djbobbins

Should just be getting ready for next winter then, marvellous...

Apologies if this duplicates any previous posts, but when I searched for "cherry" I got lots of results about red diesel and MEWPs! I've been offered some cherry, felled about November, and was wondering: (a) how long to season (b) what the wood is like once it's seasoned?

Oh come on, coming home from the pub and worrying about whether the eggs are fresh or not. Okay, so my method won't deliver quite such an haute-cuisine result, but if you're home from the pub half cut and have the munchies, it might not matter. And it'll work whether the eggs are fresh or not... Take a microwaveable mug Spray in a bit of oil (if you've got one of these oil sprayer thingies), if not pour in a bit of oil and swill it around Crack the egg into the mug Microwave for about a minute (more or less time depending on power of the microwave) ... and Bob's your mother's live-in-lover...

That one stinks worse than a month-dead sewer rat... My personal advice would be to not waste another minute of your time on it.

Over in Germany the non-alcoholic beers (which they have managed to not make taste like gnat pee) are marketed as being isotonic. +1 from me for the "a bit of everything in moderation", FWIW.

If you could sell a cube at that kind of price you'd be set for life!!

Looks really good. I built a smaller shed (bespoke to fit a certain size space in the garden) at our previous house, cost me about £150 in timber (so less than the equivalent size from a DIY place) but will probably still be standing in 40 years from now. Only problem is, I sold the house 5 years ago so don't get to see it any more!

I served Franny Lee (former England footballer and Man City chairman) with a beer when I worked behind the bar in my local pub as a youth. And when I was working for a charity in Manchester I was sent out on duty during a visit by Prince Charles to shake his hands whilst I was dressed in the charity's bear costume!

It is filmed somewhere near Shipston-on-Stour in Warwickshire. Like most kids programmes it's probably best not to think too seriously about the content unless you are using controlled substances!

Dean, I was just wondering how you got on with this - did you work out the overall bill per year?

I did one last year and pretty much got the mix as above. I didn't know where to start, so decided to build the speech around quotes. In particular, there was an ice-breaker that I used at the start from Zsa Zsa gabor, who said that "a man is incomplete until he is married. After he's married, he's finished." Other than that, it was a mix of gentle ribbing of the groom, complementing all the families, bride etc, telling the bride what a nice family she has married into etc. My best man did a gag about how I'd told him on the morning of the wedding I was desperate to get my wife's knickers off. Of course, the punch line was that my reason for doing so was that I'd also allegedly told him that they were really chafing me... It seemed a good middle ground of risqué, but also acceptable for all but the most prudish auntie. Good luck, and don't get get bladdered beforehand or think you can wing it. Or both. I've seen a few speeches where that led to complete drivel or downright offensiveness.

I put a co detector and a smoke detector up in our utility / boiler room when we moved into the house. I never thought much of it until recently, when I had my trooper parked up outside the back door for a few weeks. After about 30 seconds of running the engine, the co detector started going off. It's never sounded before and I was pleased to know it is working. Made me think very carefully about running petrol engines in any area without really good ventilation, and definitely will be adhering to the regs and fitting a co detector when we upgrade the stove this summer.

Lots of "could", "possible" and "suggest" on the website... The thought of groups of people getting together to build, install and run a biomass-fired generator is optimistic to say the least. And the stats might make vague sense (44,000 kWh per year is about enough for 9 or 10 houses) but based on peak demand, a house with electric cooking, TV, hoover, washing machine etc can draw 6 or 7 kW easily (7kW = just over 30A). So unless everyone is going to take turns in doing their cooking and laundry, they will need to install a backup gas turbine to meet peak demand! Anyone else fancy harvesting 5 acres of coppice by hand? Ironically, at micro-scale this is exactly the same issue the UK power system faces - how to back up low carbon generation sources to ensure that the lights stay on, whilst keeping prices as low as possible and the CO2 emissions down.

TBH I don't know if it's "correct" or not, but my slightly lazy way of getting around the risk of an untidy stump is to fell the tree, thus getting rid of the weight and most of the risk, then take a nice tidy ring of about 2 or 3 inches off the top. Incidentally I was taught to do the bottom cut first, but I might try doing the top one - see if it is easier to line the two up.

