sime42

Parasites.

Talking of lobbying. Obviously £10,000 was not enough. Presumably Liz Truss was given a lot more than that Suella Braverman received £10,000 leadership bid donation from prominent climate denier’s firm | Suella Braverman | The Guardian WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM Attorney general declared the donation from company owned by Terence Mordaunt, who chaired the climate...

I'd consider a Euronymous, 'Silver Queen" for example. I'd class it as a well behaved climber as it were. Not too vigorous, not spiky at all. Compared to something like a clematis or wisteria; they grow like stink so would be a nightmare to maintain in a very controlled manner as you desire. Ivy would also get out of hand pretty quickly, I reckon you'd regret it after a year or two. Bloody stuff! Not sure about the shroud idea. It's good but not quite sure how you'd implement it in practice. I don't think you'd ever be able to seal it against the wall for long. Might just have to accept that you'll need to spend an hour or so every quarter snipping off emergents.

Ain't that the truth; there's more than enough money sloshing around in this country. That's not the whole story though, it's also about the distribution of that money. There's always people on good incomes with plenty who claim hardship, or other people with two new cars on the drive of the detached house with children in private school etc etc, who whine about having to pay tax. By contrast there are people at the bottom who genuinely do not have enough money to live properly on. (I'm deliberately not including the feckless and career benefit bums in this category.) At the top of the pyramid sit the big greedy companies, like the utilities, who wantonly rob us all. Meanwhile government just stands aside and lets them do it. We live in one of the wealthiest nations in the world, yet it is also one of the most unequal in terms of weath distribution. We're seeing the fallout from that now. Scandinavian countries are similarly well off, on a national level, but are far more balanced and equal. Just my opinion, but their significantly higher quality of life, for all citizens, must be a consequence of that.

I reckon most people speak English more clearly than the average Devonian too.

Saves on buying ropes and climbing kit I guess.

This is the answer I'm pretty sure. The can hasn't so much expanded as just changed shape, got rounder. It happens with time anyway but the recent heat waves have accelerated the process. I know because I have exactly the same Combi can as in the OP photo and have noticed that over the years the 5ltrs of alkylate fuel I put in is lower and lower down the scale. As the can gets more and more round/fat.

On balance I think I would eat as many of the windfalls as you can, if in decent condition. If there's still an excess, or they're damaged, take them to the local juicing place. Much quicker to juice them in bulk in a big machine. Or cook them up and bottle them, you can cut out any bad bits out then. For good apples on the tree I'd dry store, (individually wrapped in newspaper, wooden trays, cool, dry pest proof place) the excess that you don't eat. Not sure if it's been mentioned already but the fruit have to be in perfect condition to be stored like this, if they're on the ground, windfalls, they'll inevitably be bruised.

Or just stew and bottle them. They'll last for years, without taking up valuable freezer space and electric.

Result, sounds like you've got off lightly. If it's Dormice then they're welcome to the nuts I reckon. They need all the help they can get, poor little blighters.

Dont you get problems with squirrels? Every tree I see with any traces of nuts has nearly always been savaged by the little cnuts!

Ummm, interesting. Maybe there are different cultivars of Turkish Hazel, some larger so worth harvesting. Or they're actually cultivating some type of common hazel for harvest in Turkey. Hazel - Wikipedia EN.M.WIKIPEDIA.ORG This is a bit like walnuts. We only see one type in this country, the "standard" large edible variety. But if you go to China you can see loads of different types, ranging in size from peas to small oranges. The smaller ones are used for decoration or trinkets, the same with hard larger ones. There's one type that is big with a really thin shell that you can open by squeezing between thumb and finger.

I don't think Turkish Hazel is much good from a nut perspective. They're planted round here as street and park trees. I was quite hopeful of a good harvest the first time I saw them but was disappointed on closer inspection. The nuts are small and very hard, not much nut to shell ratio at all. They make attractive small trees nonetheless.

Don't want to state the obvious, but it can't be a farmer as there's been no baler cord or silage tape deployed.

I heard today that they're struggling in the Rhine Valley. There's a mass of industry along it with a lot of the associated goods and materials shipped in huge barges on the river. The levels are now so low that it's either physically impossible to float some of them or not economically viable because they have to be so lightly loaded. I'm not sure that it's appreciated exactly how much rain is required to bring the system back up to normal levels, both here and on the continent. No doubt certain sections of the press will be screaming to have restrictions lifted as soon as we have even a couple of days of rain. https://www.fm-magazine.com/news/2022/aug/why-low-water-levels-rhine-river-hurt-germanys-economy.html

Of course. 😜

I think at the time they didn't realise that they were actually sterilising the water, it was just a step in the process of making the beer, which they'd noticed didn't make them sick as often as drinking water.

Never done any home brewing? It's fun, you ought to try it. Plus you can save a bit of money.

Exactly. And no water infrastructure. Better to drink small beer rather than water that your neighbour had pissed or dumped in!

Talking of Halogens. We'll be getting tasty chlorinated chicken from America soon. Thanks in part I think from good old Liz Truss. I'm not sure that all halogens are bad for us; seaweed is meant to be very healthy because it contains lots of trace elements like Iodine. Maybe the "trace" is the pertinent bit, or perhaps because I is lower down the table, so less reactive.

One reason why beer began to be mass consumed was I believe because it was safer to drink than the water available at the time.

Six lots of winter cheer done today, bottled plums. The rest will be made into jam in a few days time.

Sufficient time is the key here I reckon, e.g. retirement for one. I think I'd gravitate towards a proper civilised mid-day meal as the principal one if I had enough of it. Working a standard week I struggle to take more than 30mins and not much more at weekends as I'm rushing to catch up on things. I'm happy if I can chow down a couple of sandwiches; cheese and pickle and jam or peanut plus some fruit. Homemade bread so always pretty substantial. Anyway, BBQ for dinner here this evening, making the most of the excessively summery summer;- Lamb chops, chicken wings, salmon, sea Bream, sweetcorn, aubergine, peppers and potatoes. She got rather carried away with the preparation!

That's an opening, (intended), for a joke if ever I saw one.......