Quebec / La Rochelle 400 years this week

In 1608, Samuel de Champlain, father of the "Nouvelle France", left La Rochelle, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and founded the city of Quebec (Québec) in Canada. This week saw the 400 year anniversary party in La Rochelle. On Thursday, the City of La Rochelle became very busy!
Take a look at the photo's and video's below, you may even find some young ladies strolling around (almost) naked covered in paint!!


The first video is the La Rochelle fishing students making nets.




Below is the Belem which was nearly as tall as the famous towers in the Old Port of La Rochelle.



Did I mention the ladies almost naked?

In La Rochelle's St Jean D'Arc Carpark, was a gourmet festival..Squid (Seches) and various other dishes were available for almost nothing..

Let the jousting begin!







Who are "these" girls?


And Finally, the Belem entered the Old Port in La Rochelle..


So we ate, drank and really had a great day watching the events unfold. Bravo La Rochelle, Congrat's Quebec.

A European Joke!

I haven't posted here for a while, as I am now blogging the serious stuff over here and here, so I thought why not simply post things that amuse me on here? Every now and then some funny things will appear! This was in an email from a family member this morning (I fly this company almost weekly and I actually love their service but..):-

A man was sitting in the bar at Heathrow Terminal 3 and noticed a really
beautiful woman sitting next to him.

He thought to himself . 'Wow, she's so gorgeous she must be an air
hostess. I wonder which airline she works for?'

Hoping to pick her up, he leaned towards her and uttered the Delta
Airline slogan. 'Love to fly and it shows?'

She gave him a blank,confused stare and he immediately thought to himself .
'Well, she obviously doesn't work for Delta.'

A moment later,another slogan popped into his head. So he leaned towards
her again and said, 'Something special in the air ..?'

She gave him the same confused look. He mentally kicked himself and
scratched Singapore Airlines off his list.

He thought 'Perhaps she works for Thai Airways ...' and said,'Smooth as silk?'

This time,the woman turned on him and said, 'What the f**k do you want?'

The man smiled, slumped back in his chair and said . 'Ahhhhh, Ryanair!'

Banned because I live in France!

A website just shut its door on France, 1938media.com. Why? See here.
(Of course I can't see it so it may be a dud link!) I can however see Techcrunch so the link to the story is here.

Now Loic Le Meur has apologised here, so can you take the country ban off please Loren?

I mean, I am English so maybe just allow my IP?!!

Here is the screen shot of 1938media site right now for me.


My take on the whole episode is that Seesmic is a great idea and is in pre-alpha which means it is there to be taken shots at but is also saying we are a work in progress so be patient. I have had similar attacks about my site.
This is what trying to create a difference brings you, normally elation and satisfaction, sometimes pain. Loic took the bait, why?, because he probably lives and breathes seesmic and is running at 200%, with not enough sleep and when you get a horrible critique under emotional pressure and tiredness, that is what happens.

A bad review feels like someone has attacked your child (I am qualified to say that!). Running a start up is hard, harder than anyone who hasn't tried will ever know especially when online 24 hours a day 7 days a week. But it is all great fun at the same time :-)

A day in Angouleme

Last weekend we visited the beautiful city of Angouleme, it is about 1hr45mins drive from La Rochelle.

We went to the Gastronomades. This is a great example of how things differ here in France. Everywhere was free to enter and all about food!

We watched a really classy demonstration of how to produce spectacular Japanese food, by the highest rated Japanese chef in France. He prepared this freshly under the drooling gazes of 300 people. My son won the opportunity to sample the most expensive dish on any menu by winning with a raffle ticket given out on entering the hall, Sylvie also won with the next drawn ticket, you couldn't make it up!

So this post is more about photo's than words:-


This was a chocolatier demonstrating how to carve chocolate!

Marathon of La Rochelle 2007

Today means another early start for me. The La Rochelle Marathon, 3rd largest in France, is this morning.

In 2006 the weather was beautiful, large crowds and bands on every street corner, this year the weather is a bit grim, raining and cool, it probably suits the professionals. Will it suit the crowds?

