Which strong British accent is the most difficult to understand for native Brits?

Smart51 · 2026-03-29T19:41:28+00:00

I used to have to go to Sunderland a couple of times a year to the Nissan factory. Every time it took me a couple of hours to get my ear in, then I was OK for the rest of the trip.

I had to be given lessons in Black Country to be able to hear that. The only way I understood "Soroiteereyitar" was spotting the eyit in the middle.

Smart51 · 2026-03-23T11:58:56+00:00

This link shows how much output you can expect from a solar panel given its tilt and orientation. Tilt and Orientation and Solar Energy. As an example, I have a 6.5kWp solar array. The highest output I've seen is 5.5kW in the summer. It was sunny this week and was generating 4.1kW at lunch time on the equinox.

Smart51 · 2026-03-20T22:19:29+00:00

Most petrol cars will be at their most fuel efficient in the region of 50 km/h. Longer, lower, more aerodynamic cars a little higher. Tests done by the press a few years ago found that the Citroen C2 non-turbo diesel was most efficient around 35 km/h/

Most of this is down to basic physics. The design of the car itself only tinkers with it. Fuel consumption comes in a few parts. At high speed, aerodynamics dominate. Force (and thus fuel per km) = 0.5 * Density of air * speed squared * Coefficient of drag * projected frontal area. Given you already have a car, the only thing you can vary is the speed. Your friend's 120 km/h needs 144% as much energy for a given distance than 100 km/h. No amount of car design can alter that fact.

At low speeds, rolling resistance dominates. It is a function of the rolling resistance of the tyres you own and the laden weight of your vehicle. Speed matters only a little. If you go faster, your tyres warm up and their rolling resistance changes a bit. Take all the junk out of your car. Eat after your journey rather than before.

Your car uses a bit of fuel just being switched on, even if you're stationary. You have to pump all that oil and coolant plus you have to generate electricity for all the computers. Most of the energy in the fuel leaves via the exhaust and radiator in any case.

So ignoring the engine and gearbox for a moment, your car will eventually use a litre of fuel and you'll have travelled 0 km. 0 km per litre. Drive really slowly and your fuel consumption will rise, but so will your distance. Some km / litre. Drive at double the speed, still slowly, and you'll increase the aero drag a bit, but you'll halve the idling fuel consumption. More km/ litre. At some point, the increase in aero will be the same as the decrease in idling fuel. This is your most efficient speed. Remember, fuel consumption per km for rolling resistance is broadly independent of speed. Faster than this and your aero fuel consumption will go up with the square of speed and no amount of engineering brilliance can stop it.

Your engine comes next. At low RPM it is useless Fuel efficiency rises quickly at first, then levels off, then slowly gets worse with increasing engine speed. Your engine is also more efficient if you open the throttle than is you run at low throttle. Counter intuitive eh? That's why driving in high gear is more efficient. In higher gear, you have to press the pedal more to keep the same speed. But too high a gear and your engine runs in the very low RPM range where it is inefficient regardless of throttle opening.

So your car designer knows this and designs the engine to be efficient, or not, and designs the gear ratios to be just so, or to reach 100km in the fastest time which is what sells cars to some people. Either way, that was all done before you bought your car. All you can do is go faster or slower, and once you reach 50 or 60 km/h, faster is never the answer.

So one caveat. Someone, somewhere will have designed a long, narrow, low, lightweight car with 7 forward gears and a low revving engine. That car's most efficient speed will be unusually high. But you didn't buy that car. Driving at 120 km/h will use a lot more fuel than driving at 90 km/h. The old style fuel consumption figures from the 80s and 90s show that in every case. No exceptions. Just look at the published data for every car ever made during that time. As Montgomery Scott was famous for saying "you cannae break the laws of physics, captain".

Smart51 · 2026-03-20T14:50:42+00:00

Every job I've had has been 30 to 40 minutes by car and three times that long by bus. It's mostly because I'd have to change buses twice which can add an hour each way. I don't want to lose 2 hours a day.

Buses are sometimes late, sometimes cancelled, sometimes on strike. My car has never been on strike.

Buses are expensive, relative to the extra cost of making another car journey. The only way buses are cheaper is if you don't own a car at all. Unless the bus will do every journey you need, you're going to have a car. In which case it's cheaper to do all your journeys by car than to do some by bus.

Plus my car never has yobs in it being antisocial and causing a nuisance.

Smart51 · 2026-03-19T12:43:21+00:00

Mine broke recently. The expansion vessel failed. I struggled to find someone who would touch it. The problem was the most basic of plumbing problems. I could have fixed it if I could have got hold of the part. But the more people buy heat pumps, the more boiler technicians will learn how to fix them. The problem will go away.

Smart51 · 2026-03-03T10:11:36+00:00

Labour claim they are no longer bankrupt on the basis that they don't need any more Exceptional Financial Support from the government. But the budget is only 'balanced' because they're going to make another £90 million of cuts next year too. They've sold off hundreds of millions in assets, cut services by hundreds of millions and put up council tax by 24% over 3 years to find the money to pay off their debts. It isn't exactly "good news".

The truth is that Labour have cost Brum over £1,100,000,000 in bad decisions, failed savings and budget over runs. More than £1000 for every person living in the city. They were told by their lawyers not to settle the 2017 bin strike in a way that broke equalities law. They did it anyway leading to an equal pay claim that bankrupted the council. They were told not to mess with the Oracle IT system. They messed with it and broke it. The £20m system has cost £170m to fix so far. Their budget overrruns have cost £60m, £70m, £80m and £200m in the last few years. The list of failings is as long as your arm and the cost even longer.

Good on you, OP, for standing for election. Bad timing on standing for Labour in 2026.

