The 2024 Rendezvous

[Gerard C]

On usual, Belgian police and Royal Gendarmerie are not exactly people you'd love to deal with. If they did nothing or few, they must have been following the orders IMO. Easy here to push back hundreds of angry farmers, wait a bit till they get bored, thirsty and frozen to the bones and make promises. If it's not enough, add promises till they go home!

[GORDON STREETER]

Meanwhile a little video to start the day https://youtu.be/A_FrDeu7hlE

[Mike Harte]

Seeing that partially built hotel complex reminds me that in Benidorm the town hall gave a developer building consent to construct an apartment tower with multiple floors. About a year after work had started, the town hall woke up and realised, long after local residents had, that they had added somewhere in the region of 11 extra floors.

Work was immediately stopped by the authority in charge of monitoring construction, which in the Valencian region happens to be the local police who are actually controlled by the local town halls in the region and the people who should have stopped the building as soon as they started on the extra floors. Being as the building was on the sea front, it's not as though they couldn't see what was going on as they passed by many times a day. Back in the day they were just considered to be a security team for the local mayor but over many years some of their powers were increased, but most locals just think of them as lollipop/parking wardens, however ones that carry sidearms!

After many years passed, the developer had conveniently gone bust, and the town hall had to cough up to demolish the whole building as no other developer wanted to take on the removal of the extra floors and to complete the project.

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Seeing that partially built hotel complex reminds me that in Benidorm the town hall gave a developer building consent to construct an apartment tower with multiple floors. About a year after work had started, the town hall woke up and realised, long after local residents had, that they had added somewhere in the region of 11 extra floors.

Mike. It was built on what we would call "green belt land" and was obviously done with a few "Large backhanders" !! and of course it was built overnight so nobody saw it being built !! It was actually started 20 years ago and halted in 2006
In fact there is another such complex nearer to us at Macenas beach that is even worse an eyesore as it has no infill only the concrete structure and is at the end of this short video that I made 5 years ago. All the buildings/sites shown are still the same today !
https://youtu.be/6MymXPUnnbU

[Gerard C]

I remember some buildings and complexes not finished on the coast. I you wait for some decades they will end up as modern-art deco leftovers.

[Mike Harte]

Gordon, is that the place where Clarkson and the Top Gear team did a bit of filming some years ago, creating a time trial track?

You rightly joke about somewhere being built overnight, but something like that happened a mile or so away from where I lived then, and I overlooked it and watched what they were doing.

The area was part of a preserved nature site, a forest which was a major breeding site for a number of animals and especially Golden Eagles which used to soar in the air around the dip at the back of my house. I used to spend hours watching them searching for prey, mainly rabbits and hares plus a ground dwelling bird which spent most of it's time hopping around.

Anyway, without any permits, of course, the developers started felling swathes of trees until they were stopped by the Guardia Civil who have a Nature Protection unit and had been surveying the area. For a couple of weeks work ceased, however the developers then started coming to the site during the hours of darkness when they knew that the Guardia wouldn't be flying their helicopters.

This link: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/...hpqq?entry=ttu shows the new urbanisation that was eventually constructed, called Las Colinas, and the whole area was a dense forest when I first moved into the area. To this day I have never understood how they managed to get away with it, but I suspect it was partly down to the fact that it is a little, or not so little, corner of land that borders on or is part of 3 different local towns' administrations.

[midgetman]

Update on Spring in Bromham.

It's not just Church Hill on the sunny side of the village that features daffodils, we have them open in our garden now around six weeks earlier than they have traditionally flowered. The hedges are starting to show green, and I'm going to have to mow the lawn if only I could find the mower behind MiniMM's pile of MG stuff on my shed.

Winter hasn't been kind to our roads which are the worst I drive on anywhere - and I do 25k+ miles p.a.! In addition one particular corner has a blocked drain and floods regularly, all the way across, deep enough to rip the auxiliary drive belt off a Sprinter (yes, mine). The nearest householder phoned our ever-diligent council who sent out a man. Said man looked at it and put up a flood sign - this was three months ago and nothing has happened. Except that the flood sign was the only village casualty of The Big Storm a few weeks back, and now lies twisted and forlorn in a separate puddle.

The ZR needs a new track rod end for MOT, no doubt a direct result of the Mars-esque roadscape round here. Hopefully I'll get some tax cuts to pay for it! Maybe I'd rather have no tax cuts and not **** my cars? Controversial!

But the good news is racing has started again! And it's half term next week so the kids want to go karting again. We're also moving into bigger workshops soon which will be great.

Happy Spring everyone!

Sent from my AC2003 using Tapatalk

[Mike Harte]

I'm pleased that the weather is clement down sarf, but please spare a thought for us up 'ere with a warning to expect up to a foot of snow tomorrow and more to come on Friday. No expectations for any green shoots for a while yet.

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

I'm pleased that the weather is clement down sarf, but please spare a thought for us up 'ere with a warning to expect up to a foot of snow tomorrow and more to come on Friday. No expectations for any green shoots for a while yet.

I think all our green shoots will soon be disappearing under water - again.

It is just rain, rain rain & more rain here. Many people are still trying to dry out their homes from the floods before the last floods. Total disaster.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by John Elwin

I think all our green shoots will soon be disappearing under water - again.

It is just rain, rain rain & more rain here. Many people are still trying to dry out their homes from the floods before the last floods. Total disaster.

I could make a sarky comment such as 'That's global warming for you', but I won't bother!

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

I could make a sarky comment such as 'That's global warming for you', but I won't bother!

Good - no such thing as global warming here.

