I'll mention their name just in case they have a Google alert set up for themselves, I'm sure they'd be happy to read this ;)

The brilliant thing is now if you search for natural fashion in google.com.au, the second listing is my review post. So most people searching for them and see all the crap I wrote about them. Don't you just love blogs? With a bit of luck this post will show up too :)

So yeah, I probably lost a bit of money but who cares; there are other organic clothing suppliers around. The last thing I need is to work with morons like those at Natural Fashion.

Sergi Lopez | Non Solum

Sergi Lopez is one of my favourite actors. I've seen him in loads of movies and will go to see a movie just because he is in it. So when I heard that he was doing a play in Paris I bought tickets immediately.

The play is called Non Solum and is playing at the Theatre du Rond Point on the Champs Elysees. It's one a one man show and a 'comedy'. That's in quotes because I didn't laugh once. Bloody hell, what a load of crap. Honestly, I've never seen such rubbish in all my life.

The theatre seats 750 people and I'd be surprised if there were more than 200 there. I know I'm not the only one who wasn't impressed because I saw 3 people sleeping. I wish I had been lucky enough to have fallen asleep. From the moment it started I was just waiting for it to end. I thought about getting up and leaving but to do that about 10 people would have had to stand up and seeing we were near the front Sergi would have seen for sure. I couldn't do it. So I sat there, counting down the minutes.

It didn't help that he has such a strong Spanish/Catalan accent. I've never had any problems understanding him in his movies. Maybe he redoes his lines in a studio or has a voice coach or something. He was a bit tough to understand at times. I feel sorry for poor Ferbent who doesn't speak much French; I don't think he understood anything.

As for the theatre itself, it was clearly built for short, thin French people. Ferbent's knees touched the seat in front of him and mine almost did. I don't know how tall people managed. The width of the seats was pretty uncomfortable for both of us too. Admittedly, I'm not the skinniest person around but Ferbent is pretty slim and the seat was a tight fit for him too.

This is just another crappy event to add to my list of crappy outings in France.

• French Formula 1 - Magny Cours. Don't even think about going to this event. The facilities are filthy, it was poorly organised, the food was way overpriced (4 euros for a bottle of water), and the traffic a nightmare; unless of course you don't mind waiting 3 hours to get out of that hell hole.
• Juanes at the Zenith. The music was great but the Zenith was a nightmare. I reckon it was 50 degrees in there. No air conditioning at all. I just about passed out. Nightmare!
• Paris Open - Tennis. I've been to the Paris Open twice and I'm pretty sure I'll never go again. It was super boring. The most annoying this was the security guards who thought they had the power to do as they chose. I went out after the first match and the buggers wouldn't let me in again. Said I was supposed to have gotten a stamp on the way out. What am I a mind reader? No one said anything when I left. There were no signs. The guy insisted I had to buy another ticket. What a joke! I made a huge fuss but to no avail. 5 minutes later two guys couldn't get back in either. I then joined them in yelling at the head security guy and eventually he caved in. Complete wankers working there.

The next event for me will be le Cirque de Soleil - Alegria. I saw them once in Perth. I had free tickets which always makes an event more enjoyable. Later this year I'm going to see Gad Elmaleh, another favourite actor/comedian of mine. He is so funny and very, very, charming but I don't know if I'll understand him that well. He speaks super fast and uses a lot of slang. Ferbent definitely won't understand much. I'll have to go anyway. I can't miss seeing him in the flesh.

No more Sergi Lopez for me though. I think I'm over him.

Ich Bin Ein Berliner

The first thing I noticed upon arriving in Germany was how big the people are. Not only big but huge! Very tall and very fat and no wonder, they eat constantly. Not that I have anything against fat people, I happily consider myself to be one, but it was a definite (and pleasant) change from the short, skinny French who eat half a sandwich and claim to be stuffed.

The French claim to love their food and eat a lot but that's rubbish. I was at a restaurant the other day and the girl next to me was telling her friend how large her meal was and that she couldn't possibly take another bite. All this after having eaten 4 tiny falafel balls and half a pita bread.

In Cologne, and I imagine most of Germany, bakeries seem to be the place to be. From morning until night, there is a queue out the door and tables inside with people happily munching away. Every morning the bakeries were full of wall to wall Berliners (doughnuts), massive loaves of bread (for less the 2 euros), and huge slices of fresh, creamy cakes. Plus there were a few sandwiches and pretzels thrown in. By around 7pm, the bakeries had no food left. None at all! I was shocked.