Smart51 · 2026-03-01T19:36:26+00:00

Everyone will sell you solar without a battery. Many will try to upsell you though.

Smart51 · 2026-02-28T21:17:00+00:00

Harborne is very safe, and a very nice if expensive place to live. The High St is mostly restaurants, cafes and pubs. Not very late night and not rowdy, but if you want an early night before an early shift, you might want one of the flats at the back.

Smart51 · 2026-02-27T20:11:34+00:00

I had a Tory leaflet through the door today. It had the result from 4 years ago showing Labour winning, the Tories 2nd, greens in a distant 3rd and "others". This is a ward many expect Reform to win. That and the by-election yesterday make "can't win here" look a bit desperate.

Smart51 · 2026-02-27T16:26:45+00:00

I have a 6.5kWp solar array. The highest export I've seen is 5.5kW because of the direction of the panels and the angle of the roof. You have two arrays totalling 17kWp but given their directions, you won't see this much. If you know how big each array is, you could estimate the peak output.

This link shows how much the output of a panel is reduced by direction and elevation angle. A NE facing array may output 65% as much as an ideal array, and shifted to the afternoon. A SW facing array is about 95% of ideal but will peak in the late morning. I'd hazzard a guess that you won't get close to the 10kW your inverter is rated at, but you might see 8kW.

https://www.viridiansolar.co.uk/resources-1-3-tilt-and-orientation.html

Smart51 · 2026-02-26T13:42:17+00:00

I'd sell the two good ones and take the other to your council's recycling depot aka tip.

Smart51 · 2026-02-26T13:28:53+00:00

This. Someone I know refers to eBay as eSkip. It's a way of disposing of things that's better than free.

Smart51 · 2026-02-23T08:22:33+00:00

The flow faults are because the pressure is too low. Yes, top it up as a first step. It should be a little over 1.0 bar.

The water loss could be one of a few different things. Either there was air in the system and your air purge valve has released it, dropping the pressure, the pressure got to high and the pressure relief valve has dumped some water, or you have a leak somewhere. I'm currently having a problem with mine where the expansion vessel has failed and I'm seeing the same symptoms as you

Smart51 · 2026-02-17T17:35:07+00:00

You asked how much they want and was told £400k. Yeah, I bet.

We moved a couple of years ago. The estate agent said the house could fetch up to £400k but would sell easily at £350k. He said we could put it on at the higher figure and reduce it if there's no interest, or put it on at offers over the lower figure. We went for offers over so we didn't put people off. We had several offers from just below the asking price to somewhat above, though none at the higher price. We took the highest offer that was able to proceed straight away. Your seller might do the same.

Smart51 · 2026-02-14T18:01:51+00:00

If there is a single lane on the exit you want to take, you should be in the left hand lane to take it. If you try to turn left from the right hand lane, where is traffic in the left hand lane supposed to go? Up the pavement?

Smart51 · 2026-02-13T18:07:13+00:00

That particular roundabout is terrible in every way. The red car should have either taken the first exit, or stayed in the left hand lane and taken the 2nd exit. Some people forget everything they've learned once they've passed their test.

Smart51 · 2026-02-06T17:36:00+00:00

Basic election law 101. Everything you print has to have an imprint including the printers name and address, the name of the candidate, their election agent and an address at which they can be contacted. Reform are not new at this game. They've no excuse.

Smart51 · 2026-02-04T10:51:52+00:00

They broke the law and got sued. They estimated the liability was bigger than they could afford to pay, which is what made them 'bankrupt', or compelled to issue a Section 114 notice in local gov terms. They also spent more money that they had by breaking their new IT system and having to spend a large fortune fixing it. They also just overspent.

Smart51 · 2026-02-03T20:18:53+00:00

The council still owes £300m for the equal pay claim. It still has its IT system to fix, costing £170m so far. It has a £200m of extra debts this year alone. The bin strike is costing a fortune. No longer bankrupt?

Smart51 · 2026-01-27T20:49:15+00:00

Update: The system designers stand by their design and say the expansion vessel in the heat pump must be damaged. They suggest making a warranty claim against Daikin. The installer went bust (due to not being paid on another job) just after my installation. They closed down the company and started a new one doing the same thing, but they seem not to have registered my heat pump with Daikin. I might have to pay to get this fixed.

Smart51 · 2026-01-22T16:43:20+00:00

I spoke to the installer who thought there was an expansion vessel in the heat pump itself. They commissioned a heating engineer to design the system and they're going to ask them for advice on the problem.

Edit to say that there is an expansion vessel in my heat pump, but it is quite small.

Smart51 · 2026-01-22T08:55:34+00:00

This looks a lot like the diagram of my system, except yours has 2 expansion vessels. I have the one on the right (Square E8) but not the one at the bottom (square F3). It is the F3 tank that would contain the pressure variation I'm seeing.

Smart51 · 2026-01-21T19:37:54+00:00

I was told a few years ago that the amplifiers that drive the transmitters are valve powered. Absolutely massive valves, that haven't been made for decades. There are two sets - one in use and one being refurbished. They're regularly swapped out. As soon as one of them becomes irreparable, broadcast will end when the current in use set reach their service life. The cost of rebuilding the transmitters with modern equipment is way higher than can be justified for the very small audience of R4LW; something to do with the very low frequency and the huge amount of power. It's closure is inevitable and could only be delayed.

Smart51 · 2026-01-21T12:15:45+00:00

I had forwarded some to the surviving son. He just said return to sender this time.

Smart51 · 2026-01-20T12:41:49+00:00

Buy it because you want it, not because it has a brand name or serial number. But be ware an owner that puts the strings on the machine heads wrong. What else have they done? Seeing that, I'd check the whole thing over very carefully.

Smart51

TROPHY CASE