Our Log Burner

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It’s really a multifuel burner (an Aarrow Becton 7). We ran it on smokeless fuel last winter.We were thinking of replacing it with a gas fire last winter but  we decided to keep it for another year and run it on logs.

Smokeless fuel is usually dearer than logs per Kg but has a higher heat output.  But it takes quite a time for the burner to start giving out heat after lighting and quite a time for it to die down. And it leaves the ashpan full which has to be emptied every day.

Logs start burning hard within minutes, and at the end of the night the fire goes out quickly, and there is very little ash.  The ashpan only needs emptying once a week.

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The US election

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Americans were voting as started to write this.   Coincidentally this was the day in the UK where we traditionally burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament.  The bonfire is usually accompanied by fireworks. In America, folk who try to overturn an election and march on the … Read more

The Earth in Perspective

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Imagine the globe 12 inches in diameter in the middle across the equator in front of you. That’s about football size (or soccer ball size for non UK folk). It will look spherical, although it is about 1/20th of an inch smaller from top to bottom (pole to pole). Read more

The Housing Trap

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How would you feel if the council started to build houses close to yours, at a similar standard to yours, but let out at half of your mortgage payments? 
When you sell your house you will not get what you paid for it. You will be in a state of “negative equity”.  Due to the stupid way our banks work you will find it difficult or impossible to move house. Even if you have to move house for a better paid job to pay your mortgage! Read more

Fining Pieces of Paper

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The government has just fined Southern water £90,000,000 for pouring sewage into the sea.
This is ludicrous beyond belief. Corporations or companies are NOT negligent or dishonest.  They are pieces of paper with writing on. PEOPLE are negligent and dishonest. And in these cases, the people are usually high up the tree, and their crime is almost always not taking their role seriously and ignoring their own staff at the bottom of the organization. Read more

The NHS War Zone

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Is “War Zone” a strong word here?

Vladamir Putin and the Russian government are waging war on Ukraine, and civilian deaths are currently running at 188 per month (December 2022)
Jeremy Hunt and the UK government are waging war on the NHS and civilian deaths are estimated to be running at around 2000 per month.
Ukraine is generally accepted as a war zone, so, with civilian casualties over ten time higher in England, than in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Read more

Good Old South West Water.

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Cornwall has been under a hosepipe ban since August 2022.
As the latest full month of data was June, I extracted the rainfall for the 12 months up to June for the last 14 years.  It is quite obvious that we have had above average rainfall for the last three years….

Eighty per cent of beaches in Cornwall have been given raw sewage alerts after heavy rain in the South-west, according to the pressure group Surfers Against Sewage (SAS).

Earlier this month, Pennon sparked outrage by raising its dividend for the year by 10 per cent to £111.7m, despite South West Water being fined £2.15m in April for illegally dumping sewage into rivers and the sea around Devon and Cornwall. Read more