Every second person walking down the street was eating something so it looks like eating it Germany's favourite past time. Ferbent loves to eat too and loved Cologne. I enjoyed Cologne but hate Ferbent as he eats like I've never seen anyone eat and remains slim.

Of course I had to do as the Germans do, when in Rome Cologne and all, so for breakfast I would have a small salad sandwich in Turkish bread (thanks no doubt to the many Turkish immigrants in Germany). Mid morning was time for a Berliner. Lunch was a huge cone thing packed with hot chips topped with tzatziki (Cologne is so multicultural) from one of the shops who sell nothing but chips (my kind of place). After noon tea was cake time. By dinner time I was pretty stuffed so didn't eat too much. That was pretty much my diet during the 6 days I spent in Cologne. Yeah, healthy, I know. Surprisingly, I lost almost 2 kilos while there but no doubt if I lived there long term I'd probably double in size and have a heart attack.

"Ich bin ein Berliner" is the famous quote by John F Kennedy which translates to "I am a doughnut". Every time I saw the Berliners I thought of that and laughed. However, as it turns out, in Berlin, jam doughnuts are not known as Berliners and so he was right to say Ich bin ein Berliner but it makes me laugh anyway.

Getting a French Drivers Licence

I managed to make it to the Prefecture 10 minutes before it opened and was 16th in line, so only a short wait before I got to speak to someone. My carte de sejour was supposed to have been printed on the 30th October 2006, after applying in June, and it possibly was but I never received it. So I have ordered a new one and I should receive it next week.

They also extended my temporary carte de sejour, for a second time, so no problems there. I don't think it really needed to be extended anyway. Last time it had already been expired for a month before I went to get it extended so I don't think they care too much. It's only a temporary piece of paper valid until the real carte de sejour is printed.

As for getting a French drivers licence, that will be easy. All I need is to show my:

• passport


• current Australian drivers licence


• carte de sejour

They will do a straight swap so I don't need to fill out any forms or take a test, she will print it on the spot for me. Who would have thought that it could be so easy? Of course, there is a problem. They will only accept the carte de sejour which hasn't been printed yet. My drivers licence expires on the 7th March so that means I must exchange it before then.

Obviously I should have gone back to the Prefecture in November when I didn't receive the carte de sejour because they had told me that it was on its way. Fingers crossed that it arrives in time and I can get my French licence.

Back to the Prefecture

I'm back from Germany and back to the Prefecture. I still haven't received my plastic carte de sejour and my paper one is about to expire - again. I'll have to go to the Prefecture (or Sous Prefecture to be exact) and see what's going on. Last time I was there they told me it was sent to the printers on the 30th October so I should be receiving it at any moment. Yeah right.

I also have to exchange my Australian drivers licence as my current one is about to expire. I wonder if the Australian Consulate can renew it for me. I suppose I should contact them just in case but I doubt it. I hope there's not much paper work involved in getting a French licence. Yep, that was a joke! I am in France after all.

So I'll have to get up early tomorrow so I can queue up for an hour or so. Seeing it's already 2am it's not going to be pretty.

I'll post about Cologne soon, once I get back into writing mode.

Off to Cologne | Germany

I'm going to Germany tomorrow, to Cologne. Although I've technically been to Germany before (I stopped off on the way to the Czech Republic) I haven't seen any cities and hardly know anything about it, except for what I've seen on TV. I've always wanted to go to Berlin and Munich but I found a very cheap fare to Cologne, so Cologne it is.

I'm looking forward to being in a new country and doing some travelling. I haven't been anywhere since August last year when we went to Spain. This is going to be quite different I'm sure. I don't think I'm going to like German food but I'm going to try their specialities and even though I don't drink, I don't think I'll be able to avoid having a beer.

I'm planning to take lots of photos and I'll post the best of them when I get back, next Wednesday.

Not Much Shopping

I see so many people out shopping at the moment. Ok, it's coming up to Christmas so that's normal but it's such a pain when you just need to buy something and aren't looking for a gift. If you just want to run in and run out of the shop it's quite difficult. I hate shopping when there are so many people around and I imagine I'm not the only one.

I have seen some nice things in recent weeks. I want to buy a few things for the house and I wouldn't mind some new clothes too. Unfortunately I won't be doing much shopping for the next couple of weeks due to my massive dentist bill, which naturally isn't covered by the Carte Vitale French health insurance.

