Random Irritations

I’d pretty much given up finding a decent steak in the U.K., especially in a restaurant. I’d heard all the hype about steaks in Spain. It’s not hype at all. In 8 years I’ve had, maybe, 3 steaks that were rubbish. In the main, they’re unbelievably good.

Sadly, what I can’t get very easily is decent lamb. And what I can get is ridiculously expensive. As for lamb chops, they must be from dwarf lambs. They’re like lollipops on a stick, and two bites and they’re gone.
We're lucky in that we have a lamb every year for the feeezer thats raised in fields less than half a mile from us , just as tasty as the lambs we reared in New Zealand 😉.
Still not found a steak that comes close to the ones we.had from our homekill ones in NZ , Dexter cross and Hereford cross and we had them hamg if for 21 days
 
Will be interesting to see what difference is between the two.
As a side note last year we went to a very expensive restaurant in Edinburgh and I decided to choose the Wagyu beef that also wasn’t 100% Wagyu.

When the waiter asked how we liked our meal I did say I was disappointed and was expecting more.
I cooked a rib eye from Tesco the week before and that was just as good.
I did oven cook the Wagyu after searing and it was very nice. My wife commented on it.
But no more so, in my opinion than the Sainsbury ribeye will be, having cooked it many times before by the same method.
Given that the Wagyu was, per 100g, almost 50% dearer I shan't repeat the purchase.
 
Further on the pothole theme...
As a driving instructor for 2p years I drove down virtually every road in my town...
2 interesting points revealed themselves....and I appreciate this may not be what everyone else sees.
1. The majority of potholes appear off the " normal" driving line....especially on roundabouts...drive the correct line - stay in your lane - and the road is fine..
2. Potholes reappear in the same places year on year...even on stretches that had been completely resurfaced.
 
Further on the pothole theme...
As a driving instructor for 2p years I drove down virtually every road in my town...
2 interesting points revealed themselves....and I appreciate this may not be what everyone else sees.
1. The majority of potholes appear off the " normal" driving line....especially on roundabouts...drive the correct line - stay in your lane - and the road is fine..
2. Potholes reappear in the same places year on year...even on stretches that had been completely resurfaced.
Definitely true round my way. I don't know what they fix them with but it must be a rush job every time - might as well just be filling them sand and dirt, since they come back in the same spots year after year.
 
I don’t think they make the roads correctly… the pot holes get too deep too quickly suggesting that the loose matrix underneath is incorrect. But I also think we don’t check haulage companies to make sure they are correctly loaded.
 
I've probably posted this before but...
A few years ago I listened to a radio interview with a tarmac specialist.
The main theme was " why do roads wear out so quickly "
He said that he could make you a tarmac that would never wear out....but you'd be changing your tyres every 3 months....
Or he could make you a tarmac that would increase your tyre life 100 times but you'd have to resurface the road every 3 months...so there's a compromise.
He also said that once you get a break in the surface of a road you have 7 days to fix it..and to fix it means replacing an area 1 square metre around the outside edge of the hole.
If done properly, that repair would last until the rest of the road needed to be resurfaced
After 7 days too much moisture will have permeated through the minute gaps in the tarmac and an area of 10 square metres will need to be replaced
If you don't, as soon as frosts come, that moisture will expand and cracked the surface and the cycle continues.....
And, of course, it always takes more than 7 days to fix a pothole and they only ever do the actual hole so........
 
I've probably posted this before but...
A few years ago I listened to a radio interview with a tarmac specialist.
The main theme was " why do roads wear out so quickly "
He said that he could make you a tarmac that would never wear out....but you'd be changing your tyres every 3 months....
Or he could make you a tarmac that would increase your tyre life 100 times but you'd have to resurface the road every 3 months...so there's a compromise.
He also said that once you get a break in the surface of a road you have 7 days to fix it..and to fix it means replacing an area 1 square metre around the outside edge of the hole.
If done properly, that repair would last until the rest of the road needed to be resurfaced
After 7 days too much moisture will have permeated through the minute gaps in the tarmac and an area of 10 square metres will need to be replaced
If you don't, as soon as frosts come, that moisture will expand and cracked the surface and the cycle continues.....
And, of course, it always takes more than 7 days to fix a pothole and they only ever do the actual hole so........
Ive heard that they have discovered that putting graphene into the mix makes the road surface so much stronger and long lasting. The issue is the increased costs.
The real problem is that our roads have been left to decay for way too long, as they aren't seen as a neccessary thing to maintain. We also have zero cooperation between utilities when it's comes to the roads. We've all seen sections of roads dug up straight after the road has been newly laid and it's no wonder the surface breaks up and holes apprea.
 
