Motorhead

"Vegan" wine is guaranteed to be free of gelatin but being made with yeast it is only vegan in a very archaic sense (once upon a time folk thought yeasts were plants). There is absolutely no reason not to eat meat appart from a particular allergy. not liking the taste or an addiction to cuddly toys. I once knew a vegetarian who ate fish because "they weren't cuddly". Unfortunately these days most of the animals that end up on the average persons plate lead short brutified lives and have hideous deaths. The only sure alternative is to raise and slaughter your own meat which is, thankfully, rather easier in France. Organic production and small scale, local slaughter are the way ahead but the cards are stacked against it. Agribusiness holds all the aces right now. I know, that's how I got out of agribuisiness even though I could have been making stacks of money right now crossing tomatoes with frogs.

The term chigger for insects is no longer in current American usage, it has been superceded by another and entirely different meaning. I once spent a year working in the fish breeding industry in Florida. Apparently there is an ethnic minority there who are the product of breeding between the Jamaicans and the Chinese. They are known as Chiggers and their accent is very similar to that heard in the west of Scotland.  Also apparently, with America being the crazy, disfunctional place that it is, there are a lot of people who have nothing better to do of an afternoon than phone up numbers at random and shout abuse down the line. I was completely unaware of either until I got home and turned on my ansaphone to get "You ****in Chigger *******" booming out at me. BTW Chiggers are known as berry bugs in Scotland (that's the insects not the people).

Dick There's a theoretical difference, yes, but it's difficult to get the stuff out. Christine Don't think I'm standing up for Hegs. Any wine that purports to be vegetarian or vegan is a fraud as I think most vegans are. Vegetarianism is an archaic term that comes from the era when any thing was either animal, vegetable or mineral. Nowadays taxonomy has at least 5 kingdoms with another 2 subject to debate. The old animal/vegetable divide is simply no longer here. Many of the things that vegans consume are not properly vegetarian and maybe they are in blissfull ignorance but if not, I think they should come clean. Swim bladders are organs that fish have to adjust their bouyancy and therefore their "altitude" in the water. Perhaps you should give the vegetarians an example and change your name to Mrs Mammal.

It is quite possible to get wine made without animal products but that still won't make it vegetarian. All alcohol production is reliant on yeast which although not an animal is certainly not a vegetable or even any kind of plant. If it's OK for vegetarians to consume non plant materials then perhaps they should be calling themselves something else.

Currently my water meter is inside the house but the water company are coming to fit a new one in an outside pit that I’ve excavated and lined. I’m pretty sure I know how to connect this to the plumbing inside but I want to branch off a line of the blue plastic pipe stuff to supply the barn. I’ve used the blue stuff years ago to run water out to field troughs but can’t remember much about it. So: 1)      What diameter of pipe and do I get the stuff that comes inside gaine? 2)       Is there a special sort of T joint for this? 3)       How do I fit the pipe to the joint? 4)       Do I need a pressure reducer. 5)       How can I even tell what pressure the water’s at anyway?

Tank PH is a whole subject in itself. I had to dig out some old notes I had from PH crash at a sewerage works that I once had to sort out. Nearly all tank bacteria need to be within a PH range of 6-9 in order to survive. Unless you do something naughty like use caustic soda to unblock your wastepipes it should never go above 9 but it can quite easily go below 6.Tanks naturally tend to move towards the acidic.  Most of the bacteria produce acid as part of their normal anaerobic respiration. This is mainly lactic and proprionic acids which are quite weak but can build up to a critical level if the tank is not being used and there is no exchange between new water coming in and the old going out. This is called fermentation and is pretty much the same thing that happens when making silage or saurkraut . If the tank is being used but there is still bacterial acidity the culprit is almost certainly the genus Thiobacillus. Thiobacillus are absolutely amazing wee beasties. They live around the vent pipe where they feed on methane gas, which is good, but they excrete sulphuric acid, which is bad. In a concrete tank the sulphuric acid tends to soak into the concrete (where it can ultimateley cause corrosion) but in a plastic tank it can drip down the sides and into the water.   Another cause of PH problems is the water supply. I was once involved in a case where the water was naturally PH5 and the water board traditionally added lime to stop it corroding the old cast iron pipes. Then one day they finished replacing all the mains with these new hi-tech super-duper non corroding pipes and thought “hey we don’t have to lime the water any more”. Now if they’d told this to the to the sewer bods, who theoretically worked for the same organization, they wouldn’t have done it. But then that’s engineers for you.   Could the same thing happen in France? I hope not but it really depends on where you are. If  you’re in a hard water area then no chance but I stay in an area where the geology is non calciferous but the water comes out the tap at PH9 so I’m damn sure the water company is adding lime. I can’t trust them to suddenly stop doing it and tell me about it so I’ll have to keep my eye out for supply pipe renewals.   It’s probably a good thing to check your tank PH every month or so. The easiest way of doing this is to dangle a test strip in on a length of string with a small fishing weight attached. If the tank is heading towards being too acidic forget about swimming pool type PH adjusters. They are designed to work with dead rather than live water and they are just not robust enough plus you would have to measure the tank’s liquid content to get the dosage right. The best thing is a stuff called tufa rock which is available very cheaply from any decent pet shop. This is a form of magnesian limestone which releases alkalinity into the water but only in response to being dissolved by acid so it is environmentally self limiting and therefore will never push the PH up too high.   You can put a lump of tufa rock in a mesh bag and suspend it in the tank but if the acidity is coming from the water supply it would be better in the grease trap if you have one plus a small lump in the toilet cistern

This is amazing stuff Lorribee. Did you get a certificate of conformity for it? Also I'm a bit unsure about what you mean by "a sealed system watering underground, " Not being bolshy just very interested.