I had to have a crown which cost 650 euros. 80 of that will be refunded by the French social security system, if I ever get a Carte Vitale. For Ferbent it is much different. He is in the process of getting a bridge, which funnily enough is called a bridge in French and not a pont, which is going to cost a small fortune. It's going to cost 2100 euros of which only 450 will be reimbursed. Ouch. I know it needs to be done but I had really hoped to go away a couple of times before next summer. I don't see how we can do that now. If only I could sell a few more Albanian souvenir t-shirts or some organic hair care products. If only.

France Telecom (Orange) is Crap

This follows on my previous post about TPS being crap which is part of a long, long, long series of posts about France being crap.

My TPS contract ended last week without notice. That wasn't too bad in the end because I was paying over 50 euros per month to watch a lot of rubbish. I decided to just keep the free channels but to do that I had to change my plan. I went to France Telecom (Orange), and they said I had to call. Presumably because the call costs 34 cents per minute which no doubt proves to be a significant souce of income for the telecom.

I went home and called the number they gave me and I couldn't get through. I tried a few times then gave up for the day. The next day I had the same problem so tried another number and got through. They told me to try another number (10 14) which I think is a free call. I spoke to a very nice lady who changed my plan. She put me on hold and then I got disconnected. Not knowing whether or not it was all done I had to call again.

The next lady I spoke to said I had to go to France Telecom to get a new decoder because my old one doesn't work with the new system. I went to Orange and they said I needed a numero de savi, whatever that is.

I went home again and rang the number he gave me but of course that wasn't the right number. After a few calls I found the right number but because I didn't know the decoder model number they couldn't give me the numero de savi. After a lot of pushing he eventually gave it to me.

Back to Orange and I got the new decoder. I tried to confirm that my plan had in fact been changed a couple of days earlier. When he checked the computer it said they were waiting for a signature to change the plan. I don't know how that was going to happen over the phone.

Got home and plugged in the decoder and it worked first time! Yay. I should now be paying less each month but I'll wait for the next bill to see that that is in fact the case. Otherwise I'll have to call them again. Fingers crossed it'll be ok

Organic News and Gardening

My Buy Organic website is coming along well. It is by far the most successful of all the websites I have, probably because it is the site of most interest to me and I spend the most time working on.

The blog is proving to be very popular and having the blog makes it is easy for me to update the site everyday. I do tend to update it everyday. I try to write one article per day and then post a few things on the latest organic news or more often environmental news. There's a lot happening around the world so I try to just pick out things which will be of interest to Australians.

Lately I've been doing quite a few articles on organic gardening. Talking about the best mulches, why to use mulch, the best mulches for suppressing weeds, and then other articles on organic pest control, how to grow pineapples, how to grow organic potatoes, and how to grow organic strawberries.

There's a bit of research involved but seeing I enjoy gardening, it doesn't seem like work when I write these things. The same can't be said for my other websites which have less or little interest for me. I wonder whether I should continue with them or not. Maybe if they started to get more traffic then I'd find them more interesting and worth working on.

I should get back to I suppose. There's plenty of organic news to catch up on.

French Companies Don't Have A Clue

I've been getting TPS through my ADSL line via Orange since I moved to France. I don't watch a lot of TV but there are a few things I want to see which are not on the free channels. One of the main reasons I got it was to watch French movies but as it turns out most of the movies they show are American or old French movies which I've already seen. Until a few months ago I did at least get to watch BBC World News but that has since disappeared without a trace. I see they are still showing it as one of their channels on their website but that is definitely not the case. That only leaves crappy CNN as the English language news channel.

I was getting pretty much all the channels and it was costing around 50 euros per month. I say was because a couple of days ago they cancelled my subscription, without warning. No, I hadn't forgotten to pay the bill. Apparently when I moved house, 8 months ago, I didn't notify them of my change of address. First of all, that's rubbish. I changed my address with France Telecom and the guy there changed all the TPS stuff for me and it has been working fine for 8 months. Secondly, even if they have my old Montpellier address, so what? I'm paying every month for this service why cancel it?

I rang TPS and of course the stupid woman was in such a rush she couldn't explain it to me properly. I asked her to slow down twice but she didn't. From what I gathered the contract couldn't be renewed because they had my old address? I don't know, was I supposed to sign another contract because that had expired? That doesn't make sense because I signed a new contract when I moved to Paris. So what happened? I guess I'll never know.

This is just another example as to why this country is crap and the economy is a mess. Companies don't know what they are doing and customer service is non existent. I always thought that this kind of contract was ongoing. So even though the contract was initially for a year, after that time the customer continues to pay and the companies continues to provide the service until the customer wants to end the contract. I've never heard of a company ending the contract with a customer who is paying the highest level subscription per month and would have continued to so indefinitely. They just threw away my business.

