No Waste Like home

squeaky

I'm sure your bakery is very nice and all that but have you considered a breadmaker? Make home made loaves for 20 - 30 pence (when shopping right) which means it'll pay for itself fairly quickly if you regularly eat bread.

margaretclare

squeaky wrote:

I'm sure your bakery is very nice and all that but have you considered a breadmaker? Make home made loaves for 20 - 30 pence (when shopping right) which means it'll pay for itself fairly quickly if you regularly eat bread.

Hi

Yes, I have considered a breadmaker. I do make bread (without a breadmaker!) but it goes so fast because B eats it.

I feel I want to support the local bakery now that I've discovered it (and it has been here all the time!!) We go to the local greengrocer just about every other day and the bakery is just across the street.

In addition, there is at present a major redevelopment and reconstruction going on in our little town centre, on a derelict site (old hospital buildings etc) behind the market square. As part of that redevelopment there are going to be old people's flats and yet another supermarket. An elderly gentleman has been campaigning for the last few years now on the grounds that 'the old people who are bussed in to the day centre need a supermarket'. The usual arguments - choice, convenience, cheapness.

So, how long will the baker's, the greengrocer's, the butcher's etc survive? We already have former shops replaced by a tanning studio, a video rental shop etc. Buying a £1 granary loaf knowing where it has been made, is just part of my small protest. OK I could make it cheaper with a breadmaker (after I'd absorbed the £80 or so cost). But that's not the point.

Aunty Margaret

Margaret Clare

squeaky

margaretclare wrote:

In addition, there is at present a major redevelopment and reconstruction going on in our little town centre, on a derelict site (old hospital buildings etc) behind the market square. As part of that redevelopment there are going to be old people's flats and yet another supermarket. An elderly gentleman has been campaigning for the last few years now on the grounds that 'the old people who are bussed in to the day centre need a supermarket'. The usual arguments - choice, convenience, cheapness.

So, how long will the baker's, the greengrocer's, the butcher's etc survive?

If my village is anything to go by... about a year.

We already have former shops replaced by a tanning studio, a video rental shop etc. Buying a £1 granary loaf knowing where it has been made, is just part of my small protest. OK I could make it cheaper with a breadmaker (after I'd absorbed the £80 or so cost). But that's not the point.

Aunty Margaret

Margaret Clare

I rather gathered as much. In my own little area I don't really ahve the choice. The village "bakery" just buys everything in ready made and the local Asda... hmm...

..so I makes me own

margaretclare

squeaky wrote:

I rather gathered as much. In my own little area I don't really have the choice. The village "bakery" just buys everything in ready made and the local Asda... hmm...

..so I makes me own

Yes, I would make my own if that was all the choice I had.

Funny, isn't it - all the arguments in favour of supermarkets offering 'choice, convenience, cheapness' etc really boil down to having NO choice as you illustrate above.

Therefore to everyone - if you have any small shops or small traders at present, use them or lose them!

Asda is of course now part of Wal-Mart. There's another book called 'How Wal-Mart is destroying the world, and what you can do about it' by Bill Quinn.

We don't need the like of Lenin as Big Brother - Big Brother is already here!

Aunty Margaret

squeaky

Hoy!!

I am a big brother!! I'm the oldest!

filigree_2

I only just got round to watching the video. I was disappointed by most of it, but I agree that this sort of show makes me all smug!

The family were given instructions to do less of this and that, but their real problem lay with their attitude to life, using a teaspoon less washing powder wasn't really the issue. I'm not very good at the pop psychology but I had a feeling that this couple grew up with a lot less money than they have now. A lot of their excess spending was on home comforts, ie an excessive amount of food, clothing and warmth... My gut feeling is that they are using material goods to buy security and happiness.

Generally though, I'm worried that the series will just turn into another freak show. There was a serious message in there somewhere, but it was buried under silly stunts and it made the whole subject look ridiculous. Most MSEers are probably sympathetic towards the subject of saving energy, but someone less committed to the cause would take one look at the mangle and lanterns and turn off in disgust!

margaretclare

squeaky wrote:

Hoy!!

