Patch
For the record, I’m not an American and I don’t microwave water for tea. Being a Brit of these blessed shores, and of our blessed 230v mains electricity supply, I have an electric kettle.
I am also a big tea drinker, and I’m perfectly happy with my setup. I have a metal kettle with a thermostatic heating element (because I prefer my green tea brewed cooler than my black tea), and I use filtered water (because I live in a very hard water area). My kettle is kept sparklingly limescale-free. I am well used to drinking other people’s terrible tea, and I know what a good cup tastes like and how to make one.
But I also know that heating water in a pyrex jug in a microwave is exactly the same as heating water in an electric kettle, as long as you’re not leaving it boiling for too long or letting it cool too much before using it. Because heat is just heat…
I’m going to go to bat for our American friends and say that there’s nothing wrong with boiling water in a microwave if that’s the quickest water-boiling-method you’ve got. Boiling water is boiling water, who cares.
America’s greater sin against tea drinking is their habit of letting the water cool down and then steeping a bag in the barely-hot water so that it makes a drink the colour of dehydrated urine. Why drink tea if you don’t want to actually taste the tea?
But then on the other hand iced tea is nice, so they do redeem themselves a little.
With respect to you, that’s about technique rather than tooling. If you overboil your water you’re going to have overboiled water, but nobody is making you overboil water in a microwave.
Fundamentally, a microwave just applies heat the same as any other cooking appliance. It doesn’t add or remove fluoride or change your water hardness. The temperature of boiling water will always be as close to 100° as makes no difference because of simple physics. If you let your water sit bubbling away in the microwave for endless minutes then that’s on you for not taking the water out of the microwave when it was done (and is not fundamentally different to overboiling water with a stovetop pot either).
People seem to think microwaves are some sort of spooky exotic magic technology, but they’re not. They’re just heaters.
It seems like the obvious thing to do would be to get a metred EV charging point and bill the tenant separately. There are even grant schemes to help pay for the cost.
It’s not like EVs are going away. Every house with a driveway is likely to have one eventually. She might as well get ahead of the curve.
I am completely satisfied with the idea that all doctors should be career doctors who have dedicated a large part of their life to the study and practice of medicine.
I am not entirely as satisfied with the idea that all politicians should be career politicians who have dedicated a large part of their life to the study and practice of politics.
Parliament would be a much richer and more effective place if it were populated by people from a range of backgrounds and specialisms. I don’t think it’s a good thing that a sizeable fraction of them all studied the same politics degree at the same two universities.
Really interesting arcticle breaking down which groups have moved and where, and providing a bit of depth to the discussion around changing demographics.
An interesting take-away is the fact that the electorate is much “swingier” than it ever has been in the past, with a far greater number of people willing to consider switching their vote compared to historic elections. That makes things a lot more volatile than previously, and explains some of the break-neck changes we’ve seen in recent years (Labour gains in 2017, Tory majority in 2019, potential Labour landslide in 2024).
It always seemed weird to me that most companies just discontinued their traditional sugary variety and went diet only, instead of having a diet version and the sugary version just at a higher price.
The death of original Irn Bru is a bit of a tragedy, and I’m not even sure what the point of low sugar Lucozade is supposed to be.
Something between trolling and a wish fulfillment fantasy from Farage here, but the fact that this sort of story isn’t even absurd is a prety damning situation for the old Tories.
