Blackjacks, down memory lane

I have been talking on another forum about Blackjacks the sweets we used to munch on as children, the image is from here.

The modern wrapper is somewhat different..... from here

I wonder why they changed it ?

What I said.

Image nicked from here,

Britain, which aims to install about 30 gigawatts (GW) of wind turbines by 2020, will need to build almost as much backup power generation for calm weather periods, an executive from Scottish Power said on Wednesday.

The government is relying heavily on the growth of wind power to meet tough EU renewable energy targets and promises another £525 million in support for offshore wind as part of Wednesday's budget.

But the more wind turbines Britain erects the more conventional plants it will need.

"Thirty gigawatts of wind maybe requires 25 GW of backup," said Rupert Steele, regulation director at the Scottish arm of Spain's Iberdrola, one of the world's largest wind farm operators.

"The problem is that if you've got a high-pressured area, you may have quite a large area where there's no wind at all ... That happens also offshore," he told Reuters.

Britain plans to install as much as 30 gigawatt of wind capacity, mostly offshore, as part of its efforts to source 20 percent of its energy from renewables by 2020.

At end-2008, it had wind capacity totalling 3.24 GW, including 2.65 GW onshore and 566 megawatts (MW) offshore. It is to reach 4 GW later in 2009 and 5 GW early next year.

Scottish Power had installed capacity of 665 MW by the end of last year and is close to completing Whitelee Windfarm, near Glasgow, which will be Europe's largest onshore site with 140 turbines.

Steele said wind farms usually had a load factor of 30 percent, which meant they provided 30 percent of named plate capacity over the year.

(Reporting by Nao Nakanishi) Yahoo News

There is, of course, no money in the budget to build the power stations.

Just what we need, more windchimes.

I read that the budget will include a figure with lots of noughts at the end of it to promote more wind turbines. The government is obviously out to get the 'stupid' vote to shore up their 'grandfather used to vote labour' vote.
The map above is from xcweather and shows that not a single turbine in The British Isles, onshore or offshore will be producing any useful power today as there will be no wind of more than 10mph. The forecast for the next few days is more of the same, I look at this site daily as the wind strength and direction is important in my decision whether to go to the coast to do some fishing and/or the the bit of coast where the wind is favourable. This situation of high pressure sitting over the area happens time and time again... and each time the gas, coal and nuclear power stations will have to turn the wick up to make up for the shortfall.

Windchimes are put up by trendies, usually 'wimmin' who are 'finding themselves': the chimes have no function other than to announce when the wind blows, they are expensive, irritatingly noisy, a waste of money and completly pointless..... although your 'trendy' will lay claim to a spiritual gain.

Exactly; wind-chime, wind-turbine

Debate with Yasin, a challenge.

Space left here for a debate

Yasin, feel free to write in the comment section and I will transfer it to the dialogue in this post....

.......................put in links to support your argument, like the grown ups do.

Any artists out there ?

now there's a jolly jape !...

......from here

Are there any amateur artists heading towards our national gallery ?

Now, if this chap was leader of the Conservatives...

For those with a long memory of dummies

Archie Andrews, a dummy who was given a voice by someone else

Michael Gove

saying nothing.....

I posted a while back about the money wasted on the new style collapsible sign posts; a rash of new signs has sprouted up on the sides of the A303 through Wiltshire, Dorset and Somerset.... dozens of them, scores of them. They carry no message that can be read at present but are cunningly designed to be opened up to display a message when the time is ripe.

The road is already well sign posted, directions, road numbers and miles to various places en-route are listed quite adequately.... more warnings of revenue cameras than you can shake a fist at; there are even signs that advise that you should take a break as tiredness kills.

So what is on these ?

My best guess is some government nannying;

perhaps

Buses use this road ! .... are you wearing clean underwear ?

your own suggestions are welcome.



Students of design will note that the collapsible posts will do just that, collapse..... slowing the vehicle enough to drop the nose into the pit they have dug for the concrete foundation. The car should then flip up and over and come to rest embedded on the tree behind it, clever !

FFS No. 938

This picture of a bag containing two potatoes illustrates the total disconnect that now exists between town and country; potatoes are planted in the spring and are harvested during the summer and autumn. The potato plant grows from a potato, from one seed potato a plant grows that produces many other potatoes. It stands to reason that a potato must last from harvest to planting season if there are to be any potatoes at all next year. The potato is stored in heaps in sheds out of the frost, traditionally they were clamped in the field, a clamp was made by placing straw over brushwood laid on the field, piling up the potatoes in a mound or ridge then covering with straw as thatch to keep the potatoes dry and frost free; the whole lot was then covered with soil to keep animals and other thieves out.

Someone has decided to doubt the wisdom of this plan and has decided that a potato is perishable to the extent that it can be displayed for sale for just a few days and then must be advertised as "best before" a couple of days hence.

I assume those potatoes "past their sell by date" will be shunned by the city shopper, withdrawn from sale by the city shelf stacker/unstacker and destroyed; I wonder if a city type council prodnose would prosecute the shop for selling "out-of-date" produce.

No wonder we oldies shake our grey or greying heads and wonder what the world is coming to.

Strange ally for Recreational Sea Anglers.....

UKIP comments on this EU nonsense here

Tories promote Britain shock !

The usual "all mouth and trousers" approach from the Conservatives, fine words but just where are the fine actions to go with them ?

Food labelling, ahh yes, all part of the "In Europe but not ruled by Europe" bollocks from your europhile bluelabour party.

wakey wakey.....