No drinking on a schoolnight for me (unless there is a special occasion) and normally max 3 pints Friday and Saturday. Any more than that and life with two small kids is a bit too hard on the brain / ears. Until I was about 25 I could get pie-eyed and sleep the whole night through but nowadays if I have more than three pints, I find that I drop off to sleep quickly but then wake up at about 3am and can't get back to sleep properly - meaning that I end up feeling shot at the next day. We gave up drinking red wine; the missus and I would open a bottle, quaff it down in about half an hour with dinner, then she'd decide she still wanted another glass so she'd open another new bottle. She'd have about an eggcup more and then suddenly realise she felt tipsy, leaving me forced to finish the rest off. After about the fourth time of going to work and feeling like crap most of the day, I realised it made sense to let her have a teensy bit more out of the first bottle and grab myself a beer instead :-)

I take it you mean Center Parcs?? I don't know about the log prices but it's a good time of year to go... we went to the one in the lakes a couple of years ago in Jan, minus 5 outside, 30 degrees in the dome. Running from the indoor pool to the outdoor pool was "invigorating" though. I was so invigorated that I thought they'd disappeared, if you get my drift... During school holidays it's a no-no though. Nearly a grand for four nights

I would go with the "recommend" camp on this one, and sooner rather than later for three reasons: (1) The sooner you start making contributions, the more years they have to earn a return. (2) Once you have had a couple of months of paying the money into your pension, you will get used to not having it in your take-home pay so won't notice the difference. (3) Based on my experience, company pension schemes only get less generous as time goes on, but are often left to run under the old conditions for existing contributors. If the scheme is anything like the one I am in now and the one I was in with my previous employer, it can be left in deferral should I change company, so come 65 (if I make it that far) I will hopefully have a small pension from one company and a healthier one from another. Re: the comment earlier above about there not being a pension when we get old (i.e. from the state) surely all the better reason to start investing yourself!

I am going to change my open fire for a stove this summer and just as a precaution although I live in a non smoke -control area I am going to go for a defra approved jobby to make sure it is future proof in case someone changes the regs! Fwiw I'm pretty sure that there are already regs on at least maintaining efficiency levels when a heating appliance is changed, so as I understand, it would not be theoretically allowed to take out a stove and replace it with an open fire. Unless I'm talking a load of pooh!

Get a set of winter tyres on and be amazed at how much better a standard 2wd car will perform. I bought a set of steel rims from Ebay for £25 (including two decent summer tyres already fitted) and have since had dedicated winter tyres put on them. Fitted to a boggo spec Zafira, driving it on fresh snow you literally have to boot the throttle to even get it to lose traction. The winter tyres are made of different compound so give better grip in any conditions below about 7 degrees. Even though winter tyres are not required by law in the UK, I'm going to keep these and put them on from about November to February - having seen the difference, I am converted to the benefits.

I'll be interested to find out how it goes! I don't doubt that there are some differences between suppliers, but for a standard-ish consumption (between 3000 and 5000 kWh per year, say) and like-for-like payment method etc, I would be very shocked if the overall difference is anything like double. The last I heard whilst I was working in the UK, E.ON was not focusing on being the outright cheapest, for example all of the call centres were brought back to the UK from India because the customers weren't happy with the service. Personally I like being able to use £10 of Tesco clubcard vouchers to get £15 knocked off my electricity bill...

Dean - I assume your new company also charges a standing charge though, and that the E.ON price quoted was for the first 900 kWh per year? I checked mine today and I am paying 23.6p for the first 900kWh and then 12.4p for the rest. Say I use 4,000 kWh per year, but don't pay a standing charge, my total bill will be £597 or thereabouts. If I get a tariff where I pay £100 a year but then 12.4p for every single unit, my annual bill is less than a quid different. If you have got a tariff with those low unit rates and no standing charge, I'm surprised - I honestly doubt how the company would be covering its costs in the long term.

I'm genuinely curious - how much do you pay per unit then (for gas and electric)? I think all the suppliers have to offer some kind of social tariffs (which will be below the average price) but obviously only to a certain proportion of customers. My last two year deal has just come to an end in the middle of January so this has reminded me to go and update it; I will let you know what I find (p.s. there is no special discount for employees either!)

Right, at risk of getting slated... I work for E.ON in my "day job" but in the generation side of the business, not sales. I think the comments about direct debits previously have some merit, for example I have had arguments myself with the sales business for my own home account that the direct debit is too high. The only way I have ever managed to get any money back is when they do an annual reconciliation. However, the whole concept of direct debits is to try and average out payments across the year - so forecasting individual customer consumption is never going to be perfect. Regarding complexity of tariffs, E.ON has now openly decided - based on customer feedback - that the old system was too complex. The company is therefore moving towards a simplified tariff structure, so hopefully that will change things for the better. For info, I can't disclose too much obviously, but in 2013 the E.ON business in the UK will probably just about break even. As far as I understand it, for as many years as I can remember, the company has invested more in new or replacement infrastructure than it has made in profits.

A friend of mine breeds pedigree jacobs and they were all "lined up" for lambing on the 1st of Jan. She's probably been lucky with the weather, a month for them all to toughen up a bit before the cold set in.

No snow in Dusseldorf. Temperature got up to a tropical minus 4.5 today at lunchtime though; warmest it has been since Tuesday - I was outside without my coat on!