Rick's b.log - entry 2025/09/08

Weekend

Yup, mowing again.

And I wrote about the multimeters on Sunday, but didn't finish it because I felt inclined to make some slop...

Mix it all together.

Which by the magic of applied heat, become this loveliness...

Mmmm, cake!

The icing was a simple butter icing made with milk (because I didn't have any cream).
I beat 120g of unsalted softened butter until it was creamy. 120g because that's what was left after making the cake.
I then added 300g of icing sugar. When the mixer started to struggle, little by little I added milk. About 20g (~20ml) in all.
I then left the mixing bowl sitting in warm water for a minute to soften the icing, and then I blended it at high speed for a while until it was uniformly fluffy.

I didn't have enough to do the sides, so I just made the top layer thicker, then dropped coloured sparkles on top. That wasn't a hardship as I suck at putting icing on the sides of a cake. Then it went into the fridge to harden.

Block EVERYTHING!

And, no, it's not the people rioting over the possibility of having two paid holidays taken away. This has been brewing for a while and that's the straw that broke the camel's back. Let's not mention some of the other stuff being discussed that is, really, straight up pillaging of people's rights and privileges. And for what? To ease the tax burdens of Big Business and the extremely wealthy? Funny how that seems to be the way, isn't it?

Today, the Prime Minister is going to hold a vote of confidence in his budget. It'll be a miracle if he succeeds. His government may even have fallen by the time I get around to uploading this. That'll be the second fallen government that Macron has presided over, both within ten months, and what, his fifth Prime Minister in as many years?
It'll also be the first time a Premier has lost the confidence of his deputies in... actually, I think that would be a first for the Fifth Republic (postwar France).

EDIT: As I was uploading the images for the multimeter text below, the newspaper I used to subscribe to sent me a news alert: Bayrou is finished - 194 for, 364 against. Even worse than the 331 that kicked out Barnier. The government has fallen. Again.
Macron, your weak-arse mandate (you were voted because the alternative was the National Front) is being firmly rejected by the government and the people they represent - we don't want a rise in retirement age coinciding with you cutting business tax and doing away with wealth tax, that is utterly tone deaf. It isn't wanted. You listening, mate? Well, are you?

Indeed, even before the vote was being held, people were already discussing who the next President should be. Many want somebody from the left, but Macron, perhaps fearing both the national front getting into power and hating Mélanchon (a divisive far left politician) keeps courting the right. But, then, Macron was a banker and right wing is more to his style of thinking even if the left is technically stronger in France (but split amongst far more parties which is why the right keeps getting in 🤦).

Regardless of what happens today, there may or may not be a mass citizen's protest on Wednesday. It is a grass roots campaign that grew on social media that is only supported by the CGT union, but then the GCT is extremely militant and will strike over anything given half an excuse. Already certain people are talking about it being the result of potential foreign interference, but that excuse falls a bit flat given that...

...the following week, on Thursday 18^th, there is a planned massive inter-union strike. Even the moderate CFDT union is getting involved in this. Not only that, but the far left and the far right are backing both strikes. So, yay I guess that the current shitshow has managed to unite everybody in a way not seen in years?

For all of the sabre rattling, union membership isn't actually that high in France. However most companies with more than... what is it, 50 employees?... will be working under collective agreements negotiated by a union representative. This isn't the company being nice and accommodating, it's the law. If you're an American reading this, take this as your cue to crack open a cold one and exclaim something you wouldn't say in church. ☺

This negotiation is the "NAO" (obligatory annual negotiation). It is when the person sits in front of management and says "our pay has diminished massively in real terms, we want a 10% pay increase" and management laughs in her face and says "we might be able to scrape up 2% tops, but most people will get maybe half a percent".
It's something that idiot David Cameron never understood. Negotiation implies negotiating. It implies haggling. You massively over-ask, knowing it'll be reduced. The trick is to try to get more than you actually expected while making the other side think you're getting less than you wanted, and then everybody walks away happy with the negotiations. Every year a union rep does this on our behalf. It's something repeated in large companies across the country. It's just how things work here.

The medical system is a mess, particularly in rural areas. At the moment if you are signed off work (as a normal employee), there's no sickness coverage for the first three days. It seems that the government wants to save money by doubling that. Also by freezing public sector pay. And freezing pensions. And I think minimum wage last went up at the end of November last year, and already one of the employer unions (Medef?) has said that minimum wage is too high and that coupled with the difficulties of firing employees is "stifling innovation" and "hurting the job market".

