Our overnight base load is 0.07kWh – about 3p an hour of which 2p is the standing charge. Typical daytime use (2 x home workers) and excluding cooking and washing is about 0.14kWH / 5p an hour.

I’ve done quite a bit to reduce gas and electricity usage – the latter is a lot harder but time clocks on a couple of things have helped nibble it down.

I’ve snapped Topeak and Park tyre levers.

The park levers with a steel core are ok but the plastic coating cracks after a while.

I’m not trying some silca tyre levers (with alloy core) after a particularly frustrating session trying to get some Schwabs tyres off some notubes rims and mounting a pair of Vitoria tyres to replace them. The whole process took the best part of 90 minutes for 2 wheels and left my fingers bruised. The park tool narrowly avoided my eye when it snapped and fired off 🤦‍♂️

“Milkshakes and eggs are protest. Punching, knifing or shooting are not.”

Milkshake and eggs thrown at any individual represent an assault – and those of us that have been on the receiving end of stuff thrown at us from passing cars would say the same.

Things that you’re no longer allowed to like in Mountain Biking : everything that hasn’t just been released as a new product with the obligatory multi-channel gushing PR spaffed across the whole cycling media.

Give is… “Dimmer than a dust-covered, forty-watt bulb in a coal mine. ”

He still managed a 2:1 from Oxford University though.

We’re all far too hung up on personalities vs. what politicians think, why they think that , what changes (if any) they would make as a result and how they would implement it.

As much as the Boris vs Starmer discussions are entertaining, they never get close to what Starmer really thinks, why he thinks that and what he would do (policy). Most of his comments are confined to hindsight / opposing things for the sake of it – seemingly without any credible / fact based alternatives.

Out of the current crop I would only really rate Gove for the following reasons:

– He has performed well across a number of ministerial briefs
– People who have worked with him consistently refer to his drive, curiosity and willingness to consider policies that were previously unthinkable – ref: prisons and the environment amongst others.
– in a number of roles he has delivered meaningful and well thought out change
– his own background (and his comments on how that shaped him) give him a perspective many politicians lack.

Buy a Tractive dog tracker (with long life battery) and then find a decent place to disguise it – a moulded insert underneath the mud guards would work well.

Still take a lock but the Tractive will help you to locate it if it gets nicked. Don’t bother with Apple AirTags – they broadcast their presence and a thief will have them off in no time.

As a wild card entry – how about normal SPDs with some pocket pedal covers?

https://pocketpedals.com

Is 5G turned on in the iPhone settings?

It’s under settings > mobile data > Mobile data options > Voice and data > 5G auto

Keep up the good work.

What a rubbish ending. I feel cheated.

Looks like a scan marine antenna for 4G / 5G – attached to a pole. The sticker at the base of the antenna is where scan normally put their stickers.

Something like this one – or a copy

https://www.scan-antenna.com/products/uhf5g-plus

If it’s using 5G then be sure to spread wild conspiracy theories amongst the other neighbours.

So the final tally is:

– 126 fines issued
– 73 to women
– 53 to men
– Majority of fines issued to Civil Servants
– Johnson and Sunak both fined for the 9 minute tea break during the working day

At this rate, Starmer’s gathering could cop for more fines issued to politicians for one event than Johnson did in Downing Street over many months.

On the regulation point it’s probably the introduction of the price cap (originally a policy dreamt up by Ed Milliband) that’s created the current problem.

Wholesale gas prices have fallen rapidly in recent months but the combination of the cap and hedging means consumers will have to pay much higher prices for gas and electricity (60% of which comes from burning gas) next winter.

Going back to an open market pricing model is probably the way to go.

But what problem would Labour’s bill even address?

Retail Energy companies are typically low margin – with the returns often failing to cover the cost of capital employed. EDF is often cited – its returns from UK Energy Retail Ops effectively mean that the French public are subsidising British Consumers. The actual retail cost of Energy in the UK (net of levies and tax) have consistently even amongst the lowest in Europe over the last 10-15 years.

