Fabric softener - do you really need it?

It is always easy to do something in a particular way because that is the way you have always seen it done. You don't want to feel left out or not part of the crowd. If that is the way others do it then that is the way it should be done.

As a child, whenever I saw my mother washing clothes, she always added fabric softener. When I left home to study at university, I had to wash my own clothes. I used softener because that is the way I had seen it done so why should I wash my clothes in any other way?

On moving to Spain my supermarket bills are 10% higher than they were. Admittedly I don't spend much in supermarkets. I never enter a supermarket without a list that I do not deviate from. I never wander around a supermarket allowing the pretty labels and fake offers to suggest I should buy what I really don't need.

To cut costs I decided not to buy fabric softener and to accept that I would be wearing rough pieces of cardboard like cloth from now on.

Well, I have washed my clothes and now I am wearing them. They don't smell like fabric softened clothes do but then why should clothes smell? They never smell of anything when you buy them so why should you add a smell when you wash them. My clothes have a neutral smell, which is just fine.

Are my clothes rough and uncomfortable to wear? No. They are not as soft as they were after being washed with fabric softener but they are not uncomfortable.

It would appear that I have peeled off another marketing fallacy from my being. The marketers want sheeple, who follow the crowd, rather than people who think for themselves. Herd the sheeple together and flog them rubbish they really don't need is the marketing mantra.

Rivas Futura - I have seen the future and it is half-built

The Saturn H2O, boating lake, dim sum island and grass clinging to sprinkler life support system (note idle cranes, top left)

Well, Spain certainly knows how to turn the heat up. A little over a week ago, I was shivering on the outskirts of rain soaked Madrid. The rain stopped and a day later, the temperature soared into the high twenties centigrade with not a drop of rain since.

In the UK, you can expect a gradual lead into the summer as temperatures rise. The summer consists of a heatwave for a couple of days, then the rain pours and we are back into the cold of autumn. Not in Spain. It's April, it's t-shirt, shorts, a red neck and it will remain like this for another five months or so.

So, with such fine weather I decided to travel, whilst waiting for the move to Asturias, and look for a cheaper supermarket. I had noticed a Carrefour supermarket on a previous journey and so I went in search of it.

My nearest Carrefour is to be found in the impressively named Rivas Futura. On arrival it looked as though it could be in any part of the western United States. Hot, dusty, arid, car friendly avenues laid out in a grid, strip malls and, as previously mentioned, half-built.

The credit crunch came afore Rivas Futura could be completed. Many of the blocks marked out by the grid of avenues and calles (streets) are barren wastelands. Car parks are, more often than not, dirt patches where tarmac with fresh white stripes should be.

Many shops are named in English. Well, you have to when you aspire to be American. There is the Saturn H2O, (I think it was called that) a big cine-multiplex and night attraction for "happening people", with rubbish filled boating lake, and Chinese dim sum restaurant on an island.

Around the H2O were sprinklers struggling to keep the grass alive and drip feed irrigation tubes for the shrubs. I saw an American style fire hydrant on one street though whether it was actually connected to a water supply is doubtful considering the general lack of water in Spain.

Carrefour was found, walked around (dodging the crowd of as many as 5 people) and departed with just two bags of flour, some butter and bread yeast. Those were the only items on my long shopping list that were cheaper than my local (and supposedly too expensive) supermarket. Well, someone has to pay for this retail pocked moonscape and so it has to be those consumers stupid enough to "make a day of it" whilst shopping far from home.

The future has to be paid for and when an economy runs out of steam then the future has to wait. Pavements (sidewalks) cracked and broken. Rubbish litters floats in lakes and blows around the dusty car parks. Water features switched off and bone dry. When will it be completed? Maybe never.

Is man made climate change a myth?

The title of this post was a question put to me, today. I thought about it and came up with the following, if somewhat vulgar, reasoning...

If I fart in a small room then you are going to know about it soon enough.

If I fart in say a theatre or concert hall then a few people in my locale might get to know of it but I could hide the fact from most of the people in the hall.

However, if everyone in the hall is forced to live in the hall and never leave then the hall would become pretty foul smelling because everyone will be farting and giving off other body odours.

