AndrewC

Yep. Daily use for the house and shed is normally under £2. Then again there were 2 units running constantly, plus the fridge, beer fridge, and freezer all putting in overtime claims. Dreading next year when our 3 year fixed rate ends. Sadly not enough suitable roof space for solar panels unless I get the shed rebuilt with a stronger roof. Then I'd have about 75m² of south facing area to play with.

Greetings from the boring borough. Late today as work interfered early. We had rain last night. Well that is what the weather app said. I think the sum total was around what a gnat could wee out. Warm again but nothing like yesterday. Burned through £8 of electrons to power the air con in the house and shed. Power outage in the night for about half an hour. Moved the chiropractor appt as I didn't feel like sitting on a Southeastern 376 with its total lack of ventilation and their usual turn the heat on full when the temp is over 20c. We dumped the dyson on to the offspring. After the house renovations we decided no fecking carpet. We have a Shark which is more than adequate for cleaning up the dust and cat air. Anything major cleaning wise and I bring in the Karcher shop vac from the shed. Rugs just get the Shark for every day cleaning and a bath when needed. Back to work. <sigh>

Morning all. Happy Baz day. Little of note. People getting grumpy. Half of my meetings today are cancelled as people have decided to take my advise and lounge in the sun. Back to work. Enjoy the day

Sadly it wasn’t to test the rear seat ejection system.

Ahh but go outside in 30 on hols and it is glorious. Here you are dying. Nowt to do with infrastructure but all to do with mind set.

Can someone explain why the British are so fecking shite when it comes to weather. 30c = lovely holiday weather when abroad. Lay out in the sun turning into a deep fried Mars bar but still loving it. 30c at home means I'm about to burn in the fires of hell. -10c = perfect skiing weather with a few glasses après. -10c at home means the end of the world. My solution is: when it is hot put a fake picture of a Spanish resort in your window and pretend you are in Ibiza. When it is cold, a fake pic of a ski resort to make you feel like you are in the mountains. Sorted. Now stop your bitching.

On a similar note the great Canadian philosopher Red Green once said, "If the women don't find you handsome they should at least find you handy". Moaning all from the main reaction chamber of Grumpy nuclear plant A. It is hot. 2 of the 3 portable air con units are draining my bank account as I write this. The third is sadly still waiting for repair and a re-gassing. We are slightly lucky here with heat and rain. With 3 wooded areas and a large open space nearby we don't have as much of a heat island effect that some parts of London do. Also the "lump" that comprises Blackheath, Shooter's Hill, most of Welling and all the other heath bits up to Crayford also seems to create a slight rain shadow. It puts us about 50m above the Thames. It can be piddling in Thamesmead but dry here. We are normally 1-3 degrees cooler than Central London. Twas another quiet weekend with little accomplished apart from managing to get a pair of cat6 cables finally pulled into the office. I just need to now install a back box and RJ-45 sockets at the office end. The ever increasing wifi interference around here means I really need to hardwire the mesh nodes. Once upon a time I pretty much had the 5ghz band all to my self with zero others showing up in range. Now it is bloody crowded. <geek talk> Getting rid of the dedicated wifi that connects the mesh routers will allow the main 5ghz wifi to double up to reduce interference instead of being split into 2 nodes. <end of geek talk> Work is work. This week I am box ticking a bunch of waste of time online courses that the client requires to be "compliant". None of it actually applies as I'm not an employee, nor am I ever going to be working in one of their offices. Iced latte time. Enjoy the day

SWMBO says you want to treat them mean. Mix your compost with about 1/3 sharp sand. Heat, sun, and minimal water are what they crave.

But do you allow people who model funny single cab diesels built in the colonies? Most of mine are either in CP action red or BN green.

Hmm, as a lapsed member, I'm really tempted to schlep up the M1/M6 for this.

Oh b*gger. That rabbit hole has just cost me the best part of £150. That's what I get for hunting things down for people. 🍺

Ask and ye shall receive. https://www.beautifulbeers.co.uk/p/chimay-white-label-tripel-8-33cl dug a bit. They currently have 8 different Chimay beers in stock. The chap who owns it is also planning on opening a Belgian beer bar.

