My Science School

Although nobody can be sure how the Universe began, most scientists believe that it was horn from an enormous explosion 13 billion years ago. This explosion, called the “Big Bang”, was the point where space and time came into existence and all of the matter in the cosmos started to expand. Before the Big Bang, everything in the Universe was compressed into a minuscule area no bigger than the nucleus of an atom. The Big Bang was an unimaginably violent explosion that sent particles flying in every direction. A process called cosmic inflation caused the Universe to expand into an area bigger than the entire Milky Way in less than a second. Moments later, the temperature began to decrease, and the Universe began to settle down. Stars and galaxies began to form roughly one billion years after the Big Bang.

Initially, the universe was permeated only by energy. Some of this energy congealed into particles, which assembled into light atoms like hydrogen and helium. These atoms clumped first into galaxies, then stars, inside whose fiery furnaces all the other elements were forged.

This is the generally agreed-upon picture of our universe’s origins as depicted by scientists. It is a powerful model that explains many of the things scientists see when they look up in the sky, such as the remarkable smoothness of space-time on large scales and the even distribution of galaxies on opposite sides of the universe.

But there are things about this story that make some scientists uneasy. For starters, the idea that the universe underwent a period of rapid inflation early in its history cannot be directly tested, and it relies on the existence of a mysterious form of energy in the universe’s beginning that has long since disappeared.

“Inflation is an extremely powerful theory, and yet we still have no idea what caused inflation or whether it is even the correct theory, although it works extremely well,” said Eric Agol, an astrophysicist at the University of Washington.

For some scientists, inflation is a clunky addition to the Big Bang model, a necessary complexity appended to make it fit with observations. This wouldn’t be the last addition.

“We’ve also learned there has to be dark matter in the universe, and now dark energy,” said Paul Steinhardt, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University. “So the way the model works today is you say, ‘OK, you take some Big Bang, you take some inflation, you tune that to have the following properties, then you add a certain amount of dark matter and dark energy.’ These things aren’t connected in a coherent theory.”

The Universe contains quite literally everything — from you and me to the most distant stars. It is everything and anything that exists, occupying an unimaginably vast area. Distances in space are so immense that light from the furthest galaxies takes over 10 billion light years to reach Earth, even though light travels fast enough to go round the Earth several times every second. Everything that you can see in the night sky lays our Universe, from the Sun to far-off gas clouds like the Eagle Nebula (right).

The Universe is everything we can touch, feel, sense, measure or detect. It includes living things, planets, stars, galaxies, dust clouds, light, and even time. Before the birth of the Universe, time, space and matter did not exist.

The Universe contains billions of galaxies, each containing millions or billions of stars. The space between the stars and galaxies is largely empty. However, even places far from stars and planets contain scattered particles of dust or a few hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter. Space is also filled with radiation (e.g. light and heat), magnetic fields and high energy particles (e.g. cosmic rays).

The Universe is incredibly huge. It would take a modern jet fighter more than a million years to reach the nearest star to the Sun. Travelling at the speed of light (300,000 km per second), it would take 100,000 years to cross our Milky Way galaxy alone.

No one knows the exact size of the Universe, because we cannot see the edge – if there is one. All we do know is that the visible Universe is at least 93 billion light years across. (A light year is the distance light travels in one year – about 9 trillion km.)

The Universe has not always been the same size. Scientists believe it began in a Big Bang, which took place nearly 14 billion years ago. Since then, the Universe has been expanding outward at very high speed. So the area of space we now see is billions of times bigger than it was when the Universe was very young. The galaxies are also moving further apart as the space between them expands.

The idea of the “Big Bang” was first suggested in the 1920s by an astronomer named Edwin Hubble. He discovered that the Universe was expanding and suggested that it must have been much smaller in the past. The most convincing argument for the Big Bang lies in the presence of cosmic back-ground radiation. This is an echo of the energy released by the Big Bang, and was detected in 1965 by two astronomers. Scientists believe that the only possible source of this radiation is the dying heat of the Big Bang.