The Earth is a much larger hall but it contains 7 billion people, all of whom are contributing emissions of one type or another. Our locale on Earth might not be as bad as other locales so we might deny our complicity in climate change.

In a small room, if I fart then you can open the door and leave. People don't live in concert halls. However, we might finally realise that we really are poisoning the planet but there will be no door for us to pass through to a sweeter smelling place.

There are many rooms, many concert halls but only the one Earth. Do we want to risk denying our part in climate change until it is too late? Does it hurt to be a little cleaner? What is there to lose?

Cider racking

Here is a video of some cider we racked for both sparkling and still cider.

Turbo cider is usually fermented in a week from supermarket apple juice, which accounts for its name. However, the process is little different from making cider with apples that you have pressed yourself.

After a week the cider can be drunk as a still cider or it can be racked into bottles with a little yeast and sugar to create a sparkling cider.



Part one of this video can be found here. Turbo cider (at long last!)

For all articles on cider making, click here

The new look

The new ecopunk site is now pretty much as planned. There are a few teething problems with Twitterfeed not updating Twitter but I have support working on that.

For Facebook users there are fan and group pages for fellow ecopunkers. To keep up to date on what the ecopunk is up to log on to Twitter and Facebook.

Currently, I am going through all 900+ posts and organising their labels so they are more easy to search through. I am also selecting some of the more popular articles for linking from the home page.

If you have any suggestions (I have already left the country so that is one less suggestion, thanks!) for improvements to the site then let me know.

Province of Ávila, Spain

Spain is not just sea and sun. Indeed, it has been raining pretty much everyday since ecopunk set up temporary headquarters outside Madrid.

Spain is a region of micro-climates, which permits Spain to grow a wide range of foodstuffs and allows for a healthy, locally sourced diet.

The distinct climatic areas of Spain can be classified thus,

Continental Mediterranean, inland areas of the peninsula, such as Madrid.

Oceanic, northern coast of Spain from Galicia in the north west to the Basque Country bordering France. This area is called the Costa Verde (Green Coast).

Semi-arid, south-east Spain, around Murcia.

Mediterranean, extending from the Andalusian plain along the southern and eastern coasts up to the Pyrenees, on the seaward side of the mountain ranges that run near the coast.

Localized subtropical areas exist on the coasts of Granada and Málaga.

Today's road trip was to the province of Ávila and, in particular, the Sierra de Gredos, consisting of a chain of mile high mountains.

The southern part of Ávila is more lush from higher rainfall due to the relief of the mountain chain. Those parts north of the mountains are drier and less lush but greener than the arid areas surrounding Madrid.

There are many villages nestled amongst the mountains. During the summer months they offer Spanish holidaymakers a chance to get away from the oppressive heat of the cities and indulge in camping in the forests and boating in the many reservoirs.

One village passed through was Casavieja, which had a certain hippy charm to it. A psychedelically painted bar, a hippy trinkets shop and another selling solar panels to those wishing to go off-grid.

Once again, apologies for the poor quality of the photographs but they were taken with a mobile phone just as rain clouds moved in.

A view of the mountain range. The southern side of the mountains were densely covered with pine trees. The northern side only had knee high scrub but further down there were plenty of fincas (farms) growing apple and cherry trees and plenty of grape vines.

There was ample leña (firewood) lying around the forest floor for my friend, Juan Carlos, to take some for his mother's wood burning stove.

There were many waterfalls due to the plentiful rain. The water tasted just fine!

In summing up, I would say that the southern slopes of the Gredos are good for the smallholder to grow on. There were many small fincas being tended to. The climate is pleasant and there is plenty of firewood for the winter. However, closeness to Madrid means a premium has to be paid on properties.

[Thank you to Satesclop for permitting the use and adaptation of his image of Spain using the GNU free documentation license.]

Some things to consider for the general election

The UK is to have a general election on May 6th. The top two policies on everyone's mind are the economy and immigration. In other words, everyone is worried about money and who is entering the country to take it off them.

The environment is the least of everyone's worries, at present. Of course, it is impossible for any government to have a credible policy on the environment if its main election standpoint is pushing forward its policy on the economy and keeping everyone gainfully employed.

Any two policies on the economy and the environment are going to be opposed to each other. An attempt to grow the economy will require resources and the destruction of the environment.

