Westministenders: Canada Plus and the Transition Phase

[RedToothBrush]

As we approach the 31st January, we slowly tick towards exit and transition.

Things are not yet signed off though the No Deal planning has quietly been stood down with no press release and the government have said they won't talk about trade deals post 31st Jan because the public are bored of them and don't understand.

The new EU president has said that the UK doesn't have time to make a full deal with the EU before 31st December with a deadline which isn't flexible.

We still have no idea what the government plans are. We still have many EU citizens feeling very vulnerable.

Perhaps we should start talking about this rather than Royals for a couple of weeks...

Hasn’t anyone ever invented a way to make electricity from rain? I’m sure it would do very well in the North West

Well there's watermills.

Whatever happened to acid rain ?

Mistigri
Thanks!
I'm relieved to have it. Strangely symbolic timing, especially as I applied on March 29th 2018 and have squeezed in just before Jan 31st.
It'll simplify a few things. And provide reassurance.
But it feels like another little wrench on the increasingly slender ties linking me to the country of my birth.

Thanks for the new thread. Had to put my beautiful cat down this time last week. May he finally get through the pearly gates after a long time deciding to go in.

He was watching Blue Planet when this was taken.

It would be tempting to paint that as an American attitude, but I recall in the 80s when a lot of US telecoms carriers started providing unmetered (i.e. "free") calls locally. The horror amongst people in the UK - you'd think it was powered by burning fivers.

Agreed DGR. I lived in the US in late 90s / 00s and still the case. Posting letters is also cheap in comparison to the UK - possibly because our 600 Apartment block had centralised mail boxes. Poor UK postie has to climb up and down 3 story tenement flights all along our street - we always get the young ones to train.

Never paid to watch TV in the US either. Free standard cable and the occasional fundraising extravaganza on PBS did the job.

Misti other interesting things I read about was using salt flats to store excess solar in Morocco and a similar projects in UK using things like liquid air to store excess night wind. (No claim to any expertise other than armchair interest. Can confirm moss on your car window frames does not aid fuel economy)

Congratulations, Auld Alliance 🤛🏼
Félicitations

So sorry to hear about your cat, placemat 💐
I'm sure he had a lovely life as your companion

Agreed DGR. I lived in the US in late 90s / 00s and still the case. Posting letters is also cheap in comparison to the UK -

Why, it's almost as if America is a different country to the UK, isn't it ?

Thanks, BCF
Commiserations, placemats

Whatever happened to acid rain ?

Environmental legislation and international pressure (for eg to make big sulphur emitters in Russia clean up their act - which they have been doing).

Long way to go though.

Placemats, sorry to hear that :( RIP placecat.

other interesting things I read about was using salt flats to store excess solar in Morocco

There is an idea to use molten salt ... you focus solar power onto a tiny boiler and it gets so hot as to melt salt during the day and then you extract that heat during the night for electricity generation.

Drifting OT, but many years ago I saw a clip (possibly Tomorrows World - kids ask your grandparents) somewhere in Mexico where they had devised a scheme to string mesh along the coast. The mesh caught water vapour which condensed and ran down in enough volume to irrigate a considerable area of otherwise arid land. In a nutshell free desalination.

I mentioned it to a friend who said it would never fly as it couldn't be monetised. Much like rain.

www.theverge.com/2018/6/8/17441496/fog-harvesting-water-scarcity-environment-crisis

felicitations auldalliance although it must be a strange feeling.
so sorry about your cat placemats they are such a part of our lives.

I applied on March 29th 2018 and have squeezed in just before Jan 31st.

That was quick - imagine yours a very straightforward dossier tho'.

We can't even get a first rdv here (Toulouse). Going to wait until I'm 65 and do a dossier as an "ascendant" of French kids.

placemats

I mentioned it to a friend who said it would never fly as it couldn't be monetised. Much like rain.

And this is the crux of the matter. Destabilisation of energy supply is the preferred option over loss of profit.

Thanks for the posts of support. I miss him terribly but it was the right thing to do.

And this is the crux of the matter. Destabilisation of energy supply is the preferred option over loss of profit.

The heartbreaking thing is there is profit there. It's just you need not to be a complete moron to see it. And that's when it dawns on you that for all their Eton-OxBridge old school ties, our education establishments have been churning out stone cold morons for generations. They are the academic equivalent of pigs with lipstick.

It's the old hammer/nail paradigm. The problem is we have dedicated our entire political and educational powerbase to making more hammers.

Mistigri I wasn't in much doubt; I've been here 24 years, been a fonctionnaire since 1999 and have 2 French kids. Still relieved, though.
Now I have to wait up to 6 months for a letter inviting me to a ceremony where I get a certificate allowing me to apply for a CNI and a passport (but I'm going to see if I can do it using a PDF of the JO showing my name on the long list of those naturalised on Dec 30th. A fair few UK names on there...)

Not quite suitable for expansion into a working model, but I'd rather spunk more money on projects like that then rows of little money (and fuck all else) generators on peoples roofs.

Actually, ours generate electricity, as I’m sure the majority do. What do you mean by this, DGR?

With reference to generating electricity from rain, it was tongue in cheek, but I did mean directly. If you can power a mill from a stream, couldn’t you put a little waterwheel in the downpipe from a roof, for example?

If you can power a mill from a stream, couldn’t you put a little waterwheel in the downpipe from a roof, for example?

V different. Rivers run continuously whereas water in a downpipe only runs when it is actually raining (and it would need to be raining hard for run off to be enough to turn a wheel). Even in the U.K. this is not a significant % of the time.

Then you would have to install a means of turning motion into energy, and a means of converting that energy so it was suitable for consumption locally or to be fed to the grid.

Cost = £££. Returns = negligible. ROI = negative.

There’s a geothermal project in Cornwall too. Guess who has contributed significant funding .

www.uniteddownsgeothermal.co.uk/

So sorry placemats.

Sorry about your cat placemats

Actually, ours generate electricity, as I’m sure the majority do. What do you mean by this, DGR?

I'm sure they do. Whether they do it efficiently - either electrically or economically is another matter.

I can't really put into words how much I detest solar panels in the UK. They had fuck all to do with sustainable electricity generation and everything to do with lining the pockets of the manufacturers and suppliers with the subsidies that were stolen from all customers. Someone saw a quick buck they could cloak in "green" and that was that. I dread to think how much extra carbon was used to make the panels.

Probably best stop there .

The aim of subsidies (done properly) is to enable economies of scale and to drive down future prices.

(I can't comment on the U.K. specifically, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that subsidy schemes were primarily set up to line the pockets of the well connected.)