I got a warning on my computer. “There are no spare stack pages. It  may be necessary  to increase the setting of MinSPs in SYSTEM.INI to prevent possible stack faults. There are currently 5 SPs allocated". What is SYSTEM.INI ?  Where  can I find it and how can I get into it? Once I’m there how do I find MinSPs and increase the setting and to what?   BTW it’s Windoze ME and really does seem to be suffering from ME

Never done a Landie but have done a Niva (better cars on the rough). This was first reg'd in '96 but because it was actually a '93 model it had no 17 digit VIN therefore could only get a partial c of c. Look on the chassis plate. if the VIN has 17 digits then easy peasy, if not expect complications.  

Don't listen to them Dormouse. Having attended both home and abbatoir slaughters I know where I would rather send my last minutes, although in an abbatoir it would be more like last hours. If the meat is not going to be sold there is absolutely no need to subject the pig to all the stress involved in the transport to and then the waiting at the abbatoir where they can see the other pigs being taken away and then hear their screams. Pigs (and goats too) are quite smart creatures and know exactly whats happening. Of course if the meat is going to be sold  you have to use an abbatoir but this has absolutely nothing to do with (non human) animal welfare, it is all about public health. It's much easier for the authorities to keep an eye on what goes into the food chain that way. At a properly conducted home slaughter the beast won't know what's happening until the last couple of seconds. I hardly think there will be any drinking until at least later on. 1st stage: Slip a couple of ropes on the back legs. 2nd stage: Shoot pig between the eyes. 3rd stage: Hoist the brain dead pig up high by the back legs. 4th stage: Cut throat and drain blood whilst heart still beats. 5th stage: Throw buckets of boiling water over the carcase to aid the scraping off of the bristles. Now it may just be me but I'd think it more than a bit daft to start the drinking before the boiling water gets chucked about. I hope that folk will notice here that the pig is shot either with a gun or a captive bolt before any bloodletting. This does not happen in an abbatoir where they use electrodes to stun the pig and which may or may not keep the pig stunned untill death by bloodloss. It's not nice to hear the pig regain consciousness and try to scream with a cut throat. Halal slaughter in abbatoirs is even worse. It's very fortunate that muslims don't eat pork, however that's no consolation at all for the poor goats.

There is a difference between killing bacteria directly as with anti-biotics, chlorine, bleach etc and  killing them by altering their environment. Soda is very alkaline stuff so it is concievable that it could push the PH up to too high a level. This is going to be most likely in a small tank that has a low ratio of water to solids(ie quite full up) and that is already running a bit on the alkaline side. The bigger the tank and the lower the solids the less this will be an issue. If you want to be completely assured you might try temporarily disconecting the throne and capping the outlet. Then you can fill it right up to the rim with bleach. The dairy hypoclorite stuff you get in farmer's supply places is guaranteed to shift anything. Of course give it a good rinse with a hose outside before reconnection.

Andrew I did not post to be disruptive although it is probably a bit of forum drift. However, you made some assertions that didn't quite square my understanding of basic water chemistry. This intrigued the scientist within me therefore I asked for some clarification, which has not been entirely forthcoming. I think I will have to assume that it was some kind of spectrometry that you were referring to.  It is quite some time since I used the process myself and I'm interested to know what kind of kit is being used these days eg have they advanced to near infrared yet? As for the sequestering you have confirmed my understanding that this alone cannot extract anything nevermind heavy metals. When you talk about a second stage filtration process I am thinking that there must also be some flocculation occurring or that the water is being filtered through some kind of resin that has a special affinity for the newly created compound. So which is it? I only referred to sequestering chlorine as that was the first example that sprung to mind. When I worked in aquaculture I often had to sequester cholrine. I'm not asking these questions because I'm particularly interested in swimming pools but I am very interested in the fundamental water science. 

They probably make it by filtering the reject brandy.

I don't usually look at this section of the forum but it's too hot to sleep and I'm bored. So Hendo what do you mean by a photometric test? Is it something to do with  spectrometry perchance? How can you extract anything with a sequestering agent without extracting all the water as well? For instance if I poured enough sodium thiosulphate into a pool I could sequester (or chelate to give it the non American term) all the chlorine by the 2 compounds combining to form sodium chloride. However, I wouldn't actually be extracting the chlorine as it's still there even if it is now forming part of a more complex molecule. Also when did magnesium become a heavy metal? 

