Preparedness for when

BugglyB

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

It's your choice PP, but perhaps you should be aware, that one TVL "Enfarcement Officer" has been convicted of rape (albeit not whilst "on duty"), another of assaulting a disabled householder, two others of falsifying statements used for prosecutions, and one of stealing licence payments (all these whilst "on duty").

The BBC have admitted, via a FOI response, to 11 individuals who:-

"were convicted of criminal offences committed in the course of their official duties of TV Licensing".

You should also bear in mind that these are commission salesmen, so they have a financial incentive to flog you a licence, and/or prosecute you, whether you actually need a licence or not.

It is not unheard of, for them to lie to your face, as I can attest from personal experience.

I was not aware of that. The men I showed round last time were very courteous and polite, we ended up having a nice chat.

I feel very confident they wouldn't get far trying to rape me in my own home.

However next time maybe I'll just tell them to go away. I feel like I've done enough to prove I dont have a TV now, I'd almost like them to take me to court!

FairyPrincessk

Oh Mar, what a way of putting it.:rotfl:

I have a number of reasons for following the situation, one is of course GQ's lovely Pericles quote, but of course it is also very relevant to my work and could have a huge impact on my parents' lives. No, I don't think bombing is going to help anyone. This is a gridlock and sending more people into it isn't going to fix anything except perhaps satisfy someone's morbid curiosity through rubber necking. The thing is, it is a horribly sad situation, and some part of me wonders why it took gas to get the general population to suddenly care. I know why that is, but you know, cluster bombs weren't enough?

I'm not sure anyone but the people actually doing the gassing know who was using gas or why. However, Syria is one of only 7 nations that isn't signed up to the chemical weapons convention, and two of those are signed up but just haven't ratified it. Now, treaties and international law are not my speciality so there could be something else somewhere they are a party to, but I haven't found it. It means that technically the Assad regime isn't bound by any specific laws that say they can't manufacture and use gas, ego David Cameron's statement that it was a flagrant abuse of international law to use gas on men, women and children isn't quite as strong as it seems. What he actually means is that it is against international normals and what most countries (not including Syria) have agreed would be against international law. Although of course there are more general laws that certainly could apply, it is probably intended by whoever used the gas to incite general outrage by doing something most of the community thinks is terrible but still not provide a clear cut and easy justification for intervention. It muddies the waters of justifying an intervention on the basis of gas quite a bit, but international law is such a ridiculous and contradictory thing that I doubt it will matter much.

As for GQ's summary of the news aggregate, I just wanted to add a bit of contextual information. Syria does have a natural gas pipeline (but no oil pipelines and its oil reserves are actually thought to be declining), although it only serves a few middle Eastern countries, and I believe the gas comes from one of them, not Russia. Quite interestingly, Saudi Arabia is still one of Syria's main trading partners and has not participated in the embargo. It isn't unusual for them to act as a sort of envoy on behalf of the U.S. and it certainly gets their goat the Russia does not participate in OPEC, but I still struggle to connect the dots on that information in a way I find meaningful. I will be reading up on it in most of my spare moments, good thing I'm not a cat.:D

FairyPrincessk

GQ, my mother group up in the southern U.S. she cooks everything in cast iron. Everything. Stir fry, pancakes, cornbread, curry...everything. She had a wok for awhile, but went back to the skillets. She said they were better because they have a heavier bottom. I think you'll be safe experimenting.

Perplexed_Pineapple

nuatha wrote: »

....... In contrast DC generators are frequently used to charge battery arrays which, in turn, power devices.

That's probably far more than you actually wanted to know, but hopefully some it may be of some use.

Thanks for a very useful post! Presumably if you charge a battery bank with a genny you just use an inverter to power your AC devices?
I'm thinking that maybe you could use a battery array for both solar and genny power, you could use a solar panel to charge over time and the genny to recharge at times of high power consumption or low sunlight. I think you would need to be careful with the different inputs though.(I don't know much about this, I'm aiming to learn more!)

nuatha

GreyQueen wrote: »

I also bought a cast iron skillet in a c.s. Which I have just bumped on my toes. Heavy, ain't they? Could probably use it to deflect bullets but was planning to try oat cakes. Has anyone cooked them on a skillet and willing to share advice? What else is skillet-friendly cookery, please?

You've Derby oatcakes as well as the Scottish kind. Crumpets, muffins, pancakes, drop scones, potato scones, girdle scones, Gypsy toast, toasted cheese sandwich, cornbread, upside down pineapple cake, tarte tatin (though the later two will depend on the handle material and the size of the pan). A skillet is the best method to cook steaks, pan roast chicken and you can even do a full English in one
Seriously its my most versatile pan, the key thing is to season it well and never use detergent on it.
Well done on your find.

ragz_2

nuatha wrote: »

Some 25 years ago a friend loaned me a copy of John Seymour's Complete Guide to Self Sufficiency (the link is to a slideshow of the book, I highly recommend getting a real copy from the library or cheaply off Amazon) I've just found out that there is a new updated version, mine is ancient with a simple yellow cover. Its where I discovered the oil drum windmill.

