Motorway speed limit to increase to 80mph

The speed limit in the UK is to increase to 80mph. Of course, the show-offs in Audis, Mercs and BMWs already travel at that speed and will probably be doing 90mph and above come the change.

I will still be in the slow lane, behind the lorries, doing 55mph. Why? Because the faster you go the more fuel you use per mile. Yes, the lovers of German technological endeavour will get to their destinations a few minutes afore me but they would have self-taxed themselves a lot more in travel costs.

Every car has a maximum torque rating for its engine. That is to say there is a speed at which the engine will work the most efficiently and use the optimum amount of fuel. Travel above that speed and your car's engine will need more fuel per mile.

For my car, and most others, maximum torque corresponds to 4000 RPM and 55mph. That speed just happens to correspond with the speed of most trucks and lorries in the slow lane. Most transport vehicles are limited to 55mph. These vehicles are also very large and can carve a big hole in the air for my car.

Obeying the 2 second rule, I place my car behind a large vehicle and travel at a steady 55mph. I save a lot of money in fuel. Not to mention the fact that I would normally walk everywhere within walking distance.

I can walk to anywhere in town so unless I have a large load to carry, I rarely use a car. Only if I have to travel out of town do I use a car and then, only at 55mph regardless of the higher speed limit.

I regard cars as I would mobile phones, the lottery, cigarettes etc. as a tax on stupidity. Just ways for the government and corporations to claw back your hard-earned money. I use a car sparingly, don't own a mobile phone, never play the lottery nor smoke. I save a lot of money and I use it to buy gold!

Blog post 1002

I didn't notice that I had surpassed my 1000th post. Thanks to all who read and comment on my rants, interspersed with a sprinkling of eco stuff.

Blogger is getting to be quite sophisticated these days. As I was idly flicking through a few features, I noticed a mobile phone template that can be enabled for those reading ecopunk on one of those mobile things.

If you are reading this blog on a mobile then let me know how it looks but first avoid that ouch! lamp post you just walked into.

You know when your civilisation is doomed...

because people come and help themselves to your metals.

The writing was on the wall for the Aztecs when Cortez appeared outside Tenochtitlan looking to loot all the gold he could get his hands on.

Today, it is the same for the west with metals, of all types, being stripped out of the country and sent to our future conquistadores, ie. the Chinese.

While you are at it, you can sell off all our football teams, airports, harbours and skyscrapers. If it isn't nailed down, flog it. If it is nailed down, flog it anyway.

I too strip metals for cash but only from items that I have been given. It's quite lucrative as copper is being bought by your local scrap dealer for over £4 a kilo.

If you are properly downsized then £4 is not to be sniffed at and goes far, so long as aren't brainwashed into buying expensive rubbish you don't need. In fact, it is the ultimate in alchemy. Sell scrap copper, put the cash into a GoldMoney account and buy gold with it.

BBC - Metal theft: Britain's most annoying crime wave

Financial trader tells the truth...

and BBC viewers (aka middle class liberal idiots) can't handle it.

'My mistaken view of the world has collapsed around me. BBC, please tell me this was a hoax.'

When your current mode of existence is all you have then someone telling you that mode has no future will make you do one of two things.

1) Deny that your current mode of existence has no future and look for excuses to back it up.

2) Change your mode of existence, by being self-reliant, not depending on looting governments, bankers and corporations.

Alessio Rastani is certainly no hoaxer and his candid comments can easily be found on Facebook and Twitter.

YouTube - What the trader said.

BBC - Trader was not a hoaxer, says the BBC

A letter...

Dear Mr Comptroller of the BBC,

Please can BBC News 24 only chant the mantra of infinite economic growth and that banking, corporate and political looters are good looters whereas the looting poor are just copy-cats and should be executed live on your august televisual channels.

Yours,

A Middle Englander.

Scraping the barrel of downsizing

It's been four years since I started downsizing and I'm still going.

First, I started on my books. I had amassed a few thousand books since childhood, through university and into my working life. Most of the books were sold through Amazon. I now find myself with just a few hundred books that I keep for sentimental reasons, that are still of use, or cannot yet be sold or Freecycled.

Next, I sold off childhood toys and games on eBay. Subbuteo football and rugby, Scalextric, a train set, board games, toy soldiers that I had painted as a boy. All very collectible and worth a tidy sum.

Then I sold off vintage electronics and computing items also on eBay. A ZX Spectrum with printer. I even sold an old ZX81 game on a cassette for £5. Old computing magazines were sold too.

Finally, I sold off my CD collection and with some of the proceeds copied all the music to a hard drive so I can still listen to it.

