Family Motto: Spero meliora. (Loosely translated as, "I hope for better things") And if you don't like bad language, then bugger off. Beware. Cookies maybe lurking on this site. I usually post several times a day about differing subjects. Do scroll down
Google analytics
Tuesday 28 January 2014
Tuesday 21 January 2014
Who is……..
Meredith Wobig?
A couple of weeks ago I suddenly started receiving chat messages from Meredith. Bearing in mind that I have never ever used Google chat.
Now I’ve never met anyone called Meredith or even Wobig, so why is he so adamant to chat to me? Is it because:
I owe him money?
He’s trying to sell me something?
He owes me money?
He’s fathered one of my children? (If so he can have the brat).
He has a large sum of money that needs me to smuggle out of his country if I pay him a substantial sum in advance to facilitate the transfer? (419 scam)?
He’s gay and is looking for a partner in order to get a foothold into the UK benefit system? *shudders*
Maybe I’m being too harsh. If you really want to speak to me, Meredith, then E mail me.
If there is anyone reading this pathetic attempt of a blog, give me some suggestions.
Sunday 19 January 2014
Smoke and your baby gays it
Sorry about the post title, but when I read this article I really felt the world had gone mad.
Smoking and drinking during pregnancy could make your baby gay and stupid, if the claims of a neuroscientist are to be believed.
A controversial study has found that a pregnant woman’s lifestyle could influence their child’s IQ or sexuality.
It’s as if the whole world and his dog are trying to milk the anti-smoking gravy train for all it’s worth. My mother chain smoked throughout all her pregnancies, and I have never even thought about flouncing around in a pink tutu. Oh and my IQ is 143.
A pin drop.
A French one anyway.
JFK'S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60's when De Gaulle decided to pull out of NATO. De Gaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible.
Rusk responded
"Does that include those who are buried here?"
You could have heard a pin drop
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying 'Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?'
A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly:
'Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply Emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, They can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?'
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Royal Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S. , English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, the English learn only English. He then asked, 'Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?'
Without hesitating, the British Admiral replied,
'Maybe it's because the Brit's, Canadians, Aussie's and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German.'
You could have heard a pin drop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN
WITH THE ABOVE...
Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on.
"You have been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked sarcastically.
Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.
"Then you should know enough to have your passport ready."
The Englishman said, 'The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it."
"Impossible. You English always have to show your passports on arrival in France !"
The English senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained,
''Well, when I came ashore at Gold Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to."
You could have heard a pin drop.
Friday 17 January 2014
A must read.
As a former seafarer I wish this book had come out sooner.
The customer reviews show how this book has saved countless lives and stopped children from having nightmares about the subject. After all, we do need to always think of the children. Don’t we?
Monday 13 January 2014
Bird Mincers.
I wrote an article a while back on the effective life of onshore wind turbines which the renewables companies try to keep quiet. They state that wind turbines are factored to have a through life of 25 years.
I’m not the only one to question the data. Having been an engineer for 43 years I’ve never come across any piece of machinery that will last that length of time without very severe costs involved. Of course the majority of the MSM never actually dig into find out what the true life of turbines may be.
A study was carried out at Edinburgh University which shed some doubt on the industry claims. The report dates back to 2012.
A study commissioned by the Renewable Energy Foundation has found that the economic life of onshore wind turbines could be far less than that predicted by the industry.
The “groundbreaking” research was carried out by academics at Edinburgh University and saw them look at years of windfarm performance data from the UK and Denmark.
The results appear to show that the output from windfarms — allowing for variations in wind speed and site characteristics — declines substantially as they get older.
"British turbines have got bigger and wind farms have got bigger and they are creating turbulence which puts more stress on them.
"It is this stress that causes the breakdowns and maintenance requirements that is underlying the problem in performance that I have been seeing.”
Prof Hughes examined the output of 282 wind farms —about 3,000 turbines in total — in the UK and a further 823 onshore wind farms and 30 offshore wind farms in Denmark.
Professor Hughes, last week was questioned over his presumptions by the energy blogger Chris Goodall.