Political parties talk of transitioning to a zero-carbon economy but with no credible course of action. What figure for carbon reduction do our politicians throw about now, 80%, 90%, 150%?

Three articles in the news highlight growing problems for the UK but they are problems that are talked about but not acted upon during parliament and sidelined during an election.

BBC - What happens if Britain's population hits 70m?

Fast approaching, 1% of the world's population live on just 0.15% of the world's land mass. The UK is one of the most densely populated countries on the planet.

Our politicians make clear that migrants are needed to grow the economy, to pay taxes and to look after our increasingly elderly population (though the reality is that the average age in the UK is 35).

What our politicians don't make clear is what happens when these migrants are old and we end up with a larger and older population. When does it end?

In Japan there are strict controls on immigration, you cannot enter the country without a return ticket. Japan's answer to ageing is forward thinking, use technology and robotics to look after the elderly.

The UK's answer to ship people around the globe is old-fashioned and doesn't make sense. The uprooting of people is little different to slave trading. Denuding struggling countries of their most valuable resource, namely their young people.

BBC - UK water use 'worsening global crisis'

Our lifestyles keep up others in poverty giving them no option but to migrate to wealthier nations. Gordon Brown may talk of redistributing wealth across the globe but one can't help noticing the distribution of fat across his girth.

BBC - Will we switch to gas made from human waste?

The UK is not as resource rich as it was. We may have a lot of coal remaining but the environmental cost prevents us from using it. UK oil and gas reserves have been squandered and a rising population will only put more strain on UK resource requirements.

Explain yourself man!

You may have noticed a change to the blog. I have been sitting on ecopunk for two years and have only just gotten round to using it. In time, the look of the blog will change but for now I have just put a new banner up.

The name represents my attitude to the eco movement. I am not liberal, middleclass, socialist or anything else come to think of it. Simply, I am green because it allows me to live cheaply and so my methods are rough and ready like punk music was.

I don't advocate rushing out to buy green gadgets simply because it is just a marketing ploy to keep you consuming. I do carry adverts but that is to pay for my blogging habit. If you want to be truly green then stick two fingers up (or just the one, if you are not British) at the system, make-do and to hell with anyone who looks down on you!

Thanks to all those who link to this website, you may now update your links.

We do not sell cement, Señor!

Apparently, they do not sell concrete in cementerios so don't go to one. Nor should you annoy little old ladies holding bunches of flowers with your broken Spanish, they get upset rather easily.

Word for the day - cementerio sustantivo masculino - cemetery

Not one mariachi

For the first time in over three weeks, I left this urban nightmare and travelled to Guadalajara. Not one mariachi did I see.

Unfortunately, I wasn't in Guadalajara, México, inspiration to bands of mariachi singers, but the original Guadalajara in Spain.

A lot of trees, quite a bit of rubbish, and too much clay to do anything other than grow trees.

Guadalajara, gateway to paradise

We have no ferrets

Walk around any Spanish town and you will see a ferret shop. On entering said establishment you will discover, to your dismay, that a ferretería is not a pet shop specialising in the sale of ferrets.

A ferretería is in fact an iron mongers, "ferre" coming from fierro meaning iron or at least it does in México though I never saw one ferret shop when I was in México.

This is all very confusing. I wish Spain and Latin America could agree on things but then, being Spanish speakers, that is never going to happen.

The Spanish language is a platform for an argument rather than a conversation. "¿Porque no te callas?" (Why don't you shut up?) as King Juan Carlos said to Hugo Chavez at a summit of Spanish speaking nations, a few years ago.

Where are the vulcanizadora (tyre repair) shops? The shops that will rent you "un smoking" (a dinner jacket)? Why do people say, "¿Que tal?" instead of "¿Que onda?" Why do people laugh when I answer the phone with "¡Bueno!" instead of "¡Hola!"

And why do people look at me as though I am from another planet when I say "¡Mande!" instead of "¿Que?" or "Con permiso" when I wish to pass them rather than barging my way through?

A kilo of flour goes a long way

So far, I have prepared 57 muffins and 9 pancakes (large crepe style, not American) from a kilo of flour, which I bought a few weeks ago. Not quite in the same league as my legendary infinite sack of rice (22 kilos bought in March 2008 and still going strong) but not bad going.

