Recent content by Keith_Beef

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/29/spain-portugal-blackout-how-people-made-it-through

Over here, there doesn't seem to be a legal requirement for food shops to have their own back-up generators... I suppose that big food retail companies might have contracts with electricity suppliers that "guarantee" supply and cover the value of lost stock or cover the cost of renting...

Do supermarkets have them to keep fridges and freezers running? When I was living in Paris there was a heatwave one summer that caused underground substations to overheat and shutdown as a safety measure. The electricity company parked a couple of generators in 40ft containers in the...

The last time I bought petrol that didn't come from an electrically powered pump it was from a barrel by the side of the road and a hand pump screwed to the opening. Indonesia, late '90s. Today, in France, I doubt that I'd be able to buy petrol with cash if there was a power cut. When we had a...

Brother-in-law's wife forgot that she had the roof-top box fitted and got stuck in the entrance to an underground car park... she had the presence of mind to let a bit of air out of the tires to let the car down just enough to reverse back out. I don't know if she had a pump with her or if she...

Town centre lost power a few years ago when lightening struck a substation. OH was in at the cheesemonger's shop at the time. Even though she had cash, the cheesemonger refused to sell her the cheese that he had already weighed out because the till wouldn't register the transaction on the paper...

Found all over the place in the town where I live are several species of wild geranium. This one is Geranium molle, commonly called dove's-foot cranes-bill. And here's another cranes-bill, this time Geranium robertianum or herb robert.

Messy hair, bits of straw and hay everywhere... Usually there's also a whiff of Cornucrescine or Thermaquin...

Deepfake audio is just as threatening and probably closer to being a big problem. A colleague got a call on his mobile phone last week. It was a bot that claimed to represent an electricity company and asked him questions about his accommodation: did he live in a flat or a house, was the flat...

"wooooof wooooof" is the sound that a flamethrower makes...

If use of the "pop pop" is prohibited by HA rules, what about a "wooooof wooooof"?

From the left, 50g whole sumac seeds (€1.50), 50g whole mahlab seeds (€2.80), 20g ground mahlab seeds (€3.80), from a little grocery shop in Troyes. I was sorely tempted to get mixes for basterma, soudjouk and makanek...

Catch ten or twenty live ones in a metal bin and take that down to the council offices: "here, dispose of these!"

They're apparently quite tough; the fishmonger said he would cut them from the shells and pound the flesh to tenderise it. He advised frying in butter and chopped parsley for 90 seconds each side. They were perfect, tasty but not a strong flavour and tender.

At the market, yesterday morning, I bought three green ormers. The fishmonger had four out on ice on his stall; I told him that there would be three of us for supper so I'd want either three or six, but he didn't have another two so I came away with three and he was left with just one lonely...