The Artillery Arms in Ramsgate is Grade II Listed (8 October 1972), originally known as The Ash Arms. It stands on Artillery Row at 36 West Cliff Road, and was formerly listed as 36 Royal Road (East Side). A CAMRA Guide entry for many years, this local is worth seeking out and enjoys a considerable reputation as a real ale destination. It normally features five local beers and others from independent brewers elsewhere, such as Oakham and Thornbridge. Wednesday evenings are Gourmet Night.
This small early Victorian pub dated 1840 is laid out on three levels. It has a jukebox, is decorated throughout with militaria and boasts a striking set of old well-preserved and attractively painted and stained-glass windows depicting 19th century cavalry charges and battle scenes. It is believed that the windows were designed and made by French prisoners of war brought to Ramsgate following the Battle of Waterloo.(1)
The Grade II listing states:-
“GV II Public house. Circa 1840. Painted brick with slate roof. Three storeys and basement with parapet to hipped roof and stacks to left and to rear. Two storey bow with glazing bar sashes on first and second floors. Ground floor pub front wrapped around front and returned to side elevations, with panelled aprons to frosted and stained glass windows with pilaster piers to fascia and cornice, with pediments containing relief of cannons over panelled and glazed doors on left and right corners. Left return (to West Cliff Road) with sash above panelled front, glazing bar sash over half-glazed door with semi-circular fanlight, and glazing bar sashes on each floor to left and also in two storey end wing.“(2)
On Saturday 20 July 1889 a notice of sale of the pub appeared in the Thanet Advertiser newspaper and was earmarked for auction in one lot on Wednesday 7 August 1889:-
To Brewers, Innkeeper’s, Trustees & Others.
Compact and Safe Investment, important Freehold Property, the “Artillery Arms,” occupying a splendid position on the Westcliff, at the corner of the Royal Road, Ramsgate, and on the main thoroughfare from the town to Pegwell Bay, &c., with dwelling house, workshops, builders yard, and premises adjoining.
Mr. Woods has been favoured with instructions from the owner, to sell by auction, at the “Bull and George Hotel” Ramsgate, on Wednesday, August 7th, 1889, at 3 for 4 o’clock, in one lot.
That well-known and deservedly popular old established fully licensed freehold public house, well situated at the junction of the four important roads, and enjoying the patronage of the residents as well as the visitors of this favourite seaside resort.
The “Artillery Arms” is substantially built, of good elevation, conveniently arranged, has a pretty bar with three entrances, and good cellarage. It is at present leased to Messrs. Tomson and Wotton, the eminent Ramsgate Brewers, at the nominal rental of £50 per annum. The lease expires and about 2 years, when it will doubtless readily realise at the least £100 a year.
Also the valuable Freehold Workshops and Yard adjoining, let to Mr. Coleman at rental of £9 per annum; and the compact Dwelling House adjoining at side, No. 34, West Cliff Road, rental £14 a year.
May be viewed by permission of the various tenants, and Particulars with Conditions obtained one week prior to the sale of the premises, at the “Bull and George Hotel,” Ramsgate; of W. G. Esq., Solicitor, 33, Guilford Street, Russell Square, London; and of Mr. Woods, Auctioneer and Land Agent, Hounslow.(3)
Sketch of the Artillery Arms, date unknown.(3)
The Artillery Arms is said to be haunted by two apparitions. A resident gentleman appears, dressed in early Victorian-style military uniform (for example, a ghostly reminder of the Crimean War in 1854?) and leans against an external wall watching people go by. From the ground floor is a short flight of haunted steps and manifestations include a female ghost who sits on the top step, wearing a long white nightdress and cotton mop cap. Here is my YouTube short:-
In 1934 the Landlord and Licensee, 24-year-old Albert Drapper, formerly of the Navy, was shot in the head in a taxi-cab in Paris, just a few minutes after arriving at the Gare du Nord. He passed away three hours later at the St Louis Hospital without regaining consciousness. The unfortunate young gentleman had hailed the taxi-cab at the Gare du Nord and instructed the driver to take him to the Gare de Lyon, which was the main station for trains to the south of France. Presumably he was on vacation, but do we know for sure? The taxi-cab was traversing the Place de la Republique when the taxi driver heard a shot ring out. He turned around and saw Mr Drapper huddled in a corner with a revolver in his hand. The question is, was someone after him or did he pull the trigger?(4)
On 28 February 1973 the East Kent Times and Mail(5) reported that the Ramsgate Works Committee wanted to see the Artillery Arms demolished and were approaching the planning authorities to seek a Compulsory Purchase Order on the basis that the old pub, now a free house after being sold by Whitbread’s two years earlier, was a traffic hazard. However, because of its specific architectural interest with its stained glass windows, the pub was now a listed building. Thankfully the request failed and the Artillery Arms remains a vibrant part of the local community.
(2) Kent County Council Historic Environment Record; Listed Building: THE ARTILLERY ARMS (1336327); date assigned: 8 October 1972; Listing NGR: TR3778664644
I spend increasingly less time, not merely on a laptop but also on any electronic device. Long gone are the days of scrolling on social media or doom-scrolling the latest news, which was probably done out of anxiety more than anything else. Experiences are so much more liberating when one can step out of fear.
