I love tech stuff but I stolidly refuse to take a smart meter, for 2 reasons. Firstly, forget all this rubbish about leaving lights on. Your energy use is defined by heating, hot water, washing machine and cooking a lot of which you can't do much about. Shower rather than bath ladies and wash dishes in large quantities not one cup at a time. If your hot water rank is lagged then hot water is largely defined by what you use not how long the heater is on. OK, if you have cheaper energy at night then you can use timers to run your hot water system and washing machine at night. You don't need a smart meter to tell you that. Secondly, we have enough trouble getting WiFi around the house so a smart meter buried in your deepest darkest cupboard is going to struggle getting a phone signal. Get an Internet connection and send them manual readings on the day each month they take the DD. It really is easy.
It's called not opening the door! Your house, your castle, your decision (unless you live in Ukraine).
I got an email from EDF if memory serves and basically as said got talked into it on the grounds I would have no choice in the end. I NEVER want all this technology if I don't have to. I have a small machine thing that they tell me to leave on and I can see what and where I'm using power. It also tells me how much I have used in a day and what my current debt or credit is. I don't leave it on but do look now and again. It seems to work fine every time I look at it. However I don't appreciate estimated readings that are way way over the top. If as plym suggests it is done to get a response then I am even more annoyed than I would be if somebody had just made a mistake. There is simply no excuse for doing that and if people are struggling financially already and worrying where the next pound will come from then something like that could push them over an edge. I'm not in that position but they don't know that. I will let you know if I ever manage to get an answer from them.
It's a serious situation with despots in charge in Russia and China. Putin is calling the West's bluff in a friendly country. He's developed a Napoleon complex and wants to rebuild the old USSR. Actual combat is out of the question as Ukraine isn't a NATO member but he'll have to be faced down somehow. The initial sanctions look a bit weak but firstly something has to be held in reserve in case he moves into Ukraine generally and the UK is in something of a tricky position as we're awash with dirty Russian money. I saw in the Sunday paper that Johnson has a very rich "advisory board ", billionares or multi multi millionaires with whom he discusses political matters. Of course, they bung some cash at his pet projects too. One of these is Mr JCB, Lord Bamford. Another, believe it or not, is the wife of a Russian oligarch, who used to be a close confidant of... you guessed it....... Vladimir Putin. Sanctions can weaken an already threadbare Russian economy but the West, and especially Europe which includes ourselves, has to take a leaf out of dear old Ronald Reagan's play-book and ramp up military spending to a level Russia can't match. That's what brought the Berlin Wall down in the first place.
Putin has been planning this for a long time....first Crimea....then the support of the separatists movements in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine for eight years of war. He has now recognised the two areas in Donbas....the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic by the signing of two decrees......a friendship agreement..... supporting them.....and to send in a peace keeping policing force to help defend them from Ukrainian aggression. A further problem is that these two areas cover a larger area than what is at present controlled by the separatist movements....will Russia try to take control of the complete Donetsk and Luhansk territories which would surely bring confrontation between Ukrainian and Russian forces. The UK hit back by announcing sanctions against five Russian banks and three wealthy Russian businessmen.....wow will they even notice....remember Russia have been planning this for ages. Putin spent a whole hour ranting his thoughts before his puppet cabinet.....each one in turn agreed word for word the quotes of their leader.....sounds like shades of Hitler and the Nazi's before WW11.
Putin has lost his marbles....is there anyone in Russia that can rein the man in....before he starts WW3.
I've been watching the 2nd series of Rise of the Nazis documentaries on BBC2. Rather than just repackaging the same old black & white video clips, this focuses on the physiological forces driving the main players. Each character is analysed by one expert: a diplomat, an ex military officer, an historian, a biographer etc and oddly, in the case of Stalin, by Gary Kasparov. As examples, Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister of the day, is analysed by Sir John Scarlett, ex head of MI6, and General Zhukov by General Sir Mike Jackson, one time Chief of the General Staff. I missed the first series: the second focusses on Hitler's ultimately fatal decision to repeat Napoleon's error in invading Russia. I mention it because it's particularly relevant to current events. Hitler became so convinced of his own infallibility that he dismissed General von Brauchitsch, who was an experienced commander but who'd expressed criticism of Hitler's plan, and replaced him with General Paulus, who'd never commanded troops in battle but who gave full support, possibly through ignorance as much as sycophancy, Hitler also relieved Goring of the task of managing the war economy because he felt Goring was becoming too powerful and a potential threat to him. He replaced him with Albert Speer, who impressed Hitler for plans for grandiose Nazi buildings but had absolutely no skills for the job. His solution to failure to meet targets was to make up figures showing he had. Stalin on the other hand was presented with genuine documents showing the entire German attack plan which were retrieved from a shot-down German aircraft. Because they didn't fit with his belief that Germany would not attack, he dismissed them out of hand so that his army was unready when the Germans did come. It's a salutary reminder that once despots have scrambled to the top of the greasy pole, they almost immediately become fearful of plots against them. In order to exude an aura of infallibility, they become unable or unwilling to tolerate anyone or anything that gives an alternate view to theirs. With his background, Putin must have seen enough people shot in the back of the head or smeared with Novichok to be very paranoid indeed and therefore very dangerous.
