Meant to include Julie Burchill's tale of her free-speech group being kicked out of a pub in Hove for wrongthink.

Mailman,
Thanks for clarifying. Bit ambitious hoping to keep a lid on that.

tomo,
Yes, I was assuming the intention was that combusion would only start with injection. Doesn't seem much of a jump from that to a spark ignition engine with old-style port injection, spark igntion, but adding direct injection during the power stroke. Either way you're in a middle-ground between diesel and spark.

Hadn't heard about the BMW multiple squirt notion. No intuition of: there's a brilliant idea. Can only take wild guesses at what the benefits might be.

I posted that 6-stroke Porsche video here a few days ago. That's what got us started on the engine evolution theme.

That William Wragg story reminds me of one of the Rumpole of the Bailey plots where a senior politician regularly paid the electricity bill at the brothel he visited. That was so, if he was ever caught up in a raid, he could claim he was being blackmailed and thereby his name would be suppressed. Suspect Mortimer wasn't basing that story on theory when he wrote it.

Probably nothing new for you, tomo, in Matt Ridley's Spiked article on the lab leak.

When he described his debating opponent's argument, it crossed my mind that the blob is on the flip-side of the climate debate. On COVID, they say natural causes, on climate it's man-made.

So, the story on the street is that a certain two tier guy was taking it up the jacksy from the guy who was letting him use his love pad and giving flashy clothes to his wife.

I couldn't possibly vouch for the authenticity of the scurrilous rumour but there you go.

tomo,
Can certainly see the benefits in cooling the charge and I'm sure detonation can be avoided, but it inevitably changes the traditional difference between diesel and spark ignition, i.e. that spark, with all the combustibles waiting under compression, has combustion occuring under "constant" volume, whereas diesel continues adding fuel during the power stroke giving "constant" pressure. With fumigation, the fuel introduced at the intake is all available to burn at the start of the power stroke.

Could well be that that delivers the best of both worlds. Or it might be better to add a power-stroke injector to a spark ignition engine. Either seems plausible; up to the experimenters to find out.

The Miliband video has the feel of someone rubbing it in: Yes, I, a talentless git, do stunts like this at *your* expense.

Your latest is a bit obscure to me at the moment. No doubt it will make sense when the dark forebodings come to light.

The abyss does seem a deal closer than it used to be, and waiting for us all.

Robert

There are very strong rumours, including of the existence of a super injunction to suppress the alleged story which is the subject of those rumours, which would give a second, less literal, interpretation of the subject of that song.

Be that as it may, the numerous revelations re Starmer (and his cronies) and the derision and contempt with which he's now viewed must surely make his position untenable. But given the level on intelligence of potential successors, his departure is unlikely to improve things. One or two current plans might be reversed in a desperate attempt to claw back some popularity, but the general direction of travel into the abyss won't change.