Following my daily fix of hot water and lemon, I have breakfast – usually natural bio-yoghurt with fruit, porridge or sometimes eggs. I spend time in the kitchen every day either prepping meals or tidying up and doing the daily chores. I also do admin work for myself and Dan, who is a piano tuner-technician. If Dan has left for work very early I will feed the cats before I do anything else at all, and after 30 minutes administer our in-remission-diabetic kitty Merlin his insulin shot.
I spend some time every day in our garden, where we grow our own organic fruit and vegetables. We have overwintered veggies for a couple of years now but this is the first year where we will be growing our own produce all-year-round as food prices continue to rise here in the UK, as they are everywhere else. Gardening and being outdoors is so beneficial to my general wellbeing and mental health, especially throughout autumn and winter; I suffer from SAD and am doing my utmost to deal with it by the most natural methods I can.
I play the piano and also compose ambient music (I still notate by hand, though have recently purchased Sibelius), though I haven’t written anything new for a little while now as I haven’t necessarily been in the right headspace and often need to juggle a busy life, but I usually do piano practice most days.
Two or three days a week I do crafting – jewellery-making, candle-making or sewing – for an hour or two and the items I either list in my own webstore or in my Etsy shop or put in one of my two outlets. I am also a YouTube content creator and although my channels are very small, I produce one or two videos every week for both channels and I edit Dan’s content for his channel too. He normally uploads one video a week as well as shorts.
I do enjoy getting out and about and go for a good walk a few times a week though I try to go out every day, even if it’s just a 15 or 20 minute walk into Ramsgate or Broadstairs to shop for groceries. I like to support small local businesses and buy from the greengrocer, fishmonger, butcher and baker, even if the prices are a little higher than in the supermarkets. We also have a doorstep delivery of dairy once a week and every two months we have a delivery of raw milk products from Fen Farm Dairy, who are based in Suffolk.
These are just some of the things I do in a normal day!
What, though I ask you, does your day look like? Do let me know!
On Wednesday 8 January 2025 the UK came within a hair’s breadth of a national power blackout. Traffic lights stopping, trains halting, street lights going out, the main electricity supply ceasing to be available.
It has been suggested that the National Grid came closer than the regulator has admitted to this chaos, due to the drive to achieve Net Zero goals by 2030.
The last time this happened was in 2019. There was a lightning strike that took out 2 big power stations and we had widespread blackouts that covered about 40% of the country but fortunately this happened in the summer so it didn’t have as critical an impact as it would during the autumn and winter months, when it could lead to fatalities.
Even trains were unable to restart remotely so the main impact for the public was transport disruption. People with laptops had to travel around the country restarting stranded trains so that they could continue on their journeys. It was several hours before full power was restored in all areas of the country. This was merely the time it took to get everyone back up and running. This incident affected the east of England and happened on an afternoon and evening in mid-August so there was no issue with darkness or cold and was an inconvenience for many rather than dangerous. Hospitals have backup generation but the problem is if you have that sort of event in the winter when it’s dark and cold then it becomes far more dangerous and especially when people don’t expect it.
One of my YouTube subscribers sent me the link to an UnHeard podcast with Kathryn Porter, an independent energy consultant. This was serendipitous as I had already started researching this subject in order to start a discussion on my channel. Below is the link to the podcast should you wish to watch it, however I will attempt to unpack the science in layman’s terms in order to make it easier for people to comprehend. My own video presentation is appended at the very end of this blog.
HOW IS OUR ENERGY SUPPLIED?
It is very difficult to store electricity on such a large scale and almost none of it is stored. We have to generate the electricity we need when we need it, for example in real time. This is very important because electrical equipment starts playing up when this balance isn’t always maintained. There are all sorts of protection systems built into the grid, at power stations, sub-stations, power lines etc. They will also disconnect themselves if this balance isn’t properly maintained, so it is essential that it is always met in real time.
So you have generation and demand. Historically, generation came from a relatively small number of big power stations – coal, gas, oil and nuclear. The demand was reasonably predictable and was primarily driven by the weather so when it was cold demand went up and when it was warmer and sunnier demand went down.
The National Energy System Operator (NESO) is responsible for deciding how much energy is necessary to meet demand on the basis that the market balances itself so through price signals people will choose whether or not to run their power station because they can make money and normally you make money where there is enough demand that you will need it. This works quite well but the grid itself is complicated. National Grid runs something called the Transition System which is a high voltage grid and is the electricity equivalent of motorways and big A roads. It is the way that you funnel electricity around the country in bulk and according to demand. However, just like traffic jams there are constraints in the electricity grid and so just because you might have a lot of generation in one part of the country you might not be able to move that electricity to where the demand is or you might have an uneven distribution of demand, such as lots of demand in the south-east but less in Scotland. So the National Grid and NESO is responsible for managing that in real time, so it is they who decide what is necessary and from which source and this is done through something known as the balancing mechanism. People, generators and suppliers will say these are the prices which we are willing to increase generation, reduce generation, and the same with demand and that’s how decisions are made based on that pricing.
WHO ARE OUR SUPPLY PARTNERS AND AT WHAT COST?
