Avoiding Those Pesky French Civil Servants

In the fourteen years I lived in my house in Maidenhead, Berkshire, I cannot once recall anybody official coming to the door for any sort of government programme. OK – the police were there quite often and of course the Jehovah’s Witnesses would call now and again and there were the pizza delivery guys and then the gypsies trying to flog stuff they’d stolen from my neighbours, but there were no government callers, either local or national.

In France it’s different. You get calls from the government wanting to inspect your septic tank (fosse septique). EDF (the electricity company) wanting to check that you are using electricity the correct way, and then of course you get the Marie (town hall) and police turning up when you’re building to ensure you’re adhering to the building and planning regulations. Recently we had a woman climb into the jungle to give me my census forms and then she came to the house the following day to ensure we’d filled them in correctly! And she didn’t let me go until I’d told her all about the neighbours, when they’d be in, etc. The local council guys come round every summer to make sure your jungle is not too dense and if you have the temerity to light a fire in the garden, the spotter planes buzz you to ensure everything is in order. The firemen call round once a year just to show off their muscles to bored housewives and to sell you a calendar. The postman pees in the lane beside the post boxes and then expects you to buy a calendar from him as well. Invariably the calendars are the same!

It’s just another indication that the state in France is alive and well and employing everybody they can find on government business.

For my part, apart from when these organizations accost me in person and I cannot escape their attention, I ignore their letters and phone calls.

At a party over Xmas, I was talking to one of my friends who’d also received the ‘fosse septique’ letter sent to every household and being the good citizen he thought he was, he’d actually called them up and arranged an appointment for them to inspect his septic system.

A largish report landed on his doormat a few weeks later with recommendations for remedial repairs and a date by which the repairs had to be undertaken and a further date when the ‘government inspector’ would be back to ensure the repairs had been carried out. It was all going to cost a couple of thousand euros. And all because he’s a good citizen – unlike me!

He was staggered that I simply ignored the letter, and in fact, all letters and they just seem to forget about me. Of course, if we all ignored them it’d be a different matter!

The Pinot Noir Wine Scam

A couple of weeks ago, in the south-western town of Carcassonne, twelve people associated with the local wine industry were convicted of a lucrative scam in which E&J Gallo, the leading US winery, was conned into buying 18m bottles of plonk which had been repackaged and sold as more expensive pinot noir wine.

In one of quite a few scandals to have hit French vineyards in recent years, the executives from the Languedoc-Roussillon region were found to have fraudulently made a €7m (£6.1m) profit over a 30 month period until March 2008. Overall, 13.5m litres of fake cheap wine were shipped to the US to be drunk by unsuspecting consumers. Gallo, founded by brothers Ernest and Julio following the repeal of prohibition in 1933, is now the biggest family-run winery in the US, known internationally as the leading exporter of Californian wines and within the industry as the world's most powerful wine brand.

The court sentenced Claude Courset to a six month suspended jail sentence and a fine of €45,000. Courset was head of Ducasse wine merchants, who acted as an intermediary between local producers and a conglomerate which resold the wine to Gallo.

Other defendants, including eight co-operative wine cellars from the surrounding Aude and Hérault regions, were fined according to their responsibility in the affair.

Amazingly, Gallo never filed a complaint but during an audit of Ducasse in March 2008 investigators noticed that the business was buying pinot noir from local co-operatives for €58 a hectolitre despite a going rate of €97. Their suspicions were also raised by the sheer volume of pinot noir being produced in the region. Historically, Languedoc- Roussillon produced around 50,000hl a year. Suddenly, it had seen a dramatic upturn. Where, the inspectors wondered, were all the grapes coming from?

The answer was simple: the bottles being labelled pinot noir were in fact wine made from merlot or shiraz, less expensive grapes in plentiful supply around Carcassonne. Eight co- operatives were in on the con, supplying Ducasse with the produce; Ducasse then – for an estimated profit of €3.7m – sold the wine on to Sieur d'Arques, which resold it in bulk to Gallo.

