In message <bHIbl.20632$Sp5.14557>, Steve
Hague <steve.hague1> writes
>The first house we bought in Cornwall had a Rayburn, which is the
>working class version of the Aga.

If an Aga is the upper class one and a Rayburn the working class
version, what was an Esse - middle class? There was an Esse in the
bedsitter (with kitchenette and closet) where my first husband and I
lived when my daughter was born.

In message <x_ydndkbSaqr_fLUnZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d>, Marjorie
<dontusethisaddress> writes
>I suppose there must have been a time when people wrote >'frige< (I am
>using chevrons to avoid confusion with quotes/apostrophes) or >'fridge<
>but I can't remember it. I certain don't think I've ever seen the
>former, since it would suggest that it rhymed with "oblige", and "frig"
>would have further inappropriate connotations.

When I was a gel the correct abbreviation was definitely 'frig and I
stubbornly continued to use this version myself until very recently when
I finally decided to give up fighting a losing battle.

In message
<ae98bc78-1701-4433-9f6b-a36dfba22944>,
Ralph B <google81> writes:
[]
>> I am happy for another runway, I would have rather they built another new
>> Airport out at Cliff in Kent.
>
>Reading that gave me an idea: What about an underground airport? Cut a
>couple of long, wide tunnels in the chalk cliffs under Kent (see where
>the idea came from?) and let the aeroplanes fly in and out like
>swallows. True, it'd be a tricky approach, but they all land by

Yes, you could have them swing-wing, too. And you could use linear
motors to help them launch.

>computer nowadays don't they? No noise to bother the Little
>Englanders. And the passengers could get to and from London by using
>that shiney new high-speed train that runs through Folkstone.

If they have to go to London at all, that is.

Mark Williams wrote:
> "Jo Lonergan" <jolonergan> wrote in message
> news:5pvf
>
> You would need a licese because you can't just dump bodies anywhere (Elf &
> Safety and a lot more besides, innit). You ae morel ikely to planning
> permission for a new runw.... Oh the did already.

I don't believe you need any permission if you own the land, but there
are guidelines on where it is acceptable, which are mostly to do with
water courses.

Ah, yes, here's some guidance:

http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/cons...n-my-woodland/
http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/cons...n-my-woodland/

• The site should be more than 30 metres from any spring or any running
or standing water. It should also be more than 10 metres from any ‘dry’
ditch or field drain.

• The site should be at least 50 metres away from any well, borehole or
spring that supplies water for any use. If you are not sure where these
are, our local office will be able to advise you.

• When preparing the grave, make sure there is no standing water when it
is first dug and that the grave is not dug in very sandy soil.

• There should be at least one metre of soil above and below the body
after burial.

On 15 Jan 2009 13:22:13 GMT, Sebastian Lisken
<Sebastian.Lisken> wrote:

>Stephen <stephenbowden> wrote:
>
>Stephen, would you be willing to make the case for Agas here? Because
>the article does contain some figures that apparently have been checked
>(the one correction the article received was exactly about those
>figures). I used to like Agas, which probably shows my class background.
>:-) But that was from a very large distance, I don't think I've ever
>seen one in real. Now I have doubts. From a very brief look at the
>comments section, it seems the arguments in defence are about the Aga's
>double use as heating. But there's also the comment, "I'm with you all
>the way on the Aga issue. A very expensive, inefficient way of drying
>tea towels, if my neighbours are anything to go by." If defending the
>Aga depends on meticulous and responsible patterns of use, that would
>probably make my doubts stronger.

We had an Aga installed in the 17th Century thatched cottage that we
sold when we moved to America. In addition to being a fantastic
machine for cooking on (and particularly in), the constant warmth
drove damp out of the walls - there is no effective damp-prevention
mechanism for old stone built cottages; so warmth is the best
approach. That preserves the life of the cottage and particularly of
anything inside it that might suffer from damp. In addition the Aga
made the kitchen a really good room to live in.

Because we had an Aga, with a working life measured in decades, we
didn't have a modern cooker, whose life would have been much shorted,
and whose lifecycle would have used a range of environmentally
unfriendly processes and substances (and the environment is still
about more than just carbon - there are no dioxins used in making
Agas.)

If we are going to save the planet we need a vision for what a saved
planet will be like. And if that vision is of a world just like this
one, but without Agas, that's not going to cut it. An Aga to me is
about investment in a slower, less consumption-driven approach to
life, which, to my mind, is the only way to a sustainable life.

I haven't yet read Andrew Price's Slow-Tech, but I think that it makes
many of the same arguments.

After a hard day on the farm, Mark Williams jumped off the tractor to
write:

>
>"Jo Lonergan" <jolonergan> wrote in message
>news:5pvf
>
>You would need a licese because you can't just dump bodies anywhere (Elf &
>Safety and a lot more besides, innit). You ae morel ikely to planning
>permission for a new runw.... Oh the did already.
>

My suggestion was a serious one. You can bury bodies on land you own.
I'm surprised they haven't thought of it themselves. Wicker and
cardboard coffins should make it all the more difficult to clear when
they finally come to plough it up.