So now I'll either head over to Canal + or maybe I'll just skip the TV altogether and start reading more.

Novelty Gifts

This brief post on novelty gifts is an experiement on how a page ranks depending on links on a page and the test surrounding those links. I’m curious to see if I will get any results with this. So if you are looking for novelty gifts then:

Novelty gifts - Bombshell
Novelty gifts - via Wikipedia
Novelty gifts - McPhee
Novelty gifts - Lastminute
Novelty gifts - Spilsbury
Novelty gifts - via Technorati
Novelty gifts - Reference
Novelty gifts - via Digg
Novelty gifts - via Reddit
Novelty gifts - Techcrunch
Novelty gifts - Buy Organic
Novelty gifts - PrezzyBox

This is a follow up from my previous post about novelty gifts and is based on this original post about novelty gifts. Without links to this post I don't think much will happen but we'll see.

Evian Badoit and Vichy

I know I haven't posted for ages. Nothing has been going particularly well here in France; more bureaucratic problems as usual plus I've been super busy with work. I've been adding a lot of content to my sites in preparation for Christmas so will hopefully have a few more sales than usual this month.

I think in January I'll be able to relax a bit more and start exploring Paris again.

So, what are Evian, Badoit, and Vichy famous for?

The reason I ask is because someone found my site by entering that into Google and it made me laugh out loud. In fact, I'm still sniggering. Maybe it's not funny at all and I'm just in a strange mood. In that person's defence I suppose if you've never been to France you wouldn't know the answer. Then again, who has never heard of Evian, at least?

Of course the answer is.... mineral water.

No doubt the next person visiting Aussie in France will be happy to find a quick answer to that question.

Novelty Gifts for Him and Her

I've been pretty busy lately working on getting sales in the lead up to biggest shopping period of the year. I still have lots to do and have especially been working on a new site about novelty gifts. It is aimed at a UK audience although I think most items can be delivered anywhere around the world.

I'm surprised that novelty gifts and gadgets are so popular. Everyone wants something to play with I guess. I've had a good look around the web to see what's on offer not only for work but because I want to get a novelty gift for him. F is quite difficult to buy for, being the fussy many that he is. However, whenever we go out to the shops he always manages to find things he loves and wants to buy. I often have to drag him away from the shops. It's quite embarrassing really.

I don't know if it's a good idea to surprise him with a gift because he seems to love the act of shopping so much. I wonder if I'm denying him by buying something without him, even if it's for him.

Not only is my man fussy but he also only ever wants unique or unusual gifts. He doesn't want anything popular or common. That's generally a bit difficult but I have found a few things he might be interested in:

• Multi function key.
• Spacepen which writes upside down, on wet paper, or in freezing temperatures.
• Telescope but I don't know what for.
• Heart rate monitor (he loves the gym).
• Binary watch. He'd go crazy for that as he does with any unusual watch.
  
• Super Pen which scans text which you can translate, store or transfer to a computer.

Ok, that last one is probably of more interest to me. I've wanted to get it since I saw it. I'll keep looking for novelty gifts for him and her to see what else is out there.

3rd Time Lucky at the Bank

After my initial attempt to get a bank cheque, to pay for my home contents insurance, I finally got things sorted out on my third trip to the bank.

On my first trip to the bank they told me I needed an appointment to get a bank cheque. They made that for me 10 days later. I almost missed that appointment purely because I completely forgot about it. That would have been a disaster as I then would have needed another appointment.

When I went to the appointment I was 10 minutes late and she said she couldn't see me. That was complete rubbish because I know she made an hour appointment for me. I apologised for being late and then she said c'est pas grave, it's my pleasure to help you. So at first she was annoyed with me then she was smiling and happy. Hmm.

Rather than issue me with a bank cheque which would cost 15 euros she decided to order a cheque book (chequier) for me which is gratuit. I suppose, being in France, I really should have a cheque book. When in Rome...

So one week later and I got my very own, first ever cheque book.

I sent off the cheque to Montpellier to pay for my home insurance. I don't really know if it was overdue or not because there was not due date on the bill I received. That seemed a bit strange to me but there you go.

Ferbent is Hopeless

Ferbent has a 'pay as you' go phone which I usually discourage him from using. He tends to call me to tell me the most banal things. He's already called me three times today.

Firstly, he called me to let me know he forgot his keys for work. He didn't want me to take them to him or anything, just to let me know.

Then he called to see what I was having for lunch and if we could go to the Vans shop later today. He loves shopping, especially for shoes.

