UNPREPARED BRITAIN

And whilst I’m on the subject about Britons being unprepared for extreme weather conditions, I thought I’d take a few minutes to blab on about this topic in the hope that by expelling all my hot air it might help cool down the rest of my body.

Climate is changing. That message has been rammed down our throats for the last two decades so often that I’ve now got a poker hanging out my arse. Yet I see little evidence of the UK adapting for future living in climatic conditions that are only likely to get worse as time goes on according to scientific doom-mongers.

Wetter winters and hotter summers are trending now which means we should have started thinking ahead years ago as to how the nation as a whole may cope with these conditions in daily life going forward.

Reservoirs and rainwater harvesting is imperative. The country needs to collect and store as much of the precious wet stuff during the winter months in order to have a plentiful supply for the hotter, drier months.

Instead, our usual approach is to ban the use of hose pipes or limit consumption. But if those in charge had the foresight to plan ahead then there would be enough water for life’s normal activities such as cleaning cars or watering lawns because rainwater harvesting would already have been legislated for.

We are an island nation, surrounded by sea water and with rainfall that most likely makes up a vast percentage of our weather. So, why are there no Government schemes for cheap butts? In the same way that solar panels are now being mandated for new builds, why is no-one inventing ways of using rainwater to flush toilets then making that compulsory for all new houses? Why do new property developments not include large underground rainwater storage tanks in gardens? Why isn’t there a Government target for the building of reservoirs imposed on water companies?

Every year, the tabloids are full of reports of wide-spread flooding in the community but I’m yet to read any articles promoting dredging of over-silted waterways, channels or gulleys being dug to divert surface water away from flood prone areas or improvements to sewer systems. It’s the same old, same old. Nothing changes except the climate.

Prepare for hotter summers say the media. To which the public response is to buy survival blankets to drape across windows or put their bed sheets in the freezer. Again, where is the foresight to put in place legislated procedures to mitigate against extreme heat?

There are no laws governing maximum temperatures in the workplace or public institutions such as schools/hospitals etc. Many businesses are totally unprepared having no air conditioning or other cooling mechanisms in place to safeguard their employees who are expected to sweatily soldier on regardless. 

It’s insane telling people not to travel unless they have to but having no clear legislative guidance in place to enable businesses to exercise flexibility in extreme weather conditions.

Of course the irony is that the air conditioning that everyone is now clamouring to install in order to keep super cool also heats up the atmosphere thus adding to those climatic conditions that lead to heatwaves in the first place.  No prizes for what's going to feature next on Muppet Miliband's Ban It List but my guess is - air con systems.

So, Andy Burnham. Your challenge is to put your climatic thinking cap on and draw up a climate change manifesto that includes:

Introducing maximum & minimum temperatures in workplaces to safeguard the health and wellbeing of employees.

Flexible trading hours for businesses so that they can close during peak midday sun then re-open later as is currently the practice across most hot Mediterranean countries.

By law, allowing employees to choose to work from home if maximum workplace temperatures are exceeded so that they don’t have to travel at all during extreme weather events and to safeguard their health/wellbeing.

Businesses to pay out extreme weather bonuses if minimum or maximum temperatures exceeded for workers who because of the nature of their work have to report for duty regardless of whether there’s an ice age or heat dome.

Planning legislation that mandates the inclusion of rainwater capture/air conditioning in all new homes and that future property developments also include flood risk prevention measures where development is taking place on flood plains or near rivers.

Imposing targets on water companies for upgrading sewer systems to more efficiently remove surface rainwater. They should be forced to demonstrate that flooding in town centres/communities has visibly reduced year on year and heavily fined when it hasn’t.

Reservoir building projects should be expedited in the same way that clean energy ones are.

Britain needs to stop procrastinating, stop waiting until the climatic horse has bolted, stop expecting citizens to just sort it out amongst themselves and start putting a future plan for climate change in place.

Climate change is not going away any time soon so at what point does someone, somewhere need to get off their political arse to do something about it? Rant over, I’m off to put my knickers in the freezer and buy a dozen survival blankets for the windows.

LVT FLOOR LAID

Britons may be totally unprepared for extremes of weather but thankfully flooring fitters are not.

Tapi’s fitter made short work of laying LVT planks in the corridor.