I shall be staying at home for the first hour and half because it passes by my front door and well, I can drink my black coffee and watch in comfort. You can watch the streaming video here, I will post up photos later:-

marathon live video
Finishing between the towers

Every finisher gets their own pack of oysters!

Survey on Social Networking

I was just shown a great survey by Merrill Lynch on Social Networking, by @jbond on Twitter (note the link will take you to his Twitter). It offered a decent insight on how the users of Social Networks view things. I have my views but reading through the results has made me think of a few changes to Fuelmyblog.com more on that another day!

So, I have picked out the key responses and listed them below, Social Networking will be referred to as SocNet for obvious reasons:-

Firstly, of those surveyed so far, 67% are male with the average age between 22 and 25 years old. Interestingly only 5% are over 40 years old.

So, to the findings:-

59% purchase products on the net occassionally
89% use the net regularly to contact friends and colleagues.

76% of the SocNet users prefer to meet people face-to-face with the LEAST favoured form of contact being Video Chat. I wonder how this will change with increased internet speeds and technology?

36% use SocNet's daily.

53% use just one SocNet regularly, meaning that on average, a user has one favourite site, 80% use Facebook, 2nd most popular is Linkedin with 22%. Interesting is that 49% have between 100-500 connections across the sites they are members of.

The highest percentage of responses state that the user has invited between 0-10 people to join a site they use, this is a hard one to read into, if true, how do sites become viral?

The last time the majority (71%) of the SocNet users signed in to their accounts, they did so to contact a friend.

Asked the question "Which services would you use based on recommendations or offerings on a social networking site?", the highest percentage, 53%, would use/view Entertainment.

83% have never used a SocNet for professional opportunities.

And 57% would not use mobile to access a SocNet.

Finally, 82% would never pay to use a SocNet.

Any shocks in there? Some really interesting results, i'd love your views.

Collecting Oysters nr La Rochelle

Today was one of those days where you crave fresh crisp air and clean away the internal cobwebs of life. Whilst I enjoyed Vegas, the networking and meeting great people, I really missed fresh air and fresh oysters. I am lucky that I live just ten minutes walk from the sea in La Rochelle, I say lucky, it has been hard work getting here and there is a certain amount of emotion leaving your home country but after a day like today, I have no regrets!

Oysters are everywhere in La Rochelle, and when the tide is out, the farms are revealed. The rules are that each person is allowed to scavenge 5 kilos per day but not from 20 meters of an oyster farm.


The oyster beds are about 1 mile out to sea, yes, that far. The farmers store the oysters in special sacks while they grow.


These sacks are kept on racks sunk into the ocean bed


So, we keep well clear of them! They also store mussels too..


Walking to the part we are allowed to take them from takes about ten minutes at a brisk pace! When you arrive, you see a bed of oysters, some empty, some full! While searching you must keep an eye on the tide..


My collection today in the bag

Walking back with the sun slowly setting..


Back home and after cleaning the shells


And finally, the succulent meat..wonderful.


Have you ever tried oysters? What did you think?

Mahalo - Fuelmyblog

I have been a fan of Jason Calacanis for a long time and really admire Mahalo, I see it more than a search engine, more of an online encyclopedia, with some great creative reviews and to do guides.

So why am I writing about it here? Basically, I would love his guys to review my blogging community, fuelmyblog.com and write a page about it, so we have to ask for them to put us on the MahaloToDo list, maybe they will pick up on this and write one for us.

We would also like Jason to join in on our new book "the human behind the avatar" and help us promote it, every penny we would make from the sale of each book (15%) is going to Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres charity, we will have this book ready for delivery by Christmas, the main aim is to show people that although we have avatars, there are real people behind them, real people that have hearts. We haven't yet started to promote the idea and Jason would be great to help us.

