Well as you don’t want processed meat, if you have a roast during the weekend there’s nothing as good as a roast chicken, stuffing, tomato, lettuce, (English) mustard and mayo sarnie.

If you ever have roast beef, thin sliced beef (we have a meat slicer) and horseradish makes an awesome base for a sandwich filling.

Egg salad? Much maligned (one office I worked in had an unofficial ban on people eating this) but very nice. Just don’t add cress as its not the 1970’s any more.

I know its cheese but thin sliced Mozzarella you can add tomato, rocket and a little bit of olive oil…

Get some decent chutney, not the generic supermarket tasteless branstons knockoff stuff (eg apple and balsamic)

Or there’s always banana and jam 🙂

Just been reading in Novaya Gazeta Europe that the RA has managed to misplace 1.5m army uniforms (link here: missing kit )which, along with the fact that there are reports of new conscripts having to camp in fields as there is no space/equipment/food etc in military barracks for them will help make the mass recruitment a bit interesting…

To quote Blackadder goes forth:

Private “Bob”: “Don’t send me back, I want to see how war is fought, so badly”

Captain Blackadder: “well you’ve come to the right place. A war hasn’t been fought this badly since Olaf the Hairy, High Chief of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside“

Any “dramatic actions” in Kherson at the moment seem to be based principally on a twitter hashtag, some maps and nothing else.

Got to be treated with a bit of scepticism for now as ISW, MOD and others are quiet on this. ISW’s analysis, which tends to be calm and dispassionate has been suggesting that there won’t be much change in Kherson Oblast for a while. UAF are operationally silent on anything in this area (their forces in this area aren’t using social media very much at the moment, if at all) , RA aren’t saying much either which points to a difficult, complex and costly battle/series of battles going on across a wide area.

Basically it’s a case of wait and see.

…actually following on from that, as LOTR is set 4000 years later, surely all the humans should be walking around in jeans and trainers, the Elves would have invented the Internet, The Dwarves would have electric lighting and pneumatic drills, and the Orcs would have at least invented soap and deodorant or possibly a dating agency so they can find some girlfriends.

I might be over-thinking it all a bit.

If it was scientifically accurate someone in middle earth would have invented pot noodle by now…

I enjoyed that one:

A no score draw this week in the Galadriel vs Halbrand “who can be the more damaged and brooding” stakes.

A big shout out to Arondir. A bit like Legolas only much more badass and a lot less annoying (someone will be along shortly to argue that one I’m sure, but in my opinion all the sterling work he did in the LOTR films was undone in the Hobbit)

Another candidate emerges in the “Guess who”s Saruman?” contest.

Oh and spoiler alert: Oooh doesn’t that mountain look a bit like Mount D…

Creating a Brand and making Money from it? Why yes, and yes.

For more info I will happily sell you tickets to an entertaining and highly informative event (with buffet included) held at the local holiday inn/travelodge where I reveal the secrets of my incredible business success and brainwash you intoallow you a unique, once in a lifetime opportunity to invest in my next amazing business venture so bring your chequebook.

Please note that there may be a pre-entry security check to see if you are a member of the local constabulary or an undercover journalist.

@kato, at 0.75kW installed capacity it looks like you have 2-3 solar panels on your roof (?) so I think its quite a small system (I’m doing some maths in my head about installed capacity vs the estimated annual generation) . Your panels should be feeding power initially into your house and any excess is then fed to grid but I would expect at 0.75kW most, if not all, of the power generated would be used by your home and you would still be primarily using power supplied from the grid during the day with the solar adding to this.

You’re correct that, unless you have Smart Export Guarantee (SEG)set up with a power supplier (the FIT scheme is now closed), you would be sending any excess generated power to the grid for free so yes, its worth getting this set up. It looks like you have the installation documents so you should be able to do this (can anyone else confirm that this is correct as I am currently waiting on my installation certificate to do the same)

A battery might help but with a small system I am not sure it would charge enough during the day to be effective, others here would know more than me. You may need a box added to the inverter to allow a battery to be installed too so check with an installer.

However, the thing I would suggest first would be checking with a solar installer about the potential to add more panels to your system. Main question is : does your roof have space for more panels to be installed and does your inverter have the capacity for this?

even tho many countries have stored up gas (not UK !)