Ah, graphene, the answer to so many things except in reality the answer to nothing. Maybe one day it will be as it's clearly very clever stuff.

@Bunkermagnet totally agree about the digging up of the roads repeatedly. As an example, there is a new estate being built near to where I work and one section crossing a road has been dug up three times already 😡. Not a single house finished yet so there is chance to make that 4 or 5 yet 🙄
 
I've probably posted this before but...
A few years ago I listened to a radio interview with a tarmac specialist.
The main theme was " why do roads wear out so quickly "
He said that he could make you a tarmac that would never wear out....but you'd be changing your tyres every 3 months....
Or he could make you a tarmac that would increase your tyre life 100 times but you'd have to resurface the road every 3 months...so there's a compromise.
He also said that once you get a break in the surface of a road you have 7 days to fix it..and to fix it means replacing an area 1 square metre around the outside edge of the hole.
If done properly, that repair would last until the rest of the road needed to be resurfaced
After 7 days too much moisture will have permeated through the minute gaps in the tarmac and an area of 10 square metres will need to be replaced
If you don't, as soon as frosts come, that moisture will expand and cracked the surface and the cycle continues.....
And, of course, it always takes more than 7 days to fix a pothole and they only ever do the actual hole so........
Also I remember as a kid, when any abnormality in the road was repaired, the repair was sealed with tar all the way round. This now does not seem to happen
 
I've probably posted this before but...
A few years ago I listened to a radio interview with a tarmac specialist.
The main theme was " why do roads wear out so quickly "
He said that he could make you a tarmac that would never wear out....but you'd be changing your tyres every 3 months....
Or he could make you a tarmac that would increase your tyre life 100 times but you'd have to resurface the road every 3 months...so there's a compromise.
He also said that once you get a break in the surface of a road you have 7 days to fix it..and to fix it means replacing an area 1 square metre around the outside edge of the hole.
If done properly, that repair would last until the rest of the road needed to be resurfaced
After 7 days too much moisture will have permeated through the minute gaps in the tarmac and an area of 10 square metres will need to be replaced
If you don't, as soon as frosts come, that moisture will expand and cracked the surface and the cycle continues.....
And, of course, it always takes more than 7 days to fix a pothole and they only ever do the actual hole so........

Cars have got bigger and heavier and that is also a massive factor.

"The road surface problem is rather more deep-seated than being an issue of poor treatment of potholes – though that adds to it. With vehicles getting heavier, as they are larger and increasingly loaded with batteries, any flaws in road surfaces are developing faster than they ever did before.

The damage done by a vehicle to a road surface is proportional to the fourth power of its axle weight. A two-tonne SUV therefore does 16 times more damage than a one-tonne car.

The potholing of road surfaces is even worse when it rains because heavier vehicles create much stronger hydraulic pressure, forcing water into any flaws and breaking up the road surface."


I'd be in favour of doubling car tax or more on vehicles over 1.5 tonnes and sending those funds to the people responsible for the upkeep of the roads. Probably too much common sense with that though.
 
The weather.

We were forecast light rain this morning. It’s absolutely hosing down with sleet in the mix, flooding everywhere. Absolutely sick and tired of it now.
Absolutely this🤬
Forecast this morning was rain, put off going for a run until lunchtime once rain had passed, then as I posted in Fitness Thread:

“1 min out of house it started to rain, turned to hailstones then sleet, then snow, lasted about 10 minutes”

Forecast was to stay dry for remainder of the day so after lunch I took the dog out for his walk, got soaked😂😂
 
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