Why else? Well, we have recently added the new friends widget, this is in effect, a visual blog roll, it allows the fuel users to add their friends and arrange them in an easy to click voting space. Why should anyone be interested in fuelmyblog? It is a great community for new bloggers, for example, this is generally what happens when a blogger sets up a new blog, they generally go to blogger or wordpress, write a few posts, then tell their friends and family.. after a few weeks, their friends and family tend to drop off and the new blogger is alone. Fuelmyblog allows the new blogger the opportunity to find like minded bloggers, get new readers and win prizes. We would love Mahalo to write a page about fuelmyblog and hopefully help bloggers find new readers. So, please add this request to the MahaloToDo list and fingers crossed that we get a page. Thanks guys.

Back from BlogWorld Expo

I had a great time meeting loads of interesting people at BlogWorld in Las Vegas. You can read more about it here. I also would like to thank Rick again for the hard work that went into it, I hope we can do something this side of the pond one day..

I also met, not mentioned on the fuel blog, iJustine, we have been talking for a while now about something coming up soon, she is very cool and is Miss Web 2.0! I'd love her to get a passport..

I wanted to show the following "gadget" I picked up. There are many things in the USA that are alien to us Brits, take the following for example, a drinking cup that is effectively a tiny envelope:-


Much more to come once the jet lag has gone!

You couldn't make it up

I am currently spending ten days in the UK en route to Las Vegas for blogworldexpo. I took my kids shopping in the various superstores and saw the following in TK Maxx. You could not make it up, what happened to running around?

Mark Cueto Try in the Rugby World Cup Final 2007

I have watched this clip many times now. I still do not see how it was disallowed? I know Australian TV referee Stuart Dickinson has now totally defended his controversial decision to disallow a try by England winger Mark Cueto in the Rugby World Cup final.

Many England and some neutral rugby fans claim the decision probably cost the defending champions the chance to beat South Africa. Jake White even privately told Lawrence Dallaglio (mentioned on the BBC's Inside Sport last night) that he thought it was a try.

But Dickinson told The Guardian newspaper in London that he was certain he made the right decision.

"I'm 100 percent happy with the decision,"

"We looked at some footage of it late last night and factually the decision is indisputable."

"Of course the players are disappointed."

"If they weren't, you would be disappointed in them as elite athletes."

I have got the clip below, you tell me..

La Rochelle Cakes!

I live in a small city called La Rochelle in South West France.

For the past year and a bit, I have walked past a shop that sells possibly the best cakes (to look at) on Earth! I have always promised to treat myself one day to the one that looked like a small plate of spaghetti. That day was yesterday.

Guess what flavour it was..I had no idea before I bought it. It was delicious!

The shop is called D'Jolly and it is near Place Verdun in the centre. If you ever visit La Rochelle, you must have a cup of tea or coffee and a cake there!

A lego prostitute

This one was too strong to be put on to fuelmyblog but I couldn't let it pass, it is hilarious.

(We are also giving away 100 T-shirts and $500 in cash to bloggers in October, not yet a member of my community fuelmyblog? Sign up!)

Facebook needs to somehow clarify people are real

(click on the image for enlarged size)

For those reading this outside the UK, Gary Linekar is an ex-soccer star, now hosts a soccer program on the BBC called Match of the day. He also promotes crisps (chips). Obviously not him and the French advert underneath speaks for itself!

England V Samoa, a view from a England Fan

Before writing this post I must disclose that I live in France, love the country and people and am married to a French woman and my kids are by the result, half French/half English.

So, moving on, I drove to Nantes on Saturday to watch the England V Samoa world cup rugby match. It was a hugely significant fixture for us English, firstly because we are the current Champions and secondly because we had to win otherwise we would be out.

The stadium at Nantes is small, seats around 37,000. When the national anthems were played, the stadium rocked with "God save the Queen" and was silent during the Samoan anthem, out of respect and the fact they probably had 100 supporters in the stadium. As soon as the game started, the atmosphere was absolutely electric, "Swing Low" could be heard throughout the stadium. England scored early and everything seemed great. Then Jonny Stepped up to take his first conversion kick..

