DJ360

I don't need any more food thanks Phil. We've farmed a load out to neighbours.. but the waste and incovenience is still very annoying.

Yesterday our fridge was looking pretty bare. Mrs Col went out and bought a load of shopping including a fair bit of frozen stuff, whole cooked chicken, lump of lamb, cold meats, pork pies etc. While she was out I decided to have a magnum.. it was thawed. Turns out the fridge freezer has died. Just when we've bought a load of food, the milkman has left 4 days supply of milk and everywhere is closed due to an outbreak of mass religious apathy involving the vast majority of the country having a couple of days off in order to ignore Easter. Brilliant..

Not sure how, or if, this is relevant, but many years ago my daughter was using a hairdryer that was sold as a a 'Turbo 2000' or somesuch. As she waved it about, there was a sharp 'crack' then a flame very similar to an oxy/acetylene welding flame shot out of the cable about a foot from the dryer. Naturally, she dropped the dryer and the flame made a deep scorch about 6" long on a nearly new carpet. Scary. As for kettles. My wife is the biggest power consumer in the EU. She chose a nice kettle from Dunelm which goes well with the kitchen. It's rated at 2500-3000w.. which is fi

Very well put Brew. But. Not sure I've ever seen a 'high wattage' Smartphone or wi fi router. My phone charges off USB at 5v and has a battery capacity of 2100mAh. My router also runs off a low voltage 'wall wart' and has a stated power consumption of around 15 w. Not sure about the IEC leads but I suppose that using old ones for a long time could eventually lead to safety issues, or ones with an incorrect fuse fitted. But, whatever, that would hardly be likely to turn me into a 'leaver'.

Bananas is a myth, or at best a distortion of the actual regs.,as are many similar alleged rules. Limiting wattage is designed to improve efficiency and therefore help the environment. It has little or no effect on the actual performance of appliances when properly designed. Our VAX (Made in Britain) Vacuum cleaner is very light, power efficient and sucks like the proverbial.. And of course many of what you call 'laws' are no such thing. They are regulations, or changes to regs. I've now switched all lamps in my house to either LED or a few remaining 'curly tube'

Glad to hear it Loppy! Grass cut front and back then spent some time digging up Creeping Violets and Welsh Poppies. I brought both into my garden and have spent years since trying to get rid of the s**s. Then No.2 daughter called saying she couldn't get my DSLR camera to work. I loaned it to her a while back to do shots of her fashion brand. So, just as we were about to have dinner, I ended up driving to Manchester to try to show her how to use the camera. Trouble is she just doesn't have enough understanding to be messing about with a DSLR, other than on full auto setti

No conflict here Fly, but you're going to have to give me examples of those 'outrageous and unnecessary laws'.

Of course we should celebrate St George's Day. He was Greek after all..... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George Just like our dearly beloved Duke of Athe.... err.. Edinburgh. But.. all joking aside, we shouldn't be ashamed to celebrate our English (adopted) saint, or fly our English Flag. We shouldn't let racists, Xenophobes or other idiots appropriate it. It belongs to us all. But Lizzie.. what is 'Commi Day'?

And to elaborate..... without even reading the DM drivel (How do I know it's drivel if I haven't read it? Simple.. it's in the DM!! ) .. It's well known that we all carry bacteria on our skin, on our hair, in our guts, in our noses, ears etc.,etc., which have the potential to turn very nasty in certain circumstances. So.. as ever, by careful distortion, omission and innuendo, the DM has performed its usual stunt of delivering fake news designed to target a social group.. in this case, wearers of beards. I was going to say 'You couldn't make it up'.. But the DM can.. and frequen

Daily Mail? Must be true then.

Dave. ALL meds have potential side effects. A good Doc should be weighing up the benefits, v the potential damage of any med. To be fair. the cocktail of stuff I take daily for my ticker produces virtually no discernible side effects. On the other hand, I'm pretty convinced that anti biotics are responsible for this constant skin itching I'm experiencing. Then again.. without them, I'd have had a potentially very dangerous infection. You can't win.. However... Exercise and good diet can reduce BP and also cholesterol levels. That's where I'd be starting..