The Big Bang theory may be nice but it has to pass the judgment of observation. Nature and experiments is the final judge of the correctness of scientific ideas. Though some details of the Big Bang still need to be perfected, the general scheme of an early hot universe with a definite beginning is accepted by most astronomers today. Even so, we have to be open to the possibility that future observations could show it to be wrong. The observations given below are sometimes said to be “proof” of the Big Bang theory. Actually, the observations are consistent with the Big Bang theory, but do not provide proof. Recall from the discussion that scientific theories cannot be proven to be correct. As of now, the Big Bang theory is the only one that can explain all of these observations.

The galaxies (or galaxy clusters) are systematically moving away from us such that the farther away galaxies are moving faster away from us. As a result of General Relativity this means that space itself is expanding carrying the galaxies with it. Both the Big Bang Theory and its major competitor, the Steady State Theory, could explain it. Recall that the Steady State Theory used the perfect cosmological principle while the Big Bang uses the cosmological principle.

The cosmic microwave background radiation can be explained only by the Big Bang theory. The background radiation is the relic of an early hot universe. The Steady State theory could not explain the background radiation, and so fell into disfavor.

The amount of activity (active galaxies, quasars, collisions) was greater in the past than now. This shows that the universe does evolve (change) with time. The Steady State theory says that the universe should remain the same with time, so once again, it does not work.

The number of quasars drops off for very large redshifts (redshifts greater than about 50% of the speed of light). The Hubble-Lemaitre Law says that these are for large look-back times. This observation is taken to mean that the universe was not old enough to produce quasars at those large redshifts. The universe did have a beginning.

The observed abundance of hydrogen, helium, deuterium, lithium agrees with that predicted by the Big Bang theory. The abundances are checked from the spectra of the oldest stars and gas clouds which are made from unprocessed, primitive material. Even better observations are those made of light from very distant quasars that have passed through gas in regions of the universe where are no stars that could have contaminated the gas. The intervening intergalactic primordial gas imprints its signature on the quasar light giving us the composition of the primordial gas. All of those places have the predicted relative abundances.

Markets have been around for thousands of years — long before the first shops. They were set up in towns where trading routes crossed. Salesmen, known as pedals, travelled between markets, buying and selling goods. People also sold surplus goods or things that they had made. Goods were often exchanged for other goods, a practice known as bartering, and people always argued, or haggled, over a price.

A market is one of the many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services (including labor power) in exchange for money from buyers. It can be said that a market is the process by which the prices of goods and services are established. Markets facilitate trade and enable the distribution and resource allocation in a society. Markets allow any trade-able item to be evaluated and priced. A market emerges more or less spontaneously or may be constructed deliberately by human interaction in order to enable the exchange of rights (cf. ownership) of services and goods. Markets generally supplant gift economies and are often held in place through rules and customs, such as a booth fee, competitive pricing, and source of goods for sale (local produce or stock registration).

Markets can differ by products (goods, services) or factors (labour and capital) sold, product differentiation, place in which exchanges are carried, buyers targeted, duration, selling process, government regulation, taxes, subsidies, minimum wages, price ceiling, legality of exchange, liquidity, intensity of speculation, size, concentration, exchange asymmetry, relative prices, volatility and geographic extension. The geographic boundaries of a market may vary considerably, for example the food market in a single building, the real estate market in a local city, the consumer market in an entire country, or the economy of an international trade bloc where the same rules apply throughout. Markets can also be worldwide, see for example the global diamond trade. National economies can also be classified as developed markets or developing markets.

In mainstream economics, the concept of a market is any structure that allows buyers and sellers to exchange any type of goods, services and information. The exchange of goods or services, with or without money, is a transaction. Market participants consist of all the buyers and sellers of a good who influence its price, which is a major topic of study of economics and has given rise to several theories and models concerning the basic market forces of supply and demand. A major topic of debate is how much a given market can be considered to be a “free market”, that is free from government intervention. Microeconomics traditionally focuses on the study of market structure and the efficiency of market equilibrium; when the latter (if it exists) is not efficient, then economists say that a market failure has occurred. However, it is not always clear how the allocation of resources can be improved since there is always the possibility of government failure.