Below is the list of average energy prices paid per annum across Western Europe:-
650 Euros – France
650 Euros – Belgium
620 Euros – Spain
558 Euros – Germany
558 Euros – Denmark
546 Euros – Holland
545 Euros – Austria
543 Euros – Norway
476 Euros – Finland
174 Euros – Poland
2,960 Euros – UK
As you can see from the list, by comparison the average UK householder pays at least several times these amounts! Why is this?
A BBC article online dated 31 January 2023 reported that, according to Reform UK, an estimated 87% of energy and water companies in England and Wales are foreign-owned and in 2022 The Guardian newspaper estimated that 70% of the English water industry is in overseas ownership, though overall estimates do vary. In the article, the Reform UK party proposes that companies supplying and distributing energy and water would continue to be run by private firms but 50% would be government-owned and 50% by “British pension funds”. Richard Tice the then-leader of Reform UK said that no other nation had allowed so much of its infrastructure to be in foreign hands and we are being hit in the pocket under the current system.
So why is this?
In the podcast, Kathryn Porter explains that we have no large oil power stations at all on the UK grid and have recently closed the last coal power station. We have opened a lot of wind generation on shore and off-shore. We have some solar and have opened a lot more interconnectors, which are import/export cables with other countries. We have had one with France for many decades, and have built another two with France. We also have them with Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. We exchange electricity with these other countries. What is making the system more complex is that wind and solar depend on the weather on a large, or macro scale because sometimes whole days are not windy or sunny and the highest period of demand every day is dinner time and in the winter dinner time happens at night so there is no solar at all during the peak in winter. However, there are micro level effects where individual gusts of wind or clouds will make a difference to your output moment to moment and so maintaining that match between generation and demand all the time becomes harder and unsustainable. Demand also gets more complicated because people might have solar panels on their roof and that looks like negative demand to the grid. People have electric cars and electrification is going to make quite a big difference to demand and so that becomes more complicated as well. The whole picture is a lot more complex and more vulnerable than it used to be 30 years ago.
The move towards renewables which people may be in favour of rather than solely being reliant on fossil fuels, the downside is that because it is variable it means that our whole system is more vulnerable to potential pressure points or even blackouts. Another big way in which renewables are causing fragility to the system. There is current and voltage on the electricity system which is alternating current – it varies in a fairly regular wave shape and this wave shape is literally generated by gas and nuclear turbines all rotating at the same speed. They rotate at 3000 revolutions per minute, which means that the wave is varying at 50 cycles per second, which is how the voltage is created and enables a plug-in appliance, for example, to work properly. The grid frequency, this ambient wave, is a really important measure within the electricity system and the difficulty is that wind and solar don’t generate this. They generate direct current such as a battery, so that doesn’t vary at all and on a chart it would show as a straight line so you have to use electronics to change it so that it can fit in with what’s happening on the grid. The problem is, if you start replacing your gas and nuclear turbines with renewables you lose the mechanism that creates the ambient wave. Gas turbines are big, heavy machines and resist changes to their speed of rotation. You want them at 3000 revolutions per minute so that you get that nice regular wave, but if you take away the gas turbine and replace it with renewables, you don’t get that. If you don’t have that stable wave happening all the time then that will lead to blackouts. Electrical equipment is so sensitive to that measure, the more we replace conventional generation with renewable energy the less stable the grid becomes.
A report by Kathryn Porter includes a graph showing the typical generation mix on a low-wind day in winter. Gas is the big chunk of this throughout the day, a big peak at dinnertime and then it comes down. There is some 10% from interconnectors, nuclear is providing 10%, biomass provides a little bit but suddenly when you look at the gas band, it is 50%. So the reality is that there is a tiny bit of solar between 11am and 2pm, but isn’t making a huge amount of difference. So basically we are still reliant on gas – and that is the problem because we are not generating enough of it.
The BBC article dated 31 January 2023 says that foreign takeovers of British companies can be blocked on grounds of national security, which happened in the case of the sale of Newport Wafer Fab to a Chinese-owned company by using the the National Security and Investment Act.
Labour intend to launch a tax-payer owned energy company modelled on France’s EDF. Named Great British Energy, it would be set up with public money but would be operated independently with any profits being reinvested.
Meanwhile, the Green Party have proposed permanently nationalising the ‘Big Five’ UK energy suppliers. This would cost an estimated £2.85 bn and would allow them to return the price cap to where it was in autumn 2022 and keep it at that level for a year.
HOW DID THINGS GO WRONG ON 8 JANUARY AND WHAT WAS THE RESPONSE?
On 8 January it was a cold day and demand ended up being higher than NESO had forecast for the day itself and higher than it had forecast for the average cold spell weather in the winter. Every year NESO produces a Winter Outlook, which tells you how much it think the demand will be and how much spare capacities, the excess amount available over demand, it will have. In October 2024 when it published that for this year, it predicted that the demand would be lower than it had been and the capacity margin would be higher. Then last Wednesday the demand turned out to be higher than the Winter Outlook had suggested and also higher than NESO’s own short-term forecasts. It was also a low wind day. Demand that day was 47 gigawats (the unit of measure) and we had only 2.5 gigawats of wind. On a good day there might be 16 or 17 gigawats. Some days we’ve had as low as 0.5 gigawats so it wasn’t the worst day but was still pretty bad. The other big impact was that the import cables had much lower availability either than normal or that NESO had said in its Winter Outlook, so we only had 5.7 gigawats available in the interconnectors. So every day everyone has to tell NESO what they are going to do and the interconnectors were all saying that they would be importing to Britain at their maximum availability through the day. So there was no leeway for NESO to ask to import a little bit more, there was literally nothing more available. So at 12.01 pm on that day NESO issued a capacity market notice, an automatic trigger warning to say that they had identified or the system had calculated that there was only 500 megawats of spare margin so more generation than expected demand. Because these notices are autogenerated, and sometimes look at out of date data, they are not the most reliable measure and especially as demand forecasts can be out of kilter by quite a margin. Catherine Porter says that she has some analysis that suggests that in the past 4 years, from the day ahead forecast, the error can be as high as 4.7 gigawats. So almost double the amount of wind that was blowing last week on the Wednesday.
