NOVEMBER 2013 ○ THE BUGLE ○ www.thebugle.eu
2 ♦ IN THIS EDITION
Welcome to
T
The Bugle
he Bugle has now entered its fifth year wow, how the time flies! To celebrate our birthday edition, we are giving away tickets to the Futuroscope Theme Park just outside Poitiers (see page 3 opposite for details). I have not yet been myself, although I have heard very good reports about the country's second most popular theme park after Disneyland Paris. All we are asking in return is that you make us laugh by sending in your favourite
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joke, preferably a Christmas one! We could do with a good laugh over at Bugle Towers to distract us from the dreaded “tax season”. This is always a gloomy time of year as the weather really starts to turn, the days draw ever shorter and the bills start to drop. Taxe foncière, taxe d'habitation, fill up the central heating fuel tank, order the logs... Then, as anyone running a business will be painfully aware, the RSI likes to recalculate what you owe about now as well!! Still, Christmas is right around the corner and that's usually a cheap time of year, no?! I thought I was being clever by only allowing my children to watch CBeebies rather than the overtly commercial Disney Channel or Nick Junior, so they avoid the vast majority of adverts for toys, gadgets and gizmos. Then, the other day, my eldest stormed into the office and demanded that I buy her a tablet as she wanted to download the latest Tree Fu Tom (whatever that is?!) app from the CBeebies website... she is four!! I still have to talk her grandfather through turning on his PC and the only tablets he knows about are the ones he takes in the morning for his arthritis!! Suffice it to say, so long as there are sticks to play with in the garden, my children will not be getting
iPads or iPhones any time soon (other expensive mobile devices are available). We did not move to rural France to teach our children to be slaves to technology! At the risk of sounding old - how times have changed. One thing that never changes is the “advice” from medical experts, or rather the lack of consistency of that advice: cholesterol is bad and eggs will kill you; there is good cholesterol and eggs are packed with the good type; don't eat too much fat or oil; Omega-3 is the elixir of life and drinking olive oil by the gallon will make you live forever. Just the other day I read that “experts” have decided that butter and saturated fats are no longer the devil and a separate study has revealed that 2 cups of coffee a day are better for you than two fruit smoothies - go figure! The latest revelation is that one of the cornerstones of keeping healthy is also not true - that you need to drink 2 litres of water every day. Now they are saying it makes very little difference how much you drink (British Journal of Sports Medicine, September 2013, Current hydration guidelines are erroneous: dehydration does not impair exercise performance in the heat, Wall BA). Not only that, but it's now considered more dangerous to drink too much water than too little (drinking too much can fatally dilute your body's sodium levels). Apparently, we evolved in environments that required doing intense exercise in extreme heat and dryness (presumably that means running away from lions on the
African savannah?) and our bodies are quite good at dealing with dehydration. The new advice is to “drink to thirst” rather than trying to drink a certain amount, which is handy advice for me as I am almost always thirsty for a beer!!! Finally, and on a more serious note, I was very sad to hear that Jane Nicholson recently lost her long battle with cancer. As everyone who knew her is well aware, Jane fought long and hard against her illness and our thoughts go out to Phil and all their family and friends. Phil is carrying on the business that Jane worked so hard to create and The Exchange Rochechouart remains open for trading as usual. This is the 49th edition of The Bugle and Jane and Phil have been in every single one of them. Until next month! Steve Martindale, Editor
INSIDE this edition
1 & 3-6 Local News 7-11 National News 12-14 French Life 15 Bilingual 16-17 Practical 18-19 Classifieds 20 Notice Board 21 Clubs & Associations 22-24 What's On
B1-B8 Business Directory