Getting round all the fiddly bits

Long planks flowing down from the door

There is now a lovely wood-like river flowing from front door to loo which sets off the wall panelling nicely.

River of LVT

LVT is going to be a far more practical alternative to that awful red carpet as it’ll make it easier to sweep up the avalanche of cat litter scatter-gunned everywhere by Bertie after a visit to his loo.

Good job humans don’t do the same thing every time we visit the toilet. Imagine what it would be like if we’d flung bits of used loo roll all over the floor after every number 1 or 2. Yuck!!! Not going to mentally go there!

In the ideal world, I’d have loved an engineered wood floor or a nice bit of parquet. More’s the pity that the previous owners of this house hadn’t put in parquet then covered it up with carpet as some people did back then as that would have been a fantastic surprise when I ripped out the old flooring. But no. Lack of taste or pennies or both, we’ll never know.

Just got to find a new coir mat to throw down next to the front door then I can declare this project officially finished – for now.

Looks lovely with wall panelling

A great improvement on the old

THE NEED FOR SCREED

‘Better poo at work as this floor’s taking ages to dry’ - the last text I sent to the other half from my joyless prison.

Seems like I’ve picked the hottest day of the year to get the fitters in to screed the bare corridor floor in preparation for LVT laying. My penance - spending the next 3-4 hours stuck in a hot, airless lounge with only a bucket to pee in.

BEFORE - bare floor ready to screed

Fiddly area to do

The poor bewildered moggy is probably wondering what he’s done to deserve being locked away in the bedroom where it is even hotter than downstairs. Poor Bertie. I’ll make it up to you later with some extra treats and belly rubs. He’s got a clean litter tray, large bowl of grub and a gallon of water so before any of you ring the RSPCA, I can assure you no cats were harmed in the making of this floor.

Meanwhile, stuck in the lounge with a bottle of chilled water and builder’s bucket in temperatures you could boil an egg in, my t-shirt has now collected enough sweat to water the veggies later on.

No good complaining, it’s gotta be done. I may have gotten away with screeding the floor of the downstairs loo but that was the size of a large postage stamp. This corridor is far too long and dog-legged to repeat the procedure especially since there are four doorways and the foot of the stairs to factor in. Leave it to the professionals, I say.

Screeding round the foot of the stairs

Several hours and half a dozen episodes of ‘Harlots’ later, the screed has slowly transformed from a shiny ice rink to a light grey haven of solidity, enabling access to both loo and kitchen. Hurrah!

Freshly poured screed

Smooth and shiny

What’s more, the smooth unblemished surface is deliciously cold so excuse me whilst I strip down to my kecks and go starfish on it but first of all, I’d best let the cat out.

Four hours later - all dried out

Lovely cold surface to walk on

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.

MAKING THE NHS DIGITAL

As mother's snoring louder than a warthog on the sofa then to alleviate boredom I’m continuing my online rant on the topic of digitising the NHS which quite frankly is turning into a right royal pain in the arse.

Today, I discovered yet another ‘innovation’ on the health front that pissed me off no end, to the point that I almost picked up the phone to mother’s GP surgery there and then to let them have it both barrels such was my annoyance.

Of course, in reality I’d never do that as I’m far too polite but in the deep, dark recesses of my mind, I’d drive a Sherman tank right up to the surgery door then blast them to kingdom come much like Trump threatened to do to Iran. Clearly, he’s much too diplomatically polite as he still hasn’t.

So, what is this health service ‘innovation’ that’s got my goat? It’s the new messaging service on a platform called SystemOnline used by numerous surgeries.

Firstly, you receive a standardised email out of the blue advising you have a message on that portal. The email doesn’t give any clues as to what the hell that message might be about. You could have 6 months to live or a blood test result but until you log in then it’s anyone’s guess.

Secondly, you have to go off to log into the SystemOnline portal to find the message in order to read it. This means accessing another web site, remembering yet another set of log-in credentials, etc, etc. And as we all know, unless you’ve written these things down then at any age, this is a challenge in itself.

Oh, look. Surprise, surprise! There are loads of unread messages. Forty-one to be precise that neither of my aged parents or myself were remotely aware of because we never even knew this facility existed.

And guess what, one of those messages actually had a request on it for mother to make a GP appointment to discuss test results.

