Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2007

You could perhaps reuse a "Dettol Anti-Bacterial Surface
Cleanser" bottle. It has a trigger operated manual pump. The top
unscrews for refilling.

The original content appears be safe, so there should be no
problem once the bottle has been cleaned. Scroll down here[1]:
http://www.dettol.co.uk/sf_allhome.shtml

[1] I originally typed "Scroll down her". This should be only to
a consenting "her".

Vinny Burgoo <hlunnh@yahoo.co.uk> het geskryf:

This is surprising to me, as these are a standard item in
"home stores" around here.  I'd expect you to have a choice
of competing celebrity-chef lines, in fact, with price-tags
to match.  I expect that, once you stumble upon the mother
lode, idyll be like opening a nartery, a veritable nartery.

Anyway, FWIW, I got my latest from Woolies, which is likely
to imply it's an M&S line.

However, IME, they're not a great technology, and tend to
have a short service life (about as long as it takes for a
surprising amount of money to change hands, in fact), they
seem to crud up into uselessness if not used more frequently
than I use mine[1], and buying further up-market seems no
guarantee of increased satisfaction.

The latest one I got recommended mixing oil and water to
overcome this.  I'm not convinced that this is Totally
Scientific.  But, that said, I yust hoiked mine out of the
cupboard, Shook Vigorously and away it went <shrug>.

I stumbled across my preferred solution when I discovered
that, next to the non-stick [aerosol] spray was a
non-non-stick olive oil spray.  In a choice of flavours,
yet, including - ah-ha! - plain.

A basting brush, or selected and dedicated paintbrush of
choice, and a saucer or tea-cup holding a little oil, also
provides a more robust solution that offers a pleasing
degree of control over the process, esp. in the case where
the spray seems a little wussy for the job.

[1]  Although paps I'm bean unfair: I tend to buy my olive
oil from local farms.  I have no idea whether oil spray
manufacturers regard such homegrowns as abominations.

On 24 Nov 2007, Vinny Burgoo wrote

We got ours from Lakeland;  works fine:

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/product.aspx/!11333

hlunnh@yahoo.co.uk had it ...

And by converse, the delicious Marmite (tm) is banned from Healthy
Eating establishments because it's 12% salt.  But even I don't eat
much more than 10g of the stuff in a day, so the total amount of salt
ingested is small.

[...]

How about a house-plant mister, Mister? (Garden centre.) Or maybe one of
those plastic bottles with spray attached that hairdressers use --Boots?
Only thing is that these are intended for water, so perhaps oil would be
too viscous for them. A trigger oil-can from Halfords would eject oil
very nicely, but you'd have to spread it over the hotplate with a cloth
or something.

I imagine you've already rejected:
http://thecookskitchen.com/browse_2448
and:
http://www.lakeland.co.uk/SearchResults.aspx?kw=oil+mister&src=gaute&sq=oil%20spray

Both too pricey for my taste, especially with p&p (but at least they
don't call it "shipping").

Arcadian Rises filted:

A few years ago I somehow managed to buy both the regular and "sugar-free"
versions of the same instant flavored coffee...a close look at the nutritional
information on the label revealed that the latter had a *much* higher percentage
of its calories from fat and was therefore, according to the prevailing wisdom
of the time, less healthful....

(And then there's that peanut butter with "cholesterol free!" plastered across
the label in letters bigger than those of the brand name)....r

I've just been plastering my mother's toast with an Italian marmalade
that makes the surprising claim to "100% real fruit" - I suppose unreal
fruit would have been more expensive.

Ditto for "cholesterol free". As far as I know, the small amounts of
cholesterol that we ingest have little effect on our health. The nasty
stuff is manufactured inside our bodies from ingredients supplied to us
from those cholesterol free foods.

Stupot <ten.no.edonretni@nampahc.trauts> wrote
[..]

Of course: liquid CO2 without the usual chemical fertilizers.