Skip to main content

Bureaucracy gone mad?

Yesterday I went to the Marie, the insurance office, Lidl and it was only when I went to the ladies in Le Clerc supermarket that I noticed my jacket was inside out.

At the Mairie I needed the Maire to sign a paper proving that I was still alive.  This is for the pension service in the UK.

I wanted to change my car and house insurance from the useless company I had been using.  I answered thousands of questions, was in the insurance office for 4 hours and had to sign or initial 80 pieces of paper.  It was dark when I left and I had lost the will to live.

At Le Clerc I wanted to buy a sim card for my mobile phone.  I had to produce my passport, prove my date of birth, my address  and that I have the right to live in the country.  What?  No blood?

Happy days ahead in the States with a split government.  Either Trump will become even more deranged or gridlock will happen.

What is this new habit in the UK for people to start every sentence with 'so'?  It is really irritating and MPs, professors, doctors, etc are all doing it.

There is talk of moving the national protest in France from the 17th to the 18th.  This would be a Sunday which means disruption would be meaningless because nothing opens on a Sunday anyway.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Playing by ear

My father could play the piano.  Not an unusual skill but he was deaf.  He lost his  hearing fighting in the army in India in the 30s so he was an adult when he lost it and therefore remembered tunes, even though he couldn't hear him.  However he didn't have the skill to learn anything new so  either you liked the old music or you didn't.  He used to say that he played by ear and then would roar with laughter.  He would have struggled in many ways with modern living but most of all during the pandemic, he would have lost his ability to communicate as he always lip read.  There must be thousands of people like him today who still rely on reading lips to understand,  in fact all of us do it to some extent, so please be patient if someone is struggling to communicate while you are wearing a mask. I went to the supermarket today and at the check out, the cashier asked me to move the trolley into a particular position.  As I manoeuvred it ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mondays

 Last Monday my son and daughter in law were due to catch the 8.15am ferry from Portsmouth to Caen.  It was 6.45am when I stepped out of the shower and heard my phone  going.  I snatched it up.  It was a video  call.  'Mum, we have big problems here,'  and before I could speak he thrust the phone into the hands of a Brittany ferries' staff member and said, 'Talk  to my mum.'  Barely conscious of my wet, tangled hair and trying to cover myself up with a  towel which thought gravity was fun, I asked what the problem was.  Apparently they had the wrong vaccination certificates and were being refused passage.  I asked what I could do and she said they could go and get a test and take a later ferry.  'Where is the nearest test centre in Portsmouth?'  I asked.  'There isn't one,' she replied, 'there  is one in Southampton, or Havant.'  What!  No test centre in Portsmouth?  They both have learni...
1 comment
Read more

Equality

 I don't want to hear another person  say that women should be equal to men.  There is no 'should' about it, women ARE equal to men but they are not treated equally.  It has never occurred to me that I am  not equal to any man.  Am I treated equally?  Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  It requires a step change in the way women think of themselves as being equal before we can hope for attitudes, legislation, economics to  follow and that is my rant for the day. Ever since I have lived in France I have noticed a stark difference between the French and the British sense of humour.  The dry, irreverent humour of the British is completely wasted on the French, and the Dutch and the Americans sometimes for that matter.  Clearly the British humour is unique.  Yesterday I gave an article to a French friend to read.  It was a humorous piece, self deprecating about a woman suffering an attack by an insect on her face with hideous result...
Post a Comment
Read more