So if the bill is to nationalise retail energy sales there will be a significant compensation bill and limited scope for any efficiency savings to reduce consumer bills.

And if the bill is to nationalise Energy Production in the UK, the government will move from allowing the market to raise £tens of billions in finance and take the risk on new schemes (including solar / onshore wind / offshore wind / inter connectors) to having the cost of that sat on the balance sheet with uk consumers paying for the debt finance cost – which would be considerable given interest rates are rising.

Stripping out the energy crisis caused by covid / ukraine, we’ve consistently benefited from low bills for close to two decades.

So what is the problem that Labour is proposing to solve?

When was the last time a corporation has been held to account?

How about the Train Franchise companies that had their franchises removed / were not renewed?

Or the various regulator levied fines on companies across Banking, Insurance, Transport, Telecoms, Retail Energy etc?

A couple of things to check:

1. Speed on laptop when connected to the router via Cat5e Ethernet cable or better. Turn the Wi-Fi off on the laptop then run a speed test. Assuming that’s ok proceed to next step

2. If the main deco mesh has two Ethernet ports, connect the deco to the router with the cat 5E cable, then use another cat5e Ethernet cable to connect to the laptop. Then any other deco units off.

Test again with the Wi-Fi turned off – if the speed is slow it’s because the deco Ethernet ports run at 100mbps . If the speed is good the only other variable is the speed of the deco units – you’ll need wifi5 support or similar. If the speed is good connected to the first deco unit, go to step 3.

3. Turn the rest of the deco units. Plug the laptop into each one with Ethernet (keep Wi-Fi turned off) and that will give you a good idea of the speed across the nodes. If the nodes are too far apart you won’t get good speeds. Likewise if the nodes are connected to each other using dual band wifi.

I’d recommend going for a vehicle specific wiring kit if you have bumper sensors or anything like that.

Even with a vehicle specific kit fitting a westfalia towbar has caused a problem with the electrics in our VW.

Several attempts to program the car to recognise the towbar have been unsuccessful and as a result the car’s “front assist” system is showing an error and won’t work.

This is a common problem in VAG (vw, Audi, seat, Skoda) group cars and solving it has cost me the best part of £600 so far.

I personally won’t ask for / pay cash for anything.

I’ll also avoid businesses that do on the basis most are dodgy and if they are dishonest up front on price you should expect the same when it comes to actually delivering the contracted product or service. I also insist on paying by bank transfer for any invoices for the same reason.

Per the points other people have made above – tax goes to pay for teachers, doctors, nurses, roads, state pensions etc etc.

If you don’t use any of those things you can probably make a lame defence about why you pay cash – but for everyone else you are literally cheating the country out of the public services we need.

Someone I know spent years fiddling the books of his business to avoid tax and even when the NHS spent literally hundreds of £thousands caring for his premature baby has continued to act on the basis he doesn’t need to pay the taxes that provide care for other families in the same position.

I’ve got literally zero time for people who pay cash to evade tax (not avoid – which is legal).

I also know plenty of people who give all the talk about cash paid to politicians’ mates (despite any real evidence of this) yet those same people are happy to pay cash / fail to declare buy to let rental income – in some cases running to £200k or more in cumulative rent. They are hypocrites – the lot of them.

The estimate for cash-in-hand tax avoidance was £70B a year in 2012. Adjust that for inflation and we’re talking £100b in tax lost – enough to pay 3/4 of the NHS bill or reduce income tax by 40%.

I’m conflicted on eScooters.

I don’t think in their current form they are safe – the combination of small wheels and poor roads makes for a high level of risk – and someone I know well broke 2 vertebra in his neck coming off one when it hit a pothole.

