New French road regulations

I’ve decided I don’t like Nicolas Sarkozy very much! It’s true that France has a bad record for road accidents and desperately needs to reduce them. But how is it going to help forcing all road users to carry breath test kits in their vehicles? I can see it now: Pierre leaves his roadside café having drunk the morning away, returns to his car and thinks “Ah I must just check my breath”. Having established that he’s over the limit, he gets out of his car again and walks home instead. Can’t see it myself. And the penalty for not carrying a kit? Between €11 and €17. Ye gods, that’s going to make Pierre quake in his boots.

And Nicolas’ latest idea is to make speed cameras more secretive, to the point that all advance warnings have now been removed from French roads, and all speed camera data has had by law to be deleted from sat nav devices. Will Nicolas also require us to use permanent marker pens on all pre-2012 road atlases to obliterate the locations of cameras? Or will the carrying of such a book in a vehicle become illegal?

New computer hard drive.

I’ve just got myself an external 320Gb hard drive for under £10!

I replaced my main tower PC last year when the motherboard failed and since then the old one has been languishing in the loft. Two weeks ago I finally decided to take it to the recycling facility but to safeguard my personal info, I removed the internal hard drive first. Easy to do, just remove a couple of screws to release the side panel and the hard drive then slides out of its housing and unclips from its cables.

I then had the idea of getting an external caddy for it and went on eBay (where else?!). Found one, complete with the requisite USB lead and power assembly, for under £10 and with free postage.

It arrived 2 days later.

And wouldn’t work! I tried it on the main PC and on a laptop – completely dead. A few choice words were uttered and I was about to parcel it all up to return it when I happened to notice the LED power indicator on the AC adapter wasn’t illuminated. So I tried a new fuse in the plug – no change. Then I searched out a spare mains lead (3-pin UK plug at one end, C14 Euro socket at the other). Plugged it into the AC adapter and the light came on! Connected the unit to a USB port on the computer and the computer immediately opened up the drive in Windows Explorer!

Finally I formatted the drive and bingo, I have an extra 320Gb of portable storage. I’m quite childishly pleased with myself if I’m being honest!

Tesco vouchers and Eurotunnel

As some Tesco customers will already know, you can convert Clubcard coupons into Vouchers that are worth 3 times their face value and you can use them to pay for Eurotunnel fares. Thus you can exchange say £50 worth of coupons for a crossing costing £150.

So we ordered some vouchers last weekend and they arrived in the post yesterday. I rang Eurotunnel and booked our return trip for June. The vouchers then have to be posted to Eurotunnel by Special Delivery to pay for the fare. So I put them in an envelope and drove out to the Post Office. Unfortunately it was shut because it was a Wednesday afternoon! Heaven forbid that the PO should start acting like a service provider!

MRI scan.

Had a second MRI scan this morning. The first one followed my ear operation last year, and as a result of that the consultant decided the ear needed further surgery (which was done on the Monday of Christmas week). So I’m hoping this scan will give the all clear!

Now for some advice for anyone scheduled for an MRI scan and who, like me, suffers from claustrophobia! It’s all very well keeping your eyes shut but unless you’re very slim the chances are your shoulders will touch the sides of the machine and remind you that you’re in a narrow tube. Having gone through it previously, I decided to hunch my shoulders and that did work. It meant folding my arms across my chest but that was no bother and with my eyes closed, I could to a large extent forget where I was!

Or at least I would were it not for the noise – it’s deafening! The scanner makes a whole range of different sounds, from a roar to a high pitched scream to rapid clicks and throbbing noises, and all very loud. So you’re fitted with headphones (if you weren’t, your hearing would be damaged). The team will offer to put the radio on for you but you probably won’t be offered a choice of which station you want to listen to. I finished up last time listening to a pop music station with an over-enthusiastic DJ who thought a mid-Atlantic accent was the height of cool.

However, you can also take a CD with you if you prefer. Choose ABBA or a military brass band – they’ll both be loud enough to help drown out the noise of the scanner!

Apart from all that, the experience is fairly benign. You can eat and drink normally beforehand and there are no after-effects from the scan. When it’s complete, you just get dressed again and walk out.

And that’s it. What could possibly go wrogn.

Observation on new caravans

I nearly forgot to mention it. Swift began putting satellite points in its higher-spec’d vans a few years ago. Most of the other manufacturers have since followed suit, but they’re already out of date. Many caravanners now take twin tuner recorders with them (Sky+ or Freesat+) and these need twin sockets. Looking at several vans at the Manchester Show on Thursday, they all only have a single satellite socket and there’s no way of adding a second one, so the only option is to rig up an alternative twin coupling which apart from anything else would invalidate the warranty.