The crowd, a huge number, started to boo. The fans surrounding me wearing English shirts, looked at one and other stunned, surely the English haven't turned against our World Cup hero. Then the blue beret's came out, the seemingly "English" fans around us were French, not only that, some were even wearing England shirts. This abuse continued through-out the game, every time the Samoans pushed forward the stadium would chant "Allez les Bleus". The French in the stand appeared to outnumber the English, certainly their voices anyway.

Tempers were rising within the stand, the English were clearly annoyed with the torrent of boo's and "allez". One young guy stood up and shouted "Don't cry for me Argentina", the crowd just stared at him blankly. Another guy was asking a large group of "suits" whether they would be angry if their team was constantly booed, again, blank faces..

I have been to many International rugby matches and have never seen this before, the atmosphere was ruined, killed by those chanting and booing. Normally, you would expect banter within the crowd, as the week before at South Africa, very light hearted and plenty of joking around. Many people had traveled for over 16 hours to get there, costing €105 for the ticket alone plus the associated travel costs on top of that. Those sat next to me were shocked and annoyed that they were unable to enjoy the atmosphere.

Why did they do it? I am still at a loss, ultimately, it was probably the only chance many of the locals would have of watching a World cup game, should they have done it? No, absolutely not, would you? Maybe I am just being too sensitive.

Below is a clip from my camera giving an idea of the noise surrounding us.

Top Tips when going to Stade de France for Rugby World Cup

Firstly, before I detail my tips and experiences gained when watching the Rugby in Paris, I thought I ought to point out the following... Before you travel to Paris, be under no illusion, the beer is more expensive, the locals hate tourists and there is practically nothing written in any language other than French and finally, always have your passport in your pocket, if stopped by the Police, they will want to see it straight away. On the other hand, France is totally excited by the World Cup, has a fantastic public transport system and if you take something from my tips, you will have a great time.

The findings were all discovered on Friday 14^th September, the day England seemingly surrendered their world crown at the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

On match day, the streets of Paris are alive and buzzing with the fans of just about every Nation competing in the World Cup. Paris is known to be a city of cafe culture, you will not be disappointed, the streets are lined with tables and chairs outside, they normally are filled with smoking Parisians quaffing coffee, not during this Championship. The cafes are a mass of bright colours each one, the day I went it was mainly a sea of white and green, English and South Africans. The majority drink pints of cool lager and try to take in some of the heat from the sun, the atmosphere is electric. You will hardly hear a French voice, all English with accents from across the globe. There is zero trouble, everyone, regardless of team is talking together about the match.

Getting to the stadium is pretty easy, take the RER train directly to the Stade de France, it takes around 20 minutes from the centre of the city, very cheap and one train every few minutes. Outside the stadium you can sense a major event is about to take place, everyone is excited and on top form, people walk alongside opposing fans, chatting about who will win and why. All the way from the station at St Dennis to the Stadium the streets are filled with people selling merchandise, nasty looking kebabs and cans of beer from cool boxes. There are many bars en route and plenty of opportunity to buy tickets from touts. This walk takes around 10-15 minutes.

Arriving at the stadium you are thrust into a cauldron of noise and excitement, people singing, bands playing music, people dancing and fans of all ages from 3 to 90 years old (it seemed). There are plenty of Heineken stands and although really overpriced (7€ per pint) there are plenty drinking. Everyone is happy and there are a few bands playing tunes relevant to the fans surrounding them (although not sure about Tom Jones’ deliliah). TV crews interview people and the paparazzi will snap anybody wearing something unusual, the most popular when I was there were the two guys in South African kit wearing Nelson Mandela masks. One big tip outside, there are no big screens, do not arrive thinking you can watch a game before.

During the game and inside the stadium there are plenty of bars and food places, serving the usual fare, toilets as ever are a major problem as there aren’t enough.