The government hopes, it would seem, that by screwing the citizens that they can balance the books.

As you can imagine, the citizens are somewhat displeased.

Now let's bring in two facts.

ONE: The subsidies for environmentally friendly renewable energy production, that already doubled in 2024, have gone up by another quarter to a total of NINE BILLION euros.
Yes, nine billion.
A quick search tells me that the population of France is 66.6 million, so this would statistically represent ~€135 for every person in the country. Man, woman, child, baby, furry, whatever. Of the public budget we're all paying about €135 towards green energy, in addition to the increases in our actual energy tariffs.

I get that wind farms and solar need investments, and I get that climate change is a thing that needs to be addressed and that France - somehow - plans to be the first major economy to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, but I can't help but think that if green energy isn't able to support itself and depends upon ever increasing subsidies, then it's simply not viable.
Rather than the state trying to gloss over the problem, yet again, by throwing more money at it, it should go on the open market. Do you want power from a French nuclear site for € or would you like it from a local wind farm (backed up by nuclear for when the wind isn't blowing or is blowing too much) for €€€? I think we know what the response would be, and it's not wrong.

Alternatively, ask yourself how much maintenance and support for France's nuclear generation could be done with that sort of money? Given how vastly more power a nuke can output compared to the piddly amounts from wind turbines, surely it would be more joules per euro, hence a better overall investment for the country?
Remember, France doesn't have a high dependence on gas or coal fired stations, they have a lot of nuclear. So decarbonising energy production really ought to be simpler and cheaper, as the glowing magical orb that spits out angry particles isn't a fossil fuel. So can somebody please explain the ever-increasing green energy subsidies in a way that makes sense?

TWO: In 2023, the state offered a massive €211 billion in public subsidies to business, which is a significant portion of the €844 billion state budget.
Most of this was not cash but tax/contribution reductions (€140B), then came direct grants (€40B), followed by repayable loans (€31B). Specifically worth noting is that three quarters of the direct grants went to public companies (such as SNCF, EDF, etc). It's a huge value that should raise real questions about the state of the French market.
However, despite these huge subsidies, the economy is getting worse because the underlying problem is not being addressed. France is simply chucking more money at the problem and is now threatening to screw up the lives of its citizens when people point out that the accountancy is way out of whack. And while the markets have been generally kind on France running a deficit because the country has a good economy and a strong workforce, there's only so far that can be pushed.

It is my opinion that a company that depends upon subsidies is not a company with a viable business plan. I can understand handing out some cash in response to shocks such as Covid; but really if a company depends on subsidies then it should come with the following two conditions:

• The third year of subsidies comes with the proviso that the board (all of them) will be fired. Not demoted, not shuffled, straight-up shitcanned out of there.
• The fifth year of subsidies will be the last. There will be no more.

Not to mention, the reliance on subsidies is a direct impediment to innovation and it stifles reform. Why bother to do anything when you know you can just go to the government with the begging bowl and get more money?

ALL state subsidies should be examined in detail. Subsidies should be offered, sure, but these should be exceptions, not just the normal state of affairs. If a business is continually broken and uncompetitive, sorry, close it down.
This ought to reduce the cash subsidies by about half, I'd imagine, though it may take a couple of years to wean those public companies away from the government teat that has been squirting cash for so long. We can't cut off EDF or SNCF immediately as management is liable to respond by doing something utterly dumb like firing everybody. And god knows the unions are strong in the SNCF, so that will be like chucking a match into a building full of ammonium nitrate.

And cancel all future repayable loans. This should be an issue for the banks, not for government. When Covid hit, the company I work for was badly affected, they had to go get a loan for a few million from the bank in order to, you know, pay their workers when nothing was moving, everything shut down, and quite a lot of inventory had to be discarded due to this. We didn't get a bail out from the government, we got a bank loan. And the thing about bank loans is that they need to be repaid. With interest. And that's just how it is.
If the banks don't want to offer loans, well, why should the government? A risk is a risk.

Now let's do the maths.

• No more subsidies on renewables - saving 9 billion.
• No more government loans - saving 31 billion.
• Grants cut by half - saving 20 billion.
• TOTAL: SIXTY BILLION SAVED.

