Saturday, March 27, 2010

Yorkshire Tea by Bus

I've been driving about more than usual this week during my mother's break here. What caught my eye was a poster for Hérault Transport's new fare policy starting on May 5 - Tout l'Hérault à 1 euro. You can go anywhere in the region for the princely sum of one euro if you buy a card of 10. Otherwise it's €1.50 per trip.

That's pretty cheap because Hérault is a big place. It stretches from Ganges and Le Caylar in the north, Béziers and St Pons de Thomière in the west, to Marsillargues, Villetelle and Lunel in the east. On the coast you have Valras Plage to Cap d'Agde, Sète, Palavas, and La Grande Motte. In the middle you have St Chinian, Bédarieux, Clermont l'Hérault, le lac de Salagou, St Guilhem le Desert and les Matelles.

All that for one euro. There's one place that interests me in particular and that's Pezenas. If I could go and buy my Yorkshire tea for one euro each way at the English food shop, it would be a bargain! Plus a nice day out and hardly any driving. It's the only place I know that sells Yorkshire Tea, my favourite. I can get PG Tips at Intermarche, but I prefer the hefty brew that's Yorkshire.

Petrol is now at €1.36 per litre and according to, I would need 5litres to get there so it would cost me €7 one way. It would take less time of course to drive, but buses are cool - you are high up, can see more and it doesn't matter if you have a drink at lunch time. Next time the boys are in Paris with their dad, and my TWDB is not around I'll do it. Actually it would be better if he were around to come to but he's not really a bus person. Public transport and all that.

Mind you, the police are getting very agitated about drink driving and speeding and are setting up radars all over the place without any warning that they're there, so the bus might be a good option in order to enjoy oneself. And beware if you have a radar detector that picks up mobile radars; you could get into big trouble because they are illegal.

The cybercriminal police targeted one website located outside France which sells these detectors. They sifted through the names and addresses of all the buyers to find those in France. Six hundred people then received a visit or were invited to present themselves at the gendarmerie. The penalty is a hefty €1500 fine and 2 points on your licence. You might even lose your licence.

I don't have one, I don't even have a GPS because I never really go anywhere to need one. However, I do think the government is pushing us slowly but surely towards using our cars less and less. High petrol prices, lower bus fares, improved public transport, draconian road rules, repressive penalties and the like all point in one direction. What they should be doing, I think is investing in hydrogen-run engines. Then I'd be able to whoosh over to Pezenas to buy my tea cleanly, cheaply and efficiently. I'm all for saving the planet with a decent cuppa in hand.


  1. You are very lucky to have cheap public transport. We are of the age where we can take the bus for free, but have only done so once to Kings Lynn. We prefere the freedom a car gives. If you have to pay for public transport is so expensive its always cheaper by car.
    We drink Twinnings loose. we used to buy it in metal cadies when we lived in France from the Le Clerk outsid Metz.

  2. Grief! Something that I can comment on from an actual position of actual knowledge! I even wrote some articles which were read by at least six people. Feels like Christmas.

    You are spot on: France has a policy basis that oil consumption should be reduced by any and all means possible.

    Partly this is to do with the environment, but mostly it is to do with the fact that France consumes 2 million barrels of oil per day but produces only a miserly 20,000 of them herself.

    At current prices this means that France as a nation has to spend about $60 billion per year to buy oil and several billion more for natural gas.

    This makes Pres. Sarkozy very sad.

    Once this is understood, the logic behind paying people 50% tax credits to install solar panels and wood burning stoves, or EDF paying owners of windfarms 50 cents per kWh when they can sell it for only 35 cents, or bus companies offering seemingly uneconomically low fares starts to become clear.

    Beware the hydrogen economy: there's a lot of snake oil selling going on there. While hydrogen can be produced by splitting water using electicity, in practice it never is. Hydrogen is produced via a process called steam reforming, which uses oil or gas as feed and produces exactly the same amount of CO2 is burning the stuff in an engine. The difference is it just doesn't come out of the exhaust pipe.

    This is why the oil companies are quite keen on the hydrogen economy.

  3. Johnny - I don't actually use public transport much. It doesn't take me where I want to go. The only exception is the tram to the station on a Friday evening. The new regional transport policy is a good one and I hope it'll be taken up widely. It's also good for those tourists who arrive without a car.

    Jon - it seems to me that any planet-saving solution for cars turns out to be just the opposite. Batteries, hydrogen etc. Somewhere along the line you need oil to turn whatever the new energy is into fuel.

    The whole country sighed with relief when the eco-tax on fuel was dropped last week. The only hiccup in the relentless march towards car use repression.

  4. I remember Pezanas! I was on holiday once near there, in a village proud of its onions.

    Lovely region.

    I'm also a strong supporter - and infrequent user - of public transport. If it took me where I wanted to go, when I wanted to go there, I'd be buying season tickets. As it is, the bus leaves the village for the provincial capital at 7am (when?) and returns at 8pm. Useless.

  5. Pueblo girl - yes it is a lovely region.

    If I had to take a bus to work, a five-minute journey, it would take me 45 minutes. Hopeless. I could cycle it in less, but would be taking my life in my hands each time.

  6. I always see Yorkshire tea(bags)in Carrefour Lattes although I drink the Tetley's with the union flag and "So British" in the top corner of the box.

  7. OMG, anon, you DO? Thanks for telling me! That is Very Important News :)

    Although I can't stand Carrouf Lattes - too big, too many people. Still, one has to make an effort.

  8. Anon shopping update:

    No Yorkshire in Carrefour yesterday, but they now stock Tetley leaf tea, so not so bad afterall.

    I have seen Yorkshire in Inno recently...

  9. Anon, I appreciate your dedication. I'm relying on your shopping updates. :)


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