I could squeeze two more pancakes out of the flour but that would require half an egg. Not even I am that extreme (everyone - "Are you sure???") so I'll get another bag tomorrow.

Some washing and baking

I start this Sunday with washing clothes and baking of "the weekly batch". There is an interesting system for drying clothes here. All the houses are in a terrace (stuck together in a line) but with a partially covered well between each house, where you can dry your clothes.


There is no drying of clothes on a garden washing line, as in the UK. Maybe people don't like to display their underwear in public here. "Madam my underpants are this big and, believe me, I need every square inch of space within them!"

Mind you, when I was a boy, there was another boy in the house out back, slightly older than me, who was eventually arrested for being the Phantom Ladys' Underwear Thief of Kingsthorpe*. I guess incorporating underwear security into house design is a selling point these days.

As you can see in the photo, my washing is now covered from the rain (though I doubt it will rain again until autumn) . The well creates an updraught as the tiles heat up from the sun, which helps to dry the clothes. I have a pair of socks, undies and a t-shirt to keep me going until this lot dry. Yes, I don't change undies everyday. Sniff test, every morning! Looks like I'll have to darn a sock or two. Darning kit in my tool box.

Whilst I was hanging out the washing my muffins were baking in the oven. Here is a photo of the weekly batch baked without cake cups. Zero cake cup consumption!


* (My mother was quite angry about the Phantom's exploits. Probably because he didn't think any of her undies were worth stealing!)

Addendum

Nope, sorry, enough of these Spanish ways. Put washing out to dry in a place permanently in the shade? My armpits! After three hours, on a cloudless day, the clothes were still wet. I took the washing into the back garden and it was dry in half an hour. "Yes madam, my underpants are that big, and I need every square inch of space within them!"

My first gran partido

or gran clásico, as it is also called. Tonight, I watched Barcelona beat Madrid 2-0 on television. First time I've had the television on in almost a week. The last time was to watch the Malaysian Grand Prix. I like my sports.

Interesting football game, very stop-start unlike an English game. Loads of fouls or faked fouls to get opponents booked. Latins like to play football but they like to cheat just as much.

Good to see Cristiano Ronaldo again, after he was sold by Manchester United last year. He is not given an inch of space, unlike the acres of space he was allowed to have, when he played in the Premier League.

Interesting also to see middle-aged women being as vulgar as any English football thug. Middle fingers and I can only guess at the expletives they were hurling at the players from Barcelona. Madam, really!

I had to stifle my cheers after each goal, being in Madrid. However, some wag in the neighbourhood was letting off fireworks each time Barcelona scored so I have a compadre somewhere in this village.

Regardless of the announcer on channel La Sexta saying "La mejor liga", I still prefer the Premier League over La Liga. The clásico is really the only match of any note here. Spain is a big place, supporters tend not to travel to away games and most cities (with the exception of Madrid and Barcelona) only have one team each so there just isn't the rivalry that you get almost every week in England.

It was also good to hear the correct use of the term "bicycle kick" or bicicleta as it is called here. In the UK a bicicleta would be called a "step over". That is fair enough, as that is precisely what you do, repeatedly stepping over the ball. However, what is called a bicycle kick in the UK is what is really called a scissor kick. After all, who has ever ridden a bike, on their back, legs akimbo?

Strange starting time for a game, 10pm and, as it is now half past midnight, I shall bid you "Nos vemos!" and go to bed.

I hate consumables

The very word makes me cringe. Consume-ables. Go out there and be a good little consumer and consume some consumables. Waste your hard-earned cash and make someone else wealthy so you don't have to be.

A certain somebody else has a vanity problem. The thought that a piece of food might exist between the teeth is enough to give her a heart attack. A handbag full of consumable plastic and floss doo-dahs where once consumable toothpicks would have been de rigueur. For the self-reliant, just use your bloody toothbrush, dry and save on buying those bloody things!

Calm...

Today, is muffin baking day. Not only have I run out of muffins but it's also time to thank my neighbours with a muffin gift as they are, in part (not everyone who is pushing packets my way knows about it), providing me with free Internet access.