There you go, that's more than the government wanted to save. Easy and simple. Leave the regular employees alone, let them have their days off (they lose their public holidays anyway if they should fall on a non-working day), let them rest well with five weeks of accrued holiday entitlement per year. Instead of penalising the citizens, penalise the freeloaders.

But, alas, until somebody should consider doing such a thing, the government will continue nibbling away at people's rights while utterly failing to do anything about the institutional failings that got us here, because "yay capitalism" or something.

You will notice that I said nothing about sticking a windfall tax on the rich. I am against this. It is akin to slapping on a bit of duct tape. Rather than, every now and then, taxing the rich on their fortunes, how about making serious effort to plug the holes that they use to escape paying their fair share of tax?
And don't be swayed by the bleating of "if they have to pay more tax they'll leave the country". If they aren't contributing, then whether or not they go is hardly going to make much of a difference. As for taking their business overseas, you'd be a fool to think that it hasn't already been considered. After all, why pay a Frenchie €1801/month (brut) if they could pay a Bulgarian the equivalent of €551/month (brut). Not to mention the huge amount of social contributions that French companies must pay.

The rallying call now is to simply get Macron out. They don't care who gets to be PM next, Macron needs to go.
In a way it's a shame as he is standing up for Ukraine and he's not going to be intimidated by the Americans over France's plan to officially recognise Palestine. However, despite all of his good efforts in these very public situations, one must surely ask - how can he expect to fix the world if he can't fix his own country?

Some of the movements are demanding the extraordinary. For example, the public movement of the tenth...

Extracted from a picture found on a Google search

They want:

• Minimum wage at €1,800 net
• Retirement at 60
• 6^th week of paid holiday
• 100% social security
• Control of rental / energy / food prices
• Tax on dividends

This is patently ridiculous. Yes, it would be nice for minimum wage to go up. It is currently €1,426 a month net.
It would also be a good idea to start a discussion about controlling prices of things, as they have skyrocketed as company managers seem to think "let the good times roll" works even when the good times are over.

But retirement at sixty? Really? It would be great. I would love to have the right to retire at sixty. Eight years and three months more of the madness and then I can say "that's it, I'm done". Sit at home, shiver in the winter and watch the swallows in the summer, until one day my mind or heart gives out and I'll be found... sometime... maybe.
I mean, it's going to happen anyway, so it would be good to get in a few years when I'm not on death's doorstep and my brain sort of functions, right?

But the problem is one of cost. Who the hell is going to pay for this? If, at the age of sixty, I'm not working, that will be - let's say - a grand and a half out of state finances for my pension, rather than be making that as a wage and providing a bunch of contributions to pay the pensions of others. Now, we know that most western governments have utterly failed to account for an ageing population and so the retirement age has gone up and up and up. Bringing it down would be... a vote winner for sure, I think the far right are proposing such a move, but in terms of cost where's the money coming from? Ditto social security. France already 100% covers important medical issues (although Bayrou wants to drastically cut that back too). Mom's cancers, the scans, the immunotherapy, the little bottle of pills that cost something like €150 per pill? All free. All provided by the state. Sadly it didn't work out, but at least she was treated without worrying about losing the house and putting herself, and/or me, into horrific debt because of it.

For everything else, the state usually pays about 70% with a private top-up covering the remaining 30%. I have one from work, it's obligatory now. I'm not sure what happens when one retires, I can imagine top-ups for people most likely to suffer medical issues would be pricey.
I write "usually" in italics as the coverage for glasses is pathetic. I think it's maybe a euro or two per lens. Luckily most top-ups will cover the rest, and that's something like a hundred euros for a simple lens. Let's not even talk about progressives!

Dentistry is much the same. I have two crowns in my mouth now. The teeth between the rabbit ones and the pointy vampire ones degraded during Covid (the fillings fell out and it all went to hell pretty quickly afterwards). I was given a shocking quote for two stupid bits of ceramic, the state paid a little and my top-up was like "yup, sounds good to us". So my dentist put this actually really snazzy machine in my mouth that - in realtime - constructed a 3D map of my teeth. I'd have liked to ask questions about it but I don't think she knew the technical stuff, just how to use it. Almost. Almost because I have overbite so while it was possible to map my upper teeth and my lower ones in lurid detail (it takes loads of photos and stitches them together for a 3D visualisation), it simply wasn't possible to create a map of how the top and bottom actually fit together. This is critically important, as the new ceramic teeth - which were tiny - were fitted...and they plain didn't fit. She had to whack them right back out again and start drilling bits off to make them fit correctly. They are in now, and - sorry - I absolutely do not believe that these two dinky bits of whatever barely larger than a baked bean cost something like €800 apiece. I think this is where dentists are making money. But, whatever, I didn't pay anything. Phew!

