SOILED AGAIN!

Home, sweet home.

As much as I love spending time with my aged folks, I’m always pleased to get back on home turf away from the stink of urine splattered dressing gowns or endless meals of boiled potatoes and green beans. Such is the glamour of an octogenarian menu; they pretty much eat the same things every single day so it’s no wonder they suffer from vitamin deficiencies.

By all accounts, I’m back in the nick of time as the Met Office is predicting another ‘heatwave’. It’s curious that what designates a heatwave in the UK changes almost as much as a prime minister. Last year, it was temperatures over 30 degrees for 3 days in a row. This year, that classification has dropped to anything from 25 to 28 degrees for 3 days in a row.

Abroad, anything from 25 to 28 degrees is usually classed as ‘summer’ and not a heatwave but in belt-and-braces Britain, anything hotter than a cheese toastie spells trouble.

Can ‘heatwaves’ be confined to a specific UK region? I always thought that the term ‘heatwave’ would be a weather phenomena like an electric blanket that applies heat across a whole nation rather than to just tiny parts. But hey, I’m no meteorologist so what I know about this stuff could fit on the back of a fag packet.

Looking out of the window, it’s hard to figure out when this forecast heatwave is due to materialise. Today’s lack-lustre cloudy skies cannot be described as anything other than dreary rather than tropical. The only giveaway is the oppressive humidity that leaves you sweat-soaked if you so much as bat an eyelid.

This heat is exhausting!

Aside from one or two sunny spells, June has been largely disappointing to say the least but by all accounts, we’re now on red alert for tomorrow and Thursday. Crawl into a cool, dark cave and stay there. Only come out at night – that’s my plan of action.

Rain would not be very welcome on a day when I’ve had a super-sized dumpy bag of top soil delivered. Last thing I need is a squelchy dirt cowpat of elephantine proportions to barrow from driveway to garden.

Bag of soil anyone?

With indoor DIY projects at a standstill, I’ve turned my attention to the back garden. There’s a scruffy looking spot in front of the RNLI themed shed and under a lilac tree that could do with a bit of a primp.

Could this vista be improved?

Whilst ‘nanny sitting’, the other half kindly rustled up a narrow sleeper bed in front of the shed:

New sleeper bed in front of shed

And a zig-zag sleeper border to neaten the area under the tree.

Looks tidier already

Once filled with top soil and leaf mulch, I can then plant up these spots with either more strawberry plants or flowers to make the most of this extra growing space.

Ready to fill with top soil

I fancy a nice climbing rose to trail up and around the shed window. I’m hoping this might soften its appearance when looking at it from the lawn.

Now all that’s left for me to do is make this huge bag of soil disappear rather like the Labour Party have finally done to Out-on-his-ear Kier. So long, Starmer and hello Burnham.

Out with the old and in with the new

He’s got about 3 years before the next general election to turn this nation’s silk purse into a sow’s ear because unless he rips up the rule book to start again, he’s just going to be hampered by the same political and financial constraints that strait-jackets everyone in the prime ministerial hot seat. Good luck to you, mate.

To end on a more positive note, I may not have managed to get hold of tickets for Muse but I did enjoy a fantastic trip down memory lane going to the Foreigner gig at Wembley Arena. What an amazing show!

Foreigner - still awesome after 50 years

NOT A-MUSE-D

It’s 9.55 am. I’m sat in my nightie in front of a screen waiting for ticket pre-sales to open for Muse – The Wow! Signal gig taking place at the O2 London in November.

Muse World Tour 2026

If I didn’t know better, I’d think Muse had named this tour after the mobile phone situation in Chichester as that’s what most people exclaim in the town centre if they miraculously manage to obtain a signal. Wow!

I’ve done bugger all other than watch and wait. ‘Not now cat’ I shout at the needy mog who is clamouring for a bit of fussing; I’ve got other more pressing things to attend to.

Almost there

There’s now a minute to go. My buttocks are clenched with excitement, stomach’s churning like a banned tumble drier, credit card poised ready for the online starter pistol to signal that the race for tickets is on.

OMG!  So many people in front

Aha! The cyber queue finally opens. There are 163 invisible, nerve-wracked, PJ clad, sweaty fingered peeps in front of me all sat in front of their devices chomping at the bit. It’s been a while since Muse toured the UK so ticket demand for this gig’s going to be colossal.