After the game, all of the “beer tents” remain open, many were celebrating, many were drinking to forget. All in all, i’d summarise the atmosphere as being one big party, many fans left the ground through fear of not getting home and missing the last train, the woman I spoke to at the RER said that they run the trains until everyone is gone, I got the train at 12.30am (after shaking hands with a certain Martin Johnson outside the media zone)

Top Tips at a glance

1. Get RER train to Stade de France
2. Get there 2-3 hours before kick-off and enjoy the build up outside.
3. Have a beer after the game and miss the rush
4. If you want to watch a game before make sure you do it in a bar en route, nothing at the stadium
5. Not got a ticket? Plenty are selling on behalf of friends that couldn’t make it, you will watch the game next to them but..?
6. Go to toilet 2 mins before half finishes
7. Take the whole family without fear, no trouble and great atmosphere.
8. Instead of buying a program (€8) wait until after, loads are left under seats!

An example of bad customer service, Skype.

So I have an issue with Skype, I have problems with it crashing all the time and it hardly ever works skype to skype but hey that is free, my complaint is Skype out, that is a paid service.

I sent an email to Skype as below:-

"Every time in the past two weeks that I have used skype in my skype-out paid for service, I have had to hang-up and re-dial as the recipients never every hear me for more than 10 seconds then it cuts out or freezes. I have 8mb line and frankly expect better. I now have red warning saying skype balance low, not surprising as the damn things eats money and provides no service, I spent $.80 trying to get a call connected, cheaper to use the land-line. I expect to see some kind of credit as this is simply not on, $10 spent, probably 2 minutes of talking in total. Disgusting. I have 5500 bloggers on my site and was going to recommend skype as a platform for our chat service, not now."

I then got a standard response, check the firewall etc..

"Thank you for contacting Skype Support.
We are very sorry to hear of your troubles with Skype.
Here are some ways to help you experience enhanced call quality:

1. Check that you are using the most recent version of Skype. You can download it for free:
http://skype.com/download/

2. Follow the simple suggestions here that resolve many call quality issues:
http://www.skype.com/help/guides/callquality/

3. Follow our visual sound setup guide to make sure your audio settings are correct:
http://www.skype.com/help/guides/soundsetup.html

4. Follow our visual firewall user guide to ensure that your firewall or router is not blocking Skype:
http://www.skype.com/help/guides/firewall.html

5. Make sure that all the drivers for your PC are up-to-date (sound, video, motherboard controllers etc). The manufacturer of your hardware will supply you with these.

If you are still not happy with the quality of your calls, then let us know, so that we can help you further."

Hmm..unhappy, make that pissed off, a standard response so I replied, a bit stroppy I admit:-

"Thanks for the standard response.

I am no fool and have used skype for a few years. It is only recently
that the service is shoddy, you guys simply eat up the users money with
no service, everything works on my PC just not every time. It is simply
not consistent. In fact I would say I have to restart 70% of my calls,
that is 70% losses of calls and costs that are obviously incurred.

Of course all sounds are correct, version is up-to-date, firewall
obviously is fine as skype does work for a bit (mind you as this is a
standard reply I am guessing nobody read my mail).

Once again, you fail to provide a service and I am thinking of reporting
the service as it is simply ripping off users."

Sooo..good old Skype came back with another standard mail:-

"So here are some more suggestions to help resolve the issue:

1. In Skype, Go to Tools > Options > Connection. Select the option to use ports 80 and 443. In the "Incoming Connections" box you can chose any port between 1024 and 65535.
2. Reconfirm that your firewall is correctly configured. Follow the simple visual guide here:
http://www.skype.com/help/guides/firewalls/
3. Quit any file sharing applications or high-bandwidth usage applications.
4. For more detailed security setup on a network: http://www.skype.com/security/guide-for-network-admins.pdf
5. If these suggestions do not resolve improve cal quality, follow these steps:
* Quit Skype
* Locate the shared.xml file found in
C:\Documents and settings\Your Windows Username\Application data\Skype\shared.xml
* Delete the file called shared.xml
* Restart Skype ( shared.xml will be recreated )
Note: Showing hidden folders and files has to be turned on: please navigate to My Computer > Tools > Folder Options > View. Once there, please make sure that the option "Show Hidden Files and Folders" is enabled.