But, whatever, the point is that the current system isn't particularly onerous. I'd rather the state continue to cover only 70%, instead of 100%, and invest money in improving rural medical facilities. If I wasn't already known to my dentist, I have no idea where I would have to go for dental work. Nobody is willing to take on new clients as they have too many, in part due to mergers and smaller practices simply closing as the dentist goes elsewhere. To my mind it doesn't matter one teeny tiny bit if you get 70%, 100%, or even 150% cover if you don't get to go at all. Any percentage of nothing is, say it with me, nothing!

Now, remember up near the top where I mentioned foreign influence? Take a close look at that poster. Specifically the amount they want the SMIC to be. That was not written by a Frenchie. They use the comma as the decimal separator. Thousands, if they are separated, are separated with a space. So while we in the UK might write "€1,800.12", in France that would usually be written "€1 800,12". But to have a number like "€1,800"? That simply isn't how numbers are written here.
You'll notice on my blog I'm a bit all over the place with regards to this. Normal numbers (like 6,502) will be written British style, but small prices of things that have decimals (like €1,23) tend to be written French style, unless it's a British or American price and I remember to do it like £1.23. ☺ Larger prices (with no decimals) are often written in British style. You'll see examples above. So, yeah, I'm kind of random with this. Can't please everybody so I guess I'll have to settle for pleasing nobody. 🤷

Either way, France is going on strike again. Possibly a lot. Well, it's been a few years, at least they've left it long enough to have proper reasons for their grievances. Not that Macron pays much attention, which is why the anger is largely aimed at him now.

RAGE! RAGE! ANGER! RAGE!
(AI art by CreArt and heavily tweaked by me for ambience)

My multimeters

Left: Multimeter; Right: Oscilloscope.
(AI art by CreArt)

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how bloody awesome these pictures are? If I won the lottery, I'd like to make that multimeter on the left, like for real. With proper brass and mahogany. I'd probably sink a huge amount of money and only sell a dozen. But, damn, worth it.

Sorry, carrying on... While both devices can show you how much voltage something has, the primary difference between a multimeter and an oscilloscope is that an oscilloscope measures voltage across time. That is to say, if you have a signal you can see a visualisation of it on the screen (here's a crash course in using a 'scope if you don't remember or haven't tried).

It's pretty easy to get actual readings from a modern digital scope. It'll probably pop up some text to tell you way more than you wanted to know, like voltage, RMS, frequency, mark:space ratio (or waveform type), blah blah blah.
For older analogue models that literally draw the waveform on the screen, you basically need to synchronise the signal so it is stable and not jumping around, and then count the squares engraved on the glass, and then do some maths to translate two and a half squares up at 2V/div (would be 5V) and five squares across (2.5 high, 2.5 low) at 1ms/div (would be 5ms or 200Hz).

The multimeter, on the other hand, only provides one single instantaneous value. If you shove the probes into an electrical outlet, it'll say something like 235 (or point there if it's an older analogue model). It may vary a little, especially if you have loads coming on such as the compressor in the freezer or the washing machine motor.
But you simply cannot make sense of any sort of waveform with a multimeter. Mains power is a sine wave. Three phase is three of them slightly shifted in time. With the right equipment, you can see this on an oscilloscope. You will never see this on a multimeter.

As a quick aside - you should NEVER try to directly measure the mains with an oscilloscope. The scope is grounded, as is the ground side of the test lead. If you hook that up to the live side of the input, well, expect really bad things to happen as you've just shorted live and earth via your expensive piece of equipment.
Some people online say that the solution is to use a power lead with the ground disconnected to prevent the short from happening. These people are probably the same idiots that try to convince impressionable teens to choke themselves on video for the likes. Because all of the fuses and some of your circuitry vaporising happens for a reason. If you disconnect the earth, congrats, you may well be able to probe mains without blowing up your electrics.
On the other hand, you'll have just brought any metal part of the 'scope up to mains potential. If you're lucky, you'll feel like you've been slugged across the head with a wine bottle before the RCD clicks out. If you don't have one of those or it's defective, YOU DIE. There's no way to sugarcoat it, electrocution is frequently fatal and making your test equipment into a death trap is the kind of stupid where god herself will call you a twat.
 