They are also used locally by scumbags as crime vehicles – and I’ve narrowly avoided getting mugged for my brompton by a group of 3-4 riders who came from nowhere and tried to block me in to make me stop. I couldn’t out ride them because they were the illegal / fast ones and it only stopped due to the good fortune of a police car coming the other way. The police didn’t slow down or stop but the scooter scum were up on the pavement and going the other way as soon as they saw the cops.

They are also used on pavements and parks where they shouldn’t be – even the licensed operators haven’t geofenced the scooters properly to prevent this.

I also think there’s a real issue where many of the riders are clueless about how to use the roads safely or how to avoid risk to other road users. Having some kind of mandated training seems like a CBT for mopeds is a no brainer.

BUT:

– if the scooters had bigger wheels / were safer AND
– Geo-fencing worked
– the police came down very hard on illegal scooters AND
– the riders did proper training on how to use the roads

… they are potentially going to help get people out of cars which can only be a good thing.

Someone has been giving Durham Police a helping hand on Twitter – see below.

In fairness to Sir Keir I’m sure he is very busy all of the time. He may not be able to recall accurately what he did last month / last year and this could account for the inconsistency between some of his comments and the facts to the contrary.

BUT – he’s also been very unforgiving of other possibly even more busy people not having an accurate recall of their own actions.

1/ I don’t have a huge amount of followers so any shares of this will be greatly appreciated. I have put together the information I can find regarding #beerswithkeir #BeerwithKeir #BeerStarmer #KarmaforStarmer #Partygate #beergate #durhampartygate https://t.co/xoeUdZyvfd

— GregC (@Greg_P_C) May 3, 2022

Four x Top tips for anyone trying to use 4g for phone broadband.

1. To work out the max speed you could get – try the sim in a decent phone but outside the house / flat and work out which side is faster. Use a speed test app to test the speeds. Go on speed rather than signal strength because the bars on a phone don’t always equate to the fastest connection.

2. Try and set your router up on the fastest side of the property and as high up as possible.

3. Connect the internal Wi-Fi router to wherever the 4g router is fastest – rather than setting up the 4g router in the middle of the house

4. If your router has antenna mounts use them – ideally on the exterior of the property or up in the loft

He’s dancing round on a pinhead.

At his press conference today every other line was “I’m different / I’m honest / I have integrity”.

He then pledges to resign not if he’s found to have broken the covid regulations but only if he is fined for having done so.

As Durham Police have already said they won’t issue fines retrospectively this seems like a pretty empty pledge – not least because Sunak was fined simply for having walked into a room where people were drinking cups of tea.

There are a couple of good deals at the moment:

3 – unlimited / 12 months for £16 a month with £65 cashback via TopCashback – works out at £10 a month

Lebara (Vodafone) / 12 months for £22.50 a month with £42 cash back as above – works out at £19 a month

As per the post above – use a router with an external aerial. If you’re in a 5G area you won’t get decent speeds unless the router indoors can connect to a good 4g signal as it’s used for signaling and uploads.

Anyone with an existing router can get it improved by Router-Mods.Co.uk to enable additional antennas to be fitted for 4g – makes a lot of difference in areas with iffy coverage.

Interesting to see that the WHO are now reporting the UK had a lower covid excess death rate than many countries – including the “poster boy” comparator – Germany.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-61327778.amp

So for all of the noise about the government getting it wrong and hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths – it looks like the scientific advisers made reasonable decisions albeit quite often having to do so using low quality / limited data.

The “expenses” coverage is almost always very unfair – that £195K example above being a case in point.

Expenses aren’t cash in the pocket of MPs – they are generally the costs of office staff, travel to constituencies, local office space and overnight accommodation.

It creates the impression that all MPs are on the take when those with constituencies well outside London (from all parties) have no choice but to travel back and forth and stay over in London regularly.