Making the NHS digital process summarised as follows:

- Surgery sends email
- Patient logs into a different website to view message
- Patient rings surgery to discuss contents of message
- Patient then has to wait at least a fortnight for the next appointment date

Basically, if I hadn’t accessed both of my parent’s laptops then I wouldn’t have been any the wiser. (Yeah, I have their passwords so can hack in at any time).

All this in spite of telling the surgery months ago that visually impaired patients CANNOT see to use a laptop, smartphone or any other device so all medically related communications should be made by phone call. Request ignored.

It would have been far easier all round if the surgery had done an ET and simply phoned home to offer mum an appointment rather than subject someone who is elderly, cognitively and technologically impaired to this digital rigmarole. Lucky for her, I’m here to deal with this shit.

What’s next on the Care in the Community agenda? Chat GP doctors? Robots that turn up on your doorstep to take your temperature? Why not just give us all syringes and we’ll draw our own blood samples? Good God!  I hope I’m not giving them any new ideas…

Oh wait, I think I read about this only the other day – iPad questionnaires to fill in at A&E reception desks. That’ll be a hoot. The last time I spent hours waiting in A&E it was largely full of drunks, hysterical teenagers or cokeheads, most of whom were in no fit state to speak to a receptionist let alone piss about on an iPad.

Seriously, this digital pathway the health service has embarked upon is going to result in most of its patients giving up the will to live but then maybe that’s their intention all along – less patients, cheaper to deliver healthcare.

Not promising this is the last NHS related cyber rant as who knows what tomorrow might bring!

DOCTOR DEFICIENCY

“It’s not looking very nice outside” says my befuddled mother oblivious to the fact that I’ve repeated the weather forecast more times than the BBC over the past 5 days. Data retention evaporates almost as rapidly as this year’s summer.

The Ancient Mariner has hitched a ride on a Ryanair galleon to foreign parts leaving yours truly to ‘Nanny sit’.  So, for the next couple of weeks, I’m trapped in an endless conversational loopy loop that goes round and round and round on the same spot like a badly stuck record.

Cognitive issues usually attributed to old age, other medical conditions such as diabetes and possible vitamin deficiencies are ripe for NHS inactivity. Referral to a Memory Clinic is now dependent on the results of continued blood testing for vitamin deficiencies resulting in delayed diagnosis of true state of mind. No wonder it takes years for patients to get a proper dementia diagnosis. Stalling tactics – that’s all this is!

Lack of B12 can cause memory impairment and this could be easily rectified in the elderly with a swift injected dose of the stuff. But we’re talking the NHS here. Due to health service penny pinching, B12 injections are no longer on the menu even for 88 year-old befuddled diabetics.

‘You can buy vitamin supplements on the High Street’ the GP informed me during our last telephone consultation. Yeah, at my expense I thought rather than on a free prescription which my mother is entitled to, her being as close to a century as Britain is to an IMF bailout. I wonder how many other patients are being fobbed off to the pharmacy without prescriptions? These supplements may help with memory deficiencies but what can we do about doctor deficiencies?

The irony of this situation is that left to their own devices, elderly memory impaired biddies struggle to remember to take daily supplements. I mean, if they can’t remember what day of the week it is then how on earth will they remember they’ve got tablets to take?

Which is why a B12 jab is perfect. It delivers a dose more powerful than anything you’ll get from a health store straight into your body’s system and all you’ve got to remember is to get to the appointment. Dr Google quickly signposted me to Superdrug pharmacies who are now offering these jabs privately at £29 per time.

The second irony is that in the past, vitamin supplements have always been heartily pooh-poohed by the medical profession as having no real medicinal value. (Insufficient evidence, blah, blah, blah – the usual NHS guff). Of course, now penniless, the shoe is on the other foot and vitamins are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Your GP is still not going to prescribe them though because if they did, the NHS would go bust.

And this brings me to the next hurdle in the NHS Grand National – getting an appointment for a blood test.

Making the NHS Digital – I dutifully filled in the online form on behalf of mother as being visually and technologically impaired this is an impossibility for her. That was on 4 June.

Within hours, an email confirmed that the surgery would contact me sometime prior to the 12 June to discuss my request.

Four days later having heard nothing from the surgery, I rang them only to be advised that the next available blood testing appointment was not until the end of June – 26 days from the date of my original online request. So much for the digital system improving access to health services.

