Belote – A Dummies’ Guide For English Players. Part 3: Using The Online App

Tags

Apps, Card Games, Cards, English, entertainment, Ex-Pats, France, French, fun, Learning, Teaching, technology

 

In the final part of my Belote guide I’m going to introduce you to the online app that allows you to play this game on a daily basis. I cannot emphasise this enough – if you want to get good at Belote USE THIS APP. It’s a fantastic, easy to use way of sharpening up your game and taking you from the player who gets on everyone’s nerves – because you keep forgetting the rules – to the player that people have to watch out for, because you’ve suddenly become much, much better.

The app can be found here is free to download, and can even be played while you are browsing Facebook. A word of warning on the ‘free’ part. Like all of these other free games there is a definite hint that you can, if you wish, spend money on this game through the process of buying more chips to play DO NOT DO THIS. I have been using this app to refine my game for the last few years, do you know how much I have spent? Nothing. Not a single penny.

The way to do this is easy. When you sign up for it you are given 2,000 chips to play. Each game you play ‘professionally’ that is, with other players, costs you 200 chips to ‘buy in’. You will then win 250 back if you are successful (so a 50 chip profit). There are different levels you can play at, where the stakes are higher, but stay on the ‘Relax’ level (that’s its name) and you won’t go far wrong.

Every day you go online and play, the app will invite you to ‘spin a wheel’ that grants you free chips. This can be anywhere from 100 – 400 chips (rarely 400 though). This helps to top up your chips for free. Another way of adding free chips is to ‘befriend’ other players during gameplay. This is not like adding friends on Facebook – they won’t suddenly start ‘liking’ your statuses. No, they are your friends on the Belote app, and that’s the only place they will see you, and you will see them.

These players can become your friends by simply hovering above their faces whilst playing – the options to add them are there. In the early days of playing I would say add as many players as you can. What happens then is each day these people can send you presents, and you can send them presents back. These presents take the form of chips and range from 11 – 18 chips (or so). These chips are not taken from your existing pot, but rather are a bonus amount that you have in seemingly infinite supply (but only to give as presents). This may not sound like much but if you have 20+ players sending you chips per day, coupled with the free spin each day and conservative play (stick to the relax level) you can see what I mean when I say you never have to spend a penny.

If you do ever run out of chips however there is the training mode of the game that you can fall back on, until you have enough chips from free spins and presents to get back in.

The training mode sees you pitted against three computer players, and costs you nothing. This is where you will start out on the app, before you are deemed good enough to move up to the relax level. I would strongly recommend you stay at this level – training that is – until you have enough confidence in yourself to play with real people on the relax level. each day you practice at this you will also be entitled to free spins, so do make the most of them.

If you do have the odd losing streak – and I’ve had more than my fair share of them – then simply turn it off and call it a day. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

If I had anything negative to say about the app it’s this – it will have the occasional glitch. This could be down to too many players, system updates etc I don’t know, I’m not a programmer. What this means though is that from time to time your game may freeze, other players may disappear and strange things may happen. Sometimes this passes, but sometimes it doesn’t and you will need to reset the game. Unfortunately this may often cost you your stake – so bye bye 200 chips. People have told me that you can complain on the Twitter feed of the game makers, and they will send you your chips plus extra for your time. I don’t know if this is true because, to be honest, I couldn’t be arsed with that – I just reset and reload. If it happens more than twice in a short period of time though then give it up for the day – there’s clearly an issue.

That’s about all you need to know about the app. In case you are wondering I have no stake in people clicking on the link to the game’s site. I get nothing back financially, and I am not affiliated with the creators in any way. I just recognise it for the fantastic learning tool that it is. Play it, learn from it, then take it and let it loose on your French friends – they won’t know what hit them!

 

 

So that’s all from my guide on how to play Belote. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and I hope it all made sense. I think that a combination of reading this guide, using the app and playing with friends, should be all you need to become a seasoned pro at Belote!

 

Bourges: There & Back Again – or – Why Do Satnavs Always Do This To Me?

Tags

Countryside, Driving, film, France, French, funny, Humor, Nintendo, Rural, Satnav, technology, Travel

 

I’m off to Bourges today, hooray! It’s the longest journey I’ve undertaken on my own, completely solo, without the steady guiding hand of my partner. It’s OK though, because I’m bringing my ‘trusty’ satnav with me. So nothing can possibly go wrong.