If you want to see/measure mains, then just pump it through a transformer and do some maths. If you have one that spits out 12V, then fine, measure the mains with a multimeter and then measure the transformer output. If your mains is 230V and the transformer is outputting 11.75V, then it's pretty simple that to translate transformer to mains by just multiplying by twenty. The waveform, and glitches, CPL noise and such, will still be visible on the far side of a transformer. It'll just be smaller and, well, you won't die or burn the place down. That's generally considered a win.

Jeulin CL 2000

Chunky but reliable.

It is worth noting that, in common with numerous digital multimeters of this era, there is nothing on the screen except for a reading. This is because it is based upon the MAX131 which is a chip that can measure the value of an input, and directly drive an LCD to display it.

Inside the multimeter.

The other common chip to do this is the ICL7106. Both are 3½ digit A/D converters. Basically, you define the low and high reference points, and then you provide a low input (usually the black lead) and a high input (usually the red lead), and the chip will display a value that equates to the following formula:

1000 × (In High - In Low) / (Ref High - Ref Low)

By carefully setting up the reference points and choosing the right resistors to drop the input voltage to fit into this range, you can get meaningful results on the display.

Let's assume that full scale input (1000) is 2V. If we want to measure mains, then we need to calibrate the input so that 1000V would provide 2V to the chip, and that is indeed the maximum that the meter can measure. 234V would need to be dropped to about 0.47V, which will be sampled and shown on the screen as the numbers 234, as shown.

Both fuses are blown (and not by me), so the current measuring mode won't do anything. Actually, one of the fuses (the 2A one) has vaporised in the tube. Given this is a school multimeter, I'm just going to guess somebody tried measuring a high voltage with the thing set to current mode? As I don't use current measuring, I haven't bothered to replace the fuses. The parts I do use work.

Look carefully, you'll see metal pieces stuck to the glass.

Select Plus 191000005

It's a little flimsy, maybe that's why it is rated 250V max.

There is a 'new' version of this which is branded "Varo" that seems identical except for the addition of an on/off button just below the dial.

Inside, it's probably much the same only using a surface mount chip on a carrier board rather than the massive chip. Unfortunately it is covered in gloop so a part cannot be read, but it's worth noting that the only additional thing on the display other than numbers is "HV" that appears in the DC or AC 250V modes, but this could be pushed in independently like how the negative sign is handled by the MAX131.

A rather simpler design.

As with all of the other devices, you'll have to excuse me not taking the device apart further to show you the other side of the board. The board connects to the LCD using that weird conductive rubber strip. And I know from my days of taking calculators apart when I was at school that those things are an absolute bastard to get back together in a way that is reliable. So I'm not going to touch. I actually use these devices, so...

Parkside pen multimeter PSM 2 B4

Pokey pokey pokey...

Internally we're into microprocessor technology now, which is why we're running from two AAA cells rather than a chunky PP3 9V battery.
It will work on much the same principle - scaling down an input to then measure it, but this time it can do things like autoranging - that is to say to try reading at some of the high voltage settings, and if it sees something to try stepping down until a suitable range is found, and then displaying the result.

There's a small LED torch (hold the left button for two seconds), and the screen has a backlight (hold the right button for two seconds for about 30 seconds of backlight).

What's inside a modern smarter multimeter.

Notice the PTC, the bulby orange thing near to the input tip. Unlike an NTC (or PTC-like Silistor) these devices allow current to pass barely impeded until a certain temperature is reached, at which point the resistance rises sharply. This will be used as a protection mechanism.
There is also a 24C02 which is a 256 byte serial EEPROM, no doubt for storing internal settings (there aren't any user-adjustable ones) and calibration.
Switching the device on with all three buttons held enters calibration mode. This is not described anywhere, so best switch off before things get messed up. ☺

There's an interface clearly marked VSS, VDD, PT1.0, PT1.1, PT1.7 and RST. The "PT1.number" terminology suggests that it may be an HY16F18x which offers a 32 bit Andes N801 core, 64K flash, 8K SRAM, and the usual I/O and ADC. Having three available pins are serial Tx and Rx and...? I was thinking SWD but there are different pins for that.
Of course, I could be reading too much into this and it's just what the designers deviced to write on the board, thus it could just as easily be something based upon an ARM M0 or, god help us, one of the many 8051 clones, and it is indeed an SWD with the extra SDO connection...