The evening before, they had issued an Electricity Market Notice, which is actually a more serious warning. These notices are not issued automatically but from the control room staff identifying a potential problem. Normally, any type of these warnings get cancelled well before the actual real time moment but that Electricity Market Notice did not get cancelled until after the start of the period that it covered. This notice is set out in the grid code which is part of the rule book that drives the way the system works, so it alerts market participants to the fact that we are no longer in a business in its usual mode, we are in a mode where we are expecting some issues, so we are alerting power stations that they need to run if they can, alerting local low-voltage grids and suppliers that there might be a need for demand control which is when they actually start disconnecting load, so regions of the country could be disconnected. They notify the market of different types of tools that they might engage as there could be a potential blackout otherwise. Later that day, a third kind of notification was issued. A company called Elexon which is involved in managing the energy and electricity market issued a Loss of Load Probability (LoLP). Loss of load literally means disconnections, which can be local or national level blackouts. Alexon doesn’t issue these as notices but as a continuous calculation you can refer to at any particular time. It was 29% over 4 hours which was the highest it had reached and it is very unusual to see a loss of load probability that is not zero and it is even more unusual to see a loss of load probability that is still not zero once you get to the period it is talking about and on 8 January it never went to zero. Elexon gets its data from NESO and is not producing it independently. As we went through the evening peak, the system was showing all the time that there was a non-zero loss of load probability. So official data suggests that there was a 27%-29% change that there would have been at least some people being disconnected.
In response (Tom Whipple, science editor of the Times wrote), the energy operator insisted that, contrary to some interpretations of raw data, that we were never close a blackout on 8 January and that it was a misconception to think that a 29% risk LoLP is a warning that the buffer would run out because there was an additional buffer that they didn’t describe and didn’t publish all the data of in the publicly available dashboards and everyone was panicking about January 8th but actually there was a whole additional supply of electricity that had we hit rock bottom they could have called upon.
David Rose, Editor of UnHeard asked for the evidence of this additional supply and to detail it for us and they refused to do so and said that as an operator for the whole of the UK they don’t talk about individual units because they have lots of customers and technologies and don’t set out a list of assets that could cover a particular loss.
SQSS – there has to be a security standard but the standard was breached on 8 January. The idea is that they have a reserve which can be activated quickly. NESO has a duty of transparency so refusing to publish that data flies in the face of that transparency. It is also not the case that they don’t provide unit level information. They provide masses of unit level information through the Elexon website. Any of us can go on to the Elexon website to see what a power station was intending to do that day, was doing that day, if it changed what it did because of instructions from the National Grid, how much it got paid to make those changes. Why were they saying they said they didn’t have this information, when it is so crucial and is suddenly being held from the market and appears to be a rather inconsistent reason when looking at their normal practice? What are they trying to hide?
They said that the cables coming in from Norway provide an additional 14 megawats. This is what we were expecting to receive but the interconnector with Norway was performing at maximum capacity that whole day and there were no extra reserves that they could call on because it was all spoken for. The interconnector with Denmark is also 1400 megawatts and was expecting to run at half the capacity because of a maintenance outage but they were persuaded, or requested, to bring the interconnector early and so they did. Without that extra 700 megawatts from the Danish interconnector we would not have been able to meet demand that day. Contrary to what the regulator said, NESO cannot demand imports, so it was a request and therefore Denmark could have refused to supply any extra megawatts at all and therefore we came very close to a blackout that day. You can try and buy the extra energy if you are willing to offer more money than others but you cannot compel it.
As part of the Security Standard, or SQSS they are supposed to have a margin over demand (a backup plan) and have this reserve and the purpose of the reserve is to replace the biggest generation or import source that comes into the grid without getting hit in the pocket. So if you lose a big piece of generation or imports suddenly, then you disrupt that nice grid frequency (waves) and that can lead to blackouts (ie 2019). The idea is that they have this reserve that can be activated quickly. It should be very easy to identify which units, which power stations or batteries can provide that because they have to be instructed quickly. You can’t have hundreds of components you can make it up from, it has to be a few big assets to be able to do that.
It is also interesting that on 8 January prices in the market went sky high. You could make a lot of money running your power station. For example, Rye House was being run at a price of £5,500 a megawatt hour when the normal winter price is about £120-150, so they made more than £2 million for just a couple of hours of running and only at half the station capacity as well. So looking at the National Grid, who was providing this reserve? (Catherine said) Who decided that they weren’t going to bother making all these millions they could have been making by running that day? The just sat on the sidelines just in case. If they had decided to do that, how much did they pay them to do that? Which were these assets that were not taking advantage of these high market prices and already running? If they are already running they are not hidden in the pocket and therefore on 8 January the Security Standard was breached.