 

Which basically means things will possibly go wrong. I mean, why else would I put the word trusty in inverted commas?

 

Anyway the reason for this trip is the procurement of a Nintendo Mini SNES Classic, a sold-out item that I have managed to reserve at Micromania, in the Carrefour shopping centre in Bourges. It’s an in and out job, I just want my piece of retro-gaming nostalgia and then I’m out of there and back home, so I can get stuck into said bit of retro-gaming nostalgia. The journey there is trouble-free, it’s effectively a straight line, with the odd slight curve, and then a left turn at the end. Easy-peasy.

 

I’m out of the car, in the shopping centre and heading happily back to the car, hard-to-find gaming-system in hand before you can say ‘Well that was unexpectedly easy’. Then it all goes wrong.

 

I boot up the satnav, head out of the car-park and confidently press the ‘Go Home’ button. It’s not till I’m sat at the traffic lights that it dawns on me that something is wrong. It’s 10.30 a.m, it took me an hour to get here, so why is it now saying I won’t be home till 7.30 p.m? It’s saying that because I haven’t updated it since we moved to France, so it thinks ‘Go Home’ means home to West Yorkshire.

 

In England.

 

Doh!

 

So I frantically choose ‘recently found’ as I watch the traffic lights change, keeping one eye on the car behind me, which has taken up the standard French position of being just one inch from my rear bumper. He seems to be aware that there’s an Englishman in distress in this car. At least that’s what his eyes tell me. I can see all these nuances because he is parked an inch from my rear bumper. It’s standard practice in France you see.

 

New info input the satnav seems to take an age to ‘recalculate’. I love the way my satnav says this. It sounds like someone underwater. A lady underwater, maybe Aqua Marina from Stingray, a TV series with marionettes that I used to watch when I was young and we didn’t have Youtube. She was a mermaid who helped the main character defeat his nemesis. She must have made an impression because I can’t remember his name, or the main bad guy’s name. Although now I think about it I don’t think she could talk. So maybe not her.

 

As the lights change – giving me just enough time to receive updated information without causing my bumper-hugging friend behind me to actually attempt to mount my car – I follow the new route and pull a hasty right turn. Hasty, but not illegal. I’ve driven about 5 yards when the drowning-female-tones inform me that the route is once again being ‘recalculated’. I recognise this area though, I think to myself. I’ve had a bad Chinese buffet here*.

 

Then lady satnav makes me take a right turn and I’m in completely uncharted territory. I know now that I have to listen to her every command, because I’ve just remembered I forgot to bring my phone, and the scenery is starting to look a bit creepy.

 

Picture in your mind the locales used in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes and, particularly, Deliverance. Transpose those locales to France – so basically take the yellow filter off the lens – and you can see why I’m getting worried. So many abandoned buildings. So many abandoned rusting cars. Who did they use to belong to? Did I see a curtain twitch in that window just then? Was that sunlight glinting off a shotgun’s barrel?

 

I once saw a film called Calvaire, set in rural France, about a traveller who breaks down and gets taken in by a local farmer. The local farmer gets confused, and thinks the traveller is his dead wife. Did I mention the traveller is actually a man? Hilarious scenes follow where the traveller is forced to dress like a woman, and a pig is raped. The theme seems to be that there’s nothing much to do in rural France, except rape pigs and then dress up stranded men like women. Oh and the traveller gets raped too.

 

I only watched it once.

 

So films like this plus my overactive imagination, as well as my complete lack of any means of communication – bar screaming – make me feel all kinds of worried. The roads get narrower and narrower, and the buildings look ever more sinister.

 

Satnavs always do this to me. A straightforward route to wherever I’m going is followed with a ‘scenic route’ on the way back. The worst one was one in the UK, when I was driving to Wales. That journey involved lots of animal skulls, men with few teeth, and a road that would have been better suited to rally-driving. I think satnav manufacturers are actually angry farmers, who try to make people drive down their windy roads, so that they can accidentally run them over in their cars with their tractors.

 

Like I said, I’ve got an overactive imagination.