[E.B]

This made me chuckle in an "only in Australia would you see this" sort of electric car culture we have.... Actually its a bit of a sad state of affairs. Buy an electric car and save the planet.

https://twitter.com/persephvoice/sta...71728175087802

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by E.B

This made me chuckle in an "only in Australia would you see this" sort of electric car culture we have.... Actually its a bit of a sad state of affairs. Buy an electric car and save the planet.

https://twitter.com/persephvoice/sta...71728175087802

Don't get me started Chris, just don't get me started...

[Gerard C]

May be it's a clean diesel generator of the new generation? Would be intersting to compare the fuel consumption to how many miles an EV can achieve when charged? Is it worth?

As to the stop of ICE production planed for 2035, now we have Stellantis group and Merc, first in rope, sayin' "may be do may be don't, depending on… we'll see… still to be seriously studied… blah, blah, blah".

[John Elwin]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

May be it's a clean diesel generator of the new generation? Would be intersting to compare the fuel consumption to how many miles an EV can achieve when charged? Is it worth?

As to the stop of ICE production planed for 2035, now we have Stellantis group and Merc, first in rope, sayin' "may be do may be don't, depending on… we'll see… still to be seriously studied… blah, blah, blah".

Now that the farmers have shot down in flames Brussels net zero nonsense, it is the turn of the motor industry to completely finish it off. From what you say, Stellantis & Merc seem to be following in the wake of Renault, Ford, Polestar & Toyota.

Perhaps it will be worth me living a bit longer after all!

[Paul D]

Originally Posted by E.B

This made me chuckle in an "only in Australia would you see this" sort of electric car culture we have.... Actually its a bit of a sad state of affairs. Buy an electric car and save the planet.

https://twitter.com/persephvoice/sta...71728175087802

You just couldn't make this stuff up could you?

Here's an idea: instead of scrapping all those nasty ICE vehicles, we could all keep one on our driveways, each get a set of heavy duty jump-leads and then we could run the ICE vehicle to charge up our shiny new EVs! Genius!

I'm off out to buy shares in the biggest jump-lead manufacturer!

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by E.B

This made me chuckle in an "only in Australia would you see this" sort of electric car culture we have.... Actually its a bit of a sad state of affairs. Buy an electric car and save the planet.

https://twitter.com/persephvoice/sta...71728175087802

The thing is - by looking at that single charging point alone, you are not appreciating the bigger picture.

Simple maths:

100 refuels of diesel cars means that 100 energy 'cycles' have come from diesel.

99 charges of EVs with renewable energy, in a more urban setting - plus 1 charge of an EV using a diesel generator - means that 1 energy 'cycle' has come from diesel.

[Peter Mallett]

Now you've separated diesel from fossil fuels. Try 100 cycles of an EV from fossil fuels and you have the real picture. Fossil fuels still provide the majority of energy for power stations.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

Fossil fuels still provide the majority of energy for power stations.

Obviously that differs by country - but that statement is not true for the UK (in 2023).

The breakdown for electricity on the grid in 2023 was:

Natural gas (32%)
Coal (1%)
Nuclear (14.2%)
Wind (29.4%)
Biomass (5%)
Solar (4.9%)
Hydro (1.8%)
Storage (1%)
Imports (10.7%)

Assuming all imports were fossil fuels, then that is still only 43.7% of the total.

[Peter Mallett]

*sigh* Give it a rest, my point remains, you simply discussed diesel and not the entire energy mix. FWIW the current status https://grid.iamkate.com/

Also you do know that both Seimens and Orstedt are canning major wind projects worldwide because they can't make a profit? Likewise Toyota and other major car manufacturers are also cutting EV production. The world's economy just can't afford to pay for the dream of unreliable renewables. Argue as much as you like, reality is starting to bite IMO.

As a previous owner of an EV my experience reflected that of Rowan Atkinson. They are a great driving experience but completely impractical for anything other than a trip to and from the shops. And yes I realise EV disciples will refute this but I bet most of them haven't owned one.

Finally and for the record when a humorous post about EVs lands in this or any other thread, unless the responses are in the spirit of the original post I'll remove them.

[midgetman]

I'd have an EV in a heartbeat, it's all I need to whip about the village and off to the gym. Alas outside my price range.

But - for business use - it's my smoky ol' diesel vans I'm afraid. Nothing else makes the slightest sense.

In more village news, the flood from the blocked drain has reached the opposite kerb and is starting to cover the pavement. More importantly, my office chair has collapsed and I can now barely reach the desktop to type this. Not sure if that's due to climate change or just because I'm a fat b******. I'm sure that nice Miss Thunberg will advise me.

Sent from my AC2003 using Tapatalk

[justracing]

Loving the village updates and the furniture demise story, great to have a bit of light humour on such a miserable, wet day. Well done Midgetman

[Peter Mallett]

You're probably leaning 1.5 degrees too far to the right.

[Paul D]

Just looking at those figures for wind power generation in Peter's link: when the capability exceeds the current record by a factor of four, we'll have almost enough to fire the flux capacitor in the DeLorean!

[Tel 911S]

Originally Posted by Paul D

Just looking at those figures for wind power generation in Peter's link: when the capability exceeds the current record by a factor of four, we'll have almost enough to fire the flux capacitor in the DeLorean!

Yes , but the figures in Peters link will be ADJUSTED to show what the agenda wants They cant have unreliables showing how poor they really are l.[ A quick check seems to show that they have already been changed ].

And there is no mention of the thousands of DIESEL generators which run to back up the Wind / Solar when it is not producing hardly anything .
https://www.instituteforenergyresear...wind-turbines/

Or even that GRIDSERVE uses diesel generators for a lot of its EV charging stations .https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...d-ev-charging/

So the real truth will usually be hidden .