Normally I would firmly eschew the hand carved wooden flute and from time to time run screaming from the mandolin, but to kick us off, Mariee Sioux (playing in Niort in the Charente in November). Her only connection to this election special being that she is from….er….America.

Less than three weeks to go to possibly the most important election in modern times and things are getting nasty across the pond. I’ve never been a big believer in conspiracy theories, (actually that’s bollocks, I think we all know that no-one has ever landed on the moon and that Chesney “I am the one and only” Hawkes was actually an animatronic ) however this seems to be an unlikely accident

For those who can’t be arsed to click on the link or read the article (everyone, I imagine), the gist is that some absentee ballots have gone out in a few counties in upstate NY with Barack Obama’s name spelled Barack Osama….as the piece points out - just how close are the B and S keys on a keyboard ? …..hmmmm….I shall say no more.

There is a long tradition in the land of the free and home of the cheats for vote rigging. I think everyone is by now aware that Al Gore actually won the 2000 election but was sucker punched out of it by a combination of George Bush’s brother and an acquiescent supreme court.

The thinking for the 2004 election, however, seems to be that once Bush and his assorted denizens of darkness had successfully portrayed John Kerry as a “wind surfing Frenchman” (I’m not making this up) Dubya won at a canter. Actually nothing could be further from the truth. If you look a the graphic below you will see that the whole thing boiled down to Ohio (circled)

Had those 20 elecotral votes gone the other way then the current president of the USA would have been John Kerry. “So what” I hear almost none of you cry, “it didn’t happen” – think again and read this. A litany of systematic manipulation of the electoral roll, voter registration and counting procedures. What is interesting is to compare the current map showing Obama / McCain based on up to date poll numbers.

Even without winning Ohio and Florida (both states in which he is ahead in the polls) Obama would still creep past the 270 electoral votes needed. The difference between the two maps isn’t huge and although Obama is campaigning heavily in Republican states (and may conceivably pick off one or two, although the main purpose is to force McCain to spend what’s left of his dwindling war chest on defending votes he would usually expect as god given) as usual the election of the President of America is actually decided by a relatively small number of people in a relatively small number of states.

Given the numbers it is unsurprising that McCain and Palin are attempting to whip up their supporters into a frenzy of righteous indignation, intimating that Obama somehow isn’t ‘American’ enough. The real obfuscator ( a word insufficiently used in my opinion) is McCain himself. Read here for the real story of the McCain rise to prominence….a couple of quotes from the piece for those who really, truly cannot be arsed (it is ten pages long)

“This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.”

“The reckless, womanizing hotshot who leaned on family connections for advancement before his capture in Vietnam emerged a reckless, womanizing celebrity who continued to pull strings. The real difference between the McCain of 1967 and the McCain of 1973 was that the latter’s ambition was now on overdrive.”

Finally 6.7 million people have now viewed this YouTube clip, which is about 20 more than watched my dog running round the garden with the Pixies in the background – I think we all know which one will affect the future of the world more.

Apologies for the tardy and scanty blog but I’ve had a drink now and we all know where that leads. Matt’s gone off to watch the Wonder Years with the kids and I’m left in a one to one with the computer – which frankly gives less back daily.
All this hedonism is a result of having 3 Dutch people, who want Matt ( or more correctly Eurl Dig-It) to build them a house, sitting around the kitchen table since 3pm and drinking wine. Such is the crazed life we lead.
Since that time, as tomorrow’s agenda has already been filled with chestnut picking 9–12pm and kid’s football all afternoon, I have been busy preparing beef in guiness and a Bailey’s cheesecake for a meal we’re having tomorrow evening. I thought I’d go Irish with this one as one of the guests is with child and no doubt needs the iron and it seemed a good idea when I had it mid-week and it was autumnal. Now, of course, the weather has changed and it’s going to be 24° or something ridiculous tomorrow which is bbq weather in anyone’s language.

That’s it. Sorry…….

Although not lying on the floor tonight I am hunched over a chair which is, for blogging purposes, a table in order to type this. I needn’t go into the details. We all know why it is.

