Sail with New Freebooters

by Mike K-H
Quebec in five days’ time
Yesterday 27 June 2008 at 09:45 local time, the French sail training ship Belém left Halifax, Nova Scotia and the statue of Samuel Cunard. Low visibility and head winds dictated the choice of the shorter Canso canal route rather than sailing via the 60 mile longer Cabot Strait to [...]

by Mike K-H
Have you seen the Millau viaduct? When the tall ships join in the annual Armada festivities on 4 and 5 July this year, Rouen will open yet another record-breaking piece of French civil engineering - the Pont Gustave Flaubert. This is now the world’s highest lifting bridge and in Rouen the Cathedral is [...]

Three masted ship Belém, built for the French cocoa and sugar trade with Brazil, returned to France in 1979 to be renovated and used as a sail training ship. Mike Kindom-Hockings remembers seeing her in Paris during the renovation, and recounts her history.

by Mike K-H
Forget Dr Fu Manchu. The western world is being turned upside down by China without any malicious intent on the part of the Chinese. It’s the sheer size of what has been introduced to the world’s markets that causes the problem.
In France, I’ve seen a few examples over the past year or so. [...]

by Mike K-H
A new category
Whether you live in France or just go there for holidays, the exchange rate affects you. During what Bank of England governor Mervyn King called the NICE (no inflation, consistent expansion) decade, the rate has been so steady that we haven’t really thought about it. That’s all over now.
I’ve created the [...]