My car dilemmas

I would start this entry with a tedious to do list, but I've been writing so many of them in my spare time that I'm sick of the sight of a huge list of things, each of which cannot be done at this point in time for one reason or another. Needless to say it is huge, and shrinking very slowly, if at all.

Instead, I'm going to brain dump my current car dilemma. Having accepted a space in what's turning out to be a house full of rather quality people (not by accident of course), I've destined myself to becoming a car owner for the first time in my life. So my dilemma is how to buy a car abroad.

I don't particularly fancy going all the way to France to look at cars - especially since that would completely destroy my achievement of securing a house space on the information superhighway. Not only that, but it seems INSEAD students have a somewhat distorted (to me anyway) of the second hand value of old clapped out cars. From what I've seen, similar cars in the UK cost around 50% less. But then is that discount worth it so you don't have to trounce around with a wrong hand drive car for a year? And it's still not completely clear whether you can have a car in France on English plates. Some people have suggested that the legal limit is 6 months, but nobody ever checks. I, on the other hand, picture trying to explain this using my practically non-existent French to a befuddled gendarme, and then start thinking about whether I really ought to reconsider my reluctance to go on a car buying trip.

Decisions, decisions....