Recent content by ged

No wonder it gets harder to open! Cooking oils are more heat transfer fluids than lubricants. Some will set solid if you leave them exposed to the atmosphere.

As HorseGuy says it might not need it, but I very often use my Officier Suisse for food and often wash it under the tap so it does need lubrication now and again. A tiny amount of very light oil (SWMBO's sewing machine oil in my case) is all it takes. Animal fats (e.g. from my skin and hair)...

Antony Beevor: "Arnhem" - not for the first time. If you're even vaguely interested in recent military history you can't really go wrong with this author.

Just ate a Big Mac and fries. Used the Soldier. If you don't use a sharp knife the salad squidges out everywhere, or at least that's what I tell people.

Sorrry for the delay Stu, it just won't leave me alone. Can't complain, considering. Getting out on the bike - thesedays mostly just to Lidl - keeps me a little bit fit.

Hi Stuart, it's been years!! Was it Spitewinter last time we camped together, or Britton Wood?

A few things come to mind. 1. Be aware that it's brake etc. cleaner that you want, not what I've always known as brake and clutch "fluid". Brake and clutch "fluid" isn't the same thing at all. 2. If I use the brake and clutch cleaner in my Optimus 8 pure, just as it comes from the supplier, it...

Back in the '80s my girlfriend (now wife) got some temporary work at a stately home. While she was working there she lived in the grounds in a caravan some way from the house. The caravan had gas for heating/cooking and for the 'fridge. She used to get through about one bottle of gas a week...

I think it's a bit of both. An upright fridge/freezer isn't very efficient I suppose. I keep thinking I should invest in some solar panels, I could be selling electricity instead of buying it.

If you'd really gone green you'd have ditched the fridge. It never ceases to irritate me that refrigeration accounts for more than half of my electricity usage, and this despite the fact that the fridge/freezer is in an unheated shed outside.

What could possibly go wrong?

My preference is something light and breathable with big pockets. In one of the pockets I'll stuff a lightweight poncho. If it's just drizzling then I don't bother with the poncho but it it's honking it down then I know that with the poncho on top I'll always be perfectly dry. The...

Let's see now... Three on my person as I write - five if you're counting blades because they include a Leatherman Charge Tti and a Victorinox Officier Suisse; three more within easy reach (one's a Gerber multi-tool, so that's really four blades); and two work-horse types by the wood-burner, both...

Yeah, there are regulations which require temperatures over 130C in commercial canning plants. You probably won't get that sort of temperature with a domestic pressure cooker (probably only 120C or just over, even at sea level - and the boiling point of water is reduced by almost 2C for every...

Poetic! With you all the way on that. For anyone struggling with the harvest, I find I can bottle fruit about three times quicker than I can make jam with the same amount of fruit, and it keeps just as well in used jam jars as it does in the relatively expensive, usually bigger and always more...