Likewise the suggestions of MPs all having to stay in a hotel room to save money on rented accommodation – with no recognition that they may have family with them or the sheer boredom of potentially living in a hotel room with none of your personal possessions for 5 / 10 / 15 / 25 years.

https://www.theipsa.org.uk/mp-staffing-business-costs/your-mp/george-eustice/3934

Literally all of the above plus:
– Flush the toilet
– Remember to empty coins / tampons etc out of pockets before putting things in the washing machine
– add things to the weekly online supermarket shop days before the final 2 mins when it’s “locked”
– Open the cupboard to see what we actually need before adding it to the online Supermarket shop
– Take keys out of the outside of the front door before closing it / leaving them there all night
– Lock the car
– Not leave valuables on view in the car (phones, iPad, bags full of stuff)
– Put things back (literally everything – in every room – all of the time)
– Not lose keys (car keys, house keys, roof rack keys, bike lock keys)
– Put the bins out
– Not block the drains by treating them as a liquid bin
– Not block the dishwasher by treating it as a liquid bin
– Unblock the sink / shower drains when they are clearly blocked with hair / coffee granules / dog biscuits
– Not repeatedly overspend on the joint account when it’s already in overdraft
– Put phone chargers back when they’ve been moved / “borrowed” / taken to the office
– Sort things correctly for recycling
– Not put food waste in the recycling
– Change a lightbulb
– Remember to turn the hair straighteners off
– Remember not to hang so many bags on door coat hooks that the door only opens half way
– Put fuel in the car / check the tyre pressure / top up the screen wash
– Angle the shutters on the windows so people walking past can’t look in (point down from the outside vs. us looking down / shutters point down from the inside looking out)

Etc etc etc.

“So 1400 missing from the 4G?”

Yes and no.

Unless it’s changed recently Vodafone hasn’t made much use of the 1400Mhz band – typically only in urban / high density areas and only for downlinks.

The spectrum they have been allocated can only be used where it’s joined / aggregated with a primary (another) band that has an uplink.

phil5556 – across a lot of Scotland Vodafone / Voxi are using a low frequency for 4G (band 20 / 800Mhz). This gives the appearance of good coverage / strong signal on 4G but the bandwidth is very limited – hence it’s very slow on data speeds.

It’s also worth checking the device you’re using can support all of the LTE / 4G bands that Vodafone are using in the UK – quite a lot of mobile routers only support a limited selection of bands. Vodafone uses the following bands (not all bands are in all areas though):

800MHz (4G)
900MHz (2G & 3G)
1400MHz (4G)
1800MHz (2G)
2100MHz (3G)
2600MHz (4G)
3400MHz (5G)

Plusnet used to use a limited selection of EE’s 2G / 3G / 4G bands (unless it’s changed recently) so you might find that slower than an EE connection in the same place. If you can borrow an EE sim first that might help you to decide.

It’s also worth mentioning that EE are rolling out 5G on low frequencies now but with fairly usable bandwidth (so good coverage and good speeds). There’s already quite a lot in rural areas across Wales and the South West that doesn’t show on EE’s coverage map so Scotland will likely follow soon.

Just get a decent router (ideally with an external antenna) and choose a 1 month sim only contract:

Smarty (3) £20 – unlimited data
ID Mobile (3) £17.50 – unlimited data
Lebara (Vodafone) £25 – unlimited data

All o2 monthly sims including giffgaff and Tesco are limited to 600gb of data (upload and download)

EE don’t really have a competitive sim product on a 30 day plan.

Are Labour making policy based on facts and with the principle of doing the best thing for the economy – or playing silly political games?

Which is it and what are the facts that support a change of policy from their position on Non Doms in 2015?

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/video-emerges-of-shadow-chancellor-saying-miliband-s-plan-to-scrap-nondoms-probably-ends-up-costing-britain-money-10161987.html

We had a resin bound path and landed up having it dig out. Although it’s permeable that means that mud can wash into it and stay there – which then leads to things growing and in short order, your nice new path looks a complete mess.

Probably ok for urban areas when there will never be mud on the car tyres / welly boots that walk over it etc etc.

The OP did the right thing.