I was going to call in the resident computer expert David (pronounced Davide – as in Ginola) from Homecall PC down the road who is really very good at fixing broken computers but I’ve been busy with paperwork all day and he is a bit of a raconteur to say the least with Sci Fi his speciality subject. He’s been round to our house twice on various rescue missions and, being an Anglophile, or an Anglotvophile, at the very least, feels liberated to effuse about the likes of Dr Who and discuss the relative merits of the various sidekicks. He’s not taken with Katherine Tate that much is clear – except for the bit when she and the doctor espied one another through the windows …which was hysterical apparently. Then again Benny Hill was still very much in vogue when we came over and Mr Bean still is.

We did have French tv for the first couple of years of being over here but really there’s only so much Fa si la chanter a person/persons can take…. think ‘Name that tune’. One of the nightly shows which we were forced into watching for want of anything else was ‘Millioinaire’ where scratch card winners are invited onto a show with a wheel of fortune. I think you can guess the rest. Maybe it’s changed nowadays but then the contestants had to do a turn before spinning their way to a million which often involved a song occasionally dancing and once, memorably, an old man who brought on a knife and piece of wood and whittled for 2 minutes.

We now have English tv.

I don’t know where he gets it from but so does David and as I can’t imagine where else he gets to talk to people about such things around these parts I’ve found myself pretending to get his Red Dwarf references despite having never watched it in my life as I can’t bear to let him down. When he starts on Hitch Hiker’s guide I can feel myself going numb. I only made it to page 2 of the box set. In short if any Sci Fi freaks are free tomorrow daytime do pop round for a cup of tea….and a chat…….!

Complimentary baubles? Well I know where you can buy some. I went with Judith and her mum to the lovely (but pricey) new garden centre in Limoges this morning to find the entire centre section converted to a garish Christmas heaven. It’s the beginning of October for heavens sake. I don’t even want to start thinking about Christmas until about two weeks beforehand when admittedly I do get carried away with large pine trees and sparkly lights. In fact last year had anyone suffered from epilepsy and driven past our house I think they would have gone immediately in status epilepticus on passing the funky lcd flashing lightshow on display in the trunk of the ancient wisteria outside. You could see it lighting up the road from about a 5km radius. Fantastic.

I have also been for my French lesson which has left me slightly brain addled, but my teacher is absolutely lovely. A bit too lovely I think as she has a five month old puppy who is a cross Labrador/Beauceron that is so completely unruly it makes Tess seem like a Kennel Club obedience champion, and she seems at the end of her wits with it.

When I arrived this morning there was a dog bed and what looked like several magazines shredded under the table, and when I lent her my “So your dog’s not Lassie” book she almost wept with relief. This dog training lark is a bit of a nightmare at times. I am a great believer that it is all common sense, but Tess has left us totally exasperated at times and even now at approaching a year old she still isn’t perfectly trained but a work in progress.

So that I can have a quiet lesson I take Tess along and then she and teachers pet race round the garden like mad things. As I left today teacher was surveying the damage (not from Tess thankfully) but of holes dug, plants destroyed and edging strips scattered around the garden. You could see on her face this was not the dream of dog ownership she had had. Even Tess is grateful to get away after an hour and a half.

I have spent a good part of the last week sanding the garden furniture and looking at the pool, finally coming to terms with the fact that Summer is indeed over and that I need to take it down. Mind you there was a freaky wind storm the other day which scattered my greenhouse and hundreds of pots around the garden. Very weird. I hadn’t even noticed it in the house. I was far too busy inside thinking - Yuk - looks crap out there - must light the fire and get the mulled wine on!!

The chickens are all moulting and look a right ragged lot. Reg has been behaving himself and staying in the run of late. Perhaps he feels that in his present de-feathered state he would be laughed at. Whatever you say about Reg though he is a fertile beast and yet another friends hen is sitting on more of his offspring to be.

The current brood are growing rapidly and I am trying desperately not to get attached and call them names. Mind you a friend of ours has just had a nightmare experience trying to despatch one of her brood so this meat production may come to a rapid end and we will be over run with chickens before we know it if we have a similar experience. Neil seems confident he can do the deed having had to dispatch a blind chick at about two days old. I am not so sure. We will see.

I’m writing this in the hope that the internet connection remains long enough to post, as yet again we have spent a day without the internet …aswell as most of yesterday evening.
Matt spent 40 minutes on the phone to the people at Neuf this lunch time and was eventually told to unplug and reboot the box, which resulted in losing the phone line. When it was plugged in again it still wouldn’t work so I’ve been about the business of reinstalling it since coming back from work and I can’t believe that I’ve actually managed to get it going – albeit without the WIFI which means that I’m doing this lying on the floor as winter breathes it’s way under the door and along the tiles. Not the most comfortable writing position.