 

Just as I’m despairing of ever getting out of this rural hell, and begin thinking that I actually died back at the traffic lights, and am in a hell of rusting tractors and scared-looking farm animals, the satnav tells me to turn right and I see a vision: the main road home. I breathe a sigh of relief as I head back down this familiar road, winding the window down (something I was loathe to do ten minutes earlier) so that the sweat down my back can dry.

 

I smile at the driver behind me, as I drive home, imagining him smiling back at me. Actually I don’t have to imagine it, I can see it. He’s a she, and she’s not smiling. I know this because she’s driving an inch from my rear bumper. It’s standard practice in France you see…

 

 

*I have yet to have a good Chinese in France. They are edible, and you can’t really complain, but it’s a bit like that scene in The Fly, where he puts a cut of meat in the teleporter, cooks it, and then invites his lady-friend to try it, and compare it with a non-teleported piece of meat. One’s fine the other one tastes synthetic. Well that’s how I always think of Chinese restaurants in France, when comparing them to the UK ones. 

Why Zelda Will Always Be A Link To The Past For My Son And I…

Tags

children, entertainment, Family, games, Gaming, Learning, Nintendo, Relationships, technology

 

December 2011, I’m flicking my WiiMote around in order to make my onscreen character – Link – defeat Ganon. The game I’m playing is Skyward Sword the swansong for the Wii console, and a fitting game for me to play to completion. The game concerns Link’s ongoing efforts to save the land of Hyrule from the main bad-guy, the aforementioned Ganon.

 

My almost-one-year-old son has been avidly watching me play it, which is fine as it’s a fairly cartoony, non-violent game (well, there are monsters to kill, but they aren’t gruesome kills, and there’s no blood). His big eyes follow my every move and, when I nip for a cup of tea, or to the toilet, I often return to find him waving the WiiMote at the screen. It’s a great moment when I finally defeat Ganon and give my son a cuddle, knowing I’ll never forget this moment.

 

Jump forward to 2017, my son is now 6-and-a-half and has his own gaming system, the Wii’s successor, the Nintendo WiiU. I say it’s his, but I bought it for myself, so he’s effectively stolen it from me, in that way that kids do. I don’t mind though, because I’ve bought myself a Nintendo Switch (which he will inevitably steal from me one day down the line). The one thing these two systems have in common? Zelda: Breath Of The Wild.

 

In a move that apes Nintendo’s previous one, this game is the swansong for the WiiU, but also a launch title for the Switch. It’s also an incredibly bonding experience for me and my son. He’s now of an age where he can play these games and understand most – if not all – of the game mechanics. Some of it is lost on him – the reams and reams of text detailing the various quests clearly go over his head. But that’s where daddy comes in.

 

As I am playing the game at the same time as he is – and am further ahead too – I’m always on hand to offer him guidance when he gets stuck. He talks about it nonstop, from the moment he wakes up, till the moment he goes to bed. I personally have no problem whatsoever with this, but it can wear on his mother’s nerves, as he is effectively speaking a different language to her when he talks about the game.

 

It’s incredible how far he’s come since those days back in 2011, when he was merely an observer. Indeed he’s even teaching me a few tricks; it’s like having a mini co-pilot. These games aren’t released very often, so I’m savouring it, trying to make it last. I can see he wants to rush through though, but thankfully his lack of grasping the finer details means that I can slow the pace down.

 

His time on the game is monitored (I fully believe that he would play it from sun-up to sun-down if he could) and it’s taken away if he misbehaves. I’m a parent who believes that gaming, in reasonable doses, is not only a positive thing for kids but beneficial too. Gaming is much more interactive than just watching a film, or a TV series. It also enhances hand-eye coordination and improves fine-motor skills.

 

I love the discussions we have, the thousand-and-one questions he hurls at me every day, the many, many drawings he does, of the many, many characters in the game. He’s even created pictorial books – yes, books! – detailing the adventures he’s undertaken in the game. When he himself runs out of steam, or finds a certain character a bit too difficult to draw, then he calls on me to aid him (I’m OK at tracing but have no real natural talent, my son does though, he has a certain style that I think is fantastic).

 

It’s a fantastic thing to see, his big eyes shining with awe as he talks about his latest run-in with one of the game’s baddies. The many fist-bumps we share with each other when one, or the other, solves a riddle, or defeats a particularly troublesome baddie. He’s got a lot of patience too, for a six-year-old, I’ve yet to see him get angry. Whenever he gets defeated – even if it’s for the 20th time – he simply dusts himself off (metaphorically speaking) and gets stuck right back in.