Shopping habits have changed enormously in the past 100 years. At one time, goods were mainly purchased from various specialist shops - meat from a butcher and vegetables from a greengrocer, for example. In many countries, it is now more common for households to buy everything from one store and to visit shopping centres, where individual shops are housed under one roof. Also, since the late 1990s, the Internet has allowed more and more people to do their shopping without leaving home.

When I was young most of the shopping was done in traditional shops including the local Butchers, Bakers, Grocers and Newsagents.

Over the years as supermarkets appeared some of those traditional shops closed down and small corner shops selling many of the same things started to appear, often staying open much later than the new supermarkets. As the supermarkets stayed open for longer and longer hours even many of the small corner shops disappeared. As the supermarkets (Hyper markets) have grown larger and more have appeared other areas of shopping which have been affected include Clothing, Hardware, Car Spares and many other areas.

We have created this section hoping to get memories from those who ran and those who shopped at the traditional Butchers, Bakers and greengrocers and your views on what we have lost due to these changes.

As consumers we have gained through better prices often more consistent quality and often better choice but are we really better off.

The concept of a department store goes back in history to late 1800's but has evolved and changed as has the rest of the shops. Originally most of the department stores were independent and owned locally in the city they traded. This has been the biggest change in the last 50 years where now a single company may own 20 brands trading in City centres and out of town Malls.

Department stores are identified by the fact they sell a wide range of products including clothing, furniture, appliances, toiletries, cosmetics, jewelry, toys, and sporting goods. Two of the best examples of the largest of these Department Stores could be considered as Macy's in New York and Harrods in London.

In some areas as changes have evolved the distinction between a department store and a supermarket has been eroded a good example of this would be Walmart who originally were considered a discount department store but now could be called (Department Store, Supermarket, Hyper market or a discount department store) as Walmart has moved into food and grocery and have built new superstores that are large enough to sell the traditional products they started with together with a full range of foods and grocery's . As another example Marks and Spencer in the UK has added large food courts and furniture sales as part of their newer and larger stores so the distinction between supermarket and department store continues to become harder to identify.

Paper money needs to he designed and made in such a way that it is very difficult to forge. Banknotes have extremely complicated designs, with pictures and backgrounds made up of very fine lines and patterns. These are printed from hand-engraved steel plates. The notes are also printed on a special type of paper, which is hardwearing and has a strip of plastic or metal embedded in it.

Banknote Design

The banknote design typically starts with the compiling and reviewing of historical information, images, Thai patterns, and other elements related to the main theme to be depicted on a banknote. In early days, due to the limited availability of equipment and tools, each new banknote design was to be hand - drawn elaborately in color. To this day, banknote designers still need to possess both artistic skillfulness and computer expertise to create the best design and origination for a banknote. In designing banknote, factors to be considered are:

• Gracefulness 


• Convenience


• Cultural identity 


• Technical limits 


• Counterfeit deterrence feature

Platemaking 

Having obtained the design, hand engraving of metallic plates and drawing of design of the original plate is performed by highly skilled and experienced specialists so as to achieve the high degree of precision, tonal variation and perspective requirements for banknotes. The background patterns, formerly etched by machine, are now created by computer programs.

Platemaking 

    1)  Offset Printing?

The background design is printed first by dry offset on a specially designed printing press that is able to print high-precision color patterns on both sides of the sheets simultaneously.  This makes it possible to produce perfect front and back registered designs or see through designs when viewed against transmitted light, one of efficient techniques to discourage counterfeiting.? 

    2)  Intaglio Printing?

This process is used to add the portrait of H.M. the King and other raised prints on the front of the note. The image to be printed is inscribed into the plates. The inscriptions are filled with ink, and excess ink is wiped from the plates. Heavy pressure is applied to transfer the ink from the plates to the pager, leaving the surface slightly raised. This process gives banknotes a tactile feel to the touch, proven to be very effective in counterfeit deterrence.?

   3) Letterpress Printing ?