I just got off the phone with him because he wanted to let me know that his shoe laces keep coming undone! According to him this means we will be going on a trip soon. It's more likely that he'll trip up soon. It looks like I'll have to book a weekend away so he can say he was right.

Hopefully he'll run out of money soon so he won't be able to call me and I'll have some peace and quiet.

My Cat is Sick

I have two cats, Jade and Topaz, who live in Australia with my parents. They are both 17 years old so it's not surprising they're getting a little frail.

Topaz is not well. She doesn't eat much and only weighs around 2 kilos. To be fair, she's always been a very small cat but things got worse when she had a little adventure a couple of years ago.

She likes to sleep on my dad's car in the garage and one night when he went out she didn't jump off as she usually does and went for a bit of a ride instead. She held on for a while until the car went round the corner when she went flying off. I know that's what happened because someone witnessed it and made my dad pull over to tell him.

She went missing for 2 weeks and when she finally made it home she was skeletal. I can't believe she survived it at all. She never really regained the weight she lost. Part of the problem is that she's a very fluffy Persian and she's constantly coughing up fur balls, along with her dinner.

Yesterday she was pulling out a knot in her hair and took out a chunk of skin at the same time. That can't be good. I think she'll be off to the vet tonight.

I hope she's going to be ok.

Jade is quite different to Topaz. She's a very fussy eater but eats a lot and weighs more than 4 kilos. She's much healthier but I don't know if she'll last long without her sister.

I miss them.

Salon du Chocolat

I went to the Salon du Chocolat yesterday without a ticket which was a big mistake. You can buy the tickets online at FNAC but I didn't get around to it so I just turned up at Porte de Versailles. There was no queue for those who had pre-purchased tickets but the queue to buy tickets was ridiculous.

We couldn't be bothered to wait as it would have surely taken an hour or more to get in. It's on until Wednesday so I could go during the day when there would be fewer people, although I'd definitely buy a ticket before going.

It closes at 7pm so I won't be able to go with Ferbent. I don't know that I really want to go alone and seeing I'm having Thursday off to go to the tennis then I can't really afford to take another day off.

Missing the Salon du Chocolat was the first bad thing which happened yesterday but it got worse when I left the exposition centre. I wasn't paying attention when I left and as I walked out of the driveway I got hit on the head by the boom gate. I don't know how it happened or how I didn't notice it or why it came down right as I was walking under it but it happened.

I could say I was more embarrassed than anything else (there were a lot of people around) but in fact it hurt a lot. I now have a very big bump on my head and yesterday I had a terrible head ache.

I think that has turned me off of going to Porte de Versailles. Maybe I will spend the 12 euros which I was going to spend on the ticket on Jeff de Bruges chocolates.

Getting a Carte Vitale in France

I've been without any kind of health insurance for more than six months. Before that I had travel insurance which would have covered me for any emergency health care. I have a Carte de Sejour (French resident permit) and my husband is working full time and paying tax, so I am (or should be) entitled to health care in this country.

The thing is, I can't get a Carte Vitale (French health care card) until my husband gets his, presumably because he's a British citizen and I'm not. So I've been waiting for him to get his social security number and then the carte vitale.

Of course, being France, nothing is easy. Ferbent has been working for 8 or 9 months, all the while paying tax and social security contributions, without a social security number. They said he couldn't get it until he proves that he is a British citizen. He showed his passport and naturalisation certificate but that wasn't enough. They needed to see his birth certificate, even though he wasn't born in the UK. He doesn't have one so they refused to issue him with a carte vitale.

After numerous letters and phone calls, many of which were made by his French employer, they still refused. Arnold at Foreign Perspectives recommended citing European law which allows the freedom of movement of EU citizens. This seemed to be our last chance but I hadn't bothered.

Surprisingly, Ferbent received his social security number in the mail today with a note saying the carte vitale is on it's way and he should receive it in the next few days (which could really mean the next few weeks or months). In the mean time he can quote this number if he has to go to the doctor or for any other medical treatment.

I don't know why they changed their mind and gave it to him but I'm so glad they did. I didn't want to have to keep pushing them.

So now I should be able to quote his social security number, show my marriage certificate and birth certificate (or course), and I'll have my carte vitale. I'm sure they won't make it that easy for me but fingers crossed.

Salon du Chocolat | Paris | Porte de Versailles

The Salon du Chocolat started today in Paris. It only goes until Wednesday so I'd better hurry up and get my ticket. I'm sure this is one event not to be missed. I've heard it gets very crowded so I guess I'm not the only one who loves chocolate.