I've been searching through a filing cabinet for an address that I need.....during my search I found a folder with old football programmes in it.....one that I came across was for January 14th 1967. It was an away programme roughly 5in x 7in.....12 pages and quite insignificant really....costing sixpence (old money)....Millwall v Argyle....this is a match well remembered by me....and I didn't realize I still had the programme. This was the game that Argyle won 2-1....finishing Millwall's 59 consecutive home match undefeated run. It showed the DiV TWO table ( 2nd level in those days)....Argyle's away record was... no wins...2 draws...10 defeats....they were mid-table because forunately they had quite a good home record......could be worth a quid or two to an avid programme collector. Might keep looking in that filing cabinet...in case the Arsenal v Man U programme is there ....the Saturday before the Munich aircrash disaster (6th Feb 1958).....now that would be worth a few bob....but I feel my mum cleared it out when I was in Aden doing my national service 1960/62.
It's aircraft carrier week in Plymouth. On Monday, the Italian carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi was in the Sound please log in to view this image Tomorrow, its the mighty USS Theodore Roosevelt please log in to view this image
Back in my Aden days...we were visited regularly by USS naval craft....we were rounded up to play baseball or cricket against such types....supposed to be good for moral....or so we were told....whose moral....theirs or ours....never did find out.
British Gas has updated my monthly payments....from £700.....to....£1200 per year....that's something nearing a 60% rise....I only have a boiler.....we cook with electric....that's still to come.
That was the "now" rise, you just wait until the next one appears and your 60% might seem quite small in comparison. I think the rises in fuel bills and the cost of living that will inevitably follow the petrol hikes will put a load of people in trouble they can't manage now. If ever there was a recipe for unrest then it is sure brewing. If your kids are starving and you can't afford to feed them then what would you do. I wouldn't rely on Boris to fix anything. I can't think of one thing that has gone right since he lied his way to the top. Lucky boy though that he has managed to bury partygate from the headlines. I wonder what happened to the Police report that was due.......
Unfortunately there's not much we can do about it, apart from borrowing a time machine and re-running energy strategy over the last 20 years, placing energy costs, the environment AND energy security in the mix. It's been a massive dereliction of duty by successive goverments. In the long term, we need to consider what's left in the North Sea, especially gas, build nuclear, build anaerobic digestion and build tidal. To repeat myself, we're in danger of doing the same with food: the proposed post Brexit agricultural subsidy is a disaster, focusing solely on the environment and not food security. It's giving big land owners incentives to "re-wild" productive agricultural land for subsidies at the expense of small farmers. Already this is being monetised by investment funds trying to buy up farms to be re-wilded.
Re-wilding....what a wonderful gift to local councils......an excuse to let road borders and parkland just get on with growing....contract grass cutting by councils has literally disappeared......putting summer grasscutting contract jobs on the scrap heap....for the greater good of the environment of course......and of course saving money as well.....I'm sure councils are smirking behind closed doors.....for the benefit of the environment of course.
But this is about taking huge areas of farmland and returning to woodland or wetland or whatever.... we already produce only 60% of what we eat!
I'd love you to sit in on a Council Meeting Plym when they are discussing what services to cut and which ones to remove altogether after yet another cut to budgets by the Tories. This is of course a cut after the Government having introduced another half dozen or so duties they plant on them without much in the way of consultation. Do you cut road verges or do you cut children's services? Which one of those two is a duty? It is obvious what will not get done out of the two because there isn't a lot of choice. It's easy to kick the Council of course because they are the ones sitting in the Town or area you live in. There is a solution. Just stop paying any Council workers anything at all and get them to do whatever they do for free. I mean they only ever lean on brooms don't they. They don't actually work for their pay it's only people in the private sector who graft.
Notdistant, since when has an opportunity for the rich to get richer ever become bogged down with forward planning or the good of the masses? MPs don't get lucrative jobs outside of Parliament by doing things for the good of the Country.
I don't think it's that Sensible. Firstly, you can't blame the City. They are there to make money for their shareholders, their clients and indirectly, our pension funds.. If the Government says "Go forth and re-wild" then that's what they'll do. If the Government says "Grow more food", they'll do that. They'll quite simply follow the money trail the Government lays. So it's the politicians. Even I've got to say green objectives are a good thing but they simply don't seem to see the full Big Picture, to join up related topics in different spheres. It's not as if they aren't being told: this isn't from what you'd call a right wing paper: https://www.theguardian.com/environ...s-increasing-the-uks-reliance-on-food-imports When you have the NFU and Greenpeace saying the same thing, you should realise you have a problem. Indeed, Greenpeace make the strongest point. There's no point in going Green at home if you merely buy the same products from abroad instead: that weakens food security, increases food miles, reduces food standards, harms animal welfare and damages the balance of payments all at the same time. Brilliant. It's exactly what we've done with energy: prematurely close up the North Sea and then buy exactly the same stuff from other countries. That's not Going Green, that's Going Stupid.
