Listen to Sue interview Chris about his recent trip to India and especially about what surprised him.
During his travels in India, Chris went to Bangalore in the south and then to Rajasthan in the north, to The Taj Mahal in Agra, Fatihpur Sikri, Bundi, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Delhi and Jaipur, to name but a few of the fabulous places he visited.
What do you think would be the most surprising aspects of travelling in India?
Email has become the top method of communication in the workforce. Reasons for emails vary from business correspondences to personal messages.
They can be as short as one word and as long as a novella, but that does not mean that these are all appropriate or even effective.
If you have access to this method of communication in the office, then it is necessary to learn how to effectively use email at work.
Worldwide email use continues to grow at a healthy pace. In 2015, the number of worldwide email users will be nearly 2.6 billion. By the end of 2019, the number of worldwide email users will increase to over 2.9 billion.
Over one-third of the worldwide population will be using email by year-end 2019 and this is forecasted to increase over the next five years.
In 2015, the number of emails sent and received per day total over 205 billion, reaching over 250 billion by the end of 2020.
Despite the growth and prominence of mobile messengers and chat apps, e-mail is an integral part of daily online life.
In 2018, the number of global e-mail users amounted to 3.8 billion and is set to grow to 4.4 billion users in 2023.
Around 281 billion emails were sent and received each day in 2018, the figure is expected to increase to over 347 billion daily mails in 2022.
So, if you are struggling to manage your emails today, then things are set to get even worse for you.
With this in mind, is it time for change?
With the average worker spending 13 hours a week dealing with emails, businesses are potentially losing up to 28% of work time to managing email.
Listen to this podcast where we give some effective tips to manage emails and to reduce the number of emails you receive on a daily basis.
The British Government continues to seek a way in which the UK can leave the EU in an orderly manner and without undue delay. In the meantime, the French Government is publishing more information about what a no-deal would mean for British nationals in France. We want to share this information with you, so we will be emailing updates to you as and when we can.
This update covers the French Ministry of Interior’s decree about entry, residence, social rights and professional activity in France for British nationals in the event of a no-deal departure from the EU. The second part of this newsletter covers the recognition of UK driving licences in France in the event of no-deal.
The decree is meant to be read alongside the ordonnance that came out on 6 February — an unofficial translation of this ordonnance is available here. We will pull the information from both documents together so that we can update our Living in France guide. It is important to get this right so it will take us a few days.
In the meantime, here is a summary of the decree’s provisions. As you can tell, it’s not definitive and there are a number of points, some of which we’ve flagged below, where we are seeking more information from the French authorities.
The grace period to get your appropriate status for residency is confirmed as one (1) year following Exit day. During this year, citizens already residing in France on Exit day will see their residency and associated work and social rights maintained.
There will be a six (6) month period following Exit day to submit your application for the new residence status. You will need to apply for a new card even if you have an EU card (permanent or other). We have raised the issue of insufficient capacity at some préfectures and understand that the process will be simplified, including to reduce visits to the préfecture where possible.
The application fee will be €119 for the first card issued. There is no information about renewals.
Where there is a financial resource requirement for certain residency cards (e.g. the “visitor” card for “non-actifs or retired”), the decree says that this will take into account individual circumstances, including whether you own your property or stay in your home for free. It also indicates that the resources requirement will not exceed the basic level of the RSA benefit. We know that this is a really important issue for many of you, and we continue to press for further detail and the most generous approach possible.
Applicants for certain cards will need to show that they have health insurance. However, the decree does not specify what types of cover will count as health insurance for this purpose – so we are raising this urgently with the French government.
To get one of the new residence cards, you will need:
a valid passport
a recent, passport-type photo (3.5 × 4.5 cm)
current carte de séjour if you have one, or
proof of the date you moved to France if you do not currently hold a carte de séjour.
PLUS further papers depending on the type of card you apply for. For example, if you are applying for a “salarié” or worker status, you will need to provide your work contract and a recent payslip (not more than three months old).