WHAT CHALLENGES DO WE FACE IN THE FUTURE?
On the current timeline, the likelihood of power outages and blackouts is likely to increase as we move closer to 2030. In 2027 we are scheduled to lose 2 of our nuclear power stations. There is uncertainty in the future of the biomass power stations because their subsidies expire at roughly the same time. Gas power stations are coming to the end of their lives. Many of them were built in the late 1990s and early 2000s with an expected lifetime of 25-30 years. This retirement plan is likely to excelerate if people believe the strategy for the gas power stations which is that by 2030 they will only be producing 5% of average annual demand. The Labour government wants to fast-forward this process towards increased renewable supply and less and less gas. And yet to meet the capacity market keep the entire 35 gw of existing gas power stations in reserve which is extremely unlikely to be achievable due to their lifespan. Batteries we have at the moment run out in an average of 1.50 hours. We have low wind conditions that can last for days, so chemical batteries won’t do this and the amount we would need to build to back up. Someone once worked out that you would need more land than we have in the UK for these batteries to fully backup wind so it’s completely unfeasible with the current technology.
Bills have been going up very consistently for the last 15 years, though more so since the global incident and the war in Ukraine, and at a time where gas prices had not been going up and were stable because of the energy transition. So you subsidise your wind power stations and your solar but then because you have the situation that it’s not always windy, you then have to build at least the same amount of capacity of something else, whether gas or nuclear or import cables and this is incredibly wasteful because you have to double up on everything. Then there is the additional infrastructure you have to build so one of the problems with the current plan which NESO has identified in their report on the Clean Power 2030 strategy is that you will have to build twice as much grid infrastructure – power lines, cables etc – in the next 5 years as we built in the previous 10 years. This is extremely likely due to the supply chains, as the planning process is very long-winded and you have 3-4 year lead times for big transformers. Nobody is going to order a big transformer if they don’t have planning permission. So if the planning permission for your power line doesn’t happen in the next year, you won’t have the kit on site to build your power line by 2030. We have the highest industrial energy prices and industrial activity is declining as a result of this.
We are paying billions of pounds a year because we haven’t built all of the grid infrastructure to allow the generation from the wind farms to reach consumers, and they have a subsidy that they only receive if they are generating and if they have to stop generating then they have to be compensated for that and those too are billions of pounds a year and this all goes straight to bills. The govt says oh renewables are incredibly cheap but where is the data to back that up? They just make statements with no substance. Well, renewables get a wholesale price for electricity but unfortunately the more renewables you have the bigger the gap between the wholesale price and the retail price that businesses and households pay because effectively a lot of the costs of renewables are not paid by the renewable generators, they are paid by consumers. Net Zero is pie in the sky! And if we start having “mythical” blackouts then that might impact people how they think about this, not to mention the economic costs as well, and already they are very unpopular many voters.
Given all the above, how are we expected to charge up our electric vehicles, power up our laptops and other devices, run our heat pumps and other methods of sustainability and cook our meals in the Net Zero utopia? Also there is a huge carbon footprint major toxic pollutions of rivers and land particularly in China where a lot of these components renewables are manufactured by forced labour. China dominates “rare earth” production because it is the only country willing to do these extremely polluting processes. How is that going to save the Planet? Nuclear energy is cleaner energy, it’s running all the time and when you actually add up all the costs of making renewables happen, then nuclear is quite competitive and it is not more expensive than wind. KEPCO built 8 big modern power stations called the APR1400 – 4 in S Korea and 4 in UAE – and they were built on average in 8.5 years each and came in on time and broadly on budget. Sign a deal with KEPCO for 5 or 6 to start with, pay for the first two with public money because the other problem we have is persuading private investors to come in, refinance after the first construction phase because they will make a ton of money when they are running, the risk is all in the building. So once they are built, sell the government stake to the private sector at a profit and make money for taxpayers and you would probably in that process demonstrate that your regulatory ducks are all lined up for the delivery of new nuclear so you would get private finance in for construction for subsequent projects. This would be the quickest, cheapest and most efficient way of delivering nuclear.
Someone said: “I left the UK 25 years ago. I live in Texas and own a large solar power plant. As a banker, I have also financed US wind, hydro, solar, coal and glass plants. I used to develop and finance gas, coal and wind power plants in the UK in the 1990s. My boss was a main board director at National Grid and one of my colleagues helped design the UK electricity market. I have also forecast gas and electricity prices in the UK. I used to know the UK market inside out. I have told people for years that closing the base load plants was idiotic and that net zero represented national suicide. I have also developed coal plants in India and China. Nobody in the power industry globally understand what Britain is trying to do. The political media class has been brainwashed and Milliband and Boris are idiots. They don’t understand how any of this works.”
WHAT CAN WE DO IN THE EVENT OF A BLACKOUT?
Here are a few ideas:-
Butane gas cylinder and camping stove
A portable or standby generator such as a Jackery or Bluetti – one you can plug appliances into and can be charged up or work on solar.
Off-grid Batteries or battery backup system with smart battery management system and Bluetooth – good for van lifers too.
Solar panels or other solar powered items including task lighting.