What of today then?

The weather turned miserable a couple of hours ago although before that it was quite warm – 18° if my car’s to be believed. Is that warm? I don’t know anymore.

I’ve been painting all day today at the new build. What a lovely rent that’s going to make for someone at Christmas time !!!!!!! What better way to spend the festive season than in the heart of France (yet only 2 minutes walk away from the shops and restaurant, and literally a 100m from the tennis court – for which I have a key!) creating culinary marvels in the ‘putty’ coloured kitchen. Don’t let the last bit put you off. In fact lets call it a ‘drab off white’ if that makes it sound any better. They’d run out of Classic Cream at Homebase so I’m working around the available palette. Kevin and Moraig had to go all the way into Croydon to get it, poor things, so it was a case of sacrifice all round. Anyway….
When you needed a rest from cooking what better way to relax than to pop into the master bedroom and lay in a warm bath in the ensuite facility, whilst the kids play quietly and contentedly in one of the two other bedrooms (popping intermittently into their own bathroom as the desire should strike) before running off for a game of tennis or to take the recycling to the bottle bank opposite. Or why not forget the cooking altogether and make for one of the many local restaurants or a drink at the bar in the village ( only 2 minutes walk away …did I mention that?). All of this family bliss could be yours for only 500€ per week. That’s right ONLY 500€ per week!!!!! Unbelievable I know. I’m sure Matt will find it so should he read this.
I can even throw in an artificial Christmas tree, with complementary baubles…

1. ‘Anyone who can’t understand maths can’t be fully human’. A ludicrous quote - clearly made up by ‘Asimo’ Andrews himself and making sense only to someone working with confused circuitry.
2. My, what can only be described as delicious, almond tart of Friday night was neither a ‘pastry club sandwich’ nor a ‘pie’…and if either of the offending commentators had seen what it looked like only an hour before they’d have been as impressed as I was with the way it turned out.
3. I don’t think Mel has had enough praise for the lasagne she made either which the kids went on about all day after…..or Kevin’s tortilla which Al kept mentioning. In fact well done to us all……!

Matt’s been running all over the place today as per usual. One of his outings involved taking some details of a ground floor flat in Chalus to the mairie in Dournazac in the hope of luring Bobby Sands ( Al has changed his name from ‘fatlad’ which used to be his more apt moniker) out of his house and into one with ‘facilities’. Matt went there with the maire the other day to have a word as we have renters in the adjoining house and she told him that shitting in a bucket and throwing it out on to the grass just isn’t acceptable in this day and age. Matt offered to put a bathroom into the bread oven which adjoins his house and connect him to our septic tank but he said that he was going anyway and couldn’t wait to get out of Dournazac. It transpired that that has been his mantra for many years, but without actually making a move away from his constantly bubbling chip pan, at some point, it’s going to be a problem. Anyway we’ll see how that pans out…or ‘bed pans out’ ! ….as, hopefully, the case may be.

I went to the new build in Champsac to re –commence decorating there. We’ve more or less left it, since Marcus did a fantastic job of fitting the kitchen a couple of months ago, in order to get Gouhaut back on track and try and finish ours but now that it’s only a bit of painting away from being rented out it seems ludicrous not to get on with it. So if anyone’s looking for a cheap rental property for xmas or after don’t hesitate to get in contact …we’re desperately in need of a deadline if we’re ever going to get finished.

I was going to put on the video I took of Matt and Al water divining the other day but it won’t load up more than 20% - of over 6 minutes of footage! How long? I think there may be some editorial overriding going on at computer level.

Apologies to my reader for the lack of a blog last week and my late posting tonight. We have just got back in from our holiday in France. The return journey was spent in the usual silence as leaving Gouhaut seems to get harder and harder each time we visit.

I had planned to do a blog posting from my new broadband setup last Sunday, but it seems that things in France are never straightforward. Firstly, the telephone aspect of our package is super duper, in fact for some reason we have two phones, one normal, one internet, both with separate numbers. But the wireless internet aspect of the service is somewhat puzzling. It is served by a huge white box (router) which is just a little bit smaller than our dining room. This box seemingly fires out a wireless internet service in 20 second bursts every 10 minutes or so. It could just be that my legendary technical skills are on the wane but I couldn’t get it to work consistently and rather than persevere I chose more Cider instead. So no blog last week……..