Too busy enjoying the effects of climate change in my back yard to be getting to involved here.. You all know I mostly post in the miggle of the night. :) One thing though. Being between Liverpool and Manchester Airports, as well as being on one of the major routes for many other Atlantic flights, I can definitely confirm that when conditions are right, 'contrails' can definitely have similar effects to natural clouds.

It's a convenient argument, and by the way, China introduced population legislation decades ago. But, most of the Earth's land mass is pretty much empty of people. The problems exist mainly in cities, which people are drawn to mostly by industry. This was seen when the industrial revolution hit the UK population with a 'double whammy'. Increasing mechanisation forced people off the land, and increasing industrialisation forced people into cities. The results are well documented by Dickens et.al. and the solutions, as ever, lagged long behind the causes. Of course Malthus cam

Was that just the one Uni then?

And when all flights were stopped over the US after 9/11, there was a similar effect on climate. I believe temperatures fell as the skies cleared.

Ayup. We all know that climate change has been natural, but that doesn't mean we aren't accellerating it by our actions. Your argument implies we can do as we like and the Earth will just 'soak it up'. I think the loss of species, melting of the ice caps, plastic filled seas and polluted cities clearly show that we cannot carry on as we are.

Whatever you feel about their methods, their basic argument is spot on. I also don't see climate change or the looming environmental disaster as 'Their Cause'. It should be Our Cause. We're all trapped on the same planet. We are killing our planet and the main culprits are major industries, involved in burning fossil fuels, felling rain forests etc. We've known about this for decades and done next to nothing to change things. Also, recent decades have seen massive industrialisation in China, India etc. We have no right to expect them not to do so.. we did so a century or more a

Never fear Red.. The one thing I haven't got is Hypochondria. :)

As ever Brew... Nail.. Head... And I got a bit chilly.. so now have my M&S dressing gown on.. I'm wondering if I should get some of those slippers with zip fronts.. you know.. the ones in tartan...

You're right of course Lizzie.. but it goes deeper... much deeper. I spent months just learning how to interview young people.. to assess their ideas, ambitions, motivations, capabilities etc. ,and to put these into some sort of context against the current employment and educational scene. Then.. to agree some sort of plan with them.. Their plan.. not mine. My role was really only to get them to consider all the issues, understand their capabilities and match them to available educational routes.. opportunities etc. Of course.. everything kept changing. Qualifications, employment opportuniti

Still itchy. The Aveena stuff does seem to help, as do cool, short showers using a minimal amount of mild shower gel. I don't want to frighten the horses.. but at present I'm as comfortable as I've been all day. Kitless, posting on here, while Mrs Col is nodding on the couch in the next room. Hope she doesn't wake up too soon.. might inflame her passions.. and in my current state..

I did a bit of that at a place intrigueingly called 'United Rubber' down near the top of Drury Hill somewhere. (Fletchergate?) Hand operated industrial knitting machines making surgical stockings. No proper training and the whole business defeated me. I didn't last long...

Sounds like your 'Careers Master' was as useless as mine at High Pavement. Sadly, there is a long tradition of useless Careers Masters who simply took on the role in exchange for an extra point or so on their salary. They can be forgiven a bit, because they rarely had any training or even much time to do the job properly. Even more sadly this situation continued throughout my 30 years as a proper Careers Adviser. I'd say about 80% of the 'Careers Masters' I encountered were pretty hopeless. The best, including one who sadly left us far too young, worked to facilitiate and support the acti

Love that. Jacket, Tie and sweater was regulation wear, even just for nippung down to the pub, and for quite a lot of manual workers as well as 'white collar' workers. Back to the Llangollen canal. Me and my mate Kev went to Horseshgoe Falls and were pretty disappointed. More of a curved weir than falls. There's a pumping staion there now.. electric powered and presumable for topping up the canal. ]

Good day here so far. Just made some Hummus..using this method: https://www.inspiredtaste.net/15938/easy-and-smooth-hummus-recipe/ Absolutely delicious and so 'moreish' that I now have the problem of keeping my mits off it so it lasts more than an hour or so. Lovely reminiscences above from Ben and Trogg. I have many memories of there too. Evening walks through there with my Grandad Jack, who only lived around the corner on Grindon Crs. Mum taking us in there to pick wild roses. And, when a bit older, cycling down there from Bestwood Estate with mates,