Every printed sheet is carefully inspected. The good sheets are sent to printed serial number and signature by letterpress method, while imperfect or bad sheets are taken out of the system to be duly destroyed. The printing machine also has electronic numbering control to protect from miss - printing the numbering. This type of control helps prevent the repeat of numbering printed on each banknote of the same category.

Printed Sheet Inspection ??

The bank sheet then passes through a quality inspection and verification process that is one of the most important steps of the entire banknote production process. The inspection process is a process that screens good quality, partially damaged and mis-printed bank sheets from each other.  Also, the quantity of sheets produced is assured by counting and verifying after finishing the inspection process.    

The inspection and verification process is a process of screening the bank sheets into 3 categories;            

1. Good quality sheet are those where every individual banknote has met the quality standard, which are then separated into the "good numbering" printing category.

2. Partially damaged sheets are those that most parts pass the quality standard. This set will be separated into the "partial numbering" printing category.

3. Bad sheets are those that do not pass the quality standard. This set of banknotes is sent to be destroyed and the number of replacement sheet is carefully matched to the number destroyed. 

After serial numbering, the 100 % good sheets move on to cutting and packaging. Partially good sheets are cut, and defective notes are sorted out and replaced by special notes before being shrink - wrapped for delivery.

The goods or services that one country sells to another are called exports; the things that it buys from abroad are called imports. Imports need to be paid for with the money made from exports — the balance between the two is called the balance of payments. Not all countries can afford to pay for everything that they need, so they borrow money from wealthier countries and large banks. This has led in part to the large gap between the world’s richest and poorest countries. Many so-called “developing countries” need to use all the money they make from trade simply to repay the interest on loans.

Balance of Payment (BOP) is a statement which records all the monetary transactions made between residents of a country and the rest of the world during any given period. This statement includes all the transactions made by/to individuals, corporates and the government and helps in monitoring the flow of funds to develop the economy. When all the elements are correctly included in the BOP, it should sum up to zero in a perfect scenario. This means the inflows and outflows of funds should balance out. However, this does not ideally happen in most cases.

BOP statement of a country indicates whether the country has a surplus or a deficit of funds i.e. when a country’s export is more than its import, its BOP is said to be in surplus. On the other hand, BOP deficit indicates that a country’s imports are more than its exports. Tracking the transactions under BOP is something similar to the double entry system of accounting. This means, all the transaction will have a debit entry and a corresponding credit entry.

Most of the world’s countries trade goods and services between themselves. The transactions that take place make up the World economy. The global marketplace exists partly because countries need things that they cannot produce themselves. Also, richer countries will buy goods from places where the costs of production are low and the goods are cheap. Modern transport and communications have allowed the world economy to develop.

The term world economy refers to all of the economic activity within each country and between countries around the world. It makes sense that as the population of the world has increased, and as technologies such an air travel and the Internet have made communication between people throughout the world easier, that the world economy has grown. It has also become more important and more complex. When one country does well, other countries see a boost in their economies. Conversely, when one country does poorly, other countries can suffer. The countries of the world are now interdependent. Basically, this means that we all have an interest in working together. As a business owner, you have an interest in making sure that Germany is able to meet the demands of its consumers.

This concept of being tied together in order to have free trade, cheaper foreign markets and free trade is known as globalization. Globalization has allowed for trading between countries with less restriction. And thus, business can sell their products all over the world and consumers can have a plethora of products from various countries to choose from.

In order to understand what the world economy is, you must first understand what an economy is. An economy is all the activity that is related to producing and consuming goods and services in a specific area. For example, the city of Chicago has a unique economy. This economy takes into account all of the goods created in the city. These goods are tangible items such as computer screens that are created in a factory, and they are intangible products such as new software and new websites that are created by individuals and companies in Chicago. The Chicago economy also takes into account companies that provide services in Chicago, such as restaurants and city tours. All of the business conducted in the city adds up, and citizens of Chicago find they are either in a good economy or a bad economy. A good economy means that, as a whole, the businesses in Chicago are making a profit--they are growing and making money. A bad economy means that, generally speaking, companies in Chicago are not doing well--they are struggling to find customers and perhaps laying people off or cutting wages in response.

