This follows on my previous post about TPS being crap which is part of a long, long, long series of posts about France being crap.

My TPS contract ended last week without notice. That wasn’t too bad in the end because I was paying over 50 euros per month to watch a lot of rubbish. I decided to just keep the free channels but to do that I had to change my plan. I went to France Telecom (Orange), and they said I had to call. Presumably because the call costs 34 cents per minute which no doubt proves to be a significant souce of income for the telecom.

I went home and called the number they gave me and I couldn’t get through. I tried a few times then gave up for the day. The next day I had the same problem so tried another number and got through. They told me to try another number (10 14) which I think is a free call. I spoke to a very nice lady who changed my plan. She put me on hold and then I got disconnected. Not knowing whether or not it was all done I had to call again.

The next lady I spoke to said I had to go to France Telecom to get a new decoder because my old one doesn’t work with the new system. I went to Orange and they said I needed a numero de savi, whatever that is.

I went home again and rang the number he gave me but of course that wasn’t the right number. After a few calls I found the right number but because I didn’t know the decoder model number they couldn’t give me the numero de savi. After a lot of pushing he eventually gave it to me.

Back to Orange and I got the new decoder. I tried to confirm that my plan had in fact been changed a couple of days earlier. When he checked the computer it said they were waiting for a signature to change the plan. I don’t know how that was going to happen over the phone.

Got home and plugged in the decoder and it worked first time! Yay. I should now be paying less each month but I’ll wait for the next bill to see that that is in fact the case. Otherwise I’ll have to call them again. Fingers crossed it’ll be ok

I’ve been getting TPS through my ADSL line via Orange since I moved to France. I don’t watch a lot of TV but there are a few things I want to see which are not on the free channels. One of the main reasons I got it was to watch French movies but as it turns out most of the movies they show are American or old French movies which I’ve already seen. Until a few months ago I did at least get to watch BBC World News but that has since disappeared without a trace. I see they are still showing it as one of their channels on their website but that is definitely not the case. That only leaves crappy CNN as the English language news channel.

I was getting pretty much all the channels and it was costing around 50 euros per month. I say was because a couple of days ago they cancelled my subscription, without warning. No, I hadn’t forgotten to pay the bill. Apparently when I moved house, 8 months ago, I didn’t notify them of my change of address. First of all, that’s rubbish. I changed my address with France Telecom and the guy there changed all the TPS stuff for me and it has been working fine for 8 months. Secondly, even if they have my old Montpellier address, so what? I’m paying every month for this service why cancel it?

I rang TPS and of course the stupid woman was in such a rush she couldn’t explain it to me properly. I asked her to slow down twice but she didn’t. From what I gathered the contract couldn’t be renewed because they had my old address? I don’t know, was I supposed to sign another contract because that had expired? That doesn’t make sense because I signed a new contract when I moved to Paris. So what happened? I guess I’ll never know.

This is just another example as to why this country is crap and the economy is a mess. Companies don’t know what they are doing and customer service is non existent. I always thought that this kind of contract was ongoing. So even though the contract was initially for a year, after that time the customer continues to pay and the companies continues to provide the service until the customer wants to end the contract. I’ve never heard of a company ending the contract with a customer who is paying the highest level subscription per month and would have continued to so indefinitely. They just threw away my business.

So now I’ll either head over to Canal + or maybe I’ll just skip the TV altogether and start reading more.

After my initial attempt to get a bank cheque, to pay for my home contents insurance, I finally got things sorted out on my third trip to the bank.

On my first trip to the bank they told me I needed an appointment to get a bank cheque. They made that for me 10 days later. I almost missed that appointment purely because I completely forgot about it. That would have been a disaster as I then would have needed another appointment.

When I went to the appointment I was 10 minutes late and she said she couldn’t see me. That was complete rubbish because I know she made an hour appointment for me. I apologised for being late and then she said c’est pas grave, it’s my pleasure to help you. So at first she was annoyed with me then she was smiling and happy. Hmm.

Rather than issue me with a bank cheque which would cost 15 euros she decided to order a cheque book (chequier) for me which is gratuit. I suppose, being in France, I really should have a cheque book. When in Rome…

So one week later and I got my very own, first ever cheque book.

I sent off the cheque to Montpellier to pay for my home insurance. I don’t really know if it was overdue or not because there was not due date on the bill I received. That seemed a bit strange to me but there you go.

I went to the Salon du Chocolat yesterday without a ticket which was a big mistake. You can buy the tickets online at FNAC but I didn’t get around to it so I just turned up at Porte de Versailles. There was no queue for those who had pre-purchased tickets but the queue to buy tickets was ridiculous.

We couldn’t be bothered to wait as it would have surely taken an hour or more to get in. It’s on until Wednesday so I could go during the day when there would be fewer people, although I’d definitely buy a ticket before going.

It closes at 7pm so I won’t be able to go with Ferbent. I don’t know that I really want to go alone and seeing I’m having Thursday off to go to the tennis then I can’t really afford to take another day off.

