Category: DIY

In various places I have heard that leaving mobile phone chargers plugged in and devices in standby wastes a lot of electricity. It is a kind of urban myth. The fridge has been a little flaky. So, I bought a plug in power use monitor for 20 euros. When you first plug in your devices on standby, it draws current as it sets itself up. If you wait a couple of minutes the current reading drops below one milliamp, unmeasurable with this device. The hasty might imagine that there is significant power wastage. When you turn the TV and satellite box off, they still draw current for a few minutes. A cooling fan perhaps?

Less than one milliamp at mains voltage is not going to cause significant global warming, nor break the bank. Perhaps it was the older generation of devices that used a lot in standby?

Today I started looking up the French words in my book using a French dictionary as opposed to a French to English one. I am getting a pretty good intuitive understanding of what is going on even though there are many words I do not know. It seems that using a French dictionary will actually aid my assimilation of the language quicker than translation. I only had to translate one word.

We are waiting now for the dude to come and pick up the two oxygen concentrators, puffing billy and little puffing billy.  We had to get a written prescription for this to happen!!

This morning I very nearly stood on Trip Hazard as I was getting him breakfast. He probably does not understand that 95kg of human could cause a partial and irreversible 3d to 2d phase transition. He would get squashed and I would fall.

I checked online and apparently it is not completely unusual for cats to go “walkies”. Sometimes this is due to separation anxiety, other times dominance or simple curiosity.

For a stray cat he is pretty friendly and keeps trying to get in the house.

He has not got an ear tattoo. But he might have a chip.

In France the wiring, certainly in the past, can go diagonal across walls, so a while back I bought this detector for studs, metal and current. Better to check…

I started thinking laterally.

A cat microchip must have some form of radio frequency coil in copper, probably.

So, I have just run this detector over Trip Hazard’s back. It showed a positive signal. But I need to get him onto the lawn to rule out any false positives.

If it is the case, we can get the chip read at the local vets.