I think the heated toilet would be brilliant, but I really can't see a way to do it easily. 12v elements are way to lame, I've seen how long it takes to heat one cup of water. A 240v element liberated from the bottom of a kettle would be quicker but would need a generator and health and safety might be an issue.(This idea's gained some support since I started typing).

If there's a bonfire nearby it would seem a real shame not to utilise it in some way, I spent a while trying to think of a system to pump hot water between the toilet and a boiler, ideally you'd need to heat the bowl and the cistern but it's just too much work. Dropping hot rocks into the bowl is easy but I dunno how effective, they might shatter and you'll get ash in the wine.

I don't like to admit defeat but the options look like cold mulled wine (not an option), or heat it in a pan/cauldron.

I'm just scoping eBay for things that might be able to do what we're after. Portable 230v immersion heaters are about a tenner, and we could get a genny for about a ton. Because I understand nothing about electricity, what would happen if we plugged a 2000w heater into a 300w 12v-230v inverter?

It would probably just trip out, inverters are pretty rubbish at providing high wattages. The cheap ones can only manage a couple of hundred watts.

I did wonder if it would result in a failure of the inverter. Would it also herald the end for a genny too? Or would it just put a lot of strain on it?

I would think any modern generator would have some sort of overload protection, so it would just trip off as soon as it was connected. Most of the generators on ebay are cheap chinese crap, and are massively optimistic about their capacities, I reckon you'd need one rated at 3500watts to comfortably run a 2000w immersion element.

Ikea sell glogg which is available all year round - its non alcoholic tho

Russ,
how about one of these, or even a couple of them?

< http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ELECTROLUX-DOMETI ... _720wt_930 >

Your battery and alternator will both need to be in gwo, I'd guess...

ken

I might have a cheeky bid on that!

Here's another one to keep you busy...
< http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ELECTROLUX-DOMETI ... _720wt_930 >

aye, i'm guessing that's a fairly big draw on the battery with that, and the high-powered 8 track transmitting up tempo muzak.