THE FUNNIEST BOOK ON LIVING IN FRANCE, EVER. In this hilarious collection of cautionary tales and anecdotes, George East, being the first writer to discuss all the delights and drawbacks of finding, buying and restoring French property. HOME & DRY IN FRANCE follows the early adventures of George and Donella East as they make every mistake in the (not-then-written) book about how and how not to buy a second home across the Channel. Tellingly subtitled A YEAR IN PURGATORY, the book is much more than a listing of all the awful pitfalls awaiting the innocent abroad: it is the hilarious and always entertaining account of how a couple set out with a dream…and came close to turning it in to a nightmare. THIS BOOK is not a pale imitation of what has gone before. It is the first of its kind. It is of high quality in content as well as writing by a very experienced author. George is clearly one of the funniest writers of this age. TRY IT! And let us know what you think on this page.EXTRACT FROM HOME & DRY IN FRANCE (© George East 1994)Thus we encountered yet again one of the most basic laws and lores of French property buying: What you see and read about at home is not necessarily what you get to see in France. As it happened, and as our new agent Mark Berridge was eager to point out, there had been several minor drawbacks affecting the straight forward purchase of the cottage. One of them being the potential appearance of the original owner’s eldest son in a bath towel in the lounge on alternate weekday nights. Which provided yet another valuable reminder of the diversity, complexity and sometimes apparent bloody-mindedness of French property laws. One of the many dating back to the Reign of Terror – and still consistently terrorising unwary and uninformed foreign purchasers – this particular beauty aimed to stop property falling back into the clutches of the accursed aristo minority. This was achieved by ensuring that the head of the family could not sign away his dependants’ birthright without full consultation, arbitration and agreement with his direct heirs. In application, it now seems that virtually every blood relative of the property owner must be in total accord with the selling of part or whole of any property, be it ever so humble. In the case of our fisherman vendor, he had secured the approval of all his family to the proposed hiving off of the cottage next door – with the exception of the senior son. Given the expensive aid of the local notaire and an arbitration committee set up and chaired by the local mayor, an agreement had finally been reached vis à vis the sale. The son would agree to the transfer in exchange for his share of the sum changing hands, but would still retain a right of way from the main house to the family bathroom at the end of the building. This right and rite of passage would be internal rather than external, and would proceed via the living room of the new owners property at the times chosen by the holder, irrespective of dinner parties, family rows, sexual congress or other social functions taking place therein. So far, the agent told us, the fisherman fils had not taken up his option to parade through the parlour at an inconvenient moment, and – given certain alleged French attitudes to personal hygiene – might never do so; but it had been a factor for consideration in the transfer which we were probably better off not having to worry about…

Home and Dry in France: Or, A Year in Purgatory (Mill of the Flea)

Humor & Entertainment

George East

Humor

la Puce Publications

Number four in the series, French Flea Bites covers another eventful year for our hero and his wife as they stumble knee-deep through the rice pudding of their lives in darkest rural Normandy and at the Mill of the Flea. This episode introduces another galaxy of weird characters and situation - and a number of distinctly distinctive recipes, such as the favourite dishes of an (alleged) Ancient Egyptian god and his travelling companion! Also includes a man who believes he died in 1979, a cat who becomes a werewolf at full moon and a plan to turn a farmyard compost heap into Nehou's answer to the Millennium Dome. As we join the Easts at the start of a new century, all is obviously 'normale' at the Mill of the Flea...

French Flea Bites (Mill of the Flea)