Remember that only about 3% of our gas came from russia, about 50% is from the north sea (from our own supply), a further 33% comes form Norway, the rest is from other sources such as importing LNG from Qatar..
The situation is different from countries like Germany that lack a large scale domestic energy resource (bar Coal), have leant heaviliy on importing gas from Russia and have lower access to renewables.
Bit of an oversimplifiction here but remember that the cost and actual supply are different, We are getting hit by the rising costs of energy as gas is priced via the global market which is getting hit from the war in Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia.

As it stands it looks like the Russian economy is now in freefall, China, India and Turkey are stepping back from them both politically and, most likely soon economically. I dont think Syria, North Korea or Bellarus have a spare few trillion Rubles stuffed down the back of the sofa to help matters. The RU millitary is in pieces, and the plan now is to send tens of thousands of poorly led, untrained and under-equipped conscripts into a war zone and hope for the best.

My gut feeling is that the large scale conscription and partial mobilisation has been done by Putin not to win the war in Ukraine but instead as an attempt to prevent a large scale uprising/revolution/coup in Russia.

TBH, I think that has been the reason all along for this whole sorry escapade.

Interesting seeing everyone else’s app readings for comparison to my system (still cant master the forum posting images thingy so cant show mine) but its very much entertaining my inner Nerd 🙂

Day 2 of my system running and the battery was at about 11% first thing. It was overcast for the start of the day but the solar panels have been working well and the battery was fully recharged by about 2:30pm.
My small-moderate-ish 10 panel system has yielded (is that right?) about 8kWh aginst a consumption of 6kWh (again, not sure if im reading things right…) so far today, the bit im so far intersted in is the generation/use vs what needs to be imported which is currently 67% from the system/battery against 33% from the grid. Thats pretty much what the survey estimated the system would give me on a normal day for the south coast so I’m pretty happy so far.

I need to let things run for a few weeks, sort out when to run the dishwasher and washing machine so it can use as much solar as poss (we tend to run the dishwasher late at night). SEG definatley needs to be sorted as the energy being exported to grid is not being paid for (will check Octopus for this) and the second battery will probably be added in the Spring when funds allow.

Our Solar power system went in today: opted for 10 panels split between south facing (6) and east facing (4) roofs (house is three bed semi-detached) with a system power of about 3.7-ish KwH, Inverter and one storage battery.

System was switched on at lunchtime, I’m not sure about the overall power generation yet (will check tomorrow) but according to the system app the battery was at 100% charge by about 4pm and the house was being powered from the panels alone for most of the afternoon. After sunset we were using about 65% power from the battery/35% from the grid when the electric oven was on this evening. Once the cooker was off the house was running fully on the battery supply so that’s the lights, fridges, freezer, TV and our usual plethora of USB chargers/smart speakers etc. We’re not running the immersion from the system yet but might get this set up later on although it probably means a new hot water tank too.
Some excess power was getting sent to grid earlier. The SEG isn’t set up yet, I feel that the monetary value of this will be minimal (read: pathetic) anyway but its money in the bank so we’ll do this as soon as the documents come through to allow this to be set up.

Battery is down to about 75% charge now so I reckon it should easily last to sunrise.

I’m interested to see how this all works as the days get shorter but so far so good.

Looks wonderful.
Have you been enjoying the heat? Just got back from a three day work trip to Bilbao where the overnight temperature in the city on Monday was 28-32 degrees C…

Bilbao is a fab city but I kept catching glimpses of the hills and mountains that surround it: not enough time and anyway, my bikes were back in Blighty…sigh…

Watched three episodes so far and am thoroughly enjoying it. Keep reading reviews where people are complaining that it’s boring (along with a lot of frankly depressing comments about, well, you know what) but simply can’t see that. Whole thing so far feels a lot like the bit in the Fellowship of the king film where they go through the Argonath.

The Orcs are definitely much nastier than in the films but then there are no Urak-hai as afar as I know in the second age

The bit in the second episode with Arondir in the tunnels was awesome, claustrophobic and scary and the character definitely has a lot of the feeling of Strider about him: nothing like a good Orc hunt to brighten the day…

Roll on episode 4.

Was it just me or did anyone else think the “friendly neighbour” requiring £5k for having a crane on their land (empty field with metal mats laid out so the ground wasn’t damaged by the crane…) for 2 days was taking the pi$$ a bit?

Anyway, I liked that house a lot, fast and (almost) stress free build. Bet that would have been at least double the price and three times the build time if it wasn’t manufactured off-site and trucked in. Quite liked the Corten steel too.