On UK driving licences in France
On 3 April, the French authorities published more details about the use of UK driving licences in France in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal. This judgment (“arrêté”) is meant to be read alongside the judgment of 8 February 1999 on the recognition of European driving licences. Here is a summary of the provisions of both and what they mean in practice.
The UK driving licences of British nationals resident in France before the UK leaves the EU will be recognised in the same way as they are now, including if we leave without a deal. This covers people currently resident in France and those who relocate here up to the date of a no-deal exit. There is no limit to this recognition, but we would recommend that residents exchange their licences at some point in the future.
In the event of a no-deal, British nationals who move to France after we leave the EU will have to change their UK driving licence for a French one within a year of arrival in France. Please see the conditions for converting a licence below.
However, people who hold British licences that were initially issued in the British Virgin Islands, the Falkland Islands, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, the Republic of Korea or Zimbabwe will not be able to convert their licences and will have to take a French driving test to obtain a French licence. The one year grace period still applies.
Students will be able to continue to drive on their British driving licence for as long as they are registered students in France.
The judgment of 8 April 1999 defines the conditions for recognising and exchanging licences. These conditions stipulate that one cannot hold both a French driving licence and a driving licence of another EU/European economic zone country at the same time. In order to exchange a British driving licence for a French one, the British driving licence must:
Be valid.
Belong to a person having reached the minimum French age for that licence.
Respect any specific conditions attached to the licence (e.g. restrictions linked to disability, use of prescription lenses, etc.).
Be held by someone who is not subject to driving restrictions, suspension or similar in the country which issued the initial licence.
Not have been obtained while the holder was barred from driving in France.
Please note that French driving licences will still be valid for use in the UK after EU exit.
Although not covered in this judgment, we continue to be told that British tourists will need to carry a certified translation of their UK driving licence with them or carry an International Driving Permit. We are pressing for more details on this.
A reminder again that the provisions mentioned above will apply if the UK leaves the EU without a deal. Other provisions will apply if we leave with a deal.
As soon as we have updated our Living in France guide, we will send round an alert. You can register for an alert by clicking here. We will also be running another Facebook Q&A and we will update you on social media and GOV.UK with the date.
Serge on holiday in the west of The USA – a podcast with a French person who spent 3 weeks travelling around the National Parks in the west of The USA.
Serge flew from Toulouse, France to Denver, Colorado via Paris, Heathrow and Chicago.
Would this type of holiday / trip appeal to you?
Are there any surprises for you, about a holiday in North America?
Daylight saving time (DST), also daylight savings time or daylight time (the United States and Canada) and British summer time (United Kingdom), is the practice of advancing clocks (typically by one hour) during warmer months so that darkness falls at a later clock time.
The typical implementation of DST is to set clocks forward by one hour in the spring (“spring forward”) and set clocks back by one hour in autumn (“fall back”) to return to standard time. As a result, there is one 23-hour day in late winter or early spring and one 25-hour day in the autumn.
George Hudson proposed the idea of daylight saving in 1895.
Many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the 1970s energy crisis.
DST is generally not observed near the equator, where sunrise and sunset times do not vary enough to justify it.
Some countries observe it only in some regions and only a minority of the world’s population uses DST; Asia and Africa generally do not observe it.
DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software generally adjusts clocks automatically.
Listen to the podcast for some unusual facts about Daylight Saving Time.
Use your imagination !
A quiz with a difference..... you provide whatever answer seems right to you !
Try this quiz BEFORE listening to the podcast. It will get you thinking and then you can find out the answers from Chris in the podcast and hear how Sue uses her imagination to come up with some plausible explanations to these 15 amazing trivia questions.
If you are a teacher, this is a great way to plan your lesson to get students using their imagination and picking up new expressions along the way.
LEARNING TIP: After listening to the podcast check if you heard these words. What do they refer to?