5. Disable Quality of Service packet scheduling. Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Network Connections. Right click on the connection you are using. Select Properties. Untick the "QoS Packet Scheduler" option.

If you are still not happy with the quality of your calls, then let us know, so that we can help you further."

Hmm..more standard crap..doesn't once solve the fact it works for the first 10 seconds does it, proving everything is actually set up ok, so, I sent another mail (PS. I did all of the above about a year ago, no customer records obviously so how would they know?):-

"Hmm same response twice, third time and you get me blogging it word for
word. "

Then Skype customer services, Marko L to be precise, replies:-

"Hello Kevin,

Thank you for contacting Skype Support.

Our apologies for pointing this out, but they're not the same.

Actually if you look closely you will note the difference in the steps. But judging by your reply you have not even read them, let alone followed them through on Skype. Unfortunately if you don't do that we can not narrow down the problem. These guides are carefully designed and not just some random suggestions thrown together, even though they may not look much.

Please "reset" the exception for Skype in your Firewall software. The old exception can become useless and this can affect Skype connection quality.


If you are using windows built-in firewall,
Go to Start menu --> Settings --> Control Panel --> Windows firewall
If 'Don't allow exceptions' is ticked, please untick it.
Go to the 'Exceptions' tab
If there is Skype listed below, delete it.
Start Skype, you will be prompted to allow Skype to connect to internet, accept it.

If you are using some other firewall,
Go to Start menu --> Programs and select your firewall
Make sure that exceptions are allowed.
Go to 'Exceptions' tab
If there is Skype listed below, delete it
Start Skype, you will be prompted to allow Skype to connect to the internet, select 'Yes'.

Best regards,

Marko L.
Skype Support"

So. tell me Skype, why do you keep charging me for a service that doesn't work? All of the above is bullshit standard response email that I have had many times, if you had records, you'd be able to see that. I did the above standard email responses last year, your service is simply not up to the same standard as last year, it has deteriorated.

I have now blogged it as I promised. I still am unable to get a telephone conversation without it freezing or crashing yet you keep charging me. I may only have a small blogging community, there may only be 6000 bloggers signed up but I reply personally to every mail, I take every complaint personally, maybe the Skype team ought to too..?

Thanks.

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I am unsure if this is real or not but I found it funny!

The ever changing view from my office window

The above picture is the square looking normal

This is our square last night, a film crew making a movie.

Students celebrating 100 days until taking exams, eggs and flour thrown, covering square in rubbish and mess! School claim not their kids doing it, yeah right.

Woke up one Sunday to find the Marathon passing by the window!

Review of my New Year Predictions

On the 1st January 2007, I predicted ten things, It is now nearly September so time to review them and see where we are at:-

My predictions for 2007 were:-

1. A famous young celebrity will die because of crack addiction, shocking the world into doing something about it.
Not happened as yet, but I have a feeling that there are two candidates in the UK helping kids focus on the bad side of fame, namely Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse, I hope they clean up.

2. Fidel Castro will die and Cuba will become part of the USA.
Again, he is still alive and I doubt Cuba will change..

3. Bin Laden will be found dead in a big city.
Strange one this, he is starting to talk again, so we will see.

4. The spice girls to take over the world's music scene.
Greatest hits album coming out and World Tour. Got it right I think.

5. Robbie Williams to get married to an equally big celeb and divorce within three months.
He has been quiet so time for some publicity, would be good for him.

6. Britney Spears to make some music.
In the recording studio but she needs help.

7. Spurs to make it to the Champions League and win UEFA Cup.
Made Semi-final of cup and narrowly missed the Champions League by one place.

8. Fuelmyblog.com will be the next big thing.
Will be, I am working on that!

9. I will do a triathlon..somehow!
I broke a toe the week before, and missed it, getting back into shape, still time.

10. Finally...a major political leader to be assassinated, the world to be in shock like JFK.
Saddam Hussein was assassinated but that was around the time I wrote this so doesn't really count, will have to wait and see.