Like a scout, on a day-to-day basis endeavour to be prepared for any eventuality in whatever way(s) you can and within your means and you won’t go far wrong. In the event of a crisis most people will pull together and get through the experience all the wiser.
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Apple cake is very popular in Germany and this is my variation on the celebrity chef Rick Stein’s classic Apfelkuchen from his “Long Weekends” series.
This yummy cake has a crunchy cinnamon sugar topping. Use any dessert apples you wish except for Bramleys as they ‘fall’ and do not keep their shape once cooked.
I have swapped out plain flour for gluten-free plain flour, golden granulated sugar for vanilla sugar and butter for Flora buttery spread.
The Apfelkuchen is nut-free, pregnancy-friendly and vegetarian making it suitable for most diets. It stays lovely and moist for a few days if kept in an airtight container – but it is so yummy it probably won’t last that long!
Ingredients
2 dessert apples peeled, cored and sliced into thin wedges
1 tbsp lemon juice
125g (41/2 oz) Flora buttery, plus extra for greasing
140g/5 oz vanilla caster sugar
3 free-range eggs, at room temperature, beaten
225g/8 oz plain gluten-free flour
2 level tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
5 tbsp full-fat milk
For the topping
11/2 tbsp demerara sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Method
Preheat the oven to 170C/150C fan/340F/Gas 3. Butter and line a 23cm/9″ round cake tin with greaseproof baking paper.
Coat the apple wedges in the lemon juice and set aside.
In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar, using an electric hand mixer, until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat until smooth. Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and mix well. Slowly add the milk, mixing well after each addition until you have a smooth batter.
Transfer the cake batter to the cake tin. Arrange the apple slices, flat-side down, on the batter in a spiral pattern. Don’t worry if it’s not perfect.
For the topping, mix together the demerara sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle over the batter.
Bake in the centre of the oven for 40-45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean and the top is golden-brown. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then run a knife around the edges of the cake and turn it out of the tin onto a wire rack to cool completely (if wished).
Serve this cake warm or at room temperature with whipped cream.
Chef’s tips
If you prefer to use butter in this recipe, make sure it is softened before combining it with the sugar.
This cake is delicious warm or cold and makes a wonderful pudding. You can also serve it with vanilla custard, creme fraiche, clotted cream or even a dollop of vanilla ice cream (my personal favourite with warm puddings), whatever floats your boat!
Some years ago now, my mother, following one of her trips to Scotland (my parents were both of Scottish heritage) gifted me a Hale Pocket Guide “Traditional Scottish Cookery” by Margaret Fairlie which cost just 60 pence – this was in 1995.
This recipe for morning rolls is taken from that pocket book, which was first published way back in 1973. I have always enjoyed cooking up Scottish cuisine as it is part and parcel of my culture and bloodline. My father’s porridge was always the best (though my mum’s was a close second) and I taught my husband how to make it the traditional Scottish way, too.
Like my mother and her mother before me, I am very fond of baking and this Morning Roll recipe is so simple, made with only a few ingredients. If you cannot find fresh yeast then substitute with 12 g dried yeast or thereabouts – round up to 2 x 7 g sachets if you wish.
Very popular, particularly in Glasgow and Fife, Morning Rolls are well-fired, airy and chewy with a crispy crust. They are sold everywhere in petrol stations, bakeries, newsagents and corner shops and are best eaten on the day they are made before they go rock hard! In Fife, a Cabin Biscuit or Roll is a local variant. Originating in Buckhaven, a town on the Firth of Forth on the east coast of Fife, sugar was added to prolong the shelf life of the roll as they were often enjoyed by crews aboard fishing boats and have distinctive prick marks on top. However, the Morning Roll or Cabin Biscuit is a bread roll and not a biscuit in either the British or American sense.
Ingredients
1 lb (450 g) plain flour
1 level tsp salt
2 oz (50 g) lard
1 oz (25 g) fresh yeast (or up to 2 x 7 g sachets dried fast action yeast)
1 tsp sugar
1/2 pt (300 ml) milk
Method
Sift the flour into a warm bowl with the salt and then lightly rub in the lard until fully combined.
In a separate bowl, cream the yeast and sugar until liquid (or if using yeast sachets, just mix them together). Strain (or tip) into flour mixture and make into a soft dough with the milk.
Cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place to rise. This will take about an hour.
Knead lightly, then form into 3 inch (7.5 cm) rounds. Brush lightly with milk taking care not to let the milk run down the sides of the rolls, and dust with flour – you can do this with the help of a sieve or even a tea strainer!
Place on a greased and floured tin and leave in a warm place for 15 minutes.
Bake in a moderately hot oven (400oF/ 200oC/Gas Mark 6) for 15 to 20 minutes.
Turn rolls out on to a wire rack and allow to cool before serving.
CHEF’S TIPS:
Morning rolls are also delicious served still slightly warm with lashings of butter.
A delicious accompaniment to a bowl of homemade soup or filled with smoked Ayrshire bacon, square sausage or perhaps some good cheese and pickle.
Suitable for home freezing. As soon as the rolls have cooled, wrap individually in cling film, place in a freezer bag and transfer to the freezer. They are so tasty though they may not get that far!
