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Re: Getting old
gegsy wrote:I find myself more and more listening to …..Classic FM
Radio 1 does nothing for me…
….anyone feel the same ??Greg
Radio 1’s never done anything for me except give me a headache.
Radio 4 is my staple diet but I guess we’re talking about music here so the only other presets I have tuned in are Classic FM and Radio 3 and when I want some background or relaxation I flip between them.
Mike.Re: Cheap Fuel?
I absolutely agree that the problems are extremely complex. That’s what makes it fun to discuss them, innit? 😉
I don’t so much think we should be looking to blame anybody in particular (despite the fact that I blame you lot for driving your cars and vans 😉 ).
Blaming others really gets us nowhere.
Sounds like a good idea to have UN or something like that involved. Sadly,with the UN already extremely stretched with peacekeeping duties for which it is sorely underfunded, there would need to be a big shift in political will. And in democracies that can only be brought about by people shifting and expressing their will. Their will to live in a healthy environment.
(Trouble is most people think they can carry on the same old ways, having their cake and eating it. They think it’s the government’s responsibility to see that they can do so and when asked to pay more tax to pay for their cake they threaten to vote for a different government. Only when people en masse realise where their own best interests lie will things slowly begin to shift.)
Mike.Re: Cheap Fuel?
We set them the example. Many multinational companies funded by western capital are basing their operations in China precisely to escape the environmental regulation they would face here.
For us to stand pointing the finger of blame in their direction instead of taking responsibility for our own ravaged environment is a just a way of trying to take the spotlight off ourselves.
The people there don’t have the freedom of action that we have in our democracy. I think environmental awareness is on the rise among the young educated classes in China and there is hope for the future. Let’s show them a good example by concentrating on making our use of energy efficient.
We don’t really have a choice anyway as carrying on “business as usual” is not an option.
Fun? Cycling is fun!:wink:
Mike.Re: Cheap Fuel?
kwatt wrote: the worst offenders
K.
They’re just trying to feed their families and it’s our example they’re following. We are capable of setting a better example.
Mike.Re: Tricity Bendix AW1050 Timer
Had a customer on the phone just now about one of these “finishing the programme in 15 minutes”. Clothes still wet I think she said. Has anyone had any further experiences of this fault?
Mike.Re: Cheap Fuel?
Save the planet?
The planet is not in danger. Even if a very big asteroid hit it it would probably just make a bit of a dent in it.
What is in danger is the (relatively) easy life we lead. As energy gets more and more difficult to source it can only rise in price. As it gets more and more expensive we may be forced to say goodbye to our caring society,to (relatively) cheap food, to (relatively) cheap transport, and to a whole raft of other privileges we in the rich third of the world enjoy.
Our best chance of reducing these effects is to find as many ways as possible of using the remaining oil and gas more wisely than we have used it ’til now. If we can reduce our demand for energy it might give our children the time to harness the power of nuclear fusion or perhaps some yet undreamed of alternative.
You might say it’s no use trying because India and China’s developing populations will dwarf our demand. That may be so but we will be in with some chance of remaining competitive with them and perhaps exporting our technological innovations to them only if we act reponsibly now.
I consider that clamouring for cheaper fuel is irresponsible in the current climate.
MikeRe: Cheap Fuel?
funkyboogy wrote:what about nuclear… it hasnt done homer any damage??? 😈
Yeah, nuclear. No problem there. You won’t mind if we use your back garden for a little bit of practically harmless waste left over from the last attempt. Oh, and er, would you mind coughing up a few quid to set the next experiment in train? Couple of grand per household per year for the next ten years should give us enough to get started on building a few reactors once we get all those crazy green protesters locked up. 😉
MikeRe: Functional Test of Brush Motor
Simmy wrote:
You might find a repair manual like the Haynes one very useful
Where can I find one?
Amazon I should think http://www.amazon.co.ukSimmy wrote:I have found a site where the guy sells his own generic manual http://members.lycos.co.uk/primelisting/motors.html which I was considering buying, any thoughts.
Had a very quick look at the site. The line drawings featured look pretty naff (er, slang for not very good). Think the Haynes is better and probably cheaper too.
Mike.Re: Cheap Fuel?
kwatt wrote: the onus is on those that shout about it to find out about viable alternatives.