The same principle applies to a country. The United States' economy is good or bad based on the performance of businesses throughout the country. Each country on earth has an economy and, as you might predict, those businesses and economies interact. The result of that interaction is called the world economy.

•  'Carpet' a ute tray

Line the tray of your ute with an old carpet remnant to keep your cargo from rattling or being knocked around and damaged. The carpet will make the drive easier on your precious cargo and on your ears.

•  Shower curtain-rod dividers

A good way to keep things in place in the back of a ute is to set up a series of movable barriers. Try fitting a series of spring-loaded shower curtain rails at strategic points, wedging them between the sides of the ute's tray. You can then move them around to push against any cargo and keep it from rattling or breaking as you drive along.

•  On board catch-ails for 4WDs

Sometimes the amount of stuff that rattles around in a four-wheel drive that is needed to accommodate a big family knows no bounds. Keep the stuff under control by wedging a plastic milk crate (with a padded rim, if you have very young children) or laundry basket in a central spot in the vehicle, and urging young passengers to store their playthings and books there when not using them.

•  Carry-along car wash for motorhomes and caravans

If you travel in a motorhome or tow a caravan and often stay at parks where water to wash your vehicle isn't available, make a batch of washing fluid and carry it with you. Pour ¼ cup (60ml) fabric softener into a 5-litre bottle and fill it almost to the top with water. Cap the bottle and shake well. When you're ready to wash your vehicle, put the liquid into a spray bottle and spray the vehicle at 1-m sections at a time. Let it sit for 10 seconds or so, then dry the area with paper towels or a chamois. You can also rely on this mixture during water restrictions, since it uses far less water than a standard wash.

•  Keep mice out of your caravan or motorhome using steel wool

The access slots where you hook up a motorhome or caravan to a cable or hose are ‘step this way’ entries for mice and other small creatures. To take up the welcome mat in one fell swoop, wrap the cable or hose in steel wool before connecting it, making sure that the scratchy material seals the surrounding gap. With their entry barred, mice and other intruders should leave you in peace.

•  Storage basket hold-all

If you tend to collect things in your car and are at risk of drowning in the clutter, here's the simplest way to tidy up: keep a small plastic storage basket on the floor behind the driver's seat and use it to hold magazines, DVDs, cleaning supplies, catalogues, maps and anything else you accumulate. The clutter will be confined to a single spot and when you give someone a ride, you won't have to fight to make space for your passenger.

•  Organize your record storage

It's important to keep your car's registration and records of mileage, maintenance and repair warranties where you can put your hands on them quickly. If they regularly get lost in the mess inside the glove box, store them in a self-sealing plastic bag.

• Pillbox coin holders

Store spare coins in a used pill bottle and keep it in the drinks holder of your car. You will always have the correct change ready for putting into parking meters or for using in a vending machine on your travels.

•  Keep garbage bags as a back-up

 Keep a number of large plastic garbage bags in your car for unexpected uses. You never know when you will need a container for things you acquire on the road or when you'll need to wrap up something greasy to keep it from soiling your upholstery. In the same way, if you spill something on the driver or front passenger seat, simply pull a garbage bag over the seat if you have to drive off before the offending spill dries. The bags can also protect your upholstery and carpet if children or pets pile into the car with wet or muddy feet.

•  From briefcase to toolbox

If you have a worn, hard-framed briefcase, don't throw it away; put it to good use. Fill it with the tools that you need to carry in your car and store it in the boot. If you get a flat tyre or engine trouble on the road, the tools will be neatly packaged and readily at hand.

•  A mini spade to the rescue

If you're likely to be driving through snowy conditions, keep a spade handy in case you have to dig out your car. Rather than a classic heavy shovel, your best bet is a sturdy toy spade, which will work better than you may think for digging out your car — and will take up less room in the boot.

•  A drink tray for auto fluids

Make a convenient carrier for the various fluids that you need to keep on hand for your car, such as bottles of motor oil or antifreeze. Recycle a small cardboard box with collapsible dividers, like a wine bottle carrier, and reinforce the bottom with gaffer tape. It will ensure that all of the containers stay in one place and also keep them from sliding around in the boot.

