Return to blogging

I have arrived back and have two complaints:

1. Why can’t I light a German gas stove without holding the knob and counting up to twenty? This drives me mad.

2. Am I the last person to discover that if you use Movable Type (before version 3.0) in Firefox, the buttons B, i, U and URL don’t appear? This is unbelievable.

(Posted from Internet Explorer, which I had abandoned because of browser hijackers)

12 thoughts on “Return to blogging

  1. If I remember correctly, upgrading to MT 2.661 (or was it 3.0?) helps with Mozilla. (Not Opera, though.)

    Also see this thread in the MT support forum.

  2. Thanks, Ingmar. No, as I said, it’s only from MT version 3.0 (your link says ‘> 2.661’).
    I don’t really want to upgrade until I know if other advantages will come with the public version. That would mean abandoning MT Blacklist for the sake of Mozilla.

  3. Hi Maragret and welcome back

    Could you give us more background on the gas stove question? I find this intriguing…

    Paul

  4. Have you got electricity, Paul?
    When I turn a burner or the oven on, I have to turn the knob to the right position, light the gas (usually by pressing another knob, but could be with a match) and then keep the knob held in that position for something like 10 seconds. In Britain, I can light it and immediately let go of the knob.
    I had an old gas stove here and have a newish one, but the book says nothing about this – it’s just common knowledge, I suppose.

  5. I see Margaret. Yes, I have electricity here. I remember my mother’s old gas cooker in the distant past used to light immediately and the knobs stayed immdiately in any position to which they were turned. Yours sounds very odd indeed ….. do you mean to say that both your old cooker and the new one both have this quirk? Maybe there’s some DIN Standard on it….

    Paul

  6. I believe it’s a German standard, to prevent you from blowing yourself up in the next ten seconds, but it’s difficult to Google. When you push the knob in for the first time, you release the gas, and presumably in the English version you could fail to light it and then gas yourself (although I think the mixture of gas is not conducive to that) or at all events leave the gas escaping, whereas in the German version you are forced to hold it, or the gas supply will automatically be cut off, and will be reminded to relight it if anything goes wrong. I can only speculate, however.

    This is a more fruitful topic than I thought.

  7. I thought the gas used in British networks (North Sea gas) is non-toxic Margaret? I can’t see how it would stop you blowing yourself up. Surely letting the gas ignite as soon as possible would be less dangerous as there would be gas around…

    Paul

  8. I assume the German gas is non-toxic too and this may date back to a time when it wasn’t. But they want you to light the stove as fast as possible, rather than accidentally leave it unlit, which is presumably easier with the English system.

  9. Gas stoves work the same way in Denmark. The standard explanation (which I’ve never cared to check) is that each burner has a simple thermostate controlling the gas. When turning it on you have to hold in the knob until the burner is hot enough for the thermostate to allow gas to flow.
    The purpose of the burner having a thermostate is not to prevent you from blowing yourself up in the first 10 seconds. Rather, the idea is to prevent a gas leak (with risk of fire and/or explosion). If the fire on the burner goes out (for instance if something boils over and liquid spills over the burner) the thermostate will cool down and the gas will be cut off.

  10. Oh, so it’s ‘thermostat’, according to the dictionary. I didn’t comment on this earlier because my English gas stove vocabulary is non-existent.

  11. Thanks very much, Birgitte. That is disappointing because quite convincing and lets them off the hook. So it isn’t a question of seconds but of degrees. I have noticed that it’s quicker on the second attempt. You think they are more concerned about keeping my gas bill down than preserving my life?
    I’m sure Count von Bladet would spell thermostat like that.

  12. Well, I think they’re concerned about both. Having a lot of gas floating around in your kitchen can harm you physically, too (under such circumstances, entering with a lit cigarette or even, have I been told, just turning on the lights, may cause explosions).
    As for the use of ‘thermostate’, I suspect Count von Bladet would knowingly deviate from the norm, whereas I mostly do so out of ignorance – though if I acquire a title I may be able to get away with it.

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