 

It won’t be long though before we meet Ganon, and defeat him, bringing this fantastic game to an end. This time however we won’t only do it together, but also together: he on his system and me on mine.

 

Then it will just be a case of waiting another 5 years or so for the next instalment…then I’m fairly sure he will be the master, and I the apprentice…

Things I Miss About The UK: My Overprotective Smoke Alarm…

Tags

annoyances, cultural differences, France, funny, Humor, technology, uk

 

 

One day in the kitchen…

 

My Smoke Alarm: ‘Aww hey there Phil, how you doing today, say, what’s that you’re cooking hon?’

 

Me: ‘Oh nothing special, just a bit of toast’

 

My Smoke Alarm: ‘To..toast? Did you say Toast?! FIRE FIRE FIRE CALL THE FIRE BRIGADE FIRE GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!’

 

Me: (wafting tea-towel desperately, to halt the piercing noise) ‘Stop! Stop! It’s not a fire it’s just toast!!!!’

 

 

 

 

Another day in the kitchen…

 

Me: (Stretching and rubbing sleep out of my eyes) ‘Mmm think me and the kids’ll have a taste of France for breakfast’

 

My Smoke Alarm: ‘Morning Phil, what’s that you say, fancy something different?’

 

Me: ‘Yep, just slid a couple of pain au chocolats in to the mini oven, don’t take but 30 seconds to co..’

 

My Smoke Alarm: ‘PASTRIES! PASTRIES! FIRE FIRE!!! GET OUT CALL THE POLICE!!! THE HOUSE IS GONNA BURN DOWN!!!!’

 

Me: (going deaf in one ear due to pitch of alarm) ‘Where’s the tea-towel gone? stop making that noise!!!!’

 

 

 

One day in the garden…

 

Me: ‘The sausages are nearly done, who wants some first, hey son, don’t open the kitchen door you’ll let the smoke insi…’

 

My Smoke Alarm: ‘OOOOOH LORDY LORDY!!! WE ALL GONNA BURN!!! FIRE FIRE CALL THE POLICE!!! FIRE!!!’

 

Me: ‘Son, just close the door, she’ll quiet down soon enough’

 

 

 

One day in the living-room…

 

Me: ‘Okay kids, that’s the pumpkins all carved up, now lets put some candles inside th…’

 

My Smoke Alarm: ‘SAVE YOURSELVES!!! FORGET ABOUT ME!!! RUN, RUN FOR YOUR LIVESSSSS!!!!’

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kitchen here in France is lovely…but it’s awful quiet…

My Achilles’ Heel: The Washing Machine

Tags

children, cleaning, Humor, stay-at-home Dad, technology

 

OK, let’s get one thing clear: that is not what the front panel on our washing machine looks like. But it may as well do.

 

I’ve taken on-board a lot of tasks since becoming a stay-at-home dad, certain areas are very clearly outlined – by myself I might add – as my domain. Vacuuming – that’s all mine, and I love it. Does that make me sound sad or strange? I don’t care, I love the look of a nice, clean carpet – it generally stays clean for three minutes due to my children somehow generating crumbs even when there is no food in the nearby vicinity; but those three minutes are glorious.

 

Washing up? That’s all me too. I am master of the dishwasher, I know where all the different crockery, pans, storage tubs go. I even like a nice bit of old-fashioned washing up, just to make sure everything is spick and span. I do get grief for this though, as my partner cannot understand why I would manually wash up when we have a machine to do it. I just like to, isn’t that enough?

 

Ironing? Another area of expertise for me. I take care of all my own and the kids’ clothing. On the days when all the little items of clothing are dry it can seem like you are ‘at the board’ forever. And just when you think you are at the bottom of the pile another lot will be revealed. I never iron my partners clothes though – this is because the majority of them are composed of a material so man-made that they generally go ‘pfffffft’ and shrivel up on contact with anything hotter than, say, the heat generated by a small mouse breathing out.

 

You can also ‘treat’ yourself by ironing towels. Towels are so easy, just big oblongs of material, that take no time to do but, and here’s the main thing, a pile of nicely ironed and folded towels always looks great, and like you’ve expended much more effort than you actually have. You know what? I never thought I’d ever type out a sentence like that.