People who use their phones whilst driving (even handsfree) are selfish dicks and cause accidents – either because they are distracted whilst on the phone or because they remain distracted for several minutes after finishing the call.

It’s not just cyclists and pedestrians that these people injure – it’s the occupants of other vehicles as well – so my mum, your dad, our mates kids etc etc.

I don’t think Lammy’s lack of PM prospects are anything to do with his skin colour – more that he’s a complete hypocrite (MPs can’t have two jobs – yet he presents on LBC), his lack of common sense (thought Henry VII succeeded Henry VIII), his willingness to use identity politics in order to avoid answering a question and his sneering sermons to anyone who has a different opinion (ref: the teacher who recently called his radio show).

I think it would be great to have a Black (or Asian) PM – but Lammy is not that person.

It’s the same company as Cult Beauty and MyProtein amongst others – handy if you need some lippy to go with your new Ti seatpost.

Standard barber question (pre covid and subsequently replaced by doing it myself):

Barber: so what do you do for work?
Me: office work
Barber: is that computers and stuff?
Me: yes
Barber: [cursory chit chat session has now concluded – silence commences until end of haircut]

< 10 minutes later >

Barber: there you go – would you like to see the back?

“Hello – we’ve found the ideal job for you.

The office location is only 258 miles away, it pays 30% of your current salary and the job matches a role you did 20 years ago.

Click here to take the next step in your career”

Local elections decide how your local council is run. Generally speaking, choosing the Councillors that are responsive to the issues faced by locals will ensure that the council officers are more likely to be held to account / services will actually get run properly.

In our local areas the local councillors literally don’t respond to any communications from local residents – they pop up at election time to make uncounted pledges that are outside of their remit / they know that can’t deliver on, and then disappear for another 4-5 years.

As a result our council has completely failed to deliver for 10+ years now – mostly because the councillors aren’t holding the officers / CEO to account using the powers available to them.

It goes without saying that locals will almost certainly re-elect the useless local councillors and then spend another 4-5 years complaining we never hear from them.

How would you go about changing ‘capitalism’ to better benefit all, without of course causing the exact opposite?

“Limit the rise on energy prices to 4% in the same way France has?”

>80% of all electricity in France is generated from Nuclear. Around 50% of the UK’s electricity comes from burning gas. The cost of nuclear is relatively static – has gone up 8 fold.

As an aside, the reason the UK’s own share of electricity from Nuclear fell through the floor is because Labour policy from 1997 to 2010 Was to refuse permission for any replacement nuclear power stations.

So the example of France is kind of irrelevant for the reasons set out above – the “supply” cost there hasn’t changed whereas it has here.

With a number of nuclear plants in the Uk scheduled to closed by 2020 and a lead time of 10-15 years on major civils / power projects the reason we are in the current mess is down to poor decisions in the early 2000s.

“How much money do they have to haemorrhage sitting at the dock before the reduced wage bill starts to look less of a bargain?”

Probably quite a lot.

In his appearance at the Commons Select Committee the CEO stated that the new operating model (maritime crew / intl contracts) will reduce the OpModel cost by 50%. Without a reduction of more than 25% on current costs P&O is not viable as a going concern – that’s break even, not profit.

The simple reality is that even if all ferry operators can be compelled to operate the minimum wage (which seems very much in doubt due to the way maritime employment contracts / flagging of vessels works), this would still leave P&O trying to attract and retain UK based crew at minimum wage (low to UK relative wage) whilst Irish Ferries pays minimum wage to an experienced international crew (incredibly high compared to their local wages) with people queuing up to join them.

So what we are now seeing as a game of high stakes brinksmanship.

If the government insists on minimum wage and can’t apply it to other operators then P&O will go bust and the vessels will be sold on – with no guarantee that the capacity on UK / EU routes won’t be permanently reduced with all the supply chain issues that go with that.

OR

The government accepts it can’t enforce anything (vessels flagged in the EU / Bermuda, crew are international, maritime law isn’t being broken).