Things that were of low value I sold in car boot sales. In all, I raised about £5000. It is amazing what you can find in your house and how much we no longer need or use and maybe shouldn't have bought in the first place.

Now, I am truly scraping the barrel. Stripping items for copper and aluminium content. With copper at over £4 per kilo and aluminium at about £1 per kilo there is value in junk that nobody will buy whole but will buy broken down. Such is the collapse of the west and the rise of the east. Bit by bit the western closing down sale continues.

An old CRT television is rich in electronic components and copper wire. I have filled my electronic component box with thousands of capacitors, resistors and diodes for future projects. I have amassed many kilos of copper wire and aluminium heat sinks, which I shall take to a local dealer.

And that is about all I can do. I still have much more than the average dweller on this planet. I have a large amount of power and hand tools with which to fashion items I might need, be they made of wood, metal or contain electronics.

I still have computers, three to be precise. One computer, I bought and two that I picked up on Freecycle. I have a digital SLR camera, a video camera. No mobile phone though, I sold it too. I just never use the things. I find it odd seeing people walking around with one stuck to their hands, gazing at it every 5 minutes.

I have a car, a tent, camping and cooking equipment. An electric razor, an electric hair clipper that must have saved me over £100 in visits to the barber since I bought it. A solar panel that I made to charge a marine battery and a pair of invertors to power my gadgets. Two old lawnmower engines to act as generators that I picked up. One, as you'll know, that I have renovated and the other sits, awaiting a similar fate.

I downsized my bank accounts into gold and silver so my bullion has taken a bit of a beating in recent weeks but I am a long-term holder of bullion so I will be buying some more when things calm down. More so, as I expect our increasingly bankrupt governments to start printing money. So much so, that bullion will have to go up in price to cover all this worthless paper.

As winter approaches, I shall take my downsized self to warmer climes and see what life has to offer.

Dale Farm is...

not an ordinary farm. I am not aware of any crops being grown or animal husbandry.

Instead, Dale Farm is the name of a plot of land populated by 'travellers'. Also called Romany or Gypsies or just plane Gypos, if you are not keen on them.

These travellers consist of extended families, one of which is the McCarthy family. I've actually met some relatives of theirs from Cork. Known for their road-building skills, they travel around Ireland offering to tarmac your dirt tracks.

Last year, whilst living in my car in Ireland, I was negotiating the purchase of a farm. The farm owner decided to have a track leading to his house tarmacked when the McCarthys paid a visit to the area.

In the end, the maths for the purchase didn't add up so I moved on, with a dodgy tarcmacking job stuck to my tyres.

Meanwhile, the road-builders' relatives in Essex, are to be turfed out of Dale Farm because their mobile homes have grown in number and are now encroaching on Green Belt land (land set aside and not to be developed).

The locals in the area want those living in the encroachment into the Green Belt moved and the local council is going to enact a court order to move people on. Being an extended family, the McCarthys want to remain together and want a replacement for Dale Farm that can accommodate all their mobile homes.

One thing I've noticed is that the locals mistakenly say, "If they are travellers then why do they live in one area and not travel?" Well, being a traveller doesn't mean you are always on the move. Circus and fairground people have always had a place to settle on during the winter months. Gypsies are no different, they travel to horse fairs etc. and travel as their work demands it but also have a place to call home, even if it is not permanent.

However, the kind of world we live in requires people to pay for everything, otherwise bankers, corporations and politicians can't loot their cut of the transaction. Everyone would be more happy if the travellers rented land or bought bricks and mortar houses so there is a transaction to tax or charge commission upon.

But why should they pay for anything? When I travelled to Ireland, last year, I went with no intention of staying in a B&B or hotel. I wasn't even going to park my car in a campsite. I just drove down to a quayside or harbour, jumped into my sleeping bag and slept for the night. In the UK, that is a lot harder. The police can move you on depending on their whim or someone could just take it upon themselves to make life hard for you.

And that's probably the problem. What we find normal in Ireland is not found to be normal in the UK.

Together in electric dreams

The first public hydrogen refueling station opened in the UK today. I don't see hydrogen fueled cars queuing up for a refill but maybe that is yet to come.

The battle is underway to build the cars of tomorrow. They will be electric but wll they be battery powered or fuel cell powered?

That is the reason for today's opening of a hydrogen station in Swindon, close to Honda, which is developing fuel cell powered vehicles.

A fuel cell mixes oxygen from the air with hydrogen stored in the car to produce electricity. The byproduct of this reaction is water rather than carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and other pollutants generated by petrol and diesel powered vehicles.