Missing the Salon du Chocolat was the first bad thing which happened yesterday but it got worse when I left the exposition centre. I wasn’t paying attention when I left and as I walked out of the driveway I got hit on the head by the boom gate. I don’t know how it happened or how I didn’t notice it or why it came down right as I was walking under it but it happened.

I could say I was more embarrassed than anything else (there were a lot of people around) but in fact it hurt a lot. I now have a very big bump on my head and yesterday I had a terrible head ache.

I think that has turned me off of going to Porte de Versailles. Maybe I will spend the 12 euros which I was going to spend on the ticket on Jeff de Bruges chocolates.

I’ve been without any kind of health insurance for more than six months. Before that I had travel insurance which would have covered me for any emergency health care. I have a Carte de Sejour (French resident permit) and my husband is working full time and paying tax, so I am (or should be) entitled to health care in this country.

The thing is, I can’t get a Carte Vitale (French health care card) until my husband gets his, presumably because he’s a British citizen and I’m not. So I’ve been waiting for him to get his social security number and then the carte vitale.

Of course, being France, nothing is easy. Ferbent has been working for 8 or 9 months, all the while paying tax and social security contributions, without a social security number. They said he couldn’t get it until he proves that he is a British citizen. He showed his passport and naturalisation certificate but that wasn’t enough. They needed to see his birth certificate, even though he wasn’t born in the UK. He doesn’t have one so they refused to issue him with a carte vitale.

After numerous letters and phone calls, many of which were made by his French employer, they still refused. Arnold at Foreign Perspectives recommended citing European law which allows the freedom of movement of EU citizens. This seemed to be our last chance but I hadn’t bothered.

Surprisingly, Ferbent received his social security number in the mail today with a note saying the carte vitale is on it’s way and he should receive it in the next few days (which could really mean the next few weeks or months). In the mean time he can quote this number if he has to go to the doctor or for any other medical treatment.

I don’t know why they changed their mind and gave it to him but I’m so glad they did. I didn’t want to have to keep pushing them.

So now I should be able to quote his social security number, show my marriage certificate and birth certificate (or course), and I’ll have my carte vitale. I’m sure they won’t make it that easy for me but fingers crossed.

The Salon du Chocolat started today in Paris. It only goes until Wednesday so I’d better hurry up and get my ticket. I’m sure this is one event not to be missed. I’ve heard it gets very crowded so I guess I’m not the only one who loves chocolate.

I’ve never been before so I don’t really know what to expect. I know they have cooking and chocolate making demonstrations and also have fashion shows with clothes and accessories made of chocolate.

I’m just hoping they give out lots of samples!

It closes early each evening, at 7pm, so they doesn’t leave much time to go after work. Maybe I’ll have to go in the afternoon so I’ll have plenty of time to check out everything. I won’t be able to go with F if that’s the case but maybe he won’t mind – provided I take some chocolate home for him, that is.

The Paris Open is on shortly and I can’t wait to go. I’ve already bought my tickets for the Thursday, round 3, and Saturday for the semi finals. I went in 2000 and loved it. That was the first time I ever went to a tennis tournament and since then have been to Wimbledon and the Italian Open. I would love to go more often but the opportunity rarely arises.

The BNP Paribas Masters tennis tournament is held at the Palais Omnisports de Paris Bercy which is in the 12th in Paris. It’s not a particularly nice area of Paris. It’s not bad it’s just that there’s not much to see or do there. The tournament starts on the 30th October and finishes on the 5th November. Tickets are available from 14.50 euros to 64 euros. I paid 40 something. I don’t remember it being so expensive last time I was there but I guess that’s inflation for you.

The disappointing thing is that Roger Federer won’t be playing. I saw him play live once before but that was years ago when he was just starting out. I would love to see him play now while he’s at this peak. When I went to the Open before I saw Andre Agassi, Mark Phillipoussis, and the rest I can’t remember. I have such a great memory.

I can’t understand why so many people still pay by cheque in France. I have often seen the French pay by cheque at the supermarket for amounts as low as 5 euros. They’re crazy. I have never had a cheque book in my life and never will. On the rare occasion when I need a cheque I would get a bank cheque which takes about 5 minutes to get from the bank.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy in France. I must be one of the few people not to have a chequing account here. That doesn’t bother me but I need a cheque to pay for my home contents insurance. The insurance broker I got it from is in Montpellier so I can’t pay by cash and they don’t accept credit cards.

I went to the bank on Friday thinking they would write out a cheque for me right there and then. I must have briefly forgotten where I was. Of course they couldn’t write me a bank cheque on the spot. I need an appointment with one of their advisors. The earliest I can get an appointment is in 10 days time. Brilliant. My insurance is due in 1 week. Not only do I have to wait that long for a cheque but I need a one hour appointment to get it done. One hour! So in theory the bank ‘advisors’ (they don’t have tellers at the bank) could spend their whole day writing 7 cheques! Very efficient. This is just another reason as to why this country is so crap.