 

Yet one thing in the household still eludes me: understanding the washing machine. I constantly think that the aforementioned towels – of any shape or size – can be put in with any wash. They are just towels after all. This is incorrect. I additionally think that certain items, say ones that have been worn for years, will be fine in the washing-machine with anything else. This is incorrect. I often think that the pile of clothes in front of the half-full washing machine can also be stuffed inside, as they must simply be waiting to go in there. This is also incorrect.

 

Then there are these things:

 

At the last count we had approximately 86 of these scattered around the house. I tried to cull them one week but was told off as they were ‘needed’. Really? how many does one house really need? And why are they all in different colours? and different sizes? I know they go inside the washing machine, but how much liquid do I put in them? And, most crucially, where do they come from? I have never seen one of these in the shopping basket, or attached to any washing powder/liquid, so I must simply assume that my partner bought a pair to breed and they have simply created an army of…these….things… I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY ARE CALLED!

 

Oh and that brings me onto washing powders/liquids. Non bio..Bio…Powder..liquid…I’m lost. I once tried to buy some, trying to make an independent decision for once. The incorrect box of detergent has been sat in the back of my car for so long that I am going to hold a birthday party for it soon. But on the plus side it did make my car smell nice.

 

And as if the control panel on the washing machine itself isn’t complicated enough, then there’s the labelling on clothing. It’s like the makers of clothes and the manufacturers of washing machines got together and decided to create a system to drive men insane. Here’s a very accurate description of how my eyes perceive clothes’ labelling, apologies in advance as it does contain swear-words, but I feel it gets my point across better than words alone could:

 

 

Look at those symbols, it’s like some hellish form of Hieroglyphics. How do I understand these? Is there a training course? Do I need to go on retreat for two weeks to a special monastery to study the ancient arts of clothes-washing?

 

Our previous washing-machine broke a month ago, and we had to get a new one. When the delivery guys came to fit it I took one look at this shiny-white baffling contraption and simply stated ‘I hate washing machines’. One of the guys looked at me, instantly understanding ‘They’re not designed for us to use’. I had to agree, and that’s why, in this household anyway, the washing machine will never fall under my jurisdiction.

 

 

 

 

 

Please note if any of this comes across in anyway as sexist then I do apologise, that’s not my intent, rather I just wanted to illustrate the fact that it is all just a total mystery to me.

I’m Going To Marry My Vacuum Cleaner

Tags

children, chores, cleaning, fun, Humor, kids, love, melt down, musings, Parenting, technology

Why do I bother vacuuming?

I get on this hamster wheel every day.

I follow the trails my children leave around the house like Hansel, or Gretel. But there’s no sanctuary at the end of my trail of breadcrumbs. There’s no witch waiting to fatten me up, and then put me in an oven either.

No, there’s only more breadcrumbs. And the occasional piece of shrivelled up ham.

I treasure those brief moments where everything looks nice and clean. Admiring the vacuum cleaner’s marks on the carpet, like contrails in the sky.

It lasts overnight sometimes.

Then the kids wake up.

And the lovely sucker goes back to work, eating all the food that doesn’t quite hit the target.

She’s got the best diet of anyone in our household, despite just being an appliance. There’s not a day goes by when she doesn’t gorge herself on cereal, bread, cheese, meat and the occasional sock (good for roughage are socks).

She’s better than a dog when it comes to finishing meals. She’s not fussy. And she’ll never leave you a present in your slippers.

She’s my first, and last, line of defence against the enemies of cleanliness in my household – my children.

Sometimes, they even create work while I’m vacuuming. Following me round while I hoover up.

They eat biscuits while they watch me.

Their eyes glint with mirth, while they chow down on Mr Crumblie’s Extra Mega Crumbly Biscuit (NOW WITH 50% MORE CRUMBS KIDS!). They leave a trail that is all but guaranteed to lure ET into the house, if he ever comes back to see Elliot again.

I’m going to marry my hoover, I might as well, we spend so much time together. One can’t work without the other.

I spend more time touching it than I do my partner. That’s not sick, or warped.

Or is it?

No. That’s just one more part of being a stay-at-home dad.

Tune in next week for:

‘WHAT I DID WITH THE DISHWASHER, AND HOW I JUSTIFIED IT TO MY PARTNER’