History

East, George

Europe

AS FRIDAY 13th LOOMS, so the East's unlucky streak comes to a climax. With them finally on their uppers, an advance offer from a publisher is a welcome relief until they discover they have already spent what is due to come from George's sales, and the bills keep mounting. FRENCH CRICKET finds the author and his wife facing imminent disaster as they struggle to survive at the Mill of the Flea. Something must be done to bring home the bacon, so our hero launches himself into another succession of hare-brained and inevitably doomed money-making schemes. *** FRENCH CRICKET is the fifth book in what has become a cult series, and follows our accident-prone hero through a long summer in Lower Normandy as he encounters an increasingly bizarre collection of characters, situations and events. *** Distractions from his money-making survival schemes to create ready-pickled eggs and breed boa-constrictors in the Big Pond include regular meetings of the infamous Jolly Boys Club. Members of this select debating society include the allegedly immortal Old Pierrot, who claims to have been on first name terms with William the Conqueror, JayPay (village superchef and entry for the moustache-growing championships of Lower Normandy), and the hypochondriacal Scabby Michel, who has had volumes of medical journals written about his ever-growing collection of exotic illnesses. *** Elsewhere, there's the invasion of an equally unusual collection of would-be British settlers, whose ranks feature a rollerblading barrister in search of the real world! and a retired 'hand artist' who claims to have been a stunt fingers double for Warren Beatty. ***Meanwhile, back at the Mill of the Flea, there are the constant confrontations with a tribe of homicidal goldfish and the escape committee in the chicken run, and failed attempts to find a dancing partner for a ballet-loving goose and cure a duck of its fear of water.

French Cricket (Mill of the Flea)

Did you know … THE BERET-THROWING CHAMPION of all France comes from Brittany? THE KLINGON LANGUAGE is based on Breton? and KING ARTHUR AND MERLIN are buried in seventeen different locations in Brittany? FRENCH IMPRESSIONS - BRITTANY is packed with facts, legends and off-beat but insightful observations about this most fascinating of French regions. Inside these covers you’ll find reviews of more than a hundred Breton towns as well as dozens of classic and little-known regional recipes. You’ll also find out what it’s like to own property, live, or run a business across the Channel. Or how to protect your house from a thunderstorm with a row of acorns…or unblock a seriously eggbound hen. The funniest man on the planet (at time of writing) George East, former nightclub bouncer, private detective, radio DJ, pub landlord and gravedigger has been writing about and messing around in France for more than thirty years. As George cheerfully concedes, he still cannot speak the language properly and is further away from understanding the French psyche than when he started his adventuring across the Channel. This book is a record of a year spent living in a tiny hamlet in the Monts d’Arrée area of Brittany. Loved by millions of Francophiles and general readers, George’s quirky, amusing yet informative style creates a vivid impression of a fascinating region, its people and past. 'French Impressions - Brittany' contains everything you have ever wanted to know about that fascinating region - and more - in a book. Read about the crepe throwing champion of all France, the celtic history of the region, the myths and legends and the surprising links Brittany has with Welsh, Irish and Scotts culture and the English language. Learn here also what it is like to live among the people who are geographically as well as culturally light years apart from the rest of France with their unique language, cuisine and views on Life. Readers who love this hugely popular author's unique 'take' on France, the French will adore this latest encounter with our nearest continental neighbours... to say nothing of a cavalcade of nutty Brit expats and native Bretons. The book also includes some classic Breton recipes and reviews of more than 100 Breton towns and tourist attractions. In short, it is Brittany in a book.... THOSE who have come to love George's 'Home Thoughts from Abroad' column in French Property News will not be disappointed by French Impressions: Brittany. He has that happy knack of conveying genuine insight into a region, fascinating facts and the sense of adventure and discovery that's so important in all good travel writing. But it's all written in a way that is laugh-out-loud funny. He reviews more than a hundred Breton towns and shares dozens of regional recipes; the classics as well as some more intriguing and esoteric dishes that he has discovered cider apple and blackberry atomic chutney anyone? Whats more, there are handy sections at the back with useful online contacts and a whistle-stop tour of beautiful Breton towns and villages that George visited on his travels. There's information and inspiration aplenty in this book, and above all, it's a thoroughly entertaining read.-FPN. Salut mon vieux pote (old fellow). I've received your last book and after reading the 100 first pages I can say that it's an unusal touristic book, sure! It's far from the eden vision some foreigners could have about France, but absolutly the truth. I really enjoy it even if I feel concerned about what you've written. And I must say that's the first time I can understand 95% of your book (thanks to my MBA course last year)! Your anylisis about Bretons and French is particularly fine and funny! For this Frenchman, your french impressions are impressive! --Philippe Boulet - CA Bank Manager. Clearly George is the most humorous, prolific and unknown raconteur of our times! READ HIM TODAY. If you don’t agree, please leave your reviews and comments on this