Developers of fuel cell powered vehicles point out that a car powered by a fuel cell has a range of about 300 miles and can be refilled as quickly as a petrol or diesel powered vehicle. They also point out that recharging a battery powered car takes a lot longer (typically 15 minutes) and would have to be done every 60 miles or so.

On the other hand, developers of battery powered vehicles point out that constructing a hydrogen infrastructure will costs billions, that most people only drive an average of 25 miles and can recharge their cars overnight from their domestic power sockets.

Personally, I would like to get away from being beholden to others when it comes to fueling my vehicle. Replacing a petrol station with a hydrogen one doesn't achieve my goal.

Charging up at home, from say a photo-voltaic panel or generator powered by a wood gas powered stationary engine would permit me to generate my own fuel. Unless, I could produce my own hydrogen and store it safely.

BBC - Is hydrogen the future of motoring?

BBC - Limitless hydrogen from microbes

Material girl (and boy)

Today's children are marketed to from the moment they are born. They are made to feel inadequate if they do not own top brands. That puts pressure on parents to to buy top brands so their children don't feel inferior at school.

In turn the children learn only to want and kick up a fuss if they do not get everything they desire. No wonder youths rioted and stole as many top brands as they could during the recent riots.

Can the rioters be blamed if all they have ever been taught has been taught to them by bankers wanting them to get into debt so they own all the top brands, by corporations wanting them to own things they can't afford and by politicians talking of nothing but growth and unattainable aspirations.

The television is full of programmes about aspiration; owning junk that isn't required or to be a pop star, a footballer or a nobody.

BBC - UK families face consumer pressure, says report
 
BBC - Our children need time not stuff

I am still the world's worst tomato grower

I have been attempting to grow tomatoes for about six years. Onions, potatoes, lettuces and carrots, no problem. Tomatoes I just can't seem to grow with any success.

I perform the usual tasks of nipping off suckers, general pruning, promoting pollen transfer with a brush, watering and feeding. Every year, I get one or two ripe tomatoes from the five or six bushes I grow.

The rest of the crop are unripe. I throw them into my curries and pasta sauces, an interesting flavour but I would still like to have a big crop of ripe tomatoes.

Well, that's it for another year. I still have salad greens and a few lettuces in the ground that will keep me going until the end of the month. Onions and potatoes were dug up last week.

I plucked a red tomato this morning, it will be added to a tin of tomatoes later today. The rest of the green horde are trussed up with oh so much bailer twine as the remnant of a hurricane passes through.

In such a small garden, I managed to make about 200 litres of compost. The compost was mostly made from weeds and grass cuttings but also a lot of tea bags (donated by my tea-aholic parents), egg shells, vegetable peelings, vacuum cleaner dust and hair, whenever I unleash the clippers upon myself.

I intend extending the vegetable garden, next year, when I return from a sojourn. I am looking for voluntary work over the winter, somewhere warmer than here. House sitting in the south of Spain, perhaps.

There is a politician that understands...

I am not keen on politicians. The self-styled middle class. Looters of public wealth. I am not keen on any political party and that includes the Green Party. More middle class hypocritical idiots.

However, at least the Green Party's one and only MP has more grasp of the situation when she compares those who '"grabbed what they could from JJB Sports and TK Maxx" to bankers and traders who took "what they could" from their businesses whilst politicians stood aside.

The middle class controlled media is still pumping out propaganda about feral youths, gangs and the underclass whilst ignoring the fact that some of the looters were from stable families and had a university education.

On any day of the week you can see the BBC pumping out lifestyle programmes displaying houses that the overwhelming majority cannot afford, food that is too expensive to buy, let alone prepare. Aspirational nonsense that make the wealthy feel superior and the poor feel more helpless.

"You need stuff. Get stuff. Be middle class. Don't be a chav. Do whatever it takes to be one up on your neighbours."

The point of it all? So that bankers can act as middlemen every time a penny is spent, creaming a fraction off for themselves, corporations can sell junk that nobody really needs and politicians can keep us all in check whilst creaming off fat pay packets for themselves.

I was watching a quiz show a few weeks ago. The host asked a woman what she did for a living. "I'm a visual merchandiser, Alexander." I was as non-plussed as the host. He asked her to explain further. "Well, I arrange shop fronts so that they display the wares available." I don't remember her exact words but...

SHE'S A BLOODY WINDOW DRESSER!!!

But no, to make the low-paid feel as though they are middle class, so that they rush out and spend their hard earned minimum wage on junk, they are given daft job titles.

Divided and conquered. Each and every one of us.

BBC - Green Party conference: Lucas to focus on riot response