Greetings all from the boring borough. Another hot day expected, although several degrees cooler than yesterday. It cooled off to an arctic cold of 16c last night. Brrr. On the subject of beer, (something very close to my heart, kidneys, and liver) Heineken brewed in the UK is dire. There are several other styles which you can get in the Netherlands that are actually drinkable. The same goes for the Italian, Moretti. Awful here, with some nice variants in Italy. The global swallowing up of smaller brewers continues. Stone of California has sold out to Sapporo. Several smaller brouwerijs in the Netherlands are now owned by Swinkels. (Bavaria) Heineken and Lion have several smaller UK breweries in their portfolios now. Interesting that Heineken recently told BrewDog to <censored> off when approached for a take over, and not the other way around. Seems that BD had valuated themselves out of reality, and Heineken said get real. Jealous of Phil and the Chimay. Which one/ones did you get? My personal favourite is the 150 (green label). Small amounts of the sediment is actually good for your innards. Just don't consume too much or it will clean you out. Not much else going on as usual. Loads to accomplish, burger all motivation. Today sees my 1 year anniversary at the current employer. I received a hand written card from the CEO. A nice touch. Sadly, they've grown a bit too quickly and there are a few people deciding it is time to move on. I was employee number 44. They are now at 99. Three from the project I'm working on have either put in their notice, or declined their contract extensions. One other has formally requested to be moved off the project. As a result, I'm getting busier and busier each day.<sigh> Time to fire up the caffeine-o-matic espresso machine. Lattes won't make themselves. Enjoy the day.

Weather app on phone said drizzle in 15 minutes. Then it said it was drizzling. Was it drizzling? Was it <censored>! Now it says light rain for 15:00. Not a forking cloud for miles. 30c with a Humidex of 34c. (not that the UK uses humidex but it is bloody sticky)

I'd suggest man has continued this philosophy around people being expendable and disposable with no breaks since the beginning of humanity. Only the scale of barbarity varies through history. I'd argue that the current situation in Ukraine is being fuelled by a Russian leadership that has historically seen their population (mostly rural peasants) as cannon fodder for the greatness of Mother Russia. The enemy to be slaughtered without mercy as they aren't regarded as people.

Greetings all from the boring tropical borough. Binmen are on strike from today. One of the guys next door works for them. Basically things have got much worse under their new management after Serco were turfed out last year. Not a good situation for anyone but I understand their predicament. Tiny little trees. Yes, I bought one of those little 150mm tall trees sprayed with white crap from Tesco a few years ago. It's almost 3m tall now. The birds like it. Tried last year to move it. No chance. Roots like a bloody redwood. Bloody hot out. The house has now turned into a pizza oven as expected. The shed's air con has failed. Can't get a repair for 2 weeks. New unit arrived yesterday. Will get it set up shortly. The old one when repaired will go into the bedroom and the bedroom one will cascade back into my office. Been tempted to look at solar panels and a fully installed whole house cooling solution. Back at work after a week off. Haven't left the house since last Tuesday evening. Time to throw a bottle of rum in the freezer so we can raise a glass to my Step FiL on what would have been his birthday. Enjoy the day

If your minion is yellow, has one eye, and is wearing overalls, Run. Run fast. Run far.

Moaning all. First an apology. I thought I'd added birthday wishes for @petethemole and @PhilJ W . My bad. A belated Happy Birthday gents. All this talk of grilling creatures has made me hungry. A couple of notable exemptions from ID's list, moose and bison. Both are great meats. Bison especially is a very tasty meat when done right. Extremely lean it has to be cooked to no more than medium-rare. Luckily there is a UK supplier. Moose can be gamey but it does make beautiful sausage and dried jerky. For fatty meats like duck, the secret to grilling is use indirect heat. That means either an offset fire in your bbq or using a deflector stone. For duck there is also the option of using a poultry stand to catch the drippings. Generally if I'm doing a fatty bit of pork, I'll cook low and slow with a tray filled with water to catch the fat drippings. No flare ups and the water vapour keeps the meat from drying out. <thus endeth today's bbq lesson> Coffee calls, then another day of puttering about. Enjoy the day.

