And 390 watts of solar power will corrupt me absolutely.

Terry and I put the framework up on the roof and then fitted three of the solar panels. They are all wired up and while the three on the roof of the Luton Transit were recording 1 amp in the early evening, these three were chucking out 10 times that. In fact, in the period between 17:30 and 20:30 I’d received about 20 amp-hours-worth. Mind you the panels are situated right on the sunniest corner of the roof – the part of the roof where the sunshine lingers longest.

And just imagine what it’s going to be like when the other 3 are up there with these.

We had a rethink about the design of the framework. Solar panels are most effective when offered perpendicularly to the sun at the shortest day of the year. Here in central France that’s about 68 degrees. But being restricted by the roof windows, the panels are having to overhang the apex of the roof as you can see. And setting them at 68 degrees would have this huge sail-effect over the roof catching the stormy north winds head-on. It’s for that reason that I’ve set them parallel to the roof slope – to make sure that they don’t catch the wind so much.

You can see how we fitted them – saddle clamps onto standard B-size galvanised tube with tube clamp fittings onto U-profile aluminium channel with holes drilled in to let the water pass. We didn’t have enough saddle clamps (followers of my blog from its previous location will recall the story about that!) so we made our own.

You can also see the two roof windows and the space-age insulation that I’ve been using. It’s all pretty impressive stuff.

In other news, you may recall Dinsdale nailing someone’s head to a coffee table for having “transgressed the unwritten law”
“well what did you do?”
“he didn’t tell me. But he gave me his word, and that’s good enough for me with old Dinsy”

Back in 1970 we laughed at that, thinking that it was just another example of Monty Python’s outrageous comedy. We never ever thought that it would come true. But in the UK in 2009 this kind of thing has become fact and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

To summarise, a person in the UK has been detained under house arrest on charges that have not been communicated to him. A court order has instructed the Home Secretary to publish the information that relates to his detention, and rather than publish the information the Home Secretary has dropped the charges – and then applied for a different detention order. This will of course be the subject of a further appeal to the High Court, which will pass a similar order, leading to the charges being dropped, and a different detention order being applied for.

And so the cycle will continue while a totally bewildered detainee, who doesn’t know the charges and evidence against him and so can’t defend himself, will remain in detention ad infinitum while the UK Government take the mickey out of the High Court. If it was a civilian doing this kind of thing there would be a “contempt of court” writ in the mail the same night, and back in the old days when a Government tried on this kind of behaviour with a case as serious as “The Moors Murders” with Hindley and Brady, it was threatened with an “Abuse of Process” writ, but in the UK today there is a government that thinks that it is above all legal challenge.

You obviously can’t make up a story like this, but just in case you think that I am pulling your leg, you can read all about it here. But I just don’t know how the British public have become so paranoid that they are prepared to put up with all of the carp that the Government is feeding them. When the IRA was blowing mainland Britain to bits there was none of this nonsense. But of course the IRA is all white-skinned Catholics financed by the USA and in the UK today someone’s skin colour plays a major part in the way in which they are being treated by the Government and the British citizens.

Shame on you all!

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