Had fried pigeon breast in a local pub a few years back, tasted flipping awesome as well as being relatively cheap so then found a local game farm shop that sells it.

Excellent pan fried (as many other have mentioned), add some cherries to the pan as well and serve with some rocket. Makes you feel like you’re dining in a gastro-pub without the ludicrous prices.

Rabbit is good too, had the head served up too once at a Breton colleagues house in France

Calm down there skippy

Yup, eaten that too…

Nice idea @Singletrackmind (I do remember you suggesting this a few years back and wondering about it for a while) the only issue is that in a near meltdown situation the steam would be very radioactive, at very high pressure (potentially enough to blow up a turbine/steam pump) and would still need to be vented out of the system somehow once its driven a steam engine/turbine resulting in a release of radioactive superheated steam into the atmosphere… Simpler solution (well, one part of the solution) would have been to not site the diesel generators for the emergency pumps in basements that were at risk of flooding during a tsunami. Also, its better to build the whole site at the height originally intended, not 20m lower…

Some bedtime reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster

@tjagain, apologies if you took that the wrong way, not accusing you of anything.

Cock up? Yes, possibly, probably also due to the problems discussed here being complex and hard to solve with a very human flaw of people wanting simple quick fixes hence the “Dash for Gas” twenty years back, North Sea Oil boom in the early 70’s (without creating a Norway-style Sovereign wealth fund to go with it) or King Coal in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

It’s quite simply an incredibly difficult environment

This.

Placing anything underwater is complex, placing something under the sea is even more so. Putting turbines, generators, power systems etc underwater and expecting them to work day in day out for years on end is really difficult. High initial cost, durability, maintenance issues and operation costs that result tend to be the real killers so no conspiracies there, unfortunately its just engineering and economics tbh.

Rance near St Malo is basically a estuary tidal dam (works very well BTW) and crucially the turbines are able to be isolated by sluice gates and easily accessible for maintenance. Trying to do this at scale in open sea/open water is really tough which is why a whole slew of open water/ocean turbine generators have tended to stay as proof of concept experiments. Barrage/dam based systems are much better in this respect but something very big such as the proposed Severn barrage has a lot of downsides, not least the initial high cost, issues with ships having to access Bristol and Newport docks and having to mitigate flood surges from the Severn and Wye rivers. Not impossible but definately not straightforward or easy to do…

However, building and operating a large offshore wind farm is a piece of cake in comparison

Just impose a windfall tax like they have on O&G producers.

The offshore windframs have already gone through a Govt auction process to get access to the seafloor as its Crown Estate so there has already been an effective windfall tax:

Crown Estate Offshore Wind

The thing to remember is that the Strike prices (the minimum price that a power station can sell energy for) is there to ensure that projects are viable as they tend to be very long term investments and if this is adversely affected by market fluctuations then it just discourages any new power stations being built.

IIRC Hinkley Point C has a strike price of £93/MwH which everyone was screaming about back when the contract was signed.

The market is going to reverse the situation as new power stations are built especially if they’re renewables (wind, solar etc) as they are far cheaper to run than Gas, Nuclear or Coal. Building Gas, Coal or CHP stations is off the table as we now have to reach Net Zero so perversely its “good” that the market rates are so high as it means that low carbon and renewables are very attractive for investors so basically the result will be a lot more wind and solar power generation being built.

The problem right now is that we are going to go through a very painful period before this happens.

Govt should absolutely be helping out on this though as there are a lot of people in the UK who will be in energy poverty and deep financial trouble very soon.

On the positive side the utterly bonkers nimbysim regarding onshore (and offshore) wind and solar should hopefully disappear.

If something like that doesn’t make you a little bit joyful you’re dead inside.

This.

Nah, with a nice hard tail it would have been pitch dark by the time I got up there

And most definitely this…

Love this thread 🙂

First time camping with my wife down in Cornwall, spent one night listening to a bloke a few tents away badly singing along to the entirety of Coldplay’s “A rush of blood to the head” album at the TOP OF HIS VOICE from about 10:30 pm to 11:30

A few years later somewhere in east Devon, camped on a completely empty site (owner was just about to close it as he had no bookings): nice big field with a few molehills. One old giffer and his dog arrived a few days later an did that thing where they decided to pitch their tent not too close to us but close enough in a huge field. Bloke seemed pleasant enough but one morning while eating our breakfast he wandered over to near our tent holding a hammer, crouched down next to a molehill, waited a few minutes and then proceeded to bludgeon to death a mole while we looked on aghast. He mumbled “I hate moles” and then wondered back to his tent…

We’ve got to talk about Kevin

Harry Enfield is interviewed about one of his comedy characters

The Godfather.

