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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 17h

I wouldn't say that you're particularly missing out, although they're a lot easier to make than even a plain croissant, I should imagine.

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 17h

I used Chinese 5 spice in rock cakes yesterday and that was fine

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 18h

Part of why the UK is grinding to a halt is that there's more bureaucracy you have to do than the state is prepared to fund.

Like if you want the government to confirm a tariff code for you, they 'aim' to get back to you within 120 days.

www.gov.uk/guidance/app...

Apply for a Binding Tariff Information decision

Find out how to get a legally binding decision on the commodity code to use when importing into or exporting from Northern Ireland or the EU.

www.gov.uk

Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 22h

The firm that expects to cut the most corners can offer the lowest bid, so they get the work. Poor quality construction is baked into capitalism.

Construction needs really careful regulation, training and supervision, but it the UK we just don't have this.

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 23h

Retrofitting energy efficiency measures has caused an epidemic of damp and mould, and barely touched the sides of energy use.

If you've tried something for decades and it hasn't worked, it's time to do something else.

It's time to put that energy into heatpumpification.

Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 23h

Following the failures of the ECO scheme, there's a new scheme called PAS2035, with a bit more supervision.

But when inappropriate materials are still permitted, there's only so much it will help.

Plus a proper retrofit costs £100k a pop so that's never going to happen.

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 23h

This is all well evidenced but somehow whenever anything technical hits government, it just gets processed into nonsense.

They're still pushing measures around EPCs which are total bullshit and have no correlation with actual energy use.

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 23h

To meet the building regs U-value, you have to add so much insulation to an existing wall that it will cause damp in the build up and the brickwork to break apart.

And with plastic foam insulation you don't even get the promised energy savings, because there's so many gaps in it.

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 23h

There is a massive failure of regulation with insulation, as there was for fire safety.

The Grenfell enquiry showed that plastic foam manufacturers didn't just fake the safety data, they also pretended their products were much less effective than they really are.

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 23h

There's an ideological resistance to 'technofixes' among many environmentalists, so technologies like heat pumps and solar panels are seen as bad, whereas passive measures like insulation are seen as preferable.

Problem is, most insulation schemes don't save energy and just cause damp and mould.

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 23h

Almost all homes insulated under the ECO programme got serious damp and mould.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

While technically possible, retrofitting insulation is beyond the UK state and construction sector's capacity to do properly.

#FabricFIrst has failed. We need heat pumps instead.

Thousands of homes at risk of mould after botched eco insulation, watchdog finds

Almost all homes meant to benefit from a government-backed scheme are instead facing serious issues

www.independent.co.uk

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 1d

I can't stand the bloody bell sound effect that gets constantly used on short form videos and on the - annoying enough in themselves - trails for BBC podcasts.

Ding ding bloody ding, it's infuruating.

Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 2d

Diolch! Fi hefyd!

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 2d

It’s the BBC. It has to give batshit suggestions far more weight than sensible ones.

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 2d

Expensive shelf merchants Vitsoe like to make out that they’re friends of architecture.

But they (unsuccessfully) sued their architect when the builder of their new factory messed up, blaming the architect for things they hadn’t been appointed to deal with.

Vitsœ @vitsoe.bsky.social · 11d

Are you a fan of modernist, mid-century and brutalist architecture? We have good news for you: the Modernist Book Fair is coming back to our London shop this month.

Find more details and mark your calendars: instagram.com/p/DPWB_WZDEwX

#vitsoe #vitsœ #modernistbookfair

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 2d

Still under the weather. It’s at least medium-length Covid at this point.

Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 16d

Still feeling ill but went for a little walk. I can’t have looked well though because a kind man asked if I was ok.

Nice of him to check!

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 2d

You can get apps where you use your phone as the card reader.

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 3d

Apparently there was a time in the 70s when Austrian wine makers put propylene glycol anti freeze in wine to make it taste a bit sweeter. Might be worth a splash?

Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 4d

Almost all halal meat in the UK is stunned before slaughter. It’s the blessing makes it halal.

No kosher meat is from stunned animals.

But no one ever talks about that.

NationCymru @nation.cymru · 4d

Right or wrong should know no political yardstick of left or right when violence is on the table. And similarly, the way we treat animals should also not be a left or right issue. We either treat an animal humanely, or we don’t ✍️ Stephen Price

Halal slaughter should not only be a right-wing concern

Stephen Price Halal slaughter has found itself in the news again this week, following news that a Reform councillor has chaired a meeting with a far-right group and parents of young children to discus...

wp.me

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 4d

Oh! That might be doable!

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 4d

Is it expensive?

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 4d

I never read biographies because I don’t like to pry.

Unless it was into perhaps a colourful animation, I’m not sure a new translation of the tractatus would help!

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 4d

Someone should invent a bike with a jolly coloured frame that costs less than £1000.

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 4d

He also said that architecture was harder than philanthropy, after his Haus Wittgenstein experience.

I can’t be doing with all his tractatus business so I’ll have to take him at his word.

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Cluster Block🌈 🍉 @clusterblock.bsky.social · 4d

My mum said that Wittgenstein was once asked his opinion of the coastline of wherever he was in America, and he said it was very nice but not as nice as south Wales (his having lived in Swansea).

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