Discount Coffee review

I've just returned from a trip to a Lidl supermarket near by house: http://www.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/lidl_uk/hs.xsl/index.htm. It's a discount supermarket. The world discount when associated with a supermarket or retailer of any kind usually conjours doubts and negative images. Aisles and aisles of non-branded gruel, the customers all grey-faced people shivering in rags.

The reality couldn't be further from this image. It's a bright, airy place with many bargains and offers on close imitations to main brand products. I'm going to talk about the discount coffee that they sell there because in a recent coffee taste test, the value, non-branded coffee won out : http://www.supermarketownbrandguide.co.uk/search.php?SearchString=SSCoffee&Search.x=27&Search.y=22&score=&price=0&pricevalue=0.00&orderby=Price.

As I like my coffee caffinated, I selected Aldi's GranArom Highland Gold 100% Arabica instant coffee. First impressions, it looks good. The jar has a distinctive Aztec, hewn-of-glass look to it and the packaging has images of coffee beans on it. It's pretty plain and doesn't try to be anything else.

Popping open the hermetically sealed lid releases a powerful rich aroma. There's no hint of any mealy or bland undertone to the nose of this coffee. It fills the mind with images of warm, comforting, steaming cups of coffee and good times with friends. Long discussions over luxurious coffee.

Once water and milk are added, it tastes great. Really nice smooth flavour. Not too rich but with a powerful smell of real coffee beans. This is definately not from the dregs of the coffee industry, a good piece of evidence for the 'own-brand' / 'non-brand' foodstuffs besting their more expensive cousins.

I'd easily give this coffee a full-bodied 8 out of ten. It's definately a good quality coffee that you could get yourself up with in the morning but not a product that you'd use to impress friends with your sophisticated coffee knowledge. A true no-frills, but delivers exactly what it says kind of product.

coffee

Solar Power

I've just got back from gallavanting around the country and I've noticed that solar energy systems, harnessing the power of the sun to heat water or by converting the light into electricity, are becoming more and more popular.

I was sat on the train for a few hours ( a long, long journey) and I saw that every so often, a battery of photo-voltaic cells or a solar water heater would be mounted on someone's roof. Ironically, as I made my way north, the number and frequency of panels on rooves in residential areas seemed to increase. This was an interesting trend as it's counter-intuitive to think that it's a good idea to put solar energy systems on the roof at higher latitudes. But there they were, glinting in the sun.

This is a good example of how high energy prices are driving a domestic energy generation revolution. There has been a unilateral price increase by energy providers in recent weeks and this will serve to squeeze the pockets of the average Briton even harder than they were in the winter when prices were high and there was a massive need for fuel to rebuff the awful cold. Homeowners (as you need to own your roof to get solar panels installed on it) have been
slowly moving toward and adopting solar technology to power / heat their homes. This works well for two reasons: one - the panels on your roof remove the need to buy electricity / gas to heat water for domestic use, except on the darkest / coldest of days. This means you can have all the hot water you want without needing to worry about that next huge post-winter energy bill as it simply won't arrive. However, this is countered by the cost of installing the system in the first place.

The second point only applies to solar photo-voltaic (electricity generating) panels and it is that the energy that your panels collect which isn't used in the home can be sold back to the national
grid. The money you generate from your redundant energy is sold per kWh (kilo-Watt-hour) at pennies per unit.

This adds up over time and can, whilst cutting your electricity bill to zero, earn your household an extra £2,000 a year depending on the capacity your home can provide.

The standard set-up for an average house is a 3-5kWh system, costing around £10,000. This means that the money that your roof-based power plant provides through electricity generation will help pay off the cost of the system in around 5 years or so. Considering that by having solar panels, you can have essentially free electricity for 25 years (the average life of a system) and the potential to generate an extra income to help you live your life without money worries. The only care that either system requires is that you keep the panels clean to ensure maximum light
capture.

Puncture repair guide (with tips!!)

Hisssssssssssss!! The angry sound of a puncture. Don't let it ruin your ride and don't waste money on a guy from Halfords to change your inner tube either. In this blog article, we'll be looking at puncture repair for bike inner tubes: the motivation, some tips and general installation instruction.

Hiss Bang Groan

Firstly, you need to identify the type of puncture you've got and this will allow you to tailor you approach to the repair of the puncture. A low hissing sound implies a snakebite or pinch puncture. This is a puncture which will slowly bleed out the air from your tyre and will have two small holes in the inneer tube. This is more minor damage and you may even be able to
ride home on such a puncture so you can fix it there more easily. A fast, loud bang is a rupture and is more serious. It implies a blowout of your tyre and may mean that you can't fix the puncture by the roadside.

Getting started

So you've identified your puncture and which wheel of your bike is afflicted. What now? Well,
firstly, you want a set of spoons, also known as tyre levers (not the eating iron variety). These should ideally made of tough plastic and are available from online stores such as Chain Reaction Cycles and Ribble cycles. Chain Reaction has free delivery on all purchases so it's worth giving them a look.

Use the more spoon-like end of the tyre lever to lift the rim of the tyre over the wheel rim. You may want to use 3 tyre levers for this to lift the tyre off the rim all the way round one side of the wheel.

Now pull out the inner tube. It's as the name suggests, a rubber tube, usually black and it sits under the tyre in the wheel rim. If you have a minipump to hand, pump some air into the inner tube and listen all around the tube for a hissing if you cannot already see the puncture. Many pinpoint punctures are very difficult to see so hearing and the feel of the airflow against the finger tips can help you locate the puncture.

After finding the puncture, use a puncture repair kit. My favourite at the moment is the Rema TIP TOP TT04 Sport mini puncture repair kit (~£3.50 Chain Reaction Cycles). It comes with little patches for little punctures and a couple of larger patches to cover more substantial damage. It also comes with some vulcanising solution (rubber glue) and a piece of sandpaper to help adhesion between the patch and the tube.

following the instructions in the package, lightly sand the tube to rough up the surface to help the patch stick. apply a blob of vulcanising solution. Then apply the patch and hold strongly for about 5 minutes while the glue sets.

Now put a little air into the tube to check for additional punctures. If there are none, seat the inner tube back into the tyre, making sure to seat the air inlet pokes through the hole in the rim. Now, using your hands, lift the rim of the tyre back over the rim of the wheel. Don't be tempted to use the tyre levers to lift the tyre back into place as this risks pinching the inner tube and ruining all your hard work as you'll need to repeat the above steps. Don't worry if it takes a while or you think you're doing it wrong. This is the most difficult part of the repair as anyone aside from a repair shop man will probably not have the grip strength needed to do it all in one go. Just take your time and make sure you don't catch the tube between the rim and the tyre as
more damage will ensue.

After all that, good luck. Let me know if there's anything I missed :)