Preparedness for when

craigywv

morning all been lurking again....my solar charger arrived yeaterday i was suprised at how big it was so have been playing with it lastnight, its on windowsill now so will see how itcharges today hopefully we might get somne sunshine today. been enjoying your posts i havent been contributing as i dont know the ins and outs of cypriot banking to comment on it ...just its a bloody disgrace!!! my heart goes out to tose poor people xxx

thriftwizard

No sunshine here today, just yet more rain... after the cold snap, I'd kind of hoped that the ground had dried out a bit, but yesterday all the little "winter bournes" were running again, happily washing away the tarmac wherever they cross rural roads. I hate to think what the road repair bill is at County Hall after this winter; some of the potholes around here are so big you could easily break an axle (or an ankle, if no vehicle) falling into them.

It's little things like this that make me think TS IS actually hitting the fan, slowly, almost imperceptibly. Enormous potholes that don't get filled for weeks, and nothing done about the underlying causes. Hedges that don't get cut on dangerous corners. A postal service that now costs an arm & a leg & can't be trusted to actually try to deliver letters or parcels, as long as it's making a profit for its shareholders. No-one being able to afford a trip to the dentists. A Government that trumpets inflation rates that are quite simply plucked out of thin air & decides that very sick & disabled people are perfectly fit for work, although there aren't actually any jobs. Schools that have to teach things that are actually wrong to children so that they can pass tests (thinking of Ohm's Law & combined science GCSE here) & are supposed to "improve" their results year after year, even if they started off well, or be closed down.

Sometimes I think we really are living in the Red King's dream - or possibly nightmare - and it's about time he woke up.

taurusgb

thriftwizard wrote: »

No sunshine here today, just yet more rain... after the cold snap, I'd kind of hoped that the ground had dried out a bit, but yesterday all the little "winter bournes" were running again, happily washing away the tarmac wherever they cross rural roads. I hate to think what the road repair bill is at County Hall after this winter; some of the potholes around here are so big you could easily break an axle (or an ankle, if no vehicle) falling into them.

It's little things like this that make me think TS IS actually hitting the fan, slowly, almost imperceptibly. Enormous potholes that don't get filled for weeks, and nothing done about the underlying causes. Hedges that don't get cut on dangerous corners. A postal service that now costs an arm & a leg & can't be trusted to actually try to deliver letters or parcels, as long as it's making a profit for its shareholders. No-one being able to afford a trip to the dentists. A Government that trumpets inflation rates that are quite simply plucked out of thin air & decides that very sick & disabled people are perfectly fit for work, although there aren't actually any jobs. Schools that have to teach things that are actually wrong to children so that they can pass tests (thinking of Ohm's Law & combined science GCSE here) & are supposed to "improve" their results year after year, even if they started off well, or be closed down.

Sometimes I think we really are living in the Red King's dream - or possibly nightmare - and it's about time he woke up.

:T :T:T excellent post, very well put!

Rosemary_Jane

sb44 wrote: »

Don't know about the plant feed but it is male urine that works as a compost activator, so don't bother saving yours up ladies.

I think that may need further research. I have read that all urine works well as a fertiliser as it contains the ammonia; but that the oestrogen in it may be dangerous to wildlife, so that urine from women of childbearing age, on the pill, or on HRT should be composted before use.

I have seen on aquaponics and hydroponics forums (fora?) about what is called 'peeponics' and thought it interesting.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Liquid-Gold-Logic-Using-Plants/dp/1903998484/

Liquid Gold: The Lore and Logic of Using Urine to Grow Plants

Book Description: "Don't flush it down the loo - save your pee and fertilize your garden! Because it is not recycled, our urine is wasted and pollutes the water system. Yet it could provide 50% - 100% of the nutrients needed to grow our food. Use your pee to make a liquid manure: recycle, save water and energy, and prevent pollution, all at the same time! In the 19th century you could sell your urine for a penny a bucket - or 1.5 pennies if you were a redhead Early Romans used urine as mouthwash In some cultures, urine is used to clean wounds and as a health tonic Urine can be used in curing leather, and as a tattoo pigment Discover the delights of the urine-diverting composting toilet, the activists' urinal, and the urinal for women; find out about customs and rituals connected with urine, the science and technology of its use, and profiles of liquid gold at work all over the world in farms and gardens. Take to the fresh air when nature calls and fertilize your garden for free with Carol Steinfeld's entertaining and fact-filled book!"

I am trying to work out a non-smelly way of persuading the family to do this - mainly to save the water used in flushing the loos.

R

GreyQueen

Morning all.

Thriftwizard, I've been noticing the steady worsening of what might be called the fabric of the country for a long time now.

Potholes which you could lose a small child in, on A grade roads in some cases, being left month in month out. There are plenty of p-poor patch jobs on potholes here in the city, just where you use the road as a cyclist, or where the nearside tyres of a car run. I have a damaged back wheel on my own bike as a result of landing in one of them and had to have it hammered back into shape by the bikeshop. And, no recompense from the council when I tried to get the £10 that cost me back, either.

Wheel's never been right since and will need a re-build (new rim and spokes) soon or I'll swop my bike for Mum's, haven't decided yet.

Everywhere you can see things going to pot. I heard that a school was going to concentrate on literacy, making sure that pupils (secondary school pupils btw) could read and write by the time they left. I nearly spat my tea......!!!!!! have they been doing with them for 11 years if they were turning out illiterates?!