Mandy and I have said it before and we’ll say it again – do the people who design caravans ever use them themselves? Another case in point – we looked at one Lunar model (can’t remember which one now, might have been a show special) but the width between the cooker and the unit on the opposite side of the van was so tight that it would be impossible to get anything in or out of the oven; there simply wasn’t the room to bend down. Unbelievable!

Manchester Caravan and Motorhome Show

The Manchester Caravan and Motorhome Show is now in a new venue. For the past few years, it’s been held at the Manchester Central (formerly G-Mex) Exhibition Hall. This year for the first time, it’s being held at EventCity which is a vast exhibition hall just across the road from the Trafford Centre and with its own dedicated carpark.

So we went there this morning. It’s only 10-12 minutes drive from where we live, so we set off at 9.45 for the 10.00 opening. Half a mile from the venue, we hit gridlock! Every man and his dog was going the same way and we had to fight for each inch of progress along the way. The carpark was full so we had to divert into one of the Trafford Centre carparks instead, and then walk across. Our carpark was covered but as we emerged into the daylight, the heavens opened and we arrived at EventCity ever so slightly damp! The irony is that if the event had still been at Manchester Central, we could have taken the tram (free with our bus passes) and been dropped off right outside the main entrance without any of the aggro!

Anyway, what of the show? Lots of caravans and motorhomes were on display of course as you might expect. The largest dealerships represented were probably Campbells Caravans and Glossop Caravans, both of which seemed to have acres of floor space. Campbells (where we bought our current Lunar Clubman from) had Lunar, Swift and Bailey models, whilst Glossop were displaying Elddis, Coachman and Swift/Sterling. Irritatingly, the one model of Lunar Clubman that Campbells didn’t have on show was the one we were interested in seeing, the CK! Our current one is the 475CK but they recently dropped the 475 bit from its name. One salesman we spoke to admitted he was surprised by its absence because it’s always a steady seller at the exhibitions. (But sod it, we weren’t looking to buy anyway!)

Anyway, by the time we left the place, the rain had gone and it was bright and sunny (for a short while anyway until the rain returned later!). We then drove over to our son and daughter-in-law’s place to spend some time with our 2 grandsons and to have a pizza tea later. Good time had by all.

As of today …

As of today, the caravan has been fitted with a new-style 13-pin power plug and the new car has reached 1000 miles (the point below which the manufacturer says I shouldn’t tow!).

So we’re ready for the off. All we need is a week of guaranteed good weather and ambient temperatures in the low 20s. Not too much to ask for, is it?

Don’t laugh.

Now look everyone, we mustn’t chuckle about France’s credit rating being downgraded. It’s a serious matter and not to be laughed at. Think how we Brits would feel if the situation were reversed. And think how Nicolas Sarkozy would react . . . . yeah right. I said stop laughing!

SeaFrance closure

I’m sure everyone will be aware by now that SeaFrance has been forced into administration by the EC authorities. Mandy and I have only ever used SeaFrance once in all the years we’ve been travelling to France, and in any case we use the tunnel these days. So we haven’t really provided SeaFrance with any revenue, nor have we been affected by its services.

Nevertheless, I suspect everyone who crosses the Channel will now be affected to some extent. Although the company went into receivership in 2010, it continued to operate until November and therefore next summer will be the first test of any reduced capacity on the route. It’s almost certain to drive fares upwards, on both the ferries and the tunnel, especially on the more popular daytime crossings.

On a personal note, we unfortunately can’t book our crossing until the end of the month because we’re waiting for the next set of Tesco vouchers to pay Eurotunnel! I’m just hoping any major increase in fares in the meantime doesn’t wipe out any saving from using Tesco!

And on a non-personal note, let’s not forget the SeaFrance employees, on both sides of the Channel, who are likely to lose their jobs. That’s the real tragedy.

Countdown to France.

I’ve just worked out there are only another 21 weeks to go before we set off for France again!!

Meanwhile I have a decision to make. We bought a new car a few weeks ago and because we don’t know how much longer we’ll be keeping the Lunar Clubman, and looking to the future, we decided to have the new-style 13-pin euro socket fitted to the car.

Which leaves us with an interim mismatch between the car and the caravan. We could buy a 12N/12S to 13 pin adapter, which would undoubtedly would be the cheaper option but neither convenient nor elegant. Or we could get the caravan rewired to a matching 13-pin plug, more expensive but maybe not all that much. Only one way to find out; I feel a telephone call to my friendly caravan service man coming on.

Edit, Tuesday 10th: I’ve been in touch and he’s coming next Wednesday to rewire the caravan.