American consumers, believing they were tasting the intoxicating red feted with such style in the Oscar-winning 2004 wine comedy Sideways, were none the wiser.

The revelations however, were a blow to the Red Bicyclette brand, launched in 2004 and made instantly popular in the aftermath of Sideways, the Hollywood film which fuelled a craze for pinot noir in the US. The surge in demand came as a godsend for French growers desperately trying to fight off competition from New World wines.

The realisation that vast sums could be made by labelling plonk as pinot noir for the US market was, for some, too much to resist and the inability of so-called experienced wine drinkers, who obviously couldn’t tell plonk from a good vintage just helped the fraudulent profits roll in.

I Vont My Money Back

I attended a lunch last year and blogged about a stunning villa which you could see from my friend’s terrace. It was called the Villa Leopolda. Here is an extract from that blog posting:

Much of the talk on the terrace was about a large property, surrounded by acres of land which stood in the distance, almost acting as a gateway to the Cap. Even from our vantage point a couple of miles away you could see the manicured lawns and lines of Cyprus trees. The extent of the grounds defied belief. Our hosts told us that the house had recently sold (true) and that it was Bill Gates who had sold it (untrue). The post described how the house was in the hands of a Mrs Safra who inherited it when her husband was killed in Monaco. See blog for full story.

http://tomsfrenchblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/murder-mystery-intrigue-and-500m.html

Villa Leopolda was the house we stared at from our friend’s terrace. It is probably the best property on the whole of the Riviera and if money was no object (and you like that sort of thing – see picture), it’s just the sort of pad you’d go for…….as a wealthy Russian did in August of this year. Although there are rumours to the contrary, he reputedly slapped €500m cash on the table and poor old Mrs Safra had no option but to take the cash and run. Now the villa is probably worth no more than maybe €100m or at a stretch €150m but these Russians just don’t want any of those nasty little gazumpers coming in and spoiling their deal and so the ‘rather generous’ offer was made and accepted which made Villa Leopolda the most expensive property on the planet.

The thing is – nobody had ever heard of this Russian. Well nobody down here. He wasn’t in the papers. He didn’t own a football club. He was just a nobody with the odd €500m to spare.

But now there’s a twist to the story. The Russian billionaire, (we now know it was a Mikhail Prokhorov), didn’t actually buy the house, he simply put down the legal deposit, in this case, 10% or €50 million, prior to completion. And then the recession hit.

Being down to his last few billion, he’s tried to pull out of the deal and had asked for his ‘roubles’ back but French law has told him to ‘allez vous en’, I think is the term!

Under French property law, a deposit can only be refunded during a seven-day “cooling-off” period or if the buyer cannot secure a mortgage (which probably wasn't relevant in this case!) and so a court in Nice ruled that the villa's owner, 71-year-old Lily Safra, could keep the €50 million.

She has decided to give the 'windfall' to 10 charities, including almost one million pounds each for neuroscience research at King's College London and Imperial College London.

Any more Russians out there willing to donate to charity?

Oh and by the way, Nigel has provided an update on his goings on in New York. Remember, there's adult content. His blog can be found at the link below:

http://monaconigel.blogspot.com/

Save the World and Make a Fortune

Oil trading means buying and selling oil. Pig belly trading means buying and selling pig bellies. Orange juice trading means ….. yes, you’ve got it, buying and selling gallons of orange juice. Probably millions of gallons actually.

In each case, when they buyer eventually closes the loop and doesn’t sell the commodity onto anyone else, they have to take delivery of the oil, the pig bellies or the orange juice. It’s all very logical.

The traders buy at one price and sell it, hopefully for them, at a higher price. The traders can even buy the commodity, as it’s called, and keep it in storage if they think the price is likely to rise - for example if they think there’s going to be a severe frost six months later in Florida when the oranges will all go pear shaped! In that case, they’d buy orange juice and keep it in storage (frozen hopefully) and then sell it when the big freeze pushes up prices. That’s how the traders make money.