Unlike the queue at our local post office, this one eats through 163 fans at a rate of knots. Burp! It is not long before I find myself at the front, only 1 cyber peep left ahead of me.

The venue map opens. There are many pockets of blue left so seat availability appears good. Except it isn’t. What I’m looking at is a sea of rapidly shifting quicksand. The £79 seats I’d clicked on have evaporated into thin air before reaching the basket.

In seconds, the cheapest seats have gone from £79 to £147 so I’m guessing that menace called Dynamic Pricing is in force. This is now the scourge of all music fans. Fanning the flames of corporate greed by forcing us all to pay over the odds for tickets to events. This preys upon a fan’s fear of missing out and operates on the premise that those keen enough to want to go are willing to pay anything to be there.

Come on Muse.  Dynamic pricing, really?  How can you sing about fat cats having heart attacks because we're rebelling against their control then allow these very same fat cats to shamelessly rinse devoted followers with these evil algorithms?  Strikes me as being a tad hypocritical.

Artists really need to put their feet down to stamp out this practice if they don’t want to alienate fans especially for those that would struggle even to find £79 for a seat. ‘Lack of single/album sales’ bellows the other half down his mobile phone (hands free) as he motors on to Winchester to deliver toilet seats to customers too lazy to collect.

Is this situation really the result of internet streaming and the demise of the 7” single? Record sales were once a big revenue stream for bands but since everyone now expects to hear it for free on some streaming platform then the buggers are having to find new ways to make up for lost income.

As someone who has been a frequent flyer to gigs, festivals or other live music events for decades, dynamic pricing is an evil that needs to be vanquished and pretty quickly. If a ticket has a face value of £79 then that’s what all fans should pay regardless of their position in the cyber queue, personal wealth or their desire to see a particular artist.

An hour has passed. I’m ticketless. The Live Nation pre-sale has been one humungous waste of time and put me in a mood so foul that I’m now going to take it out on the garden before the forecast ‘heatwave’ hits Chichester.

Look out flower beds, I’m coming for you!

LOW OR NO STANDING CHARGES

Before I fall off my energy soapbox, let me take you on a journey back in time to December 2024 when Ofgem, the energy regulator, finally got the message that high standing charges for low energy customers are basically a rip off.

A year of consultations followed until the regulator eventually proposed that all energy suppliers must offer all their customers, tariffs that have ‘low or no’ standing charges.

In May of this year, Martin Lewis’s website reported the following:

Under Ofgem's latest plans, four of the big energy firms (British Gas, EDF, E.on and Octopus) will be trialling low or no standing charge tariffs during 2026. Each supplier will offer at least one version of the tariff to specific households for one year. The trial has not been finalised, but we'll update this guide when we have more details.

Living in a household that uses little energy, would I be classed as one of the SPECIFIC households? What I think is meant by the phrase ‘specific households’ is either those on benefits or those with large energy debt. Well, I certainly wasn’t going to wait to be asked so I emailed Octopus to enquire when they would be trialling these new low or no standing charge tariffs.

At first, the eager-to-please Octopeep who replied to my email sent across details of existing tariffs that might tickle my fancy, none of which reflected standing charges any lower than that of my current tariff. They’d completely ignored my question relating to ‘low or no’ tariffs. Blanked me like a unprinted A4 page.

Not one to give up in these instances, I then challenged the Octopeep further, suggesting they respond to the actual question which was when will Octopus be offering their customers low or no standing charge tariffs?

Eventually, an emailed reply was received as follows:

I can confirm that Ofgem has mentioned a tariff with a low standing charge will be available from April. While Octopus will not have this tariff available from the 1st of April, we are still working through the details and it may be launched sometime after. Please note, it’s not a no standing charge tariff but one with a reduced standing charge, a 'Low standing charge' tariff.

No surprises. Of course, the likelihood of there being a ‘NO’ standing charge tariff was pretty slim at the outset since the cost of all those green levies, network maintenance costs and anything else has to be recovered from all punters via this charge.

And now that energy costs are going to go into orbit following the war in the Middle East, energy suppliers are going to be dragging their heels over the introduction of a ‘LOW’ standing charge tariff particularly if consumption costs are then capped by Ofgem or customers reduce their consumption levels to economise.

Having made this proposal, will Ofgem now be checking up on suppliers to see if they comply with the spirit of this new requirement? I suspect not since Ofgem fails to live up to my expectations of a regulator that is there to protect the interests of energy consumers, preferring instead to keep suppliers sweet. A regulator with teeth would be chasing up suppliers with a deadline for the introduction of the new tariff. Not Ofgem because it's generally toothless, spineless, useless – no better than a piece of fluff wedged in a belly-button.