My Dad got me this for my birthday this year, (updated version) I happily lost myself in it for a few days (really want a cow now!), but I did find a lot of the advice didn't seem to go in depth enough - I wondered whether it would actually be possible to do any of his ideas from the book alone, did you make the oil drum thing from that alone or using extra tutorials from somewhere?

Also, thanks for the generator info, will pass it on to hubby. I always assume he knows what he's doing (he did mechanical engineering at college, his twin did electrical, so between them they get most stuff) but he may have missed a few bits.

Perplexed_Pineapple

GreyQueen wrote: »

My attitude is; I pay my ISP out of post-tax earned income. They're a UK company paying UK taxes. That's enough for you already, government. We may have to follow the New Zealanders into a mass public revolt.

I actually wouldn't mind paying a licence fee tbh, I think the BBC is worth keeping. If they are going to do that though, they should just fund it from general taxation - it would be the same people paying more or less and would cost a lot less to administer than a personal or household one with lots of exemptions.

I also saw that they have a similar product in £land; fancy T*lda rice in pouches with the same prep method.

The Tilda range includes one called something like Mexican chilli and bean rice, because it has kidney beans it's higher in protein than the others, which would be useful in an emergency situation. Also I feel fuller for longer, probably because of the protein content. I take these to work sometimes to stick in the microwave for a quick troublefree lunch.

nuatha

Perplexed_Pineapple wrote: »

Thanks for a very useful post! Presumably if you charge a battery bank with a genny you just use an inverter to power your AC devices?
I'm thinking that maybe you could use a battery array for both solar and genny power, you could use a solar panel to charge over time and the genny to recharge at times of high power consumption or low sunlight. I think you would need to be careful with the different inputs though.(I don't know much about this, I'm aiming to learn more!)

Strangely the answer is yes and no
You could use an inverter (and that would be likely to be more reliable than the inverter built into a cheap genny (and certainly easier to replace), though watch the current draw, the higher the current draw the hotter the inverter will be, cheap inverters have been known to melt their plastic cases.
Another possibility is to look at the device you are using, I'm typing this on a laptop that requires a 19V 4.74A supply, it has a mains adapter which I could plug into an inverter or I can use a simple step up transformer and run it from a 12V DC supply (the mains PSU outputs DC) the step up transformer is sold as a car adapter. A number of modern devices are designed to charge from a USB type socket, you can plug the mains adapter into an inverter or use a step down transformer and charge them directly from DC at 5V (again car adapters). I've seen microwaves ovens designed to be run from 24V DC, fridges and freezers that run from 12V (Camping and Caravanning suppliers offer these which will run from mains, 12V and LPG (though with the growth in electric hookups they are becoming less common).
(Incidentally most natural gas devices can be used with LPG but they will require different jets - a five minute job to change over, though legally you must be Gassafe registered to do this.)

If you device uses an inline transformer or a wall wart type plug then the odds are you would be better off sourcing an equivalent car type adapter. If it runs directly from a three pin plug then an inverter is the way to go.

In this country, a combination of solar and wind generation is likely to provide a better year round solution than just solar - solar electric generation is still far from efficient, it requires more power to manufacture than it can ever generate in its life time and therefore cannot be considered a truly sustainable technology (however it is relatively cheap to buy at the moment). Its possible to build hybrid charging systems that use a mixture of power sources and there's at least one commercial company offering these (can't remember the company but I've seen one in use that combined power from solar and water generation, with a backup genny).

I'm out of touch with the latest developments, when I was last playing with this the general trend was to use banks of car batteries (easily available and cheap second hand) I understand that the trend now is to use more modern battery technology but I've no experience of this. Hopefully I'll get back to playing with this tech in the spring of next year - there are more urgent projects filling the rest of this year.

Crumbs, another essay, sorry, if something isn't clear or I've missed something, please ask questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

Perplexed_Pineapple

Nuatha wow, what a lot of useful information! I can see it's going to take some thinking and tinkering to get this properly understood. I'm starting to suspect that from having an emergency power supply for freezers etc, if you want a properly reliable back-up, it's only a small step further to going fully "off-grid". Which would need a lot of time, energy and cash but might well be worth it in the longer term.

RAS

If you want a little inspiration read http://www.judyofthewoods.net/ - particularly the section on simple living which is anything but simple and as Judy says somewhere in her writings far from cheap.

http://scoraigwind.co.uk/ - Hugh Piggott's new home page (the old one is a goodie as well. Scoraig is off grid so wholly home generated.

CAT once had a display with several wind turbines including the oil drum and bicycle wheel versions (the latter used to trickle charge a battery). All gone as they tend to focus on more sophisticated technology these days.

This is one of my favourite stories http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8257153.stm