•  Washing powder as air freshener

Keep your boot smelling fresh even on hot summer days when these enclosed spaces can turn into ovens. Simply place a small open box of washing powder against the spare tyre and the boot will smell fresh in any weather. Keep the box no more than half full to prevent spills.

•  Put on some weight

If you have a utility truck or a car that doesn't have four-wheel drive, you may need to keep something heavy in the tray or boot to prevent slipping and sliding on wet or icy roads. If your boot isn't full of heavy tools or something similar, fill a couple of pairs of thick pantihose with bricks and store them in the boot over the car's rear wheels. The pantihose will keep the bricks from sliding around, making a noise or from scattering dust throughout the boot.

•  An odour-eating pair

Deodorize the interior of your car by sprinkling bicarbonate of soda over everything but the electronic equipment. Take a soft-bristled brush and work the bicarbonate of soda in well. Close the car up for an hour or so and then thoroughly vacuum the interior. To keep the car smelling fresh and clean, place a small open container filled with freshly ground coffee beans where it won't get knocked over. The grounds will absorb any strong odours that you bring into the car.

•  No butts about bicarbonate of soda

Make good use of the ashtrays in your car by placing about 2cm bicarbonate of soda in the bottom of each one. If you smoke, it will keep cigarettes from smoldering and stinking up the car even after you've put them out. If you're a nonsmoker, the bicarbonate of soda will also absorb other stale smells.

•  Baby-wipe your dash

If your car dashboard gets sticky from spilled drinks or greasy hands, clean it with baby wipes. Once it's clean, you can bring a shine to the dashboard with a little baby oil.

•  Sweeten bad smells with vinegar

To remove the odour left when someone is carsick, wipe down vinyl upholstery (all of it) with a cloth soaked in a 50:50 solution of white vinegar and water. Then place a bowl of vinegar on the car floor and keep the car closed up tight overnight. In the morning, wipe everything down with a damp cloth.

•  Hold taping sessions

Carry a roll of tape in your glove box and use it for the following jobs, among others:

1.  Tape your garage door opener to the under-side of the visor on the driver's side of the car. It will be handy, yet out of the way, and it won't fall into your lap as you drive.


2.  Tape a pen to the dashboard just in case you need one; taping it will keep it from rolling around and getting lost.


3.  Whenever you park in a busy supermarket car park, temporarily tape a distinctive paper or cloth flag to the top of your car’s antenna. When you come out laden with bags, you should be able to spot the car without going on a lengthy hunt.

•  Magic carpet cleaner

No matter how meticulous you are, somehow or other greasy stains seem to always appear on car carpet. Luckily, they're not hard to fix. Mix equal parts salt and bicarbonate of soda and sprinkle the mixture over the grease spot. Use a stiff brush to work the mixture into the spot and let it sit for 4-5 hours. Vacuum it up and the stain should be gone.

•  Prevent a flat battery with a tennis ball

If for some reason you need to keep a car door open for a while — and the internal light is one of those that you can't switch off — turn to a tennis ball. Just wedge the ball between the door and the switch. The switch will stay off, your battery will stay charged and your jump leads will stay where they belong — in the boot. If you don't have a tennis ball, substitute any soft-surfaced small object, such as a triangular wedge of scrap wood padded with rags.

•  Bag a steering wheel

 If you have to park in the sun on a really hot summer's day, tear a 30-cm strip from one side of a large paper bag and slip it over the top of the steering wheel, securing it with a piece of tape if necessary. When you return to the car, the wheel should still be cool enough to touch.

•  Adjust air temperature with tape

 If you have difficulty keeping your car's heating or air conditioning from blowing directly into your face, cover the part of the air vent that's directed at you with gaffer tape. Just be careful not to cover the entire vent.

•  Prevent corrosion

It's not unusual for a car's battery terminals to become so corroded that you can't get a proper connection to jump-start the car. So take a little preventive action. Occasionally coat the terminals with a bit of petroleum jelly to keep them from corroding. Alternatively, tape a copper coin — if you have one — to the top of the battery so that the corrosion is drawn to the coin and not the battery terminals.