I wrote a few weeks ago about the surprising assertion from the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) that the performance of wind farms declines rapidly with age. A study carried out by Professor Gordon Hughes for the REF in 2012 suggested that ‘The normalised load factor for UK onshore wind farms declines from a peak of about 24% at age 1 to 15% at age 10 and 11% at age 15’. To put this in everyday English, Professor Hughes is saying that a 15 year old onshore wind farm will typically produce less than half its initial output of electricity. Few people in the industry would demur from a conclusion that wind farms very gradually lose output but none accepted Hughes’s finding that electricity generation falls at anything like the rate he stated.
Who do you believe? After all, you as a taxpayer are funding the building of these Bird Mincers. You have to ask yourself the question. Am I getting value for money for this form of energy?
Saturday 11 January 2014
No wind power again.
Yesterday I posted a quick pic of the energy generation of one wind farm array in Kent. This was taken from RWE, who are one of the major players in renewables in the UK.
In the UK RWE Innogy (No it’s not a typo) operates onshore and offshore wind farms through its UK subsidiary RWE npower renewables, with an installed capacity of over 740 MW.
Had a look today and guess what? Not one of their turbines in the UK were generating at all.
Here are the figures from DECC giving the total capacity of UK onshore wind power.
Wind onshore + 1,737 GWh to 12,121 GWh (17%)
If none of the wind turbines are producing power on this cold windless night. Who’s stupid idea was to build them in the first place.
Don’t all shout at once.
Friday 10 January 2014
Wind power.
Down here in deepest darkest Kent the temperature is hovering close to freezing. Of course the much loved bird mincers are keeping the FE household warm with their huge power output.
Just look at the screen shot below to see how much one 59.8 MW site is producing.
Not a lot.
Thursday 9 January 2014
Banks. Don’t you love em.
If only they knew what they had sold and then could deal with a simple enquiry.
Three and a half years ago, myself and Mrs FE, decided we would help our eldest daughter and her soon to be husband, to mount the first rung of the property owning ladder.
One product that caught our eye was named a “helping hand mortgage”, where we as parents would lock away a sum equal to 20% of the value of the property as surety, in return for interest on the sum. This bond was to remain in force for three and a half years after which we would have the money returned to us.
However you try getting the money back when most of the cretins at the bank (Black prancing equine) don’t even seem to know that such a product ever existed.
In October last year Mrs FE phoned them up and after being given the usual “Press 1 if you want to pay us more money”, “Press 2 if you think that we care”, ………….”Press 666 if you think that you might have a chance of speaking to anyone at all”, she was informed that we would receive a letter in due course.
Quick as a flash of light from the reflection off the blade of a wind turbine, nothing, Nada, zilch.
Mrs FE phoned them again on Tuesday only to find that the staff knew even less about this product than in October. She spoke to five different members of staff, before she actually managed to find someone that knew something about the deal. Even then he had to phone three other people before coming back with a definitive answer.
We are told to expect a letter before the weekend.
OMG. I’ve just seen a whole squadron of flying pigs doing aerobatics.
Friday 3 January 2014
Antarctic sea Ice has gone.
Oh no it hasn’t. It’s only just breaking on the BBC news of the fact that a Russian ship chartered by a group of Global warming enthusiasts, has been stuck in the ice off Antarctica.
This vid is the true story which the MSM won’t show you.
Don’t worry I’m sure it will all pan out safely.
Thursday 2 January 2014
Wednesday 1 January 2014
My new year resolutions
1. Don’t give up smoking.
2. Keep drinking.
3. Eat more fatty foods.
4. Use more salt on my food.
5. Smack the children. ( Trouble is they’re now in their late twenties and early thirties, so they might smack me back).
6. Use more fossil fuel in my fireplace.
7. Remember to break the speed limits more often.
8. Shouting at the tele when vacuous politicians make grandstanding plays on subjects they know little about.
9. Laughing at those self same politicians when they have to make a u-turn within days.
10. Try to me more conscientious on this blog.
and finally
11. Remember to buy more paracetamol for next new years day.