As usual, we had an absolutely lovely time, ate too much food, drank too much wine/cider, slept like the dead and revelled in the beautiful nature. I also managed to complete three of my list of my twelve planned practical jobs so all in all quite a successful trip.

I made the mistake of turning on Sky news on Monday morning which confirmed that the world was still hurtling headlong into the abyss so I vowed there and then that I would bury my head in the sand for the remainder of the week. A quick trolley dash to Carre Four was required as it is always a good fix for the soul and having filled my trolley with the finest French delicacies and alcoholic products known to man, everything was well in my world again.

Our ‘hire car trick’ of ordering the cheapest hire car in the knowledge that they have to offer you an upgrade due to a lack of crap cars backfired spectacularly. Mel had changed our hire car company in an effort to save 50p and unfortunately they did have a veritable fleet of crap cars. Therefore our travels in the Limousin were undertaken in a vehicle which was a cross between a Sinclair C5 and one of those invalidity scooters. It was in fact so bad that when we were home we parked it behind the house and camouflaged it with branches and twigs in case anyone saw us. It really was ridiculously small with two small bags of shopping in the back forcing both of our faces against the windscreen.

I managed to use the chainsaw twice without killing myself although I could hardly walk the next day as my wood cutting muscles are severely out of shape. I painted the walls in our living room, hung some ornament thing that Mel bought and cleared the triffids on the drive that our builder had promised us would be weed free.

Dinner with Matt & Helen, Kevin and Morag was a lovely end to our week (all hail to the Almond Pie) and the conversation flowed, or more accurately bounced from one subject to another. American politics, Chinese restaurants, Bobby Sands impersonators, bad presents, oil rich football clubs and divining for water with sticks were just a small selection of the conversational fare on offer.

Saturday was a write off due to the previous late night but was illuminated by a visit from Helen and Matt who had decided that he would prove his theory that divining for water with twigs really works. The four of us headed across the road where Matt chose his “divining rods” or Baguettes as he tried to convince me the French call them. He did an admirable job of convincing me there was something in it, but I cant help feeling that it’s a bit like people pushing a glass round a ouija board without actually realising they have done it (called the idiomotor effect I think). More experiments will undoubtedly ensue.

Now back to real life in Manchester until Xmas when we will return to France to celebrate New Year with friends. Hopefully we will get the central heating working again before we get there otherwise it will be a very chilly affair with 26 jumpers each. Mind you that’s twelve weeks away and theres a good chance that there will only be one bank left by that point and everybody in the world will be technically bankrupt, so a dodgy central heating boiler should in fact be the least of my worries.

For your delight and aural delectation this week, the very pleasant Maps and ‘Frightened Rabbit’…..lovely strummy frottage.

More work this week on the house, mainly from Moraig’s brother, Craig. In common with most South Africans and colonials in general, he is obsessed with barbecueing – here is a picture of him that I have literally just taken at 7.30pm on a Saturday evening in October

…..still if it makes him happy. This is one of the less picturesque corners of the work in progress that is our garden – be assured there is a reason for the drainpipe ending half way down the wall, I’m just not going to tell you what it is.

The plastering of the landing, which is his main task whilst staying is almost complete, here is an especially crap picture of it which gives little or no indication of anything really but does take up valuable space and makes this post appear longer and more in depth that it actually is.

The roof height is about 7 metres so the boy has done well. We also found a tint that you mix into the ‘gear’ as it is apparently called, thereby obviating any need for paint…..many hurrahs all round.

The other highlight of the week was the annual general meeting of blog posters chez Helen last night – Myself (can I interest you in some software), Alan (naked in a hotel corridor) and Helen (that’s not a dachshund) were in attendance with other halves and much merriment was had by all, including a pudding with an extraordinary amount of pastry in it, in many ways it was like a club sandwich with pastry replacing the bread and something else replacing everything else.

Today’s small headache was cured by cheap red wine at lunch in Les Halles in Limoges which is the French equivalent of a fast food restaurant (even though you get starter, main course, cheese, pudding and coffee) where everyone sits on long benches and ignores the strangers sitting near them (or is that just me). Craig has already tried more adventurous food in the two weeks he has been here than I have in four years, today he opted for the calves trotters in a red wine sauce, I would have ordered that except it sounds fucking horrible and there was steak on the menu – I have few rules in life (always count the steps as you go down stairs and try not to shatter your kneecap falling awkwardly being one of them) but ‘always have the steak if it’s offered’ is my equivalent of the ten commandments wrapped up into one handy bite sized lifestyle hint – there is little else in the way of moral guidance that I can think one would need.