K.Well I think its up to each individual to do what he/she feels necessary/desirable/feasible to keep the planet in a state fit for human habitation. Organisations,political parties,corporations and other groups are made up of individuals. When an individual takes a stand against the pervading apathy it can have a knock-on effect by inspiring others to join them. This is the principle being used here to try and get fuel prices down but I think the same principle can be used to tackle the problem in another way.
What we all really want is a reasonably stress-free life. (Er well, that might not be quite true of some of you who seem to thrive on it!). High fuel prices just add to our stress. I’m saying that instead of seeking the temporary solution of a lower pump price we can each review our businesses/our lives to look for innovations which reduce our dependence on a diminishing and increasingly expensive resource. That way the result is not just a temporary relief but a move towards a long term solution to the stresses faced both by the individual/business and by the planet.
So the suggestions I put forward in my reply to Chris are the sort of thing I have in mind. Instead of pushing ever harder to maintain one’s position in the rat race, stop, think and find a parallel track peopled by more sane rodents. Or indeed, turn right round and run the other way.I agree that pretty much every attempt so far devised by humanity to dig itself out of the hole it is digging has led to the hole getting deeper (as in your anti road-building example). (Though I don’t agree with your analysis of that – the greens said, “building more roads leads to more traffic.” They did not say,”building less roads leads to less traffic” as you imply they did).
I went looking for a viable alternative to my transport problem and found it in my garden shed gathering rust. But I have also heard of a thing called the air car (something like aircar.com which is being manufactured in Spain I believe, costs about £7,000 for a small saloon, bit more for the van version and by storing energy in the form of compressed air gets about 10 times the mileage out of a gallon of fuel!) When/if I get too old for my bike, I might give it a try. Also I have a friend who runs an award-winning business leasing out electric vehicles(second user ones which had been destined for the scrap heap).Small Peugeot vans 1p/mile fuel cost, 65 miles on an overnight charge. Could send details to anyone interested.
Mike.Re: Functional Test of Brush Motor
Simmy, may I ask how long you have been in this trade? Something about what you’ve written makes it sound like you’re quite new to it. You might find a repair manual like the Haynes one very useful, if so. 😉
Mike.Re: Indesit W103UKBG Overfilling – module?
Hmm. You did try the obvious first though? I mean faulty valve. They do stick on sometimes especially if you’re in a hardwater area or there’s dirt in the supply.
Mike.Re: Cheap Fuel?
Lawrence wrote:
But if your business covers a certain area you are not going to travel further because your fuel is cheaperI would bet that if fuel were cheaper some would go further to get more work when they were short rather than sit twiddling their thumbs at home.
Lawrence wrote:And with the amount of Cameras ,mobile speed traps,poor quality road infrastructure not mention roadworks around every bend nobody drives for pleasure these days ,you just drive from A-B .
LawrenceI see plenty of idiots round here who seem to be deriving pleasure from their driving at the expense of their own and others’ safety. I wish they had a racetrack somewhere near where they could go and express their agression to their heart’s content.
Mike.Re: Cheap Fuel?
Penguin45 wrote:That wasn’t why I posted this…… I run a big van with thousands of spares on board, thus ensuring a good first time repair rate. To be profligate I would need to visit twice – I don’t want to. All I want is cheaper fuel to reduce my overheads, and perhaps subsidise my social motoring a little.
Chris.
Chris, sorry if you were offended by my suggestion that you were profligate. I appreciate your logic about reducing overall mileage by carrying a load of spares but I don’t share it. I think that is just a “conventional logic” which becomes more open to question as fuel prices rise. Holding spares in stock which are rarely used and carting them with you everywhere is very capital intensive. I believe it is more efficient to reduce territory size and concentrate advertising in the local area. (Boot out Yellows/Thompsons etc. and do all the parish magazines and a periodic local leaflet drop with the money saved). The spares situation has become so difficult to predict with the proliferation of makes and models that it makes more sense to me (and this is all IMO) to carry a bare minimum and use the marvellous new technology to order spares and have them in hand next day. Two trips isn’t such a problem when you’re working a territory of 40,000 people(say 15,000 households) or less.
Mike.Re: Cheap Fuel?
kwatt wrote:
leavemetogetonwithit wrote:
You, and with enormous luck, your children will survive this crunch only if you stop and think now about how you can reduce your use of fossil fuels.I love arguing this point, you are warned. 😉
Me too. 😉kwatt wrote:One, there’s no hard scientific evidence to suggest that the climatic changes being seen are a result of anything other than natural climatic cycles.