My husband Dan and I don’t eat burgers very often but when we do, I like to sandwich the patties between homemade bread rolls with all the fix-ins for us to enjoy. Dan certainly prefers my bread over shop-bought and often asks: “is it from Evans bakery?” to which I often reply: “yes” – although I am honest if the bread is shop-bought.
Below is my go-to recipe for bread rolls, enough for four people. If you have more mouths to feed, double the quantities. The recipe can be adapted to suit your own tastes, so for example you could knead in mixed seeds, chopped olives or sundried tomatoes or even herbs to the dough before its second proving.
Ingredients (makes 4)
250g Strong bread flour (I like French flour)
1 tsp fast action dried yeast
½ tsp kosher salt
165 ml Lukewarm water
Method
1. Put bread flour in a large bowl. On one side put the dried yeast and on the other the salt (the two should not come into contact with one another initially or you will kill off the yeast). Stir together well with your fingers or the blade of a dessert knife.
2. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in about half the lukewarm water. Mix together with your fingers or the dessert knife. Gradually add more water – you may not need all the water* until you can bring the dough together into a pliable ball. You do not want it to be sticky but if you overdo the water, just gradually mix in a little more flour.
3. Place the dough ball on a clean, floured surface and knead for 5-10 minutes until the dough is smooth. Form it into a ball and place it in a large, lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean tea towel or plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place or with an ambient temperature for at least an hour or until the dough has doubled in size. Don’t panic if it takes longer than an hour. Just leave it to prove as long as you need to until the dough has doubled in size.
4. Sprinkle some more flour on a clean surface and ‘knock back’ the dough by kneading again. If I am using spelt flour which is lower in gluten, I tend to only knead it gently to ensure a good second rise. At this point, weigh the dough and divide the weight into four balls. I always weigh each of these balls too, to make sure they are even in size.
5. Roll each ball between floured hands and flatten slightly. Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper, cover with a clean tea towel or oiled plastic wrap and leave for at least 20 minutes or until doubled in size. This may take up to 40 minutes to an hour.
6. Meanwhile, set your oven temperature to 230C/210C fan/450F/Gas 8. Brush the top of each roll with a little beaten egg and sprinkle with poppy seeds.
7. Bake rolls in the oven for 25-30 minutes** until golden brown and hollow-sounding when you tap on the base.
8. Leave on a wire rack to cool.
Enjoy!
COOK’S NOTES
* The ideal flour-to-water ratio for bread is 65 ml water to 100 g bread flour though ratios can vary and can be between 58 ml and 62 ml depending on the type of flour/grain you use.
For 8 rolls, double the ingredient quantities. So, for example, 500 g flour instead of 250 g, 2 tsp yeast, 1 tsp Kosher salt, 325 ml water.
If you do not want to bake the rolls immediately, you can place them in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours and then set aside to allow the dough to relax at room temperature and finish rising, before baking as normal. I find this method is also more tummy-kind.
** Remember oven temperatures vary and your bread rolls may take a little longer or shorter to bake so keep an eye on them in the last few minutes.
For floured rolls, omit the egg wash and poppy seeds and instead dust the tops with a little flour before baking. You can also vary the seed toppings with sesame seeds or multigrain seeds.
For savoury doughs, why not add some chopped olives, chopped sun-dried tomatoes, chopped rosemary or mixed seeds at Step 4?!
For a baguette or small loaf of bread knock back at Step 4 and then form into your baguette or loaf and leave to prove for 40 minutes to an hour or until doubled in size. Bake at Steps 6 and 7 for 30-35 minutes until golden brown and hollow-sounding.
For a large loaf, double quantities and bake as above for 45-55 minutes until golden brown and hollow-sounding.
Fairy cakes, little treats baked in paper cases and decorated perhaps with buttercream or glace icing and sugar flowers or sprinkles, are perfect for either a tea party or children’s party. They are really very similar to cupcakes, though a bit smaller and perfect for little fingers and a not-too-sinful indulgence for grown-ups too!
This is my go-to recipe for fairy cakes and if the kids are bored on a cold and rainy day, it is an activity they can be involved in too and which I can guarantee they will enjoy. These cakes are made with one whole free-range egg, a few tablespoons of whole milk and a few basic store-cupboard ingredients. I am using gluten-free all-purpose flour and a teaspoon of baking powder but please swap for regular all-purpose flour.
Ingredients(makes 8):-
For the cakes
85 g soft butter or baking spread
85 g caster sugar
1 large free-range egg, beaten
65 g gluten-free all purpose flour
20 g coconut flour (or dessicated coconut finely whizzed in the food processor)
1 tsp gluten-free baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
3-4 tbsp whole milk
Grated zest of one unwaxed lemon
For the glace icing
Icing (powdered) sugar
Lemon juice
Water
Sprinkles or other sugar decorations of your choice
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/350F/Gas Mark 4.
2. Place the butter or baking spread and caster sugar in a large bowl and either beat with an electric whisk or cream with a wooden spoon until light and fluffy.
3. Add a little of the beaten egg to the mixture and beat until fully combined. Sift in some of the flours and baking powder and beat, to prevent any curdling. Repeat with the remainder of the beaten egg and the flours and baking powder until everything is well-combined.
