I'm coming from a pos. of total ignorance here, so please bear with me. I'm looking for a small, basic camping stove - fairly lightweight and compact. will I be ok with any old thing like this or are there things to look out for?
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 hi zoot........ it all depends what you are using it for. that particular one i used for years when i was car camping. now i use a primus eta express. wouldn't change that for anything now. the camping gas one is fine. m.
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My advice would be not to get that one. In operation it's doubtless pretty much like any other stove, but it runs on Campingaz cannisters, which aren't that widely available. I reckon you'd be better with a stove that runs on the other type of threaded cannister, as made by MSR, Coleman and a few other firms. All of these non-Campingaz cannisters will work with any stove other than the Campingaz ones (although some manufacturers and retailer will claim otherwise). A stove like the Coleman F1 or MSR Pocket Rocket would be fine, or a company called Gelert makes a Pocket Rocket imitation which is about the same price as the Campingaz one at Argos.
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marcus, Guy thanks I'm not a regular camper, and when I have camped it's always been somewhere with a village or pub etc, so cooking's never really been a necessity however, I'm starting to do a bit of fell-running and trying to save cash on accommodation. But I don't have a car. So I'm trying to get kit that's small and light enough to lug up and down the country on trains and buses but it doesn't have to be the super-light stuff that you might want if you're actually walking with it.
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 I believe this is the Gelert one; here. Cheaper and lighter than a pocket rocket. Depending on your style of cooking you can couple this with the smallest size gas cartridge to last you about 5-7 days per shot and is probably one of the lightest gas setups you will get. Mountain warehouse are also selling Coleman F1 lites for under £20 if you have trouble getting the Gelert. If you're feeling crafty you can make your own super-ultralight alcohol stove too, see here and here. Costs nearly nothing, is lighter than gas for short trips, but slower to cook with. I don't recommend the Bleuet, I've got one; it's the weight of several stoves, and the fuel cartridges are much harder to get hold of when you're in the middle of nowhere.
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 Quick question, does the adaptor it talks about for 'push in valve cannisters' mean Campingaz cans? Is such a contraption worth having around?
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A lot of gas canisters used to have no thread mechanism at the top -- instead you just pierced them by effectively pushing a "spike" at the bottom of the stove into the top of them. The problem was you could not then easily remove the stove until the gas was used up, and gas could sometimes escape. The adapter turns such canisters into threaded ones.
These canisters are still sold in a lot of places, including on the Continent where threaded cartridges aren't always available. They're a lot cheaper than the threaded cartridges, so you can save money if you use a lot of gas and don't mind toting the adapter around. However, the adapter won't make the threaded Campingaz canisters work with other stoves.
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So there's no adaptor that lets you use the self-sealing campingaz cans with the Gelert stoves, but that's ok as if you're ever worried about availability of fuel you grab the adaptor and have old-school puncture-cans as a fall back. Is that right? Out of interest would it be fair to say that in the UK anywhere that sells cans will sell non-Gaz threaded cans?
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Most shops that stock gas will have the non-Campingaz threaded ones -- they are now by far the most widely available type, followed at some distance by the old non-threaded ones. There might be the occasional oddball shop that stocks just the Campingaz threaded ones, but there won't be many.
I don't know why anybody would now buy a stove for the Campingaz canisters, or why such stoves are still made, particularly since the Campingaz brand is now owned by Coleman, I believe.
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 There are (separate) adapters that allow you to use screw-in stoves like the Gelert or Pocket Rocket with either blue Camping Gaz CV270 canisters or with cheap puncturable canisters. The ones I'm familiar with are Markill/Vaude (Actionoutdoors). I've not come across the Gelert GAS068 adapter mentioned before, but it looks from the pictures like it's meant for the Camping Gaz CV270, and it says it will also allow the use of standard threaded canisters in a remote hose-connected fashion.
There are no adapters that will allow you to use threaded canisters with the Camping Gaz Bleuet stove
Threaded canisters can be hard to find in France/Belgium - you have to go to camping shops whilst the camping gaz canisters are fairly common in supermarkets and campsite reception shops.
The Camping Gaz canisters are superficially the same as the standard threaded ones, but the central spigot has no thread on it
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 optimus stella. if you've got the cash.
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So there's no adaptor that lets you use the self-sealing campingaz cans with the Gelert stoves, but that's ok as if you're ever worried about availability of fuel you grab the adaptor and have old-school puncture-cans as a fall back. Is that right? Out of interest would it be fair to say that in the UK anywhere that sells cans will sell non-Gaz threaded cans?
I think I once saw an adaptor that allowed threaded self sealing cans to be used with a campingaz stove. The question then arises, why? I mean only the French would go it alone and stick with an inferior system. Probably because the company that makes them is part of a very big French company that is considered important to the French economy. Don't know where my argument is going here, help!
Camping gaz is only really good in France where it is widely available even in smaller towns and villages. Often more available there than the primus/MSR/Colemans brands. My favourite stove is a primus micron with piezo ignition as it was called but is now called something else (not primus express). It is so reliable, light and efficient for a non-heat exchangered stove. If I was not bothered by weight or size or difficulty of use or price I would get a multifuel like the optimus stella, primus gravity, etc as I reckon I can obtain free kero. Would make for a great car camping winter burner. Don't get a trangia mini or the gelert clone as they don't really work well in wind unless you have a windshield. In that case you might as well get a 6g can burner with the same windshield. A really simple stove is the Honey stove. A neat woodburner from backpackinglight.co.uk. I have one and it folds flat so fits neatly in your sack. You just have to get your caveman thing on. One thing though, it doesn't cook sausages on the top grill to well. Kind of chars sausages where the holes in the grill plate are and barely sears the bits on the metal and most definately leaves the inside pink and under cooked. Bacon is probably better as it is thin. Go with gas is my advice and go with primus.
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.JPG) We borrowed a stove like your first link a long time ago when we went away for a weekend camp. It took hours to boil a kettle! No good for me, when I want a cuppa I want it now  We now use a Coleman Sportster stove which uses unleaded petrol - might be too expensive/ heavy for you? But I would definitely recommend it otherwise, fast to boil and easy to fuel  Kit
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