Two, motor vehicles are only a very minute piece of a larger puzzle.
Three, instead of having the greens banging on about how we should reduce the dependency on fossil fuels how about shoiwing some initiative and actually coming up with answers instead of constant whinging about some tree frog or whatever being killed off by my Honda.
Just look at power production, woe betide any fossil fuel power stations. Alternative can’t meet the demand and nuclear is apparently the spawn of Satan. So how do we generate power then as the last I heard magic wands weren’t cutting it?
Now, I’ve said this before many, many times, I actually do support environmental protection and some of the things that go on are totally bang out of order but you have to put things in proportion. You also have to find answers and not just create new problems for yourself.
I wasn’t talking about climate change, much as I would like to, and I could bang on about that for hours on end and will do so in due course, no doubt when a suitable thread comes up. This thread is about fuel prices and I was referring to the coming, or possibly already present (no-one yet knows for sure, just like everything else, but by the time we know for sure we’ll be in the stew) phenomenon of Peak Oil. I’ve given it capital letters because I want to emphasise its importance without shouting and causing people to turn away.
In a nutshell, half the world’s oil reserves have been used up. The remaining half is being used up faster than the first half because there are billions more people reliant (no pun intended) on it. Unless bird ‘flu or some other major killer reduces the human population by half or more in the next few years then the oil will get so expensive that the world will be a very sad place, much more so than now.
Most of our food is grown using oil energy inputs in staggering proportions to the energy in the food. Off the top of my head, the figure is something like five calories of oil energy input used to produce one calorie of food on the table. So as the oil gets short, you can imagine what’s going to happen to the food. (You see green issues are not just about tree frogs, orang utans, tigers or indeed penguins. Ultimately they’re about humans).kwatt wrote:What gets me about the whole debate on fuel is that I’m sure it’s not beyond the wit of man to come up with a viable alternative, not pedal power, but there’s a lot of corporations that really don’t want to see that happen and probably even more governments that rake it in off the back of fuel taxation. Which leads me to the best bit of fuel, the majority of th ecost in the EU is grounded in tax, duty and then VAT on top of that which it is mooted may actually be illegal. At best it’s immorral to charge a Value Added Tax upon a tax already levied.
Agreed most of what we pay for fuel (yes, I pay it too when I get a bus or train or eat some food brought to my local market in a van) is tax. That’s lucky for us in a way because the huge recent hikes in the crude oil price have not hit us so hard as they would have done. The rise from $30 dollars /barrel to $60 in a year or two (excuse my vague figures – my finger is not on this pulse) has only driven the pump price up by….??..you know better than me but it’s not 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}.
kwatt wrote:So here’s a thought for you since you’re green, if the fuel tax is reduced by any great amount just where do you think that goverment is going to find funds to provide services, you know, like the NHS et all? That’s right, straight from everyone including those that have campaigned to get it to that stage, nobody will escape.
I would not advocate fuel tax reduction! Very much the contrary!
kwatt wrote:Like most political lobbies the Greens punt out propoganda to suit their own ends and much of what I’ve seen is based on “Hoodoo Voodoo” science a lot of which is being called into question within the scientific community. Makes for good Hollywood blockbusters and interesting tabloid headlines though as well as providing a good excuse to charge more for “green” products and charge more “green” taxes.
I used to support the green movement in many ways until they just got silly.
K.
You hear quite a lot from the scientists who question the human part (“anthropogenic aspect”) in bringing about climate change. The reason you hear quite a lot from them is because people, including politicians and media chiefs, don’t want to admit to themselves or to anyone else what kind of a creek we are up without a paddle.
I’m not saying that the greens have any answers – but I think they are asking the right questions.
Mike.Re: Cheap Fuel?
Even if you succeeded in obtaining 10p off a litre – and I am pretty sure you won’t – it would only be a very short term respite. In fact it would bring the inevitable crash closer. Even if you didn’t drive further because petrol was cheaper this week than last week there would be plenty of other people who would and thus supply would run out quicker, giving all of us less time to adapt. And we don’t have much time.
This is not a question of oil companies/retailers/govt. conspiring against the motorist.(Although, inevitably, some will use it to obtain a very temporary financial lift). It is simply a question of world oil reserves reaching a point where demand is about to outstrip supply. You, and with enormous luck, your children will survive this crunch only if you stop and think now about how you can reduce your use of fossil fuels.
Mike.
