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My Mother gave me her Dairy Book of Home Cookery when I was a student, which suggested doing just that. So I did. I made bulk amounts of biscuit dough sausages of various flavours and froze them. Easy matter to bake a fresh batch every couple of days. The sustenance was much needed during my...

I'm a wierdo and avoid food in plastic, so glass jar for me. Travel light... pah! Pancake batter freezes without harm so you can enjoy it later in a trip, and it will help keep other provisions cool in the meantime.

There isn't much out there for very small scale use. The farm I am involved with have roll away laying boxes for the hens, so most are clean, but the small number of dirties go in a Monarch rotary egg washer (actually it oscillates) very good but full commercial quality so very expensive. Even...

Good for you! I've seen one or two in operation over the years. Also owned and worked on a few Blake's power driven pumps of various sizes. It's amazing how much old kit is still in service in little brick pumphouses around the country... Always wanted a Hydram but what are the chances of ending...

Premium paraffin (C1 grade) is available on ebay, 20L for £44 delivered.

It might well be worth replacing the rubber seals if you haven't done so, they age harden and can crack and cause pressure leaks, or worse- fuel leaks. Many people run paraffin pressure stoves and lanterns on heating oil (28 sec, C2) without issues if they are only to be used outdoors. It's a...

Full on pancake batter in a container and try and keep it cool. Not quite what you were after, but mmm pancakes!

Dipped beam is required between half an hour after sunset and half an hour before sunrise (it used to be an hour). Until the 1930s motoring magazines published tables of 'lighting up time' for motorists for the coming month. Although by the 30s electric lighting had just about replaced...

Nah there are probably arcane reasons.... The Romans used a form of daylight saving after all, possibly ancient Egypt too... I bet it was tried- and dropped-in the Neolithic.... digging up an entire stone circle and moving each rock a few feet twice each year is too much like hard work.

But eaten at 16:00 GMT, or 16:00 GMT+1? ;)

We could reintroduce an extra hour of daylight saving on top- making 2 hours- as in the second world war. That would really give people something to talk about!

It gives the internet a twice-yearly chance to moan about something? I enjoy it. It's what I've always known, helps define the year and is no skin off my nose. Long may it continue.

On a similar theme, how many armchair (or perhaps 'internet') preppers wouldn't cope with reality? At a time when medical assistance is out or limited, firing up the kelly kettle when inexperienced and burning themselves badly when pouring for want of a £4 pair of leather welding gauntlets? Or...

They still degrade chemically with time- here's hoping they're still in good order.

Sadly, that's not relevant if they haven't been regularly given a top up charge- even gel batteries become toast without maintenance. It might be worth trying to find somebody with a good battery charger with a desulphation mode, otherwise they're worth what a scrapyard will give you.

Well yes.. governments need rampant consumerism for the economy to work and grow, which requires resources and minerals which lead to unstable global situations and wars. But probably more in line with your point is that consumerism works best when the masses are encouraged to outdo their...

I never understood the toilet roll panic, given just about every house has a shower, which is more effective and practically free... I suppose rules drummed in during infancy are hard to shake off for some.

It's surprising how often what we'd now call 'prepping' crops up in books of reminiscences of civillian life in the second world war. Probably not surprising given the number of people around who had lived through the great war and remembered the shortages and rationing. Plenty of references...

We can perhaps take some encouragement from the fact that during the 1930s period of appeasement of an expansionist dictator, a great many members of the public guessed correctly what the future held and made preparations long before the government offered any advice or guidance to the public.

Shame most of the other avians were absent when the brain cells were distributed.... over 300 years now and they still haven't got the hang of glass!