optimista

Being a hamster is quite an appealing thought to me at the moment.

It's been happening in various places in France lately. It is not an isolated case. Dunno why this one made it into the papers. Also acid attacks are increasingly common. The press are carefully avoiding saying that the aggressors are dusky and, ethnically at least, from the other side of the Med. Someone sent me a video yesterday, which unfortunately I cannot unsee and do not recommend anyone else watching, of a beautiful young woman being doused with petrol and set alight. By men. Or rather animals. Soon we will all have to wear burkas upon pain of being torched, having acid thrown over us or just beat up. As happens in places like Iran. You saw it here first.   These are not racist comments. Just the truth.

French (Schengen)

My Croatian BIL imported something red and sporty from Croatia to France and they took him for 18,000 Euros.

Do not recommend HSBC. For the moment, they are at least still free but that's about where the praise stops. I opened a student account with the Midland 40 years ago, and they got swallowed up by HSBC way back when. Closing the account would have cost a fee so I left it... my ERNIE bonds winnings  get paid into it and it is handy when I go back - which is very occasionally. Sometimes when the rate is good, like now, I ship Euros across - bit of currency speculation... but communication with them is arduous in the extreme. Indian call centres, thick accents, 10 minute security procedure, people hanging up when they can't answer your question... I have the simplest current account... they once "upgraded" me to Premium, which has strings attached, without even asking me just because I made a couple of transfers which they assumed was a salary. Had to unpick that one. Arduous, as I say. But moving the money to another High St. bank also proved impossible because they would not open a current account for non-residents. So much for free movement of finances. If you go into an actual branch, it is like being in a disco. All open plan, no privacy, noisy, piped music, queues... the staff do bend over backwards for you however. But they also have to deal with Indian call centres for internal stuff... I tried repeatedly to change my address to a UK one online yesterday, to no avail. The TAN number did not do the trick... no explanation... seemed to be a bug... which I presume is engineered.

Brilliant. Language is more than just words.

HSBC has already cottoned on... you can't change your address to a UK one online... there seems to be a bug... there must be a few million ex-pats who left the country but maintained an account there.

Only fight those battles you can win. This one will most probably be a waste of time, money and energy. Have that T-shirt of yours. I left one joint and they gave my work to five different people. Yes, five. They hate you when you outshine them because they feel so inadequate. You don't fit in. It's their loss. Good people can move on. Good luck. Life is too short for this kind of shit.

I think Kein Re-Import, Kein EU-Fahrzeug is merely a reiteration of it being being German stock. It is what it is, not what it is not. But I'm only guessing.

There will be a massive exodus of money then...

Modern times.

Sherlock deduces you are nowhere near a forest. Sherlock also deduces that you are in recovery. The beautiful person that you are on the inside is bubbling its way to the surface. Long may this continue.   Can someone post pine cones to Zhaitan? I'm in France... which seems a bit extreme. Sounds like a job for Spider.  

Breaking up (if that is what it is ) is hard to do.

Ouch! Could you "just" make paper sunflowers? From whatever material you happen to have handy... cornflakes boxes... orange and yellow highlighters...  good old water colours...

Possibly. But they could draft and file and make some money out of him first. Weapons, instruments of torture passing as therapeutic, bio-tech methods. Hmm. Creativity could be critical for the finely nuanced wording needed to dodge the law...