Did anybody watch Newsnight last night? There was a piece on France, and Sarkozy getting his new retirement age law passed in parliament. There was a very funny bit, where he turned to a crowd member wilst walking past and said in French(subtitled in English) "P*ss off you pr/ck!" All we get is "Boxing Prescott" One French guy the reporter was interviewing said that with this new change, he was seriously considering quitting France for another country. And here's some of us wishing to have what he has
Grass is always greener.

Perhaps we should do exchanges like students do? The French probably think of Canada when emigrating though, they certainly wouldn't fancy retiring at 68 in the UK.

1. The financial mess was not created by the "run" on Northern Rock. It is clearly documented that the "credit crunch" had began several months before the Northern Rock situation became apparent... and that the serious collapse of the financial house of cards (Paribas' announcement) was already underway a full month or more before Peston began reporting on it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7521250.stm

2. Don't necessarily blame the reporter: blame the "channel" through which the news is coming. Randall now works for Sky (ie Murdoch), so his news will be filtered via the somewhat right-wing editorial viewpoint that Sky/Murdoch/News International always takes. Remember the Sun's editorial stance with regard to the city of Liverpool back in the 80s? Here's an example

(all of which was demonstrated to be false, btw).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster


With regard to yesterday's events: yes, there's a hardcore of people who want to bash the police. They're idiots (partly because I strongly suspect that there are a lot of police who see that they are being screwed just as badly as everyone else). But without the noisy hardcore we'd collectively be sniggering at the "Middle Class students asking for the moon on a stick" (as The Daily Mash put it.). Should the BBC et al simply ignore the window smashers? No. They created the images and focussed the argument so that at least middle-England is forced to consider that maybe the government is being a bit over zealous in its desire to f*** over those who aren't rich.

Think of this: what did you do on the day the tsunami hit east Asia? Do you think the media misrepresented the events of THAT day, just because they focussed on the effects of a couple of waves?

Its worth pointing out that their are already more French people in the UK than English in France. I read somewhere that France's seventh largest city by population size was London.

I wonder if that refers only to people who came here to work as opposed to those who came here to retire? The opposite seems to be true in the case of many Brit's in France I would imagine. Even those currently living in Londonistan don't want to retire there.

Thinking of retiring to France?
http://www.frenchentree.com/retiring-to ... p?id=35302

http://www.articlesbase.com/health-arti ... 32290.html

I'm going for a variety of reasons not just financial ones, although money does seem to go further in France. Unfortunately we bought our farm cottage for cash at the height of the property boom, buying now I could have got something much bigger or with more land as there aren't as many English competitors to drive up the prices.

My Reasons for wanting to go are as follows: Mainly I want a better quality of life. This doesn't mean that I'll be any wealthier, but it does mean that I won't have to listen to drunken nob-heads screaming outside my house at night for example, or will no longer need to remain eternally vigilant while out in public.

Village life also means greater peace of mind, more privacy, (for I am a very private person in some ways, hard to believe huh? ) and culturally, people are more inclined to old fashioned politeness and family values in rural France.

Finally, I could go all day or all week as the mood takes me without seeing a soul. I have 700 metres of front garden on which to build a large Studio/garage cum workshop, and apart from the odd trip into the village for provisions I'm perfectly happy to live like that.

One of the greatest things about it is that the stupid decisions taken by numpty British politicians will no longer affect me, so political correctness in all its guises can then kiss my naturalised rural French ar*e.

Polite maybe, but in the village where my grandma's house in france, I have never experienced privacy, every bodys right nosey bastards. One lad asked me what my strange car was

O-N. You're probably aware of this already, but make sure you're health care needs are covered. I don't know much about it, but I understand that if you fall ill, the French system does not respond in the same way that we'd expect... old Brits can come a cropper in this way.
I agree with you about the French and politeness. I have always been struck by their civility. Not so sure about the idea of village life equalling privacy though.
All in all though, I salute your adventurousness, and I'd love to go and live somewhere abroad; not so much to get away from Britain, but to experience another way of life.
(Oh, and if you see a Panhard PL17 going for a song, please let me know tout suite! Ta.)

I still think Britain's a pretty good place to live. I've certainly been to worse places.