I've never been before so I don't really know what to expect. I know they have cooking and chocolate making demonstrations and also have fashion shows with clothes and accessories made of chocolate.

I'm just hoping they give out lots of samples!

It closes early each evening, at 7pm, so they doesn't leave much time to go after work. Maybe I'll have to go in the afternoon so I'll have plenty of time to check out everything. I won't be able to go with F if that's the case but maybe he won't mind - provided I take some chocolate home for him, that is.

Sleepy Weekend

I've been sick since Friday, with a cold, so didn't do anthing this weekend. I didn't even leave the house. That's pretty bad but all I wanted to do was sleep and I did exactly that. Sleep, play cards on the net and watch rubbish TV.

I have been out this morning though. I was supposed to go to the post office last Thursday so I had no choice but to go this morning. I had to post some tax stuff back to Oz. I had about 40 pages of documents for my accountant. It took me a whole day to get it all sorted out so now it's up to JF to do his magic. I hate accounting stuff. I studied it a bit at high school and at university and have even had a few jobs in accounts but never again. I can't think of anything more boring.

I am feeling a little better today so I really must get back to blogging. I need to write at least 3000 words per day to hopefully get more hits on my sites. They're not doing as well as I'd hoped so I've only got another 2 and a half months to start making minimum wage. That was my goal - to be making minimum wage by the end of the year otherwise I'll have to go out and get a 'real' job.

Tennis | Paris Open | BNP Paribas Masters

The Paris Open is on shortly and I can't wait to go. I've already bought my tickets for the Thursday, round 3, and Saturday for the semi finals. I went in 2000 and loved it. That was the first time I ever went to a tennis tournament and since then have been to Wimbledon and the Italian Open. I would love to go more often but the opportunity rarely arises.

The BNP Paribas Masters tennis tournament is held at the Palais Omnisports de Paris Bercy which is in the 12th in Paris. It's not a particularly nice area of Paris. It's not bad it's just that there's not much to see or do there. The tournament starts on the 30th October and finishes on the 5th November. Tickets are available from 14.50 euros to 64 euros. I paid 40 something. I don't remember it being so expensive last time I was there but I guess that's inflation for you.

The disappointing thing is that Roger Federer won't be playing. I saw him play live once before but that was years ago when he was just starting out. I would love to see him play now while he's at this peak. When I went to the Open before I saw Andre Agassi, Mark Phillipoussis, and the rest I can't remember. I have such a great memory.

Crazy French Banks

I can't understand why so many people still pay by cheque in France. I have often seen the French pay by cheque at the supermarket for amounts as low as 5 euros. They're crazy. I have never had a cheque book in my life and never will. On the rare occasion when I need a cheque I would get a bank cheque which takes about 5 minutes to get from the bank.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy in France. I must be one of the few people not to have a chequing account here. That doesn't bother me but I need a cheque to pay for my home contents insurance. The insurance broker I got it from is in Montpellier so I can't pay by cash and they don't accept credit cards.

I went to the bank on Friday thinking they would write out a cheque for me right there and then. I must have briefly forgotten where I was. Of course they couldn't write me a bank cheque on the spot. I need an appointment with one of their advisors. The earliest I can get an appointment is in 10 days time. Brilliant. My insurance is due in 1 week. Not only do I have to wait that long for a cheque but I need a one hour appointment to get it done. One hour! So in theory the bank 'advisors' (they don't have tellers at the bank) could spend their whole day writing 7 cheques! Very efficient. This is just another reason as to why this country is so crap.

Paris Motor Show | Porte de Versailles

I went to the motor show in Perth once and it was pretty boring. It was small and of no interest whatsoever. For that reason I was hesitant about going to the Paris Motor Show, along with the fact that I'm not that interested in cars. However, I would like to buy a small car soon so I went along with Ferbent, who was particularly interested in seeing all the luxury cars.

Tickets were 12 euros each and it was held at the exposition centre at Porte de Versailles in the 15th. It's not that far from my house but it took forever to get there as I had to go into Paris and then back out again on a different line. It was a pain but I made it. It was Friday night and surprisingly there weren't that many people there. Maybe the pouring rain deterred people from going.

We started off seeing all the latest small cars which I'm interested in buying. I love the Citroen C2 but it just doesn't have the features of the Peugeot 207. The 207 has 6 airbags as standard and optional leather seats and gps. The gps is an extra 2000E but I think it's worth it because it includes an inbuilt SOS button which you press if you breakdown, plus a telephone, and 5 CD player, as well as a street directory for all of Europe. That sounds good to me. I'd also get airconditioning and maybe a sunroof. With all the options I want it would cost around 19,000E. The basic car starts at 12,000E but I think I'd want the extras to be comfortable.