[quote]I would first check with Land Rover UK that the one you will be buying can be issued with a European conformity certifcate. Address and phone from www.landrover.com . If it can than it will be elig...[/quote] [quote] by deafult all civil vehicles registered after 1/1/96 can be provided with  a europen certifcate of conformity [/quote] 'Fraid  not. 2 of the vehicles I brought over with me were first registered (never mind simply registered) in '96 but one is actually a '95 and the other is a '93. Look for a 17 digit VIN No. if you want a european c of c.

There was a thread here not long ago about a notaire who was willing to handle a transaction in sterling. I expect that he was after a skim off the currency rates. So even if you could find a notaire who would do it I doubt if it would be any cheaper.

I've  just got hold of a copy of "Making A Living In France" by Joe Laredo (is that his real name?). Just skimmed through it so far and although there are already a couple of glaring innaccuracies (he thinks Haute Vienne is in the Auvergne for instance) it seems quite good on the whole. Plenty of case studies and details of all the different company types etc.

I've looked into this myself. First problem is that the drainage authorities are run by engineers and quite frankly the biology is beyond them. I have seen composting toilets in France but they have all been in places like remote fishing lodges that didn't really need a toilet anyway as nobody was supposed to actually live in them. Secondly there doesn't seem to be a French manufacturer of these things. Most of them come out of America or Sweden and they are very expensive in France. A couple of years ago Sun-Mar had an agent in the Creuse. Don't know if he's still around (his property sales site has been down for a while) but he was selling them at almost twice the American list price. The technicien from the drainage authority is going to come and tell you what you have to do anyway. Their solution might not be the best possible but it will work and you'll get a fiche technique that describes exactly what will have to be done. Failure to comply with this and you won't get a certificate of conformity which you will need in order to get planning consent for any future works. I don't think they have a fiche for composting toilets. What you'll probably be landed with (based in the info so far supplied) is a septic tank right next to the house or even in the cellar and a lift station to take the liquids up to the epandage. A lift station is basically a sump with a ballcock operated electric pump and an alarm to tell you  if it ever fails. If you are wanting to recycle grey water try and get them to specify a separate grease trap which takes the grey water (200l for kitchen water and 500l for the bathroom as well) before it goes into the tank along with the blackwater.It should be easy to intercept and divert a fair amount of water from the grease trap. Unless you are washing very oily mechanics overalls frequently this water should be OK for watering the garden. However, this water is often very high in phosphates and if it can easily run off from the garden into a water course it's not going to be all that environmentally friendly. Once the new bioengineering graduates have worked up through the system or if the summer droughts get worse things will probably change but until then it's really best to forget about a composting toilet as anything more than a secondary throne.

I need to put a couple of flourescent lights up in the barn. Due to the height of the roof I've got to suspend them on chains. So how do I get the lecky to them? Do I just run a bit of flex down one of the chains or does it all have to be "gained up"?

How about bullfighting but using tuned lawnmowers instead of horses?

Basically you are only doing what the dear vodka companies do in house. I doubt if it would work with whisky. It is quite possible to filter whisky so much that you turn it into vodka. It is the impurity that makes whisky whisky. I've got a mate who is a whisky blender and it is all down to the polyphenols apparently. Turning pastis into absinthe would at the very least require a further distillation process.

The bottom line is that if you have an illnes that is better recognised in France then you are better off here like me. The NHS can be the the best health service in the world but only if you are judged to be "at risk". Once upon a time I was a fieldworking sewer biologist which is a very risky occupation healthwise and as such I had access to the full treatment however, when I stopped doing it I was back to being Joe Public and got the usual crap care.

T before you go any further check out the ease of getting a c of c . Yamaha, Triumph and BMW are very good at this but Honda are useless and Suzuki may well be the same Your bikes should be young enough to have the very important 17 digit VIN No's and with those (and assuming that the 'cat is just under 100hp, which I think it is) and a reasonably cooperative manufacturer/importer then it is quite straightforward. At the end of the day it may well be simpler to sell in the UK and buy in France. However bear in mind that s/h bike prices are usually dearer and the bikes usually have much higher mileages. The lack of a CT doesn't count for much just like with an MOT. I once got an MOT on a bike with a seized engine, it  wouldn't turn over never mind start.

Priorite a droit is the general rule unless countermanded by a sign or roadmarkings. Problem is dirt tracks which  probably  need them the most often don't have them when they emerge onto roads The rule still works very well for pedestrian traffic. observe any crowded Parisian street. On the roads, however. it is a very outmoded principle but realise it is not the only one. The only fundamental reason why the UK drives on the left is that it enables you to brandish your sword at oncoming traffic that wont get out of your way. 

It's weird y'know. You need a dec de travaux for guttering but you don't need it for fosse vent pipes. Soil pipes fall into a kind of no-man's land in between. The simplest thing would be just do it and if anyone asks, it's a vent pipe, OK .