On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:07:46 +0100, Gumrat <gumrat> wrote:

>Jo Lonergan wrote:
><snip Grauniad article>
>> The comment site was full of Agaites defending their stoves. Feelings obviously
>> run high. Perhaps I should cheer him up by mailing him that the Basel
>> authorities have just decided to ban patio heaters outside restaurants and cafés
>> (and been castigated as killjoys by the locals - since when did one expect to be
>> able to sit outside in an extremely cold January?)
>>
>Is it something to do with having banned smoking inside?

They haven't yet, though. Apparently they need 18 months after a referendum
(with a substantial majority in favour of a ban) to clear away the ashtrays.

In article <CZObl.20841$Sp5.19757>,
usenet.omrud says...

[..]
> spring that supplies water for any use. If you are not sure where these
> are, our local office will be able to advise you.
>
> =3F When preparing the grave, make sure there is no standing water when it
> is first dug and that the grave is not dug in very sandy soil.
>
> =3F There should be at least one metre of soil above and below the body
> after burial.
>It would certainy be impossible to comply with those guidelines around
here, and the same probably goes for most of the country.

After all, how many places have a soil depth of 7 or 8 feet?

In article <p5fvm4587jk2aufn28bmh8rd1lp9qv2kqg>,
stephenbowden says...

>
I have some sympathy with what you say Stephen, but I bet I'm not the
onlyrat who had to read the first part several times

"We had an Aga installed in the 17th Century...."

"Jo Lonergan" <jolonergan> wrote in message
news:4c09
> On Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:21:49 +0000, Stephen <stephenbowden>
> wrote:
>> He seemed to be saying that the Spiked team were complete loonies. Calling
> people puritans was the least of it.
>
> The comment site was full of Agaites defending their stoves. Feelings
> obviously
> run high. Perhaps I should cheer him up by mailing him that the Basel
> authorities have just decided to ban patio heaters outside restaurants and
> cafés
> (and been castigated as killjoys by the locals - since when did one expect
> to be
> able to sit outside in an extremely cold January?)

I am not surprised. Agas tend to be in bigger houses. Ours runs for about
4 months a year and heats most of the house for that time (with a small
boost from the oil fired boiler). It is off for the rest of the year and we
use an electric cooker. In theory it should be able to run on the renewable
oils that are being tried out by airlines to replace jet fuel, so we can be
totally green and use the renewable jet fuel that won't get used if the 3rd
runway is not built.

"Mark Williams" <spam.me> wrote in message
news:nz2d
>
> "Jo Lonergan" <jolonergan> wrote in message
> news:4c09
>
> I am not surprised. Agas tend to be in bigger houses. Ours runs for
> about 4 months a year and heats most of the house for that time (with a
> small boost from the oil fired boiler). It is off for the rest of the
> year and we use an electric cooker. In theory it should be able to run on
> the renewable oils that are being tried out by airlines to replace jet
> fuel, so we can be totally green and use the renewable jet fuel that won't
> get used if the 3rd runway is not built.
>
More here:
http://www.oftec.org/biofuels.htm

If this works, then oil (& wood) fired Agas will be one of the least
CO2-productive forms of domestic heating (when the whole carbon cycle is
taken into account).

Jenny M Benson wrote:
> In message <bHIbl.20632$Sp5.14557>, Steve
> Hague <steve.hague1> writes
>> The first house we bought in Cornwall had a Rayburn, which is the
>> working class version of the Aga.
>
> If an Aga is the upper class one and a Rayburn the working class
> version, what was an Esse - middle class? There was an Esse in the
> bedsitter (with kitchenette and closet) where my first husband and I
> lived when my daughter was born.

I don't think I'd classify a Rayburn as a working class version of an
Aga. I always saw aga as upper class with Rayburn slightly lower. They
are still pretty expensive and I don't remember people on the estate
where I was dragged up having Rayburns installed on a regular basis.

Colin

In message <MPG.23d99899ccce0e989f75>, Plusnet
<not> writes:
[]
>Alternatively, if civil aviation were to adopt aircraft carrier methods
>- catapult launch and arrestor-wire landings - you could sell off half
>of Heathrow's existing site and still triple the number of aircraft
>movements.
>
I think the average passenger wouldn't like the G forces involved -
though on a more serious note, if redesign of the whole system was
undertaken, you are right, but I can't see the industry doing it.

On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:13:32 +0000, Marjorie
<dontusethisaddress> wrote:

>Plusnet wrote:
>This is a bit drastic, isn't it? Are all the protesters prepared to die
>very soon in order to make this happen?

My original idea was that by some kind of kink in the space/time continuum we
could be lying in a long-forgotten humanist cemetery, or possibly not really
forgotten but ignored by dastardly developers and corrupt local planning
officers. After increasingly alarming episodes involving the haunting of the
Duty Free and zombies turning up at security with more than 100 ml of horrors in
their hand baggage, our bodies would finally spring from their graves, provoked
by the Government's folly in all boarding a 747 together, and bring them and the
entire airport to destruction.

Oh hello Mr Special Branch Lurker. I'll get me coat.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> In message <MPG.23d99899ccce0e989f75>, Plusnet
> <not> writes:
> []
>> Alternatively, if civil aviation were to adopt aircraft carrier methods
>> - catapult launch and arrestor-wire landings - you could sell off half
>> of Heathrow's existing site and still triple the number of aircraft
>> movements.
>>
> I think the average passenger wouldn't like the G forces involved -

I don't know, only one bloke broke his legs when the plane landed on the
Hudson. Surely a price worth paying for short runways or landing on the
Thames.

Colin