To a non-French, and there were many, it was totally confusing. You bought your meat then brought it to a BBQ area, rented plates and cutlery and washed this all down with locally produced wine.

About 800 people sat of long benches. Many had not met before. We sat with a Polish couple who spoke perfect English and live here in the region near our house.

As night fell the music started and everyone just enjoyed the atmosphere.

Joined friends last night and today went to a local vide grenier – a loft sale – and saw some friends.

Brian Yeats writes:

Hi
 
I'm a UK PPL with some 12 years' flying behind me, currently haunting the skies of Ireland flying out of Newtownards. 

Following a few extended tours in the south west of France in the past few years my wife and I are committed to buying a house here in the nearish future.  Strongest candidates are the northern Lot, southern Correze and eastern Dordogne.

The thing is, I'd obviously want to buy a place within easy driving distance of an airfield with club aircraft to hire. 

Is there a simple list of such happy holes I can access and keep up my knowing sleeve for useful reference?  Sorry if I've missed an obvious reference point!

In fact if I were to bet on any country winning France gets my vote. Why because they are truly patriotic.

I personally find the array of red and white flags nauseating and moreso the associated behaviour which borders of Anglo fundementalism.

I’ve just had my hair cut in my local barber and I’ve just seen a truly sorry sight of a kid probably 12; mirroring his obese father having his hair spray dyed white with a thick red cross in it. The bit that guals me is his attitude that we are the best. Really? Well read the papers and see how good we are and our society.

I should seperate the issues of the country from national support. I hope for then countrys mood England gets through. But like many I don’t see them getting any further than the semis. Drink sales will up, at least that’ll help the national black hole. Behavior will get nasty as well loose and the country will go into a form of grieving. And well be back to normal.

Other countries will embrace true national pride not the alcohol hedonistic behaviour of a few which will shame a once again. Let’s start leraning and stop pretening to be a nationalistic country when it suits those who behave the worst.

While this reform is appearing to be by reducing some of the performance monitoring elements of the system, by according to the Health service Journal (HSJ), possibly relaxing of some ‘targets’ which will emerge in the revised operating framework; means that experienced leaders and managers will be the nature of this policy shift be surplus to requirement.

The reality is that the NHS will have a new independent operating board and the signs are that the strategic health authorities will be replaced by independent regionally based commissioning boards. So, does that mean the same people pop up in the new reorganisation, or does it mean with a red-pen everyone is removed?

Either way, the NHS will loose talented individuals who have brought a great amount of skill and supported the change to date. Some of that change was and continues to be necessary to deliver an efficient and unduplicated service to patients. These people have developed skill sets and rapport by working collaboratively and effectively with clinical staff. These people who are today’s middle managers and leaders will inevitably be the collateral damage of the economic reform required to bring the NHS as part of the governments change reform and the country into balance.

On one hand it could be said you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. Equally you shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. The interesting thing is that labour strategists in key positions in SHAs will come out of this well; the people delivering the work will be the casualties. As someone who saw the previous middle tier change from 28-health authorities reduce to today’s 10, I saw a major loss of information and organisational memory. Policies were picked up and lost overnight by people who led hem one day, gone the next and then allocated five times their size to someone who didn’t understand or have any handover of what was needed.

So how does one prepare for this, network and make your successes well known; by failing to so that you will not get noticed, but equally make sure you have a wide but equally specialist repertoire which can be used by a variety of organisations, and don’t limit yourself to the NHS basket. As baskets go, the bottom appears to be falling out at a rate of knots.

Have they done that, no! In fact I wrote to my MP several years ago outlining the situation of what I call the ‘holy border’ or a border with a severe hole in it.

The hole is the fact that some airports (I can only confirm that Stansted is the main culprit) has a bizarre approach on treating people from Ireland. Travellers from the Republic of Ireland and the Channel Islands do NOT have to clear UK immigration. All that is required is you to be on possession of a boarding card (at Stansted). You are cleared with a visual holding of a boarding card. Anyones boarding card in fact.

I am writing to BAA and the main English airport authorities to declare under FOI how many people they have treated in this way to emphesize the problem.

Could this pose a threat to security. On effect yes. Because the Irish immigration authorities while needing to see a passport do not screen passports routinely for known watch lists, as such, people wanting easy access to UK just need to get to the ROI and then hop on a flight to the UK and they are in and nobody even knows. It that isn’t a major hole in the border then I don’t know what is. But even those who don’t have a UK visa could get here so it’s a major issue.

I have written to Theresa May alerting her and advising her I did raise this some time ago with her colleague for Hertsmere let’s see if this government really wants to solve the problem.

Now since 9/11 when both the world and airline travel changed we’ve have restriction upon reatriction placed upon us. I have no doubt these are necessary and on face value appear to have kept us safe, or even make us feel safer.

I recently was in the endless queue as on British airports can make feel an event in itself, when I heard (having listened to this same recording at least 200 times) the phrase “ensure your liquids are placed in a 1 litre transparent plastic bag”.

Now, call me old fashioned, but why does it need to be in a transparent bag. Especially when your “liquids of potential mass eruption” are going through an x-ray machine! Why oh why I ask. I was always thought as a nurse that xrays penetrated everything. The more denser it cam blacker the least dense whiter.

I happened to comment on this to my travelling companion and partner who took the default position was best to ignore me. However anoter traveller also mentioned he hadn’t thought of it before and was equally curious.

So, if anyone out there in blog world knows why liquids going through an xray machine in airport must be in transparent bags when all other xrays penetrate them do let us know.