I imagine that after her blood testing appointment, we’ll then have to wait another few weeks for the results and are likely to be told to carry on with supplements because the NHS will continue to delay a referral to the Memory Clinic until mother gets battier than Castle Dracula.

I asked her GP Surgery if it would be quicker for us to get tested at the local hospital which is how it works in Chichester where you can directly book an appointment online for blood tests at St Richards. Are you having a laugh? Not in Bournemouth it seems. ‘Oh, the hospital doesn’t like GPs booking blood tests with them and you can’t book directly.’ said the receptionist.

So much for quick access to care in the community. I can’t see it getting any better once the NHS starts passing the buck to local pharmacies or health hubs because with fewer resources they’re just going to end up swamped with requests for appointments.

As time goes on, the gulf between doctor and patient will get wider, probably as wide as the Straits of Hormuz. Greater delays in accessing diagnosis or treatments are likely to be experienced and with impatience levels being what they are these days then eventually everyone will just end up going private thus bringing about the demise of the NHS.

Perhaps rather than blowing my pension on a Lamborghini, I’d be better off setting up a High Street blood testing clinic and laboratory.

Crikey! Kerching! I could make a right killing by doing this as doctors’ surgeries could then outsource all their testing to me for a nice fat fee. Or people could just book with me directly thus making it easier and quicker for patients to monitor and treat their own vitamin deficiencies rather than wait on deficient doctors.

OLD FLOORING - RIP IT ALL UP

Bertie! Where’s that mischievous moggy got to? Ah, there he is. Taking a cat nap on my freshly washed bedding. Nothing’s sacred where cats are concerned.

Cats love the whoosh of freshness

Refreshed from our Maltese adventure, it's time to get rid of this awful dark red carpet – sort of Chilean merlot meets sleezy whorehouse. Not really my kind of colour and can’t understand why the previous owners would have chosen it either but when I consider the range of carpet colours festooned about the house prior to refurbishment (pink, green, beige) then why not throw in some red in as well. There’s a reason why most of us carpet our homes in the same colour - for continuity and flow.

Perfect for hiding red wine spillage

Wait, what’s this? Under the hideous red appears to be a second lot of flooring. Black tiles with red and white swishes of colour. Ugh! Don’t know what’s worse the red carpet or these things. Up they come.

What are these awful tiles?

Speaking to our new neighbour and inviting him in for a tour of the house, he just happened to mention that the black tiles which I’d ripped up with gay abandon might have been vintage thermoplastic tiles. Oh no!

Old thermoplastic tiles

A quick consultation with Doctor Google confirmed my worst fears. These old-fashioned tiles sometimes laid down as a damp proof course in by-gone days could contain asbestos. F**k!!! I might not live to regret this. Not only have I probably reduced my lifespan by chiselling them off with a screwdriver, no gloves or mask worn but I also took them to the tip, unbagged, and dumped them in the generic household waste section thus potentially endangering the lives of everyone working at the recycling centre. OMG! Are you nuts?

With hindsight, I should have just left them in situ. They looked so harmless. And ugly. How was I to know these might be bronchial-killers?

Well, it’s too late to cry over spilt milk or asbestosis. What’s done is done and what’s worse is that the man from Tapi Carpets said not a dicky bird when he popped round to measure up for the new floor so clearly, he was as unaware of this scenario as I was.

Too late I've taken them all up

I might jest on here but seriously, a word to anyone involved in renovating an old house particularly one built in the late 50s/early 60s – always check online before removing any materials such as old flooring, artex or boards under fascias as chances are these might contain the dreaded ‘A’ (asbestos) or other toxic substances and may have to be removed professionally.

I’m hoping that as the floor is being screed to bring it up to the same level as that of the downstairs toilet and kitchen then that will be enough to encapsulate anything that might become a problem at a later date. 

My other concern is that in removing these thermoplastic tiles, I may have created a colder surface for us to walk on by taking away the ‘thermal’ covering laid on top of the original concrete floor. Only time will tell.

Ready for new flooring

WHAT IF?

There’s a game I sometimes like to play when I’m at a loose end that I call the ‘WHAT IF?' game.

‘What If?’ is the result of an over-active imagination and too much free time on one’s hands. The rules of this game are simple. To play ‘What If?’ grab a cuppa, a comfy seat and choose a scenario. It can be anything you fancy from dropping litter to travelling to the moon and back. Now, spend hours musing over what might happen if the world at large did or didn’t do that specific something. What outcomes could arise?