I can’t remember whether we were discussing it last night (probably not) but I remember recently explaining the rice on a chess board ‘problem’ to someone and they were having none of it. The point is an example of exponential growth – if you put one grain of rice on the first square of a chess board, then double it to 2 on the second, 4 on the third, 8 on the fourth etc by the time you get to the 64th square you would need more rice that exists in the entire world. Whosoever I was explaining this to disputed the maths of this, going so far as to describe it as “bollocks”, however I have looked it up and it is true – on the 64th square alone you would need 2 to the 63 grains or 9,223,372,036,854,775,808…..which is a lot of rice in anyone’s book…or paddy field…..prroobabbberry.

I am currently obsessed with US elections, even getting up to watch the vice presidential debate the other morning, so finally two sides of the country that is the US of A – very shoddy rednecks and some spectacular body popping, as I believe it is called.

Redneck Woman Rails on Obama - Watch more free videos

I think he Can Dance - Watch more free videos

Today it has been mostly…spitting. Miserable weather or what we call over here ‘mauvais temps’. A perfect ambiance then for the equally miserable affairs of the day which included this afternoon an hour and a half at the accountant’s going over our end of year books, item by endless item, and the news that we can be expecting a retrospective cotisation bill in December, of 22 000€. That’s in addition to the normal ones which come in every month and trimester. As half of that is an estimation based on this year’s earnings it could potentially be halved, if the accountant fights the bureaucrats and wins, but still not great news whichever way it’s looked at just before Christmas.

We stopped off at home for a cup of fortifying tea before going off to see Louis’s teacher but unfortunately didn’t have time to drink it. Had we previewed the half an hour talk in which he told us about our son’s contrary nature then we would have made the time and shaved 10 minutes off the speech….I’m joking obviously, it’s nice of him to bother to take the time - but being French what could have been said in 2 minutes took 10 times that in endless repetition. Matt then went off to Gouhaut to lose himself in work whilst I came back and played table tennis with Louis, which I thought was a casual approach to trying to get to the bottom of his attitude problem.
‘Why are you so contrary with you teacher Louis?’, I asked whilst doing a killer spin serve.
‘I’m not’, he answer smashing it back quite easily to skitter off irretrievably into a holy bush. I rest my case.

I’ve just been on Youtube with the kids when we happened upon this …the cheese meister himself. Have I made it up or was Claudia Schiffer really romantically involved with this man?

Today is an organising day as I’m preparing to return to the UK tomorrow for my oldest pals stag do. Coincidentally he is marrying my sister so that keeps it all neatly in the family! The stag do is at the racecourse at Fontwell so I think I may need to keep off the beer until the opportunity to hand over vast sums of money to a bandit in a titfer tat has passed. Best laid plans and all that….I hope the medic event company I work for has plenty on this month!!

Quite aside from potentially losing my shirt at the races we also have to get our trusty old van through its mot. This also has potential to be expensive but Im hoping that keeping my fingers crossed and a big bag of doughnuts for the tester will work wonders for me. I know Judith Little Bowes is very hopeful for success with our mot test as we are bringing her new cooker back with us. The intention is to load the oven with red leicester and bacon to keep her up to favourable stock levels.

I already have quite a list of other goodies to bring back for people, several trays of baked beans and two thousand tea bags for example and knowing how these things tend to escalate Im hoping to still have room to bring back the insulation, timber, tools and bags of crap that are still clogging up our friends and relatives loft space, that I’ve actually gone back for. She’s like a little tardis our van so I dont really envisage a problem.

I think it proves that Roz is completely barking that our dog Tess now has her own facebook page. It is slightly worrying that Tess now has 12 friends all of whom (apart from one other dog - Tess’s best mate) are what would be considered normal people of normal intelligence but still wish to correspond with a dog. We’re not all locked up yet.

The chicks are doing well and growing very fast. They are getting their first experience of rain today after a week or two of absolutely lovely weather, but as I type the clouds are thinning and the sun seems to be trying to get a look in..