I went to the motor show in Perth once and it was pretty boring. It was small and of no interest whatsoever. For that reason I was hesitant about going to the Paris Motor Show, along with the fact that I’m not that interested in cars. However, I would like to buy a small car soon so I went along with Ferbent, who was particularly interested in seeing all the luxury cars.

Tickets were 12 euros each and it was held at the exposition centre at Porte de Versailles in the 15th. It’s not that far from my house but it took forever to get there as I had to go into Paris and then back out again on a different line. It was a pain but I made it. It was Friday night and surprisingly there weren’t that many people there. Maybe the pouring rain deterred people from going.

We started off seeing all the latest small cars which I’m interested in buying. I love the Citroen C2 but it just doesn’t have the features of the Peugeot 207. The 207 has 6 airbags as standard and optional leather seats and gps. The gps is an extra 2000E but I think it’s worth it because it includes an inbuilt SOS button which you press if you breakdown, plus a telephone, and 5 CD player, as well as a street directory for all of Europe. That sounds good to me. I’d also get airconditioning and maybe a sunroof. With all the options I want it would cost around 19,000E. The basic car starts at 12,000E but I think I’d want the extras to be comfortable.

It was then off to see the luxury cars such as Porche, Ferrari, Lamborghini etc. For some reason I’ve always thought they were all ugly cars. I just don’t get the attraction. I did like the latest BMWs though. I wouldn’t mind the M6.

So what I thought would be a couple of hours of looking at cars actually took 4 hours but I didn’t notice the time go by. Surprisingly I enjoyed going and I might even go again, in 5 years or so.

A week ago I joined a gym in Paris and not just any gym but for sure the best gym in this city. I had been thinking about it for a while but wasn’t sure I could justify the expense. Why pay to exercise when I can walk for hours around beautiful Paris for free. Of course there are plenty more things to do at the gym than walk on the treadmill so I decided to sign up.

There is a public swimming pool with a small gym near my house in Boulogne Billancourt. I was going to join that because it’s so close and they have a couple of large pools. I like to swim but hate having to share a lane with some slow swimmer and they’re always so slow. In the end I decided against this gym because they only have a couple of treadmills and other cardio machines and having to wait to use them would annoy the hell out of me. Plus local schools use the swimming pool and a lot of parents take their children there too. There’s no way I want to be swimming with lots of kiddies.

In the end I joined Club Med Gym. They have 22 clubs around Paris and I can use any of them. Only 5 or 6 have swimming pools and they are all very small but there are no kids or teenagers around. There’s no way they could afford the membership at a whopping 999E per year. I can barely afford that.

I go to the club in the 16th and it’s huge. There are about 50 cardio machines and plenty of weight machines. They have aerobics at all hours including aqua aerobics which I haven’t tried yet but hope to. The 16th is a very bourgeois area of Paris so it’s mainly professional people who go to that gym. That suits me because they are there to work out and not much else. Although, there does seem to be a bit of gossiping going on which seems strange to me.

So far I’ve gone swimming once, yesterday, following by a hammam (steam) and the other days I’ve used the gym. I haven’t done aerobics yet as I don’t like that it’s open and everyone in the gym can and does watch those doing aerobics. The last thing I need is loads of people watching me struggling through a class. Maybe I’ll do that when my fitness improves a bit.

What is most surprising about this gym is that everyone is so fit and so slim. I’m the only overweight person there. The girls are especially skinny. They must have been going every day for years. I feel a bit out of place but I’m getting over it.

I’m trying to go four or five times a week. It’s a 30 minute walk there from my house so that’s an extra hour or so (it takes me longer on the way home) of exercise for me which I hope will help me get fit sooner rather than later.

I hired a car for my recent holiday and spent time driving around France and Spain. I generally avoided the autoroutes (and the expensive tolls) but did often take the national roads. These can be slower due to fewer lanes and also seeing you have to slow down when you go through a town. The speed limits can still be fairly high as was the case when I was travelling on the RN10 from Paris to Bordeaux.

I wasn’t particularly in a hurry but was following the traffic in front of me without thinking too much about my speed. I was suddenly reminded of that however when I was blinded by the flash of a speed camera. Ok, I’m exaggerating a little there but I noticed the flash and I was caught speeding.

I had forgotten about it until today when I received the speeding fine in the mail – the Avis de Contravention au Code de la Route. I thought maybe I was in a 90km/h zone at the time but luckily it was a 110 zone. I was doing 122km/h so the fine was only 45 euros. The way it works is that if you pay within 15 days you pay 45 euros, if pay after 15 days but before 45 days then it goes up to 68 euros, and if you pay after that it goes up to a whopping 180 euros. I paid it already to ensure I only pay 45.

I’m also supposed to lose some points from my drivers licence (it doesn’t say how many) but I don’t see how they can do that seeing I don’t have a French drivers licence. You can of course contest the fine but unfortunately I have to admit I’m guilty.