•  A cola loosener-upper

If you need to get at the engine of your car but the nuts and bolts under the bonnet refuse to budge, pour a little cola over the connections or loosen them with a few squirts of WD-40. Give either substance 2-3 minutes to penetrate, after which you should be able to loosen the hardware with a wrench. Most jammed metal fixings respond well to the cola trick; if you can soak the seized-up object, so much the better. Sponge off the cola once you've loosened the hardware.

•  Clean corrosion with bicarbonate of soda

If you don't keep your battery terminals clean, you will have to deal with corrosion. To clean the terminals, stir 1 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda into 1 cup (250ml) water, then pour the solution over the terminals. Leave for 4-5 minutes, and then rinse with clear water.

•  A sporty shock protector

When you are working on your car and have to disconnect the negative battery cable, don't let the cable come into contact with the car's metal frame or you may suffer a shock. One safe way of handling the cable is to make a slit in a tennis ball and push the ball over the end of the cable.

•  Foot powder leak-spotter

If oil is leaking from your engine and you can't find the leak's source, clean the engine with an aerosol degreaser, such as a silicone spray like WD-40, and then spray its sides and bottom with spray-on foot powder. The leak will reveal itself by turning white.

•  Dislodge a stubborn oil filter

If you are quite happy to change the oil filter yourself but find that for once it won't budge, a screwdriver and hammer could do the trick. Hammer the screwdriver right through the filter about 5cm from the engine block. Then take the screwdriver and use it as a lever to turn the filter anticlockwise. Once you get it started, remove the screwdriver and spin the filter off, making sure that there is a tray underneath to catch the leaking oil that inevitably ensues.

•  Gum up the works

If the radiator hose in your car springs a leak while you are driving, chew a piece of gum and stick the wad over the leak. Secure it with a bit of strong adhesive tape. It will hold until you can have a proper repair made, but get the car booked in for repair as quickly as possible.

•  First aid for a fan belt

If the fan belt in your car becomes dry, lubricate it with a little petroleum jelly. With the engine off, dab the inside edges of the belt with the jelly, then start the engine and let it idle for a couple of minutes. Not only will the petroleum jelly lubricate the belt and keep it from cracking but it will eliminate squealing and slippage.

•  Extend a wrench handle with pipe

Some socket wrenches are so short that it takes a muscleman to turn them. If you prefer not to waste a lot of energy when you tighten a bolt under the bonnet, slip a short length of slender metal pipe over the wrench handle and you will get more than enough leverage to use the tool without straining.

•  Tape a noisy horn

If your car horn gets stuck and won't stop bleating, tap the horn button a few times. If that doesn't stop the din, a piece of tape is the solution. Open the bonnet, disconnect the wire to the horn and tape down the terminal screw. You should enjoy blessed silence until you have the horn repaired.

•  Gain traction with bleach

If your car has become stuck on an icy patch and can't get enough traction, pour a small amount of undiluted chlorine-based bleach over the tyres. The bleach will react chemically to soften both the ice and the rubber, thereby improving traction. Wait for a minute to let the chemical reaction take place and then try driving away. You can also get traction by spreading sand, salt or cat litter over snow in front of the tyres. (Because bleach accelerates the wear on tyre treads, you should only do this in emergency situations.)

•  Shovel snow with a hub cap

If your car gets stuck in snow, ice or mud and you don't have a shovel handy, take off a hubcap and use it to dig the car free.

• Use oil to prevent stuck doors

Prevent car and boot doors from freezing shut in winter by spraying or wiping the rubber gaskets with a light coating of WD-40 or vegetable oil. The oil will seal out any water that could later freeze, while causing no harm to the rubber gaskets.

•  Tape a door lock in a car wash

Put a strip of tape over your car's door lock before going through a car wash in cold weather. This will keep out water that could later freeze and make the lock inoperable. Once you're out of the car wash, remove the tape.

•  Thaw door locks with a straw

If the lock on your car door freezes and you can't insert the key, don't get left out in the cold. Try blowing your warm breath into the keyhole through a straw. The ice should quickly melt, after which you can unlock the door.

