Any question answered...

Can this really be accurate?

Yes, the unit energy cost of buying domestic gas is much lower than domestic electricity, and burning gas to generate heat is about as efficient as using electricity, since the losses are essentially the same, i.e. warming up your kitchen.

Electricity generators burn gas to make steam, then pass that steam through turbines to turn generators, then pass the resulting electricity through a chain of transformers and transmission lines to get it to your oven in a usable form. In the process, they have to burn gas at about 4kW* rate of energy consumption to give you 1kW of electricity.

*a bit less for combined-cycle plants

=you need a nuclear oven, DFP

You'd need 6000 of these

to cook your Sunday roast. Not very practical.

DFP's new cooker (left- pre-ignition, right post):

Actually, this is the kit you want:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Purpose_Heat_Source
Just 24 modules for a domestic oven, so it's entirely practical; even the half life of only 87 years isn't that much of an issue, as you'd barely notice the drop in output during the typical 10 year life-cycle of a domestic appliance.

I have a Filofax, it's pretty small so I think it might be a personal size one.

i want one : /

i want one : /

By 'personal size', do you mean a thin one that takes normal Filofax pages, or the one with the mini pages?

By 'personal size', do you mean a thin one that takes normal Filofax pages, or the one with the mini pages?

i dont know. the one thats called personal on their website smaller that a5

The fact that you were asking here made me think they had gone out of business. Why not just buy a new one?

I am trying to fin out how much my appliances cost to run and whether I should get an electric cooker instead of gas.

I found this which article which claims that a years worth of gas cooker use costs under £20. Can this really be accurate? I was expecting it to be more like £200.

http://www.which.co.uk/home-and-garden/kitchen/guides/how-to-choose-a-cooker/gas-cookers-vs-electric-cookers/

You will cook best with a gas hob and an electric fan oven. Electric hobs are awful, unresponsive and slow, and gas ovens burn food at the top and undercook it at the bottom.
gas hobs are cheaper to run. I don't know about gas ovens. You still need to preheat them, same as electric ones.

I need a German phrasebook for a couple of weeks time when I will be leading a week-long group visit. I have zero experience of speaking german (not at school or anything, I've only ever been to Berlin for a couple of days and didn't have to do much thinking that time).

I don't expect to be able to say much, but perhaps the odd phrase (mainly "do you speak english?" I imagine), and being able to translate signage. We will be travelling around an area using public transport, so that kind of thing will be rather crucial. Something aimed at travellers rather than learning to speak the language properly, I guess.

So, recommendations please, or does anyone have a good one that they want to sell/lend to me?

Or, indeed, any tips for travelling in Germany...

any tips for travelling in Germany...

Don't mention the war.

hoefla, apart from reading signs etc. yourself, pretty much anyone you'll meet in Berlin will have some smattering of English. The moment you try to make an effort, someone will say something to you in English. In the East of Germany, fewer people know English (and more know Russian), but in Berlin you'll be OK pretty much all of the time.

For transport, the Internet is your friend:

http://berlin.barwick.de/travel-transport/public-transport.html

Have a great time!

Don't mention the nerg wars.

"Aleschia? Isch kenne kein Aleschia."

ah - we'll be in the Ruhr region, not Berlin. travelling between Dusseldorf, Neuss, Duisberg and Essen - mostly slightly out-of-town destinations. I've been using bahn.com but finding it a little confusing. for instance - do any train tickets need to be bought in advance? are they operator-specific?

google goggles for sign translating

Seems to have been a batch of slightly dud inner tubes, tested the one from last night pumped up high under water and found a tiny stream of bubbles coming from the valve core which didn't seem to be tightened properly, tested the other two tubes and seem to be the same... Fingers crossed for tomorrow !

Conti's perchance?

ah - we'll be in the Ruhr region, not Berlin. travelling between Düsseldorf, Neuss, Duisburg and Essen - mostly slightly out-of-town destinations. I've been using bahn.com but finding it a little confusing. for instance - do any train tickets need to be bought in advance? are they operator-specific?

Ah, sorry. The situation with English will be the same in the Ruhrgebiet. No worries there.

The vast majority of mainline train connections in Germany are Deutsche Bahn, and you shouldn't have to worry about any other operators except state-funded local and regional networks. These will normally look after S- or U-Bahn as well as buses and trams. For the most part, you should be in the area covered by Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr:

http://www.vrr.de/imperia/md/content/vrrstartseite/verbundraum_vrr.pdf

Everything is very close together and you should be able to make a lot of trips using VRR trains.

English version of their site:

http://www.vrr.de/en/index.html

You can generally buy any train tickets at stations (the horror of airline-style ticketing as in the UK was prevented a few years ago by a massive passenger revolt), or even on the train for 10% extra. If you're going to be taking the train a lot (perhaps unlikely given the cities you mention, but I don't know your itinerary), a BahnCard 25 might be worth getting even for such a short time (you have to apply for that before you go to Germany, though). Beware of ICE connections--significantly more expensive than ICs or REs or RBs (and in such a small area there really isn't any need to take an ICE). Timetables are generally far clearer in Germany than in the UK.

Hoefla, I travelled from Lubeck to Hamburg to Berlin at the beginning of this year and found that most people knew English, so I hardly even had to dust off my pre-GCSE level German. The public transport is great too, very efficient and easy to understand, as Oliver said. All the ticket desk people always spoke good English too so asking specific questions wasn't hard.

You will cook best with a gas hob and an electric fan oven. Electric hobs are awful, unresponsive and slow, and gas ovens burn food at the top and undercook it at the bottom.
gas hobs are cheaper to run. I don't know about gas ovens. You still need to preheat them, same as electric ones.

What about induction, aren't they the most energy efficient?

cheers Scoot and Oliver, that's reassuring. if it was just me I wouldn't mind bumbling about and usually I enjoy just showing up and making my own way, it's just that I'm going to be responsible for a whole group, it's rather worrying... I don't feel like I can plan everything out properly.

oh, just tried the vrr websites, I get "Die Seite wurde nicht gefunden" I can guess what that means.... will try again later, maybe it's something their end :/

on the other hand, I just learnt some german.

Who is the best bank to set up a savings account with, and what kind of account? savings need to be accessible in the not too distant future, should be adding between £300 - £1000 each month...

minds of LFGSS, what are my options?

What about induction, aren't they the most energy efficient?

Efficient, but you're still buying electricity at a higher per kWh cost than gas.

i want one : /

Yasi - I have a filofax from years ago that I never used. It was given as a present. It's brown leather and in near mint condition. I'm in Athens until 12th November but live with a few other forumengers. I think it's a Kendal. £10 forum donation and it's yours. PM me if you are interested.