As I poured my batter into each individual cake cup I discovered, to my consternation, that I was one short in the cake cup department. "It's about time I stopped consuming these pieces of paper that supposedly make baking possible," I thought. As an experiment, I greased one of the holes on the muffin tray with butter and poured batter directly into it.

When the muffins were cooked the solitary cupless muffin wouldn't budge. I poked at it a little but it began to break up. I removed the other muffins, without difficulty, as they were all in their consumer friendly cups. I left the remaining muffin to cool down.

An hour later, I returned to the remaining muffin. I slipped a knife between the muffin and the tray and slid it around the outside perimeter of the muffin. A gentle tug on the side and the muffin was out, completely intact. In fact there was less muffin left on the tray than would be left on an absorbent cake cup.

I won't be consuming cake cups every again. The cost saving will afford Me More Muffin Making... Media!

An African success story

Good to see simple permaculture techniques being used successfully in a part of the world that really needs them. With the world's population set to add another 3 billion hungry mouths the pressure on the land to produce more food will increase. Either we succeed or the current high migration rates will be nothing compared to what is to follow.

I was surprised to learn that the British Army has a team of vets as part of its order of battle in the Afghan war. So little do the locals know about looking after their own livestock that helping them to get more out of their cattle is looked on as a way of winning them over against the Taleban.

BBC - Zambia's farming revolution poster boy

Weeding completed

In return for free accommodation, I had promised to weed the garden, which was overrun with various vines and weeds. It feels odd to have weeded land and then to leave it bare without planting any vegetables.

I had taken this place under the apprehension that I was to plant it after weeding but the usual Spanish miscommunication between various parties (Spaniards don't talk to each other so much as at each other) means that I was only ever to be here for a short length of time and not for a longer period that would allow me to crop this year's vegetables.

Well, I have a list of twelve properties to view in Asturias and six rentals to chose from. Hopefully, I can up there within a few weeks and settle in. Maybe do a little container growing.

Easter isn't the same...

without Spartacus or Quo Vadis and so TVE1 are graciously going to show me both today, dubbed in Spanish. I really don't like dubbed movies but I need the Spanish practice so I'll give it a go. The television hasn't been on for two weeks so it could do with a reminder of its raison d'être.

I'd rather watch subtitled films, you get more of the atmosphere. The only movies I could ever watch dubbed are Clint Eastwood's man with no name trilogy.

Well, I'm out of chocolate muffins so I better get baking!

Addendum

No, sorry, I lasted for 10 seconds of Quo Vadis en Español. I made better use of my time and cooked 15 chocky muffins. All I have to do now is open the window and a disorderly queue of 15 females will form outside the front door. Come on ladies, you know it's true.

I went for a walk earlier, just to prove that Spaniards are as lazy as I think. Not one shop open! This place is a ghost town without any ghosts. Even Kenmare's SuperValu or Centra would be open on Good Friday. And, the local priests would be in there buying whiskey for the weekend!

The art of egg fried rice

In my attempt to empty the "infinite sack of rice", I bought over two years ago, I like to eat rice two or three times a week. One favourite recipe is egg fried rice.

The art of egg fried rice is in cooking the rice and egg properly. The rest is a matter of preference.

The rice is cooked using the lost water method, with just enough water so that when it boils away the rice is cooked. The rice is then fluffed up with a fork and left to dry out completely. An hour or two will suffice.

When the rice is dry you can then put some oil in a wok and heat it up. If you are going to have frozen peas as part of the dish then put them in to cook for a minute or so, otherwise the first thing to go in is a beaten egg.

Stir the egg around until you are half way to making an omelette and there is some runny egg remaining. Then spoon in as much rice as is needed and mix the egg in amongst the rice.

Next, put in your meat. Yesterday's chicken scraps or, as in the photo above, some sliced up ham. Whatever is your preference. Bits of stuff from the sea if you like mercury. When the meat is warmed up, add soy sauce.

Finally, I put into the above dish some diced carrot and shredded lettuce. I have a surfeit of carrots at the moment and wanted to get rid of a few. Wondering if carrots would taste any good in egg fried rice, I was surprised that they worked very well. A nice sweet addition.

And there you have it. Dry your cooked rice and fry the egg first. That is all there is to authentic egg fried rice.