Jockeying for Power

I discovered today that, within Europe (not the EU), the UK and Belarus (the last dictatorship in Europe) are the only countries to use First Past The Post to elect their government. All other countries use some form of proportional representation or, in the case of France, a second ballot for the top two candidates from the first round.

Refugee Badger Flies

Suitable embellishment, in the form of verbiage, has been made to The Bad Badger.

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that those who just a couple of weeks ago were shouting loudest that All Lives Matter are the ones now screaming for the Royal Navy to send refugees from war torn Syria, who risk their lives to get here in flimsy boats, back to France post haste? Here are some facts about them and here are some more about what they receive from the state. However, facts are extraordinarily ineffective on people who have already made up their minds on the basis of prejudice and bigotry.

What with all our fruit trees, we're suffering from a plague of fruit flies. Apparently placing dry wine bottle corks in your fruit bowl deters them. I've noticed they particularly like scotch, and they're not too bothered about a fine, single malt, or fish and chips from Lidl - my evening tipple with my coffee always ends up with a few drowned fruit flies in it. It doesn't help that the veg recycling bin isn't too far from the house, resulting in a cloud of fruit flies every time I open the lid to add more recycling matter.

A Spark of Genius

What more needs to be said? One of my more brilliant ideas.

Saves on weight and leaves both hands free for shopping.

Talking of genius, the Schools Minister, Gavin Williamson, has said that there is little evidence of C-19 being transmitted in schools. Could that be because they've been closed since March 20th, except to the kids of front line workers who, incidentally, were the worst hit cohort.

He also says a study, which will be published later this year (and I suspect it will be like the Russia Report and the Priti Patel Report - a long time coming) will show schools are not a vector. Could that be like schools not being a vector in the transmission of measles, nits and other afflictions of closely packed children? If the opening of pubs has taught us anything, it's that places where humans congregate are hot spots for transmission.

If the government is no convinced of the result of this study, it must already have been done , conclusions have been drawn and it simply awaits publication. There's nothing to stop them publishing it in summary and this must be done within the next month, not later in the year - which we have come to realise from previous reports means next year.

I'm afraid I can't trust a word this government of incompetents says.

A Solution or Two

Spent a wonderful weekend in the van in the Brecons and went up the unfortunately named Fan-y-Big - 8 hour and 8 mile walk, interspersed with Hay diving into streams.

It was rounded off by a beautiful sunset,

Here's an idea that kills two birds with one stone - on retirement age, pensioners get the option of a free motorhome from the government, or being bunged into a care home. They also have to give up their homes, but would be compensated at 50% of the market value, either as a lump sum or as a pension. 

That way a load of housing stock is released into the market, making housing cheaper and more affordable for the young, and the elderly become fitter by going on walks and travelling around the country. Retirees would also have motorhome camping sites made available, exclusively to them, at all the national beauty spots.

A friend sent me this yesterday:

The strange thing is that it's exactly my model of ride-on-mower. I sense a project coming up...

Stay Alert

It strikes me that the people who are currently frequenting pubs are, by definition, the least cautious cohort of the population and therefore present the greatest risk to the rest of us. As much as I love pubs, I value my life a tad more, and it seems to be pubs that are currently the hotspots for virus transmission for very obvious reasons.

This Eat Out to Help Out initiative is to be welcomed, but the catering industry is predominantly staffed by immigrant labour. I find it somewhat ironic that a government which is nationalistic and blatantly anti-immigrant is helping out immigrants with an initiative that saves their jobs and pays them some money.

Those dining out may feel they're getting a bargain, but the discount is coming from their taxes. More specifically, it's those who choose not to dine out during the initiative that are paying for it, as they get no benefit at all but still contributing to the taxes.

Classic Deon Tows

Spotted this on the road yesterday:

A motorhome towing a car. I know a lot of people do this so they can set up camp and use the car for shopping and sightseeing trips; however, wouldn't it be more sensible to reverse the tow and call the motorhome a caravan - and for it to actually be a caravan? A caravan is a fraction of the price of a motorhome and doesn't waste space for the cab. The result in accommodation would be larger and you wouldn't have to pay to keep two vehicles on the road.

I can understand a motorhome towing a small trailer with a motorbike, as a bike is hardly likely to be capable of towing a caravan, but towing a car? It doesn't make financial sense to me.

I had occasion to go to Bridport yesterday and got rather excited about a garage outside of the town that was displaying a number of classic cars on the front, so I took a video.

Do up that VW camper for a few thousand and it's worth £20k in anyone's money. Didn't look at how much the Dino was.

Actually, I just looked up the "Dino" on my VehicleSmart App and discovered it's not a Ferrari at all, but a fibreglass replica called a Deon Scoperta. Certainly looks convincing.

Later today we're off to a socially distance farmer's field in the Brecons for a weekend in the van. Apparently I'm meant to call it a rig, although that sounds rather pretentious. A rig, as far as I'm concerned, is the length of a bus or above 28 tonnes.