This meter is almost perfect except that it powers on to DC mode and needs to be manually switched to AC, otherwise probing the mains will show nothing. This doesn't mean there's no voltage present, it means you can't measure AC on the DC setting.

Parkside WWS-DMM-H01

Simple and friendly.

It's a nice meter, and the inverse display helps the digits to stand out. Notice the extra digit of accuracy. It's almost 235V. ☺

Inside, it's fairly similar to the previous Parkside meter. An unpopulated six connection place, only this time unmarked. An extra three pins just beside it, which may have something to do with the little 24C02 EEPROM. A PTC thermistor near the input. And a black blob that, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't the exact same chip running slightly different firmware.

It's impressive that you can get this for €9,99.

You'll notice the absence of any fuses. This is because this meter has no current measuring facility. Instead it offers a plug-in temperature probe, that's 14.7 ohms at 24°C, rising to 16.1 ohms at 34°C. This would imply that it is a PTC, but that usually means a safety device. A PTC that behaves like an inverse NTC, that is to say a linear increase of resistance by temperature, is usually a Silistor (thermally sensitive silicon resistor). They have less drift than an NTC.

It also offers an NCV mode, god all these acronyms, this means No-Contact Voltage. This works by using an antenna hooked to an amplifier to try to detect AC by using capacitive coupling. It... isn't terribly good. It'll bleep in the presence of a cable that has AC, fair enough. But it pretty much won't find one in a wall. Or even hidden behind wallpaper. It'll be set off by the cable to the speakers, even with the amplifier turned off. Held up to an extension lead it'll beep frantically with four dashes and a red LED. Held up to a three phase cable, it'll beep gently with one dash and a green "maybe?" LED. I'm just going to guess that the magnetic fields of the three phases interfere with each other so it can't really detect that so well? But, really, being flummoxed by wallpaper was pretty daft. Sometimes I can just tap my finger on top and it'll beep as if I was hooked to the mains myself.
I would consider NCV to be a useful tool to say "yes, this is live".
It should never be used to determine that something is not live - it is far too unreliable to be used for that.

The left, Select, button is used to select mode. In volts, it will select AC or DC - but warning, if you select either it'll undo the "figure it out myself" mode and you'll need to turn it off and on again to restore. In ohms mode, it'll select continuity (default) or resistance. In temperature mode, it'll switch between sane measurements and that weirdo thing that older people and Americans prefer. In NCV mode it does nothing. The right, Hold, button freezes whatever is on the screen, except in NCV mode where it has no function.

I used to have a big yellow swing-needle multimeter, a Maplin M2020S. I also had an British Telecom SA9083 Mark 15 tester. It had been left behind on top of one of those big green cabinets. I went back the following day and it was still there, so... legitimate salvage. ☺. I don't know if I still have either of them. I thought the BT tester was on the bookshelf at the back of my room, but it's just VHS tapes and my special Y2K Beanie Baby (remember those?).

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jgh, 10th September 2025, 00:55

€1,426 minimum wage? That's.... £7.50 an hour???? Boddly ehll! It's £12.21 in the UK. Have I done the sums right?  €1,426pm -> £1234pm -> £283pw -> £7.56ph.

jgh, 10th September 2025, 01:03

My Dad used to have a proper black laquer & bakerlite AVO meter. Wonderful thing.

Rick, 10th September 2025, 06:12

JGH: Brut is what you're told. Net is what you get. There's a big difference. 😟

jgh, 10th September 2025, 14:15

Ok, so UK minimum wage "brut"s you:  £12.21 * 35 * 52 = £22,222/yr  Income tax: (£22,222-£12,570)*20% = £1930  National Insurance: £22,222 * 8% = £1777  So: net: £22,222-£1930-£1777 = £18,515/yr  £18,515 / 12 = £1542/mth -> E1782 net  so.... handwavey, €1,426pm is £9.77/hr.

Rick, 10th September 2025, 14:41

Tax and stuff is a little different in France. I get around €1600 a month. It's about €10,40ish a month I think, but I get various extras (an extra peanut because I've been here a long time, another hazelnut or two because my work is arduous...).

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