Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

mardatha wrote: »

Food sales in Scotland this summer are the lowest in 16 years. I wonder if people are cutting down and being more careful.

Probably, a lot of people everywhere are feeling the pinch. Hopefully, there are a lot of people making positive moves to bring food waste to the absolute minimum, and hence are eating about the same but wasting less.

I've just finished prepping the last of the marble-sized spuds and carved the damaged bits out of the few which got pranged as part of the harvesting, or had been tunnelled by critters and thus won't keep. I separated these out of the tater sack for immediate consumption. Waste not, want not.

Karmacat

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

... and CAT is one of the best places to visit on the whole British Isles ...

Seriously, make that "in the whole world", it's a world class site

mardatha

Did anybody else get MrsL's book "Cookery and Kitchen Book for slender purses" ?? It's a really great wee book, my kind of food - complete with recipes (receipts!) and shopping lists. I love it.

Karmacat

nuatha wrote: »

...I wouldn't complain about people deriding Northumberland(1), anything that helps keep incomers somewhere else and helps keep property prices somewhere near barely affordable is welcome. Attitudes that put the place down only help if it keeps like-minded people out.
I fully understand the pride, I'm just wary of boasting about how wonderful the place and its natives really are - it can attract people I'd rather not share air with.

....

(1) I'm Northumbrian, therefore its Northumberland that has that place in my heart that might otherwise be filled by Wales or Scotland

I feel a little bit this way as a Scouser. I've had to defend Liverpool from mockery nearly all my life, I won't put up with it, and in the last 8 - 10 years, we've suddenly experienced people moving to Liverpool from the south of England on purpose, not even just for jobs. And southerners who are students there are *staying* there. Its weird - in one way, I want to say "I told you it was great" and OTOH I'm concerned about disappearing into the melting pot. But Liverpool *is* one of the original melting pots! So I'd better shut up and get on with it

[Deleted User]

OK I'll second that the Centre for Alternative Technology IS one of the best places in the whole world to visit, it's inspirational, alternative and cutting edge with green ecology to solve our world problems, gets 101% out of 100 as far as I'm concerned.

MAR I'm so pleased you like the cookery book, that's brilliant and I hope you're finding it easier to do the cooking that doesn't come naturally to you, well done!

moneyistooshorttomention

Karmacat wrote: »

I feel a little bit this way as a Scouser. I've had to defend Liverpool from mockery nearly all my life, I won't put up with it, and in the last 8 - 10 years, we've suddenly experienced people moving to Liverpool from the south of England on purpose, not even just for jobs. And southerners who are students there are *staying* there. Its weird - in one way, I want to say "I told you it was great" and OTOH I'm concerned about disappearing into the melting pot. But Liverpool *is* one of the original melting pots! So I'd better shut up and get on with it

Can sympathise in some ways - and I've come from where pretty much all I know is "melting pot" and I was one of the few "locals" there. That is - except for my workplace - where quite a few of us were "locals".

All I've ever known personally - throughout the vast majority of my life - is "melting pot" as you put it.

I've stood there before now - ie in social settings - where everyone introduced themselves. Typical of my home area is everyone (but everyone) saying they are from different parts of Britain but non-British people are a "bit of a novelty.

It is going to vary - a LOT - across Britain as to what we are individually used to as "The Norm". Some are used to only people from their own area, some are used to people from right across Britain (puts up hand here), others are used to people from all corners of the world.

It is astonishing just how much whatever-we-personally-are-used-to in that respect influences our outlook personally and you really are almost certainly not going to realise that's the case until you move to an area in a different "category" in that respect.

I've seen it in my own area - ie where we were "whatever...whatever... and a huge proportion of people are from elsewhere in Britain" to a place only a short travel distance away (ie 10 miles or so) where it was "local/local/local" and I was glad I was "local" too in order not to feel OutaPlace.

So - I've now witnessed being regarded as foreign in my own country (ie here) on the one hand - but have also witnessed other people being regarded as "British" that aren't on the other hand (ie home area). It does seem to boil down - to a very large extent - to what part of Britain we come from and what our own personal individual experience is.

Karmacat

mardatha wrote: »

Did anybody else get MrsL's book "Cookery and Kitchen Book for slender purses" ?? It's a really great wee book, my kind of food - complete with recipes (receipts!) and shopping lists. I love it.

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

OK I'll second that the Centre for Alternative Technology IS one of the best places in the whole world to visit, it's inspirational, alternative and cutting edge with green ecology to solve our world problems, gets 101% out of 100 as far as I'm concerned.

:j:j:j

MAR I'm so pleased you like the cookery book, that's brilliant and I hope you're finding it easier to do the cooking that doesn't come naturally to you, well done!

Details please! This has passed me by

[Deleted User]

Could you confirm one thing cooltrikerchick, before I decide if I want to visit Wales.

Sheep molesting is actually compulsory there, is it?

[Deleted User]

It's the COOKERY AND KITCHEN BOOK FOR SLENDER PURSES by EMELIE WALLER published by Faber and Faber, I've looked on E*ay and there are two copies on at £14,99, don't know if there may be any on Am*zon, it's a lovely old fashioned book first published in MCMXXXV which I think is 1935?

There are a couple of copies on A*azon second hand for £5 and £5.95 if anyone feels they'd like one.

Frugalsod

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Can I "call" that and ask for details as to why you are stating that is the case please?

As I personally do tend to think there is no reason why firms/governments/etc shouldn't run their budgets on the same sort of principles as a prudent householder. Hence I would be interested to know just why you don't think that would necessarily apply please.

I may be missing the point - but, to me - it seems that any person/household/firm/government that exercises prudent financial judgement would only spend what they actually have in the way of finances and maybe take a (very very carefully and realistically) calculated gamble based on reasonable facts.

I was very well aware that (as a former Civil Servant) I could (and sometimes did.....) turn round and say "I have much better income security than some - courtesy of all the shilly-shallying that will happen if they try and kick me out of my job and then my 3 months notice of redundancy I'm entitled to" and I did 'trade' on that at times and make financial decisions I could not have made with a lower level of job security. Gawdknows there had to be summat to make up for the sheer bl**dy awfulness of our jobs in many respects and that made up for that to some extent:cool:

Hence I can see some level of difference in decisions according to financial circumstances - but I cant say I can say I can see a huge difference between "yer average prudent individual" and "the Government" as to what financial decisions would be based on and I would be interested to know on what basis precisely its deemed Governments could make rather different financial decisions to private households???

First have a look at this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JELm6peL_sI

It explains the general concept.

Next remember that what works for individuals, firms and even local governments does not apply to governments when everyone else is trying to balance their books. Government spending makes up a part of everyone elses income. Now you might say I work in the private sector and get no money from the government. Though that misses the point that government contracts are monies paid to the private sector. So If governments cut spending and therefore some contracts those contracts to the private sector will fall. So if a firm does contract work for the government then its income will fall. So how does it react. It cuts wages and its own costs, to balance the books. So the wages of its staff fall and so they too have to cut back as well. So the expenditure of the worker is what might be spent at your firm but because the government made cuts and those cuts feed all the way through to your customers they had to cut what they bought from your firm so now you have to rebalance your books and expenditure. Now can you see how what might be right for households does not work for everyone at the same time. Governments should be running surpluses during booms and not during recessions.

This explains it better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v8m-J8sgik