First they came for lightbulbs

[Tim Streater]

Oh, did weed'n'feed have agent orange in it. Gosh, I didn't know that.

[Tim Streater]

Or have two steering wheels like they do in planes.

[Tim Streater]

Then it was proper bread. Becoming harder to find in France these days.

[Adrian]

Have you come across this wonderful new invention, the thermos flask?

[S Viemeister]

I was taught to drive in a car with two steering wheels.

[Tim Streater]

That keeps water boiling, does it?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Mine has two power settings as well/

They reintroduced it.

[polygonum]

Even now, France has much tighter controls over "other" ingredients. Not that I am against bread making people being inventive, but I am against things like the near-universal addition of soy flour.

[The Natural Philosopher]

there's a newer model but £100+ seems a lot for a toaster

[The Natural Philosopher]

You could fly a reasonable plane on a 500KW fan..

[polygonum]

That most certainly is a lot for a toaster.

Can't remember the exact prices, but when I got mine they had been about £50 in the shops. We got ours for about £25 each from Robert Dyas when they were flogging off end-of-range/surplus.

[Chris Hogg]

Wind tunnel. One wind tunnel in Germany, transferred to France at the end of WW2, had two fans powered by two 50,000 HP (37,000kW) hydraulic turbines. But I'll concede, hardly domestic!

[Tim Streater]

I'm against baguettes in France that are barely distinguishable from Tesco ones.

[Chris Hogg]

Does it, in fact? Agent Orange contained 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T defoliants. AIUI 2,4,5-T has been banned for a long time, but 2,4-D is used in many lawn treatments, where it acts on broad-leaved weeds like dandelions and plantains but not on the grass. I can't find any evidence that it's been banned. An up-to-date (March 2016) list of weedkillers for amateur gardeners here:

No specific mention of a Weed-n-Feed by that name.

But popular broadleaf herbicides containing 2,4-D, mecoprop, and dicamba have been banned in Canada, although those chemicals occur together in one or two of the UK products. AFAICT he only weedkillers banned recently by the EU are Amitrole and Isoproturon. But these were not available to amateurs anyway, so I'm puzzled as to why Andrew's neighbour's weed-n-feed is supposedly banned.

[Tim Streater]

There was some talk that glyphosate was for the chop, too, so I got another litre bottle of 360gm/litre from B&Q the other day. £25, which didn't compute since previously it's been more like £40. It was in their secure section, too, with a tag and it took two staff to get it off the shelf. One to climb the ladder and another to watch.

Bizarre.

[Bob Eager]

ISTR the Dualit was about £130!

[Steve Walker]

It'll be something industrial.

I have seen a water pump driven by a gas turbine - probably rated around

24MW !!! It was intended for injecting seawater down oilwells to keep the pressure up and keep the gas and oil flowing.

[polygonum]

£100 is a lot. £130 is crazy! After all, it will all end up as scrap someday. And just a tiny break in a bit of nichrome wire is all that separates something useful from a very poor doorstop.

[Bob Eager]

Well, no. I bought it for a number of reasons. It's very solid, it has lasted many years, it's selectable (1/2/4 slices), and it won't set fire to the toast if it jams because it's a hand operated ejector mechanism. The timer is clockwork.

And all of the elements are easily replaceable. I've only had to do one.

[Andy Burns]

under £15 from amazonbay.