I find that pondering on hypothetically extreme scenarios staves off boredom in retirement as well as providing much needed exercise for those little grey cells that have no doubt gone into hibernation since I quit the workplace. You can make your scenarios as ridiculous as you like such as imagining what might happen if everyone in the world only wore pink spotted knickers.

After the recent energy ‘pants’ cap announcement, I got to thinking with my ‘What If?’ hat on and asked myself this: What would happen if everyone in the world got solar panels? And in my ridiculous scenario, I mean everyone. Every mud hut, igloo, tree house, cave, skyscraper, shack, tent or any form of dwelling/building anywhere on the globe. Stick a panel on it, generate your own power.

OK so that is complete nonsense because not every structure is built to support solar panels but I mean, think about it. What would happen if EVERY house or building in the UK got solar panels?

Let’s see. In just a few minutes, these are some of the far-out hypothetical outcomes my brain came up with:

• Cheaper electricity bills as you’d only pay a standing charge.
• Increased sale of batteries to store all that power.
• Demand of electricity from the grid reduced.
• Energy suppliers’ profits plummet due to lack of consumption.
• Energy companies go bust.
• Ofgem would have to rethink all its policies and pricing mechanisms.
• Standing charges would rocket to prop up ailing suppliers.
• Smart meters would become mandatory by law.
• Risk of cyber hijacking of smart meters.
• People working at energy supply companies would lose their jobs.
• Increased burden on UK taxpayer.
• Rising house insurance premiums due to risk of roof fires.
• Increased pressures on emergency services.
• Increased risk of cowboy solar panel/battery installers.
• SEG payments stopped due to excess power being sold back to grid.
• Grid infrastructure overload.
• Detrimental impact on power station operation.
• UK becomes major exporter of renewable energy to other countries.
• Government’s excessive renewable energy export income reduces taxes.
• Reduced national dependence on fossil fuel imports.
• Less emissions better for the climate.
• Increased solar radiation as protective 'pollution' layer removed.
• Rise in skin cancers.
• Collapse of global economies dependant on gas or oil sales.
• Increased illegal migration as people struggle in countries facing economic ruin.
• Jobs created in UK solar related industries such as panel servicing or battery replacement.
• World’s supply of precious minerals decimated to produce batteries.
• Used batteries create environmental waste hazards.
• Waste hazards impact eco-systems to cause mass extinctions of species.
• Loss of animal habitats due to mining or land given over to solar energy production.
• Rise in artificially created food stuffs.
• Planet and even possibly the moon raped in the mining of precious minerals.
• Global wars erupt over mineral rights.
• Disruption to financial markets due to over-supply of renewable energy.
• Population over dependence on solar energy.
• Lack of research and development on other energy types.
• Re-nationalisation of electricity.
• AI data centres mushroom.
• UK population re-trains in manual trades.
• Government housing target smashed as no lack of skilled labourers.
• Housing market crash.

And the list could go on and on, limited only by your imagination because when you play ‘What If?’ there are no financial constraints or global politics to consider. It’s all in your head where anything’s possible no matter how silly or improbable.

Of course, the major spanner in the works would be the unexpected arrival of a giant meteorite or the death of the sun. No sun, no solar power.

OMG! What if there was no sun? Here we go again.

ENERGY & EPR PAIN

Depeche Mode once sang about ‘a pain that I’m used to’ and this morning’s energy price cap headlines confirmed that pain.

It’s a pain that I’m getting used to at least 4 times a year because since the ‘pants’ cap was introduced back in 2019, all we’ve seen is our bills steadily increasing as illustrated by this fabulous bar chart produced by Bionic.

The 'Pants' Cap

It won’t be long before each bar is consistently over the £2K mark especially if the trend for non-payment of bills continues or supplier’s start going bust as a result of ongoing wars pushing up wholesale costs. Smaller companies that can’t afford to hedge by buying cheaply in advance are going to struggle to weather this storm. Oh yes and naturally, Ofgem will protect them by pushing the cap upwards.

Muppet Miliband’s great push for more renewable energy sources is noble but flawed all the time the cost of electricity is wedded to gas prices. That divorce has long been overdue but I suspect it won’t happen in my lifetime. Any remaining UK industry, already on its knees, will be left without a shirt on its back too before anyone sees sense and de-couples this pricing mechanism.