I once had to tell an 18 y.o. (no apparent learning disability) how to spell "take". He asked me because he didn't know and needed to write it on a form. I coulda screamed.

Constantly coming across Brit companies in a variety of fields whose good name has gone down the pan because they've outsourced their production (or components production) to China and their goods just ain't any good any more. And since when did plain old ordinary household taps fail constantly in less than a decade?

Seems to me that everyone is just hoping to make things/ repair things just well enough not to get keelhauled over the consequences. I heard someone remarking that their fridge had done 8 years and that was pretty good. No, actually, it's pretty damn poor. Plenty of fridges used to last 30 years. I've known several which did so. Under a decade is rubbish. But we've had our expectations so steadily eroded that we literally can't get our heads around quality any more.

OK, rant over, need some more tea before going to w*rk.

westcoastscot

GQ we homeschooled, but youngest decided he would like to try school for standard grades (similar to o'levels). In english he was given a book - a small chapter book with loads of pictures, and also an audio book if he couldn't read it - he was outraged, at home he was in the middle of Boswell/Johnson's Tour of the Hebrides and the teacher didn't believe him!
He lasted about two weeks .
Plenty of his friends can barely read and write, and they're all 20 now.

GreyQueen

westcoastscot wrote: »

GQ we homeschooled, but youngest decided he would like to try school for standard grades (similar to o'levels). In english he was given a book - a small chapter book with loads of pictures, and also an audio book if he couldn't read it - he was outraged, at home he was in the middle of Boswell/Johnson's Tour of the Hebrides and the teacher didn't believe him!
He lasted about two weeks .
Plenty of his friends can barely read and write, and they're all 20 now.

It scares the spit outta me, I must admit. If you're illiterate or barely-literate you are incredibly vulnerable to exloitation and pretty much sentenced to a life of low-quality employment, regardless of your aptitudes.

One of my great-grandads never went to school and was illiterate until one of his daughters went to school; she learned and she taught him to read and write. I've been told by someone who worked in one of the longstay mental institutions in the seventies that several illiterate mentally-ill patients were taught to read and write by one of their porters. Off his own bat and in his spare time. And he'd not been trained to teach.

Basic literacy isn't rocket science, it's the cornerstone of education and pretty much essential to functioning in the modern world and if the schools can't achieve that, they should blinking well be ashamed of themselves. I think any parent who removes a child from such a failing insitution to homeschool them should be applauded.

We used to play a game at home where Mum or Dad would flick through a dictionary, stop at random, quote a word and get us to spell it and define it's meaning. And we'd watch Mastermind and University Challenge (my parents both left school at 15 and have no educational qualifications btw) and answer questions. Even as a young teen I could get about 8-10 of the Mastermind general knowledge and the odd one of the specialist questions occasionally (Dad, being very widely-read, did a lot better).

People who've met my Dad out of context, such as on holiday, have assumed that he's a schoolmaster or an academic, like them. Not bad for a labourer/ farmboy/ factory worker.

I always say that if you can read and write you've got the keys to the castle and can do a lot of things. Deprive someone of that and you've done them an appalling disservice.

westcoastscot

Totally agree GQ - makes you wonder what they do all day doesn't it? We chose to homeschool as we couldn't "pursuade" school to educate our children to our standards - I could perhaps understand for two of my children - one with dyslexia and one with severe health issues, but one of my children was considered highly gifted and they couldn't teach her either!!!! The LA spent a lot of money putting in all sorts of supports, but at the end of the day if the teachers chose not to teach it's very hard to beat. For us school was a very negative experience, for me and the kids, so we decided to take all the time I spent arguing with them and see what we could do for ourselves! Turned out to be quite well, thankyou, and a huge amount of fun.

VJsmum

I teach in a University - admittedly not one of the top - flight "Russell Group" uni's as ours is a vocational course where we are supposed to be turning out Professionals who will have "chartered" status. The standard of literacy amongst some is appalling - the standard there/their/ they're and would of / should of / could of (which drives me nuts) but much worse. I recently did some marking for a Russell group uni and the standard of their students was far worse than ours, on the whole.

my 14 year old DS is currently having additional English and maths lessons as, according to his teacher, if he could talk his way through exams he would be brilliant but he has always struggled to put it in writing. it is almost like he can't write it fast enough or well enough for his liking and gets frustrated that people don't understand what he means. I believe that both my children speak well because we talk to them and this doesn't happen with many families. We have always made a point of eating together at a table with no TV on, so for at least half an hour a day we have good meaningful conversation. it is amazing how many families don't do this. We have also always read to them and had books around for them from when they were babies and this, too, makes a difference. Some children start school without ever seeing a book, to the point that they don't even know which way up to hold one or where it opens!

RAS

westcoastscot wrote: »

In english he was given a book - a small chapter book with loads of pictures, and also an audio book if he couldn't read it - he was outraged, at home he was in the middle of Boswell/Johnson's Tour of the Hebrides and the teacher didn't believe him!

That is frightening.

Does not happen with GCSEs but I do wonder about exam boards that set Sense and Sensibility as the set text and the schools that think it appropriate material for 15/16 old boys. They just don't do emotions in public and that is a good way to completely put them off reading.

Both ours read avidly but decided that they hated English as a subject as a result of the GCSE experience.

I have to say that their handwriting, spelling and grammar is really poor IMO but school thinks it is acceptable, above standard???

VJsmum - I sympathise with DS14; I struggle to write fast enough to keep up with my thoughts.