•  Flame frozen locks

If the lock on your car door is frozen, hold the key in your (ideally gloved) hand and heat it with a match or cigarette lighter. Press the key into the lock and turn it gently without forcing.

After a few seconds, the hot metal key will melt the ice and you will be able to open the door. Better still, if you have electrical power handy, use a hair dryer to direct hot air into the lock to melt the ice and free it up.

•  Keep ice off wipers

To keep ice from forming on the blades of your car's windscreen wipers and from stopping them working in cold weather, wipe each blade with a soft cloth soaked in full-strength surgical spirit.

•  Raw onion windscreen rubs

To avoid the tedious job of scraping ice off your windscreen on a chilly morning, slice an onion in half and rub the cut sides against your windscreen and car windows the night before to stop frost from forming.

•  Shield a windscreen with rubber bath mats

To keep your windscreen from frosting over-night, position inexpensive rubber bath mats over the glass. Hold them in place with the windscreen wipers.

•  Yogurt-tub scraper and scooper

Scrape ice from windows and the windscreen using an empty yogurt tub. When you scrape with the edge of the rim, the pot will scoop up the ice. As you scrape, empty the ice onto the ground with a quick flick of the wrist.

•  Bag your side mirrors

On cold nights, slip plastic bags over the car's side mirrors and hold them in place with clothes pegs. In the morning, remove the bags and your mirrors will be ice-free.

• Don't get steamed up

Winter driving can be dangerous when the inside of a windscreen keeps steaming up. Here are three ways to deal with foggy glass:

1.  Use a clean whiteboard eraser to wipe the inside of the windscreen clean.


2.   Squirt a little shampoo onto a cloth and wipe the glass with it.


3. Use 'outside air' instead of 'recirculated air' and run the de-froster.

•  Pop goes the dent

If the body of your car has a dent, but the surface is otherwise unblemished, you may be able to pull out the dent with a little suction. Look around your house and find anything that has a large suction cup attached — a sink plunger, for example. Place the cup directly over the dent and push it in straight so that the suction engages the metal. Then pull gently but firmly outwards. If you are lucky, you should hear the popping sound that is a signal that the dent is gone.

•  White-out scratches

If you have a white car and it gets scratched, use correction fluid such as Liquid Paper for a quick touch-up. If your car is another colour, try to find a correction fluid or nail polish colour to match and apply it as a temporary fix.

•  Brush out scratches

You can often polish out small scratches in a car's finish with a bit of non-gel toothpaste. Squeeze a dollop onto a clean soft cloth and work the paste into the scratch. Buff the area with a clean cloth.

•  Brighten old paint with scouring powder

If your car is old and painted with oxidized paint that's looking dull, try washing it with a low-grit bathroom cleanser such as Jif. Apply the cleanser, wet it with a light spray and then rub gently with a car-washing mitt. (Test this first on a small area of the duco that isn't prominent, to check that it doesn't remove the paint.) When you have finished, wash the car well and wax it.

•  Rid chrome of wax

It's easy to get so excited about waxing your car that you go too far: wax can spoil a shiny chrome bumper with smudges that harden and won't come off. Use a bit of WD-40 to fix the problem. Spray a little of the lubricant over the dried wax, then wipe it off with a clean soft cloth. The wax will dissolve like magic.

•  De-wax metal trim with ammonia

Car wax mistakenly applied to metal trim can spoil the effect that a keen car cleaner strives for. To rid the trim of wax, wipe it with a rag dampened with household ammonia. The trim will soon sparkle like new.

•  Oil the trim

When the metal trim on your car is still not shiny enough, squirt a little baby oil onto a paper towel and polish the metal for a shine worthy of a sterling silver trophy.

•  Get wax off rubber with peanut butter

If you are waxing your car and accidentally get white wax on black rubber trim or mouldings, wipe the area with a bit of peanut butter. The rubber will revert to its original blackness.

•  Make chrome glisten

Brighten chrome trim on your car by wiping it with a small amount of nail varnish remover. (Just be sure to keep it away from the paint.)