So now here’s the chance to put your house (and reputation!) on the line by taking up ITV’s challenge to take part in their May The Best House Win competition. A special series of programmes featuring expat Brits in France is in preparation as part of the fifth series of the popular show. Four contestants take part in each episode and are asked to visit one another’s homes before marking them for style, atmosphere, quality and general IT factor. According to the programme makers the series features ‘interesting homes that have been lovingly created by their owners, real passion projects…
04.04.12 The world now seems divided into two parts – those who loathe Samantha Brick and slightly fewer, it seems, who love her. Whatever her intention may have originally been, the South West based journalist has thrown the cat among the pigeons with her claim that women hate her because she is beautiful. Her article in the Daily Mail has had 1.5 million Internet hits and the response to it has gone viral with thousands of posters around the world giving their opinion of the 40-year who lives in Gindou, Lot. Samantha earns her living as a freelance journalist and…
02.04.12 The unseasonably hot weather at the weekend saw a spate of forest fires that put Dordogne’s forests ablaze. Woodlands near Campsegret on the N21 to the north of Bergerac were severely damaged as 120 firemen fought to bring the fire under control. Other areas affected included Douville and Montagnac la Crempse. There were no injuries but Pompiers have asked the public to take extra care no to set fires inadvertently by smoking or using naked gas flames. Outside of the department, firemen were also called upon to tackle fires in Gironde and Lot et Garonne.
29.03.12 A man in his thirties faces jail after going berserk in the streets of Casseneuil at the weekend threatening drivers with an axe. The incident happened on Saturday evening after a couple approached the man who was ‘burning rubber’ through the village with repeated passes revving his engine and squealing his tyres. As they asked him to stop, the man got out of his car brandishing a hatchette. They retreated frightened but unhurt whereupon the man got back into his car, fishtailed in front of another vehicle and again got out to brandish the weapon, this time at the…
12.03.12 At around 7.00am on Sunday morning a night out at a discotheque ended in tragedy when a car carrying four young revelers ploughed into the wall of a house. 19-year-old Pawel Falkowski died instantly as the passenger side of the vehicle stoved in after the car went through several somersaults after flying off the road at a minor bend. The accident happened in the commune of Lavardac shattering the early morning calm. The three other passengers all suffered minor injuries and were released after treatment at Nerac hospital yesterday. It is believed the car hit a tree root at…
A bold plan compared to the Dordogne’s original electrification programme of 1937 has been launched to deliver high-powered internet services to every home in the Department. At a cost of an estimated €700 million it is the intention to link up every house to the network which will deliver internet speeds five times faster than the fastest available today. The target is to complete the mammoth task over the next ten years – even though public finances are at an all time low thanks to the financial crisis. The financial package to build the fibre optic infrastructure has yet to…
The body of a woman was found on the banks of the Dordogne at Arveyres by a dog walker yesterday afternoon (Saturday, March 11). She was discovered lying face down in the mud entangled in branches at around 3.30 pm. Libourne police immediately opened an inquiry and were searching missing persons files in a bid to establish her identity. At the time of writing there were no further clues to her identity or how she may have met her death. A police source said: “We cannot rule anything out at this stage. The first priority is to establish this woman’s…
The greatest rally of ex-pat Brits in South West France is set to take place again this year at Campsegret just North of Bergerac on , Saturday 5th May 2012. In what is becoming a truly extraordinary gathering of Anglo-Saxons from all over the region, up to 1,500 Brits living in France are expected to descend on the bi-annual Phoenix Association Book Fair. The event has gone from strength to strength since it was started as a minor fund-raiser for animal welfare by Phoenix founders Richard and Sheelagh Johnson. With over 15,000 books, CDs and DVDs to choose from as…
18.01.12 Closed for repairs since the beginning of the New Year, work is now well underway at Bergerac airport to resurface the runways. For the past four days the faulty tarmac has been stripped away ready for the new landing strip. However, up to a massive 10,000 cubic metres of asphalt will be recycled into the new surface. Contractors are aiming to lay 6000 tons of material a day in a bid to have the airport open again in time for the summer season. The cost of repairing the surface laid in 2004 is an estimated €3.5 million with another…
14.01.12 A British woman convicted of sending threatening and obscene texts to a former lover has incurred further wrath from the French courts by refusing to submit to DNA profiling. Irena Czerkeirska, who settled in Saint-Pompon near Sarlat four years go after working as journalist in Eastern Europe for 15 years, was fined €500 by Bergerac magistrates this week. For her original offence she was sentenced to a month in prison, sentence suspended, in November 2010. But Ms Czerkeirska refused to give the sample, as ordered by the court when she was convicted, when gendarmes came to her home in…