4. Carefully add 3-4 tablespoons of whole milk and stir into the cake batter slowly with a spatula until fully combined.
5. Add the grated lemon zest and the vanilla extract, carefully stirring until fully combined.
6. Place 8 standard cupcake cases in a 12-hole cupcake tin and divide the cake batter equally between them. Shake the tin to level out and place in the centre of the preheated oven for 15-18 minutes (oven temperatures vary). The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted comes out clean.
7. Remove the cakes from the oven and set the tin aside for 10 minutes or so and then remove the cakes from the tin and place on a wire rack to cool completely.
8. Meanwhile, make the glace icing. Sieve some icing sugar into a bowl with a squeeze of lemon juice and a few drops of filtered water and mix well with a tablespoon to a smooth consistency. You want it so you can trace a figure of eight in the bowl of icing when you hold the spoon above it. If the icing is too thick, add a little more liquid a few drops at a time. If the icing is too thick, add a little more sieved icing sugar.
9. Carefully spoon some icing sugar over the top of each fairy cake and decorate with sprinkles or other sugar decoration of your choice, such as sugared flowers, candied lemon zest, jelly beans or other dainty candies.
10. Place the fairy cakes on a platter and allow to the icing to set in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or so and then either transfer to the tea table or a cake tin to store if they are not being eaten immediately.
Cook’s notes:
1. If you like your cakes a little more generous, use a 6-hole cake tin and larger cupcake cases and divide the mixture between them. Allow up to 20 minutes baking time accordingly.
2. If your oven temperature tends to be hotter, try baking the cakes at 170C/150C fan/325F/Gas Mark 3 or whatever you find usually works for you.
3. These cakes can also be decorated with lemon or vanilla buttercream frosting and sugar decorations, or alternatively do them as old-fashioned butterfly cakes.
My name is Catherine but I am often known as Cat. I can be cute and cuddly and have green eyes but inside beats the heart of a lioness – or a panther, especially when riled (which isn’t very often, to be fair). I also have very quiet footsteps and tend to creep up on people – though not intentionally, I have cat-like ways just like a cat!
I identify as a woman and my pronouns are she/her, but I am known as a ‘mad cat lady’ and I am purrfectly content with that label! Dan and I have three fur-babies: Merlin, the Magickal Chonk is the senior boy at 14 years of age (72 in cat years); Our Fur Arthur the tuxedo kitty is 4 years old; and Little Miss Robyn will be 4 years old in November. I sometimes think that they must be the most pampered kitties ever as they have a lovely big back garden to roam and want for nothing in either the toy or food department, and they get lots of love and fuss. They even have their own Instagram pages!
Every year in the UK, some 7 million tonnes of food and drink is thrown away, much of which is past their ‘best before’ date but would still be perfectly good to eat.
Approved Food is an online store in the UK owned by Morris & Son (Leeds) Ltd of Dodworth, South Yorkshire. With the tag line Waste less, save more, they specialise in food, drinks and a wide range of other items that are often near or past their ‘best before’ (not ‘use by’) dates by offering them at discounted prices, though they also sell many other products – for example, toiletries, pet food and household items – that are still comfortably in date but at lower prices than one might find at the supermarket. Nothing sold is past its USE BY date and they currently receive 4.66/5 in reviews.
Approved Food have over 2,000 products, many at huge discounts, including Big Brands such as Kellogg’s, Walkers and Hotel Chocolat; basic store cupboard essentials; and supermarket and department store products encompassing anything from food and alcoholic beverages to toiletries, gifts and more. Their regular customers typically save around £60 on their monthly shop compared to high street prices – a saving of over £700 per year. Stock on their website updates every day – all at heavily discounted prices – and there are often special daily promotions too.
Approved Food were featured on BBC Food Fighters in July 2011 and you can watch it here:-
In lab tests all food samples were clean and safe to eat.
However, I first discovered Approved Food in May 2023 following an article in the moneysavingexpert Martin Lewis weekly newsletter, which was offering free delivery on a first online order. The cheapest delivery is £3 via DX and upgrades are available at an extra cost, but £3 is still a saving, right?!
I personally have saved £321.63 since placing my first order based on one order every 4-6 weeks on average and tend to mostly buy cat food (which always has a USE BY between 2024 and 2026) and perhaps a few store cupboard top-ups. The website is quick and fairly easy to navigate and the daily bargains are prominently flagged up, meaning you can easily add any to your basket there right away. If a product is limited to a certain quantity per customer or if a very few of an item are remaining, then it will always say so. Products you add to your basket are reserved for an hour and if you take a while browsing and exceed this time frame then there may be items that you need to remove before proceeding to checkout, and it is at this stage when the site may occasionally become a little glitchy; with a little patience I have never had a problem proceeding to payment but generally these days my strategy is to have in my mind what I need before logging in, to avoid disappointment. Online orders received before 2pm will normally be delivered within 2-3 days by DX delivery and you will need to be at home to receive your order as they are not left at your address unattended. You will be notified by DX the day before your delivery and will be texted a two-hour slot the following morning, giving you the opportunity to change the day of your delivery if necessary to one more convenient for you.
Downsides? As with any site, a few minor niggles. Most notably, when browsing the categories or running a search the majority of items that usually first appear are crisps and candy and other sugar-laden things, and you may need to do some scrolling, but please don’t be discouraged by this. A little patience will be worth the effort and your wallet will thank you too!
Catherine Evans 