But carbon trading is a whole new ball game. You can’t see carbon. You can’t hold it (even if you could see it) but you can calculate how much it’s supposed to weigh, flog it and make a fortune.

Companies these days are given an emission allowance of carbon by their government agency and are encouraged, through penalties, not to exceed their ‘cap’ or allowance. Generally the allowance means the company in question has to put in carbon reduction measures just to meet their cap but if they exceed it, they have to pay the penalty charges. Or, and this is where the carbon trading comes into play, they can buy an extra allowance from another company who might not use all their own allowance or who might have put in more efficient carbon emission solutions.

Like any other market where there are buyers and sellers, traders or brokers set up in business and offer a service to the companies – finding buyers for the sellers (of carbon allowance) and conversely, sellers for the buyers. No doubt they charge a commission on both sides, so probably make a fortune.

And just in case there are not enough ‘allowance sellers’, there are people who wander around the world looking for green projects such as new forests, wind farms and hydro-electric schemes. Companies, who think they might not meet their carbon allowance target can invest in these ‘clean’ schemes and thereby earn ‘credits’ to offset against their targets. Logically enough this is called Carbon Offsetting. Traders scour the world to find these schemes and then market them to companies looking for extra credits. And charge them for the privilege naturally!

And so there you have it. You can’t see it, weigh it or capture it but you can flog it. And have you noticed the easiest way for the airlines to do carbon offsetting? Yup – they ask you for a couple of ££££s when you book your flight and then claim to invest it in forests in Patagonia and hydro schemes in Africa. It’s the easy option. I don’t pay it – they should be trying to reduce the carbon emitted from their planes by getting more efficient aircraft – paying them a carbon offsetting fee is just getting them off the hook.

How Not To Sell A Scooter (or two)

I don't know why but I put both my scooters up for sale last week. I suspect at the back of my mind was the money I'd get for them which would allow me to buy a slightly bigger, newer model but it my heart of hearts I didn't really want them to go.

It's pretty stupid having two scooters because I obviously cannot use both of them at the same time but coming from a strict Scottish family where you had a set of Sunday clothes which were kept for 'best', I reckon that principle has remained with me and so I keep one of my scooters for 'best'. I'm also thinking of the summer when my brother and sons are down and we can use the scooters for running into the village for fresh bread in the mornings - much more sensible than using the car which means parking etc.

And so I put the advert on AngloInfo our local 'selling' forum on Thursday and there was quite a bit of interest. I'd put pictures of both scooters on the site (both scooters have identical specifications - they're just different colours and one is two years younger) and I have to say that the pricing was pretty keen. €550 for the older one and €750 for the later model. New rear tyres on both and a new battery in one. Oil changes every three months and both lovingly cared for - what more could a buyer want?

The flurry of interest included a Filipino guy who came up that evening with his friend, also a scooter enthusiast. He couldn't make up his mind which one he wanted but eventually settled on the older model. 'You give me scooter cheaper? You take a cheque and I take scooter', he said. 'I don't think so', I said. 'That's not the way it works. You give me cheque, I cash cheque and then you pick up the scooter and I'm not reducing the price'. They said they'd be back on Saturday but I never saw or heard from them again although there's always a chance they could call this week.

Over the weekend I washed and polished 'my little beauties' and I looked at them lovingly as they sat side by side on the drive. My heartstrings were being tugged!

Then a guy called from St Tropez. He wanted to buy both of them. I said one might already be spoken for (lie). Then several ladies called or e-mailed saying they wanted one or other of them. I replied that they'd both been sold (bigger lie).

But the guy from St Tropez was insistent. He knew the Honda was a good make and said they'd be ideal for running around town with his wife. 'Oh - a woman', I said. 'So, what's wrong with that', he replied. 'Oh it's just that the Honda has really bad, drum brakes and you really, really have to anticipate braking and you know women aren't quite so good at that sort of thing as men.'

'Oh drum brakes', he said. I never heard from him again. Yes - result!

Right - that's it for today. I'm off out on my scooter. Now which one should I use?