Greetings all from the boring borough. Been off for a bit and away from the laptop as we’ve had house pests, err guests. The ex and her hubby V2.0 have been here for a few days prior to schlepping north to visit the offspring and a bunch of her family. Loads of BBQ were consumed as part of a big Canada Day party last Friday with good friends and their munchkins. More BBQ with the visitors. I’ve still got about 1kg of brisket and some beef ribs that Fred Flintstone would drool over about to be vac sealed for future consumption. Tuesday was my solar orbit completion day. Lunch in Soho and a bit a beer crawl through Camden was enjoyed. Camden has now finally been officially ruined. The old market stalls replaced by trendy shipping container box park wanna be foodie things. What few decent pubs remain are rammed with even more horrid people than before. Thank feck for the Black Heart & British Boot Shop. (Where SWMBO just spent £900 in new footwear) Yesterday was a do burger all day. Today was a do burger all day. Got excited for a minute that something interesting politically would actually happen. Talk about a damp squib. Meh. Got my hopes up for a minute that something involving chains, boat down the Thames, the Bloody Tower, and a large French veggie slicer would be involved. Modelling Mojo has shown signs of stirring. Half of me wants to try and lay some O track in the garden when SWMBO isn’t looking. The other half of me has a box full of OO-9 and a ready made 2’ by 4’ baseboard just crying out for a micro layout which I can build on the patio while enjoying the sun and a few fermented beverages. Decisions, decisions. Back, eventually. Enjoy the rest of the day.

Greetings all from the boring borough. Back on the beer theme, Greene Thing can brew a decent beer when they want to. Some of their specials for the GBBF over the years have been pretty amazing. Normally though, bland, forgettable, and down right boring. On the other side of the business they've got a reputation now for asset stripping. Any pub with even the slightest wobble of sales or if a developer comes sniffing means bye bye pub, hello flats. We've got 5 4 3 Greene things by us. One with a tenant which has just been totally refurbished and is quite good. The other 2 including the famous We Anchor in Hope (famous if you are a Kate Bush fan as that is where she and her brother first played live. Not at the Dirty South as some insist.) could vanish any minute as they are corporate managed ones. I used to enjoy going to the cinema but these days, I'd rather just wait until the movie is available to stream. Sticky floors, extreme cost, asshats on their phones, etc. It has just become an unpleasant experience. On to the subject of missing bits. My dad lost half of his little finger on his left hand at work way back in the 50s. Almost 30 years to the day my younger brother lost half of his little finger on his left hand at work. The running joke has always been they could only count to 9 1/2. Both had the phantom pain/itch at times. Fecesbook is p1ssing me off again. Really getting tired of it deciding what I want to see. Just had a promoted (read, advert) post for Brew By Numbers summer beer fest. All well and good but the bloody thing was 4 weeks ago. Anything recent, interesting, and from friends, all seems to get buried or hidden in the feed. Maybe time to finally pull the plug as it is now next to useless. Enough b1tchiness for one day. Time for more coffee and a whole pile of meetings bloody meetings. Enjoy the day. Oh wait, it is my new friday!!! Roll on a 10 day weekend as I'm off next week.

Watney's was around well into the late 70s with the brand name still hanging on into the 90s. (Brewed in Canada sadly) Bloody awful and only marginally less vomit inducing that Double Diamond. The Watney name lives on, now owned by a brand management company. At one point it was brewed by Sambrooks but not sure if that is still the case. Thankfully the modern beers are nothing like the original. Sort of like today's Mini being nothing like a Leyland Metro or Austin Marina. The one (originally) positive thing to come out of the sh*t beers of the 60s and 70s was the formation of CAMRA.

Once upon a time I had a tee shirt that proclaimed. " I thought Puking was a city in China until I drank Watney's Red Barrel. "

The Bugs Bunny version of course.

Greetings all from the boring borough. Another weekend has passed. Another week begins. Looks to be a busy one. After nearly 3 years I finally get to speak to a real live surgeon prior to a physical appt on the 11th. Maybe, just maybe I'll finally get my elbow sorted. Little else. Currently wandering back through the past 3 days and sprinkling likes, etc. Time for another meeting. Enjoy the day.

As Nigel and Iain have said, retailers will sell you what they want to shift. In the past I've helped on layouts and/or exhibited where we've been more than receptive to people asking to test drive the DCC to see if they like the throttle(s). My suggestion would be to pop to an exhibition and simply ask around. Get a feeling of what suits you. I've got phone, tablet, WlanMaus, and various Digitrax throttles. For just plain operation I like my 25 year old DT100. The maus is good for guests, for serious running with all the sounds etc, the phone throttle is best for me. Your mileage will differ.