I am a big brother!! I'm the oldest!

Sorry, squeaky.

I meant, of course, Big Brother as in George Orwell's novel '1984'.

Aunty Margaret

squeaky

Forgiven

jazzyjustlaw

margaretclare wrote:

Hi

We've been trying to live in an ethical and sustainable way as far as we can. We've now taken it one step further by boycotting supermarkets as much as possible.

This has involved me in a bit of argument with B, who always spoke up for the 'convenience' and the 'choice'. But he's now coming round to my way of thinking.

I hadn't realised how much of a stranglehold the whole supermarket ethos had got until watching those Channel 4 programmes recently on 'Supermarket Secrets' and then reading the books by Felicity Lawrence and Joanna Blythman respectively: 'Not on the Label' and 'Shopped'.

I am horrified - you don't need a George Orwell-type dictatorship as in his novel '1984'. The supermarkets will control everything 'cradle to grave' if we're not careful! I'm also horrified because it's my generation which has allowed this to happen and we've unleashed a monster. It's my generation because we're the ones who can remember the first supermarkets appearing back in the early 1960s.

Our latest discovery is that there's a small bakery and shop in our little town which actually makes its bread etc from flour. The other one does it, as do all the supermarkets, from pre-made dough. A daily loaf of granary bread made fresh on the premises instead of being trucked all round the M25 and back again, one loaf for £1 - they will be getting our business from now on. And they're just across the street from the greengrocer's that we go to. We go there because his stuff is the same price as the supermarket - 'every little helps' - but it's far better quality.

Margaret Clare

I am interested in why you call it a monster. I already think the Supermarket is controlling everything from "cradle to the grave." I do not see how this is bad. I save so much money. Whn I first had my daughter I had to go without food twice or more a week as I did not have enough money to shop in my local shop and I lived nowhere near a supermarket. I buy nearly everything except clothes at the supermarket and will buy shares in them too.

I would however prefer to buy fruit and veg at a farm shop as they taset better but I live nowhere near one so I have to have supermarket ones.

Rave

Mr_Proctalgia wrote:

I remember seeing that the solar Panels that went up had a small PV in the corner so I think the system would have been this one http://www.solartwin.com/ A bit pricey for me as the local council offers them for about £1400 but I am intrigued by the simplicity. :think:

Personally I'd go for the cheaper ones, because just as large PV installations are not cost effective, I can't see how the increased cost of the solartwin setup will be justified through the saving of the 'parasitic' electricity used for pumping.

I followed competitionscafe's links, and the BBC reckon that a typical PV setup costs £8000 'including a government grant' and reduces electricity bills by £80-100 a year. That's 80-100 years to break even- quite pathetic!

Rave - I wasn't going to buy PV panels Oh no - in true money saving style I have decided to nick them off the local parking meters instead, that way everyone will save!:A

:rotfl:

Moneysaving, yes. Ethically sound, debatably. Environmentally sound, no;).

I did get hold of 24 25Ah cyclon cells so all I need now is a free invertor, I think the planning would be a lot of hassle for a turbine although there is apparently a 1Kw model out now that is roof mountable.

I don't have a garden, so I planned to bung it in my mum's, possibly by slotting a pole into the rotodryer hole in the lawn so that it's removable. Her house is in a conservation area so we almost certainly wouldn't get permission for roof mounting. This would just be a trial run really- if I can get it to work, it seems to me that it would be an excellent use for the hundreds of thousands of alternators that must get scrapped every year along with the cars they reside in. There seem to be plenty of people selling domestic wind power systems, and some advertise a break even point of 10 years with a 20 year lifespan. If I could get the break even point down to, say, three years (even with a reduced lifespan through using secondhand parts) then I think that would make it an even more attractive proposition.

Just a pipe dream ATM though:rolleyes:.