It was then off to see the luxury cars such as Porche, Ferrari, Lamborghini etc. For some reason I've always thought they were all ugly cars. I just don't get the attraction. I did like the latest BMWs though. I wouldn't mind the M6.

So what I thought would be a couple of hours of looking at cars actually took 4 hours but I didn't notice the time go by. Surprisingly I enjoyed going and I might even go again, in 5 years or so.

Going to the Gym in Paris

A week ago I joined a gym in Paris and not just any gym but for sure the best gym in this city. I had been thinking about it for a while but wasn't sure I could justify the expense. Why pay to exercise when I can walk for hours around beautiful Paris for free. Of course there are plenty more things to do at the gym than walk on the treadmill so I decided to sign up.

There is a public swimming pool with a small gym near my house in Boulogne Billancourt. I was going to join that because it's so close and they have a couple of large pools. I like to swim but hate having to share a lane with some slow swimmer and they're always so slow. In the end I decided against this gym because they only have a couple of treadmills and other cardio machines and having to wait to use them would annoy the hell out of me. Plus local schools use the swimming pool and a lot of parents take their children there too. There's no way I want to be swimming with lots of kiddies.

In the end I joined Club Med Gym. They have 22 clubs around Paris and I can use any of them. Only 5 or 6 have swimming pools and they are all very small but there are no kids or teenagers around. There's no way they could afford the membership at a whopping 999E per year. I can barely afford that.

I go to the club in the 16th and it's huge. There are about 50 cardio machines and plenty of weight machines. They have aerobics at all hours including aqua aerobics which I haven't tried yet but hope to. The 16th is a very bourgeois area of Paris so it's mainly professional people who go to that gym. That suits me because they are there to work out and not much else. Although, there does seem to be a bit of gossiping going on which seems strange to me.

So far I've gone swimming once, yesterday, following by a hammam (steam) and the other days I've used the gym. I haven't done aerobics yet as I don't like that it's open and everyone in the gym can and does watch those doing aerobics. The last thing I need is loads of people watching me struggling through a class. Maybe I'll do that when my fitness improves a bit.

What is most surprising about this gym is that everyone is so fit and so slim. I'm the only overweight person there. The girls are especially skinny. They must have been going every day for years. I feel a bit out of place but I'm getting over it.

I'm trying to go four or five times a week. It's a 30 minute walk there from my house so that's an extra hour or so (it takes me longer on the way home) of exercise for me which I hope will help me get fit sooner rather than later.

Travel Vaccinations

I've just created a blog for the East Perth Medical Centre. They specialise in travel vaccinations, hence the name of their site Travel Vaccination (without the s). They will be posting articles about why to get vaccinated and which countries you need vaccinations for if you plan on visiting them. They will also provide information such as what to do in case of an car accident, how to get treated for worker's compensation, who should get flu vaccinations as well as general health advice such as diet and nutrition information.

Even though they do a lot of flu and travel vaccinations they also provide other medical services. The have a number of general practitioners (both men and women), a physiotherapist, dietitian, speech therapist, and massage therapist.

They are based in East Perth at 168 Adelaide Terrace, East Perth, WA, 6004 and can be contacted on (08) 9221 4242 for an appointment.

Speeding Fines in France

I hired a car for my recent holiday and spent time driving around France and Spain. I generally avoided the autoroutes (and the expensive tolls) but did often take the national roads. These can be slower due to fewer lanes and also seeing you have to slow down when you go through a town. The speed limits can still be fairly high as was the case when I was travelling on the RN10 from Paris to Bordeaux.

I wasn't particularly in a hurry but was following the traffic in front of me without thinking too much about my speed. I was suddenly reminded of that however when I was blinded by the flash of a speed camera. Ok, I'm exaggerating a little there but I noticed the flash and I was caught speeding.

I had forgotten about it until today when I received the speeding fine in the mail - the Avis de Contravention au Code de la Route. I thought maybe I was in a 90km/h zone at the time but luckily it was a 110 zone. I was doing 122km/h so the fine was only 45 euros. The way it works is that if you pay within 15 days you pay 45 euros, if pay after 15 days but before 45 days then it goes up to 68 euros, and if you pay after that it goes up to a whopping 180 euros. I paid it already to ensure I only pay 45.