War is also playing straight into Ed’s hands in that issues affecting LNG (liquified natural gas) are going to give him carte blanche to push up gas bills exponentially especially as the UK imports about 15-20% of the country’s gas supply.

My guess is that what we’ll begin to see on our bills is a continued harmonisation between the cost of electricity and gas. Given time, it’ll no longer be cheaper to have gas cooking or heating because it will cost exactly the same as electric. Good news for UK plc as it won’t need to pay so much for imported gas, bad news for Punter plc as we’ll all be paying through the nose.

Luckily, germinating beans requires zero energy other than that produced for free by the force of the sun’s rays. Almost within days of planting my last lot of seeds, germination has succeeded thanks to a combination of this unprecedented May heatwave and a few scoops of top soil. NO peat-free compost was used in the making of this production!

Hurrah!   Beans have sprouted

Beady-eyed readers may have noticed that instead of using a fancy propagator, I’ve used a re-purposed plastic container following a tasty chicken drummy dinner. And this brings me to a new ‘pain’ that we’re all going to have to get used to – it’s called EPR or Extended Producer Responsibility.

EPR is a new environmental levy about to be foist upon businesses who produce or supply items that create waste packaging. Its intention is that by charging manufacturers for unsustainable packaging, companies will design more recyclable products thus reducing the waste management burden.

Of course, as we all know, any Government levy or tax on business in any way, shape or form is never simply absorbed by companies from their profit margins but is immediately passed down the line to the end user. Expect to see food prices increase to cover retailer’s additional costs of EPR as the Government’s not going to back down over this policy.

So, the pains we’re getting used to: increased energy costs, food and petrol prices, rising inflation and if this heatwave continues – water shortages. 

Get ready for that hose-pipe ban. I can feel it in my water!

SUMMER OF FUN

Woo hoo! A summer of fun! 

Discounted tickets. Free kids’ meals and bus rides. Wahay!

There’s a cost-of-living squeeze that’s tighter than my dowdy denims especially after chowing down on all those holiday cakes/biscuits yet what does this Government do? Rather than address some of the REAL pressures that affect everyone’s lives such as controlling or reducing prices of energy, fuel and food, they decide to cut VAT on the cost of theme park tickets and give kids free bus rides.

Right. So, what about peeps with no kids or who don’t like theme parks? Any help for those punters?

Okay so they’ve temporarily shelved a 5p increase in future fuel duty which is just as well seeing as how the Treasury has been the main benefactor of higher pump prices. What they could have done is immediately cut existing fuel duty by 5p per litre and mandated this reduction across all forecourts instead of leaving it to retailers to pass on which as we all know, they never do.

Alright, so we were given a discount on our energy green levies of allegedly £150 earlier on in the year (April). Well let me tell you how that has panned out for customers of the pink cephalopod.

Green levies are generally part of the infamous ‘standing charge’ that all energy customers pay per day regardless of consumption. With that in mind, if the Government is offering to remove some of the green levies then logically, you’d think that there would be a reduction in the amount payable in daily standing charges because that is where suppliers usually hide these costs.

WRONG!  The pink cephalopod instead applied a small reduction to unit costs. Kerching! With summer approaching and most central heating systems switched off, there is bound to be a reduction in your consumption. So, if a discount is applied to unit rates, how much of that alleged £150 reduction to your bills do you think you’re going to see in your costs after April? It certainly isn’t going to be £150.

If standing charges had been reduced then we might ALL have benefited by the amount proposed by the Government in last year’s budget as energy suppliers could have simply knocked £12.50 off your bill per month until £150 discount had been achieved.

And do I think that reduction to unit costs is going to last right through to year end or at least until I next turn on the boiler? Unlikely because the energy price cap review in July will no doubt push up prices thanks to the war in the Middle East. That £150 ‘help’ off bills is nothing more than a figment of your imagination and clever sleight-of-hand from the Reevemeister.

Let’s turn our thoughts to theme park tickets or tickets to any other attraction that we might be tempted to visit with our little darlings during the school holidays.

When we purchase these tickets, do we ever see a full breakdown of the cost? Does your receipt show the base cost of entry with 20% VAT added on? I don’t recall ever seeing this in the past but then I’ve never really paid attention to it. Without this breakdown, how are you going to know if merchants are passing on a VAT reduction?