Bloke stands near the font at a Christening and nods when asked if he believes in Jesus

if they do really well and last long enough, do tribute bands end up in the Mock and Roll hall of Fame?

I’ll get my coat..

170km long horizontal city built across a desert?
Sort of reminds me of the Matt Damon film Elysium only the space station has been unrolled out on the ground.

This one? https://twitter.com/UKMeteorNetwork/status/1553294238263246848

Aliens, Obvs.

“God isn’t interested in technology. He knows nothing of the potential of the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how He spends His time! Forty-three species of parrots! Nipples for men!”

Still my favourite film of all time and David Warner shall forever be the definitive Evil

“hand me the map and you shall at least walk out of here on human feet..”

Chaos…

As in any news story that has, for example, the phrase “there were scenes of chaos today at Heathrow today…”

Chaos is defined as a complete absence of order so, unless Heathrow airport suddently turned into a large pink dragon called Derek that farts lemon drizzle cake and emplores everyone to listen to his rendition of “Fix you” by Coldplay while the St Winefreds school choir backing band dances the Can Can and Boris johnson tearfully admits that his hair is not his own, there were most definately not scenes of chaos. It was just that the baggage reclaim in Terminal 5 wasnt working properly for about 20 minutes.

Oh, and here’s another vote for “lets watch love island”

“I’m sorry but…” no, you’re not.

Yes, definitely. You only have one chance to make a lasting impression.

But you should also wear crocs (for exactly the same reason)

Just realised that Dominic Raab will likely be acting PM tomorrow…

Thats a comforting thought :-/

Hopefully they’ll build a wicker man in the middle of Westminster in the shape of Margaret Thatcher. Will makes tonights telly a bit more exciting…

So I guess haf the cabinet are standing around BJ supporting him and the other half are currently breaking up the table and chairs to build a funeral pyre and asking if anyone has some matches…

The UK will go without a functional government

so no change from the last few years eh?

Anyway, he can call a General Election if he wishes but he wouldn’t be that stupid…would he? Er…oh…sorry…hmm…

In the end he has to go because he will lose ministers faster than he can replace them and Nadine Dorries cannot do all the any jobs in government

FTFY (for for Rory…)

What does everyone reckon, will he be gone by 6pm or alternatively is he going for the record of how many mass resignation induced cabinet reshuffles can a sitting PM have in a week?

Personally I’m just waiting for Jacob Rees Mogg to be interviewed live on channel 4 news, wearing his pants on his head while claiming that Boris has the Queen, the party, the country, the world and, indeed God, fully supporting him to continue as PM for all of eternity, then 3 weeks later attempting to resurect his flagging career by announcing that he is joining this autumns all-star celelbrity love island as a platform for his own Conservative leadership bid…

Or Gary Glitter…

Ah yes, the 1970’s.

No one has mentioned Jimmy Saville yet…

Odd that.

Anybody pump up their tyres using anything other than PSI ?

I tend to use a track pump

The main paddock is awesome, worth going just for that especially when the cars start up and they move out to go on track or return, you probably wont see a lot of the cars running on the hill unless you can nab a good spot just above the brodge (and even then its blink and youll miss it).
Agree about trying to get to the top of the hill where the cars turn…always good to see.
Ditto with the parking, dont try to cheat, the marshals do know their stuff. Just try to get in early.
I can reccomend standing on the starting grid doing final prep, setting up GoPros on cars and chatting to the drivers which you can only do if you have the right wristbands/safety passes and are from one of the companies showing off your wares:)
Not there this year, FoS involves a lot of prep and work: one event involved about 48hrs straight work to get stand and cars fully set up then 1hrs sleep then straight into the 4 day event then the whole take-down afterwards so everyone was pretty much wrecked at the end of it. It takes a lot of time to do as an exhibitor but it is amazing and good if tiring fun. Also our event category got removed for the hill climb as we were allegedly showing up too many supercars/hypercars and apparently some manufacturers got the hump.
Watching someone drive a McLaren into the back of a Praga GTR car in the supercar paddock a few years ago was entertaining though. Cue huge cheer from the crowd and one very embarassed driver…