I'm also supposed to lose some points from my drivers licence (it doesn't say how many) but I don't see how they can do that seeing I don't have a French drivers licence. You can of course contest the fine but unfortunately I have to admit I'm guilty.

France Telecom is Useless

I was off line for most of last week due to a problem with my ADSL connection. I'm with Orange (previously Wanadoo) who is owned by France Telecom. I hate having to call people and speak French with them but I had no choice.

The reason I hate calling people was reinforced even more with my first call to Orange. I get pay TV via my ADSL as well as the internet and both went down. When I called Orange I had to speak to either an internet or TV support person. I chose the internet customer support and the woman was a complete nightmare. She refused to speak slower when I asked her which made it difficult to follow all her technical instructions. She insisted the problem was with my computer which I knew wasn't the case seeing my TPS (pay TV) was out too. She said TPS wasn't her area and she couldn't help me with that. She completely missed the point that the problem was related so it was most likely a problem with the line or the LiveBox (modem). She kept repeating that she couldn't help me with the TV and we should get on with connecting the internet. I tried to explain the problem but she just ignored me and went on with her instructions. So I was talking about one thing and she was just continued on with what she wanted to do. Maybe she thought the TV not working at the same time was just a coincidence.

After about 15 minutes of wasting my time fiddling around on my computer, which surprise, surprise, didn't fix the problem, I then got disconnected from her and she didn't call back. I figured she should have called me because otherwise I was going to wait in the queue again even though we had already started on my problem. So at 34 cents a minute that was money really well spent.

So I called back and spoke to someone in the TV customer service section. As soon as I told him both the TV and internet weren't worked he immediately tested the line and found there was a problem with it. He made an appointment for a technician to come out 2 days later (well, what I thought was 2 days later) and it was that simple. I don't what that stupid woman's problem was but at least I finally had a solution.

Two days later I was waiting for the guy who was supposed to arrive at 10:30am. He didn't turn up so I called them at 12pm and 5pm. They told me to be patient and keep waiting. The following day I called again and the guy told me he was arriving that day. So I waited around the previous day for nothing. Ok, I must have misheard the day but why didn't the two people I spoke to let me know I had the day wrong? Was that too much trouble for them?

The wonderful end to this long story is that they guy arrived (an hour late), fixed the problem and then offered to set up my wifi access seeing I had been using a usb commection. I was very happy until he handed me the bill of 149 euros. What! That's not bad for 45 minutes work. I don't see why I should have to pay seeing the problem was with their modem. I don't own the modem I just hire it from them.

At least now I won't be tripping over the wires everyday like I used to. Plus I can watch rubbish French TV again. Great.

Who’s electricity am I paying?

I had a strange phone call today from EDF, Electricite de France, saying that I have been paying my neighbour's electricity bill for the last 4 months. I've never heard of that happening before!

It seems that when I made the connection they set it up for the wrong apartment. A neighbour 2 floors above me hadn't been receiving their bills because their account had been cancelled, by me, and called EDF to find out why. I'm surprised to hear they called to find out about the missing bills seeing their electricity was still connected. They could easily have ignored it. I'm lucky they called because no one has been paying the electricity on my apartment and it could have been disconnected at any moment - which is exactly what happened to me when I was in Montpellier. I had 3 days without electricity in the middle of winter. That was fun.

I don't understand how this happened because I spoke to someone in English when I connected the electricity so it's not like my terrible French was the problem. I was surprised through when the guy told me it was going to cost 50 euros per month seeing I was only paying 40 in a larger apartment in Montpellier. I thought it must have been because I was in Paris where prices are higher!

So they are going to reimburse what I paid for the apartment upstairs and I'll have to pay the last 4 months electricity for this place. I'm glad someone else found this problem before it was too late. Luckily it hasn't caused any inconvenience for me.

Roger Federer vs Vincent Spadea

I saw Roger Federer thrash Tim Henman yesterday. Federer is playing so well, as usual. Henman didn't stand a chance. Henman doesn't stand a chance against most of the top player so it wasn't surprising that he barely won a point yesterday. Federer looks to be in top form so I expect him to easily beat Vincent Spadea in the next round.

I was quite surprised to see that Spadea is still playing tennis. I thought he had retired long ago. I was going to say that he is pretty old but he's my age so I'll keep quiet. I was also surprised to learn that he is American. I always thought he was European, Spanish maybe. I don't know why I thought that. Maybe it's been so long since I've heard his name that I had just forgotten.

Federer is still my number one choice to win the final, especially now that Baghdatis lost to Agassi. He's playing so well that I can't see him losing, not even to Nadal.