Say, for example, that you want to buy a day pass to Alton Towers. Currently, the online price for one of these is around £39 which is quite a chunk of money to pay for a bit of summer fun.

This ticket price would break down as follows:

Cost of entry - £32.50
VAT 20% - £6.50
Total Price - £39.00

Now let’s imagine that Alton Towers is going to pass on the Reevester’s VAT reduction in full. The price of summer fun would now look like this:

Cost of entry - £32.50
VAT 5% - £1.63
Total Price - £34.13 – wow, that’s almost a fiver off!

Ever the cynic, I can’t actually see museums or attractions passing on this discount because let’s face it, they’re having to pay more for energy, wages, etc so what I think will happen in this example is that the basic cost of entry will increase by £5. When lower VAT is then applied, the overall ticket price remains exactly the same. What this means is that the proposed Government discount is being given to help struggling businesses and NOT you.

To test out this theory, I’m going to keep a beady eye on ticket prices of a few local attractions/theme parks to see whether or not their online prices go down.

Again, the key thing about this perk is that the Government has once again left it up to the merchant to pass on the discount. Somehow, I can’t see struggling businesses giving punters reduced entry fees and free kids’ meals (a double discount for families) when they’re being squeezed hard like everyone else.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. And besides, most kids don’t catch buses because their parents prefer to drive everywhere in their humungous Chelsea tractors in case their legs drop off.

I may sound like an old killjoy but remember - the money to cover all of this ‘free’ summer fun will no doubt have to be found in the next budget so don't be surprised to see taxes going up.  It's a repeat of  'Eat Out To Help Out' and look what happened there.

PRIME SUSPECT

I’ve been away for one week and look what’s happened - the Government’s imploded! Collapsed in on itself like a deflated bouncy castle. What’s this country coming to?

Not-quite-out-on-his-ear Keir is yet to set out his resignation timeline but his days are clearly numbered. More’s the pity as although he’s got the personality of a cardboard cut-out, what this country needs is a steady, boring type at the helm and not some gobshite renegade that will further trash our already precarious economy. If he goes, the chancellor is sure to follow as her popularity is on a par with gloopy semolina pudding.

In bygone times, your neck would have been on the block

Given the choice of the three successor stooges available – Rayner, Streeting, Burnham; a combination that sounds like a firm of dodgy accountants, I can’t see anything but a titanic disaster coming our way. Get your lifejackets ready for the autumn budget. It’s going to be a choppy ride.

Politics has become like football with prime ministers or premiership managers ten-a-penny. What’s needed to stabilise the state of this flailing nation is consistency, not continual leadership changes or in-party bickering. It’s the Tories all over again!

And as for that Zack Polanski, don’t get me started. There’s not enough cyber space available to fill with my thoughts on his crazy policies particularly those on illegal migration. 

Yeah Zack, let’s just open the floodgates to every Tom, Dick or Harry who wants to fleece the taxpayer of every hard-earned penny. We’ll give them all a big welcoming lily liberal hug then shower them with free taxis, hotels, healthcare, etc, etc. Then we can all stand back to watch as this island slowly sinks to the bottom of the Channel under the weight of over-population. Over my dead body. Vote Green? I’d rather pull my intestines out through my belly button!

It’s going to be an interesting political summer for sure. However, of greater importance are my veggies or rather, lack of. Has anyone else noticed that seeds this year are not germinating very well? Even the Ancient Mariner whose fingers are a damned sight greener than Zack is struggling to make any sense of the non-appearance of his runner beans.

Only 4 bean seeds have germinated

My dwarf beans have failed to materialise and the tomatoes I have managed to get to germinate are struggling to say the least. What pathetic specimens! 

Why aren't my tomatoes growing?

The only thing that’s gotten off to a good start are the carrots and chard which are happily thriving outside.

Carrots doing well

Hate to say it but my guess is that this situation is largely due to that awful peat-free compost we’ve been forced to buy in the interests of saving the planet. I’m now mixing my compost with either top soil or soil from the garden in a bid to try to improve growing capability.

I've stuck some new seeds into a tray of dirt positioned on a sunny windowsill. Let’s see if this next lot of beans will do any better now that I’m back to nurture them into existence.