Van Embellishments

Much to Hayley's delight, I've assembled the van diesel heater on the dining table to get a good butchers and a better idea of how it all fits together. It looks pretty simple on the table, but installing it will probably be a different matter, especially as the instructions are in Chinglish - fairly good Chinglish, but Chinglish nonetheless.

I can't, for the life of me, understand why the Chinese can't run the instructions for all their stuff past a reasonably proficient English speaker before publishing them.

Now for the decision on whether to mount the gubbins inside or outside the van. Inside means heat savings but noise and more holes, whereas outside means less noise and fewer holes, but lower efficiency.

I'm also likely to tap into the existing fuel line of the van for the diesel rather than use the supplied diesel tank, which is simpler and gives access to a much larger reservoir. Joints for tapping in are provided.

Managed to fit the reversing camera last night, but it was a nightmare, as the wireless antenna protruding from the back precluded most of the firmer fixing locations. It also has to be close to the wiring going to the reversing light.

Not the ideal place in which to find a firm fixing point as it's mostly flimsy plastic skirting and I'm going to have to provide some additional fail-safe mechanism to catch it in the event the damned thing falls off due to vibrations.

I may have to create a modification with metal that can attach to the chassis and extend down to provide the correct clearance distance.

SUP Novices

When away last weekend, we saw a lot of people using stand-up paddle boards on the sea. Many were quite expert at using them, but a sizeable proportion were complete novices and said so. SUPs have become the latest waterborne fad.

When riding a SUP your body acts like a sail and, having only one paddle that you have to lift continuously from side to side, it's not the fastest of waterborne craft. It's also relatively easy to get toppled off as your centre of gravity is very high and the whole system is inherently unstable. The SUP itself is like a cork and very susceptible to wind.

If there's an onshore wind then, if you get into trouble, you're merely blown back toward the beach. If there's an offshore wind you can easily get blown miles.

My advice is to use SUPs only on lakes or rivers until such time as you're proficient and know how to stay away from trouble and, if you do get into trouble, how to rescue yourself from it - which is invariably to get off it and swim while pushing it. However, even that won't be enough if you get carried away by a strong riptide or wind.

Seeing Data

Where we stayed for our short holiday has very little data - it's there, but you only catch the occasional wisp of it in odd places, and even then only fleetingly.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if someone could invent specs that enabled you to see where the data was - a bit like polarising sunglasses. 

Bad Badger Lessons

Returned from a 4 day jaunt in the van - aka The Bad Badger - yesterday and learned a lot:

1. Water is the most precious resource. Luckily we had access to a tap a couple of minutes walk away and could refill the 60L water tank - I reckon we used about 80 litres over 4 days, and we were very sparing with it.
2. A collapsible water bucket is very handy and cheap but, if you don't want to go to the expense of £5.99, the 5L, plastic water containers that Tesco do for their mineral water are perfect. Get a couple, plus a jug with which to fill them as they don't fit under a standard sink tap.
3. The two 110Ah leisure batteries were more than enough and we hardly made a dent in the available power. Hardly needed to use the 1kW inverter.
4. We use 3.55 litres of LPG which, when I refilled the refillable polycarbonate LPG tank with AutoGas, cost me £2.06 at Morrison's in Bridgewater on the return trip. We have enough in a full tank for a couple of weeks, although we didn't do much in the way of heating domestic water and I had only one shower (Hay washed in the sea). While certainly not powerful, the shower is adequate - but learn to shower in a very short time; not running the water while you soap up, for example.
5. It's better to use a plastic washing up bowl than use the sink for washing up - the sink empties into the dirty water tank and just results in you carrying around extra weight, which will add to fuel consumption. A bowl of dirty washing up water can simply be thrown into a hedge and isn't toxic.
6. Some biological washing powder in the cassette loo is better than that blue stuff, which stains everything it comes into contact with, is hideously toxic and can only be ditched in a proper facility. A friend gave me this advice, and it works perfectly.
7. Downloading a few Nexflix films to your mobile is well worth doing before you leave, just in case you have no data where you're headed (as we did). 
8. Mark laybys on Google Maps, so you know where you can stop off to make a drink on the return journey. It's a good idea anyway, as some of them will be eminently suitable for an overnight stay in emergencies, especially in more out-of-the-way places.

Things I've bought and are on order:

1. A 3-5kW diesel heater (which has actually already arrived) - £85.
2. A wireless reversing camera, which will be handy in tight spots - £59.
3. A couple of collapsible water buckets - £12.

I'm still contemplating on the solar panels. A desalination plant would be better so we can convert seawater to potable water.

Can't wait for the next jaunt, which looks like it will be to Porlock this coming weekend, if the weather forecast holds. We found a great little campsite for £10 per person, per night, with free water. We checked it out yesterday and it's well spaced and very central.