Since there is little evidence that Octopus will be making these new tariffs available before next winter then I’ve signed up to another energy fix until June 2027 to keep the household ship afloat on an even keel.

Rest assured, I will be keeping a beady eye on the Octopus to see if it eventually introduces a low standing charge tariff.

And in case you are wondering what happened to summer fun, online tickets for Alton Towers are still reflecting a 20% rate of VAT so I’m still waiting to see those marvellous reductions as proposed by the Reevester being rolled out to the public.

LECCY RATIONING

The ghost of the electrical future has reared its ugly head again, haunting the tabloids with tales of a cold, dark, bleak future, devoid of light, heating or joy.

Another Orwellian turn of the screw it seems.  With every day that passes consumer choice is being firmly squeezed into Muppet Miliband’s iron maiden where a fate worse than death awaits - the totalitarian state.

Front page of Saturday’s Telegraph announced further draconian rules are being imposed on the nation by the demented Energy Emperor on his kamikaze mission to reach net zero.

It’s another own goal for Britain. It’s not coming home, this year or even in the next twenty World Cups – a tournament that is probably contributing more to global warming than even the swankiest gold-plated towel rail. But footie is footie and even Ed’s not brave enough to dare tinker with the beautiful game.

The article goes on to suggest that consumers will benefit from cheaper bills in the long run. This is not because the cost of a kilowatt of electricity is going to come down any time soon but because we'll be forced to use less. 

Whether that is the result of more energy efficient appliances or not remains to be seen but logically – use less, pay less or in Ed’s case it’s - USELESS, PAY MORE. Lord help us if he ever got in as Chancellor!

Leccy rationing is going to be the way forward if AI data centres begin mushrooming across the UK and this is how it starts by forcing punters to use less power. The grid is unlikely to produce enough energy to share fairly between data processing electrical vampires and punters and my guess is that heating homes won’t be the top priority.

Energy use in Britain is on a backward trajectory to the Middle Ages. Won’t be long before we’re all huddling round a candle to keep warm. If I were you, I’d start panic buying Yankee candles now ahead of the herd.

Muppet Miliband wants more and more of your electrical pie. Chasing net zero will do very little to save the planet unless ALL polluting countries are forced to drastically cut emissions. And even if global emissions were reduced, what about all those other activities that also contribute to climate change such as mining, de-forestation, over-production of livestock, intensive farming, fast fashion, holiday travel and some manufacturing processes to name but a few. You going to stop all that too, are you Ed?

If you want a tumble dryer, underfloor heating or a towel rail, you’ll have no other option but to go for a solar array with multiple batteries so that every ounce of free power generated is stored. But remember what I said in my post of October 2025 (Going Solar, Maybe), VPP is going to be the invisible power-stealing menace to guard against.

Whilst it may seem an attractive proposition to sell your surplus power back to the Grid in exchange for a few paltry pennies off your energy bills, the real danger is that you’re leaving a back door open for energy theft by virtual power plants or cyber thieves.

And whilst I too will eventually succumb to solar in a bid to reduce energy bills, it will be with an ‘off grid’ system whereby any power generated will be kept solely for my own use. My solar array will not be connected to the Grid, a smart meter or anything that enables VPP (virtual power plant) or remote access capability.

The Government have already begun to taper off SEG payments and I suspect that although demand for power will be higher in the future because of AI, you and I are not going to get rich generating excess electricity for the nation. Reduced SEG payments will continue until completely phased out then the powers that be will just rob you blind.

After reading this article, I’m making a list of gadgets to buy before the mass electrical extinction arrives.

‘I’m also buying a bath tub’ I shout out to the other half who is sneakily snaffling biscuits in the kitchen as the kettle boils. Hasn’t he realised by now that I keep a spreadsheet logging sugary purchases in case the Obesity Police turn up to measure our waistlines? No doubt middle-aged spread is next on Big Brother Ed’s list as I wouldn’t be surprised if obesity wasn’t featured on a climate change contributor list somewhere.

The Ed-case is definitely not going to stop at towel rails. No way. Data centres also use a lot of water to keep computers cool so it won’t be long before a bath joins the prohibition list and we’ll all be washing out of a bucket full of rain water in the garden.