French Impressions: Brittany: Brittany in a book

East, Mr George

In2 Deep is an action thriller, and from a new author who knows what it is like to be under fire. In2Deep is the direct result of the author's combat experience. In2Deep is a stylish and action-packed thriller with a nautical setting. In2Deep is fiction, but reads like fact, and that is because of the author's hands-on experience of being at war. Former Royal Navy diver Nick Carter uses his special skills to plunder antiquities from virgin wrecks on the Mediterranean Sea bed. His wife, the love of his life, is one of the 191 victims of the Madrid train bombings of March 2004. For Nick, the terrorists destroyed his world when they took her life. Three years later and Nick Carter is illegally diving off the coast when he is boarded, attacked and left for dead. Along with money and possessions, the pirates have stolen a pendant that is all Nick has to remind him of his dead wife. Nick pursues his attackers to Morocco. Boarding their launch after dark he discovers an extensive cache of modern small arms and a Geiger counter. Realising he has stumbled across something significant, Nick calls a former RN colleague, and Miles, a British secret service operative is not long in appearing and reveals that the man behind the Madrid train bombing is the same man who stole his only physical link with his wife, the pendant. Hachim Hadda is not just a small time pirate, but a 'wanted' terrorist

In2deep

Tony Groom

150 Fabulous Foolproof French Regional Recipes

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Donella East

Regional & International

Life's A Beach

Romance

Brooks, Francesca

Romantic Comedy

It's the dying days of World War Two, and a child is born during a dramatic air raid that badly damages the family home and destroys the midwife's bicycle. At least, that's what George East's mother told him in later years. But then she also claimed that the painting-by-numbers picture of a bunch of sunflowers in the passageway could be a preparatory sketch for the real thing by Vincent Van Gogh. George's beloved but eccentric mother also claimed royal blood and that her ancestor and not Captain Hardy was the sailor Lord Nelson asked for a kiss as he lay dying on board HMS Victory. In Just a Pompey Boy, best-selling author George East recalls growing up in Portsmouth directly after WWII, when fitted carpets, double glazing, central heating and TV celebrities would be seen as far-fetched science fantasy. In a memoir that is funny, sad, heart-warming and always immensely readable, the author recalls a very different time to be young and alive in a characterful if war-battered city which was the Nation's premier naval base. A time when bomb damages were literally adventure playgrounds, food rationing was still in force and post-traumatic stress and even the concept of Health and Safety regulations had yet to be invented. As George remarks at the start of this first volume of his memoirs, the past has been said to be a foreign country; to the young people of today, this tale of a distant but golden childhood may seem to be about life on a very distant planet... ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Novelist, travel writer, broadcaster, actor, humourist and man of many other parts George East was conceived and bred if not born in his beloved home city of Portsmouth. In the years immediately after World War Two, he grew up in a very different world which was in many ways closer to the 19th than the 20th Century. After managing to leave school with no qualifications except a swimming certificate, George unintentionally set out on a record-breaking career path that included stints as a welder, plumber, brewer's drayman, baker's roundsman, night club bouncer and pickled onion manufacturer before finding his niche as the boss at one of the country's first commercial radio stations. An unexpected (and undeserved) windfall meant the Easts could choose between paying off a fraction of their mortgage or buying a newer second-hand car. Instead they went mad and bought a ruined farmhouse and water mill on ten acres of fields, forest, rivers and mud in Normandy. George wrote about their adventures in finding, restoring and moving to live in The Mill of the Flea, and Home & Dry in France became the first in a best-selling series. Nowadays, George and his long-suffering wife Donella are often to be found at their base on the Isle of Wight, which was, as they say, the closest they could get to France while living in the UK. From there, the couple travel around Europe and write about their encounters with interesting people and places. George also uses his wanderings as a basis for his series about an eccentric and very quirky private investigator called Jack Mowgley. As Donella says, the central character can be child-like and even childish, illogical yet good-hearted and even loveable as he blunders around foreign lands while solving murder mysteries in his very unconventional way. She adds that Jack Mowgley reminds her of someone she knows very well, but can't quite put a finger on...

Just a Pompey Boy: Memories of growing up in Portsmouth - volume one 1949 -1955 (Pompey Lad Memoirs)

Biographies & Memoirs

Memoirs

Pompey Lad: Part One - Growing Pains - 1954-1960 (Pompey Lad Memoirs)

Pompey Lad - Part Two: 1960 - 1965 The Rock 'n' Roll Years (Pompey Lad Memoirs)

Arts & Literature

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