UPDATE

To put the above into a context you should visit Cranmer's Blog where he speaks of a muslim peer...........

It appears that a member of the House of Lords had invited the Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, to a private meeting in the Palace of Westminster. She had intended to invite her colleagues in the Lords to a private viewing of his ‘documentary’ Fitna, followed by discussion and debate in true parliamentary fashion. This is, after all, a liberal democracy, and their lordships enjoy the rights of freedom of expression and freedom of association, not to mention certain parliamentary privileges for the protection of their function in the legislature.

But no sooner had the unsuspecting baroness sent out her invitations, Lord Ahmed raised hell. It is reported that he ‘threatened to mobilise 10,000 Muslims to prevent Mr Wilders from entering the House and threatened to take the colleague who was organising the event to court’.

And so Fitna has been cancelled: it shall not now be screened in the House of Lords on 29th January.

UPDATED 12:16 12/02/2009......... originally posted 12:32 01/02/2009

put back at the top of the page, because people are still asleep

Further reading on Muslim beliefs can be found here........"A man can marry a girl younger than nine years of age, even if the girl is still a baby being breastfed. A man, however is prohibited from having intercourse with a girl younger than nine.............. continued

WAKE UP ! Islam is not another religion ' a bit like what the Jews and Christians believe'

....of color.

Last night I watched part of Question Time, there were the usual platitudes and outright bloody rubbish concerning the reaction of The Perpetually Outraged Community ( Race Division) to the use of the word Golliwog.

Liberty as usual sent along their cute little mascot, who doubles up as as spokesperson*, Shami Chakrabarti . I am concerned as to how committed she is to 'Liberty' as she seemed to be proposing that 'thought crime' should apply even to remarks made in private conversation.
A woman in the audience referred to herself as 'a person of colour'..... was there ever a more bloody stupid way of describing someone? This nonsense 'started in America' as part of the ongoing sanctification of people who are not 'white'. Years ago the word blackamoor was in use, then negro, then black, afro-american, african-american, afro-caribean ..... I can see no difference in English grammar between coloured person or person of colour, because there is none.
I note that in the legislation racism is not closely defined and it appears that a comment or action is racist if someone percieves it to be.
I should like to put on record that I shall take it as a racist comment should you inadvertently refer to me as 'white'; it can be seen that, using pure as the driven snow white as a standard 'white' it can be seen that I am beigey-pinkey-brownish. I would therefore prefer to be catalogued as 'person of colour (beigey-pinkey-brownish)'..... any other descriptor will send me into paroxysms of outrage and I shall be forced to apply for compensation. In time I hope to be more specific and be outraged if you refer to me as anything other than "a person of colour ( Pantone ref xxxx-yyyy ). The Pantone reference will, of course, vary as the season..... it is up to you to determine what may or may not be deemed to be offensive.

* on proof reading this I notice that I had her down as pokesperson.....

British Jobs.

"In 1596 Elizabeth I had already decreed that all "blackamoors" should be sent back to Spain or Portugal as they were disturbing local labour markets....."


So, Elizabeth II, it seems there is a precedent;

we await your decree.

UK franchise available ?

I came across this link for Newspaper front pages around the world, an excellent little tool..... so looking up NZ to see whats going on in #2 son's world I find this gem

Phantom Expander's boy racer vendetta exhausts community

4:00AM Wednesday Feb 04, 2009

A self-titled "Phantom Expander" has begun a personal vendetta against large car exhausts in Blenheim by filling them with expanding foam.

Police have received four complaints of "foamings", but the four victims managed to clear the foam before it set, Constable Michelle Stagg said.

A police officer was one of those targeted, she said.

"Police do not like to see people taking matters into their own hands and it can lead to them being arrested themselves."

The Phantom Expander wrote an anonymous letter to the Marlborough Express saying he was targeting boy-racer-style car exhausts.

"I have taken it upon myself to respond to the socially maladjusted Blenheim pinheads that have chosen to have a wide-mouthed, boy-racer exhaust installed on their car."

Dispensary optician Anna Gellatly was one of the Phantom's early victims.

Her car was foamed while she was working in the town centre.

She said she was not a boy racer and had bought the 1992 Honda Civic two months ago because it was cheap.

"That person doesn't even know who I am or how I drive as I don't drive like a boy racer, and it's not one of those cars," she told the Marlborough Express.

"This is nothing but straight-out vandalism."

Miss Gellatly managed to pull out the foam before it set.

In the letter, the Phantom said the "public service" would continue until the "inadequate knobheads get the message".

"It may not happen tomorrow, next week, or next month, but it will happen. Enjoy!"

- NZPA

UK franchise available.... but to include mopeds that kids think sound 'powerful'.... but sound to everyone else like fucking strimmers.

Why the rush on Lords Reform ?

Government plans to clean up the House of Lords

The Government is also planning to use the scandal to hasten radical reform of the House of Lords with plans for peers to be elected rather than appointed.

Officials are studying whether the rules on criminals could be applied retrospectively.
New laws allowing peers to resign are also likely to be introduced which Mr Straw believes may be used by peers found guilty of crimes in the past.


There is no doubt that the House of Lords would be cleaned up by ejecting the odious 'Lord' pictured but it strikes me that while everyone is watching Straw's one hand removing dud Lords his other hand is slipping in provision for that nasty little creep to ditch his 'Lordship' and take over from Brown..... if of course a safe labour seat still exists.