WORLD CUP CHICKEN

It’s staying home, it’s staying, chicken’s staying home…

We’re not a competitive family. Well, not that much. Let’s just say there’s a strong desire in all of us to be winners, not losers so whenever there’s any kind of competition, pub quiz, sporting event, etc then naturally everyone goes all out to be top of the heap.

The World Cup tournament is no exception. When it comes to footie, there are long-standing family traditions to abide by namely the winning of the World Cup Chicken.

Three wings on a shirt, Chicken cup still gleaming…

The World Cup Chicken Trophy

This trophy almost as prestigious as the real one resides at the front of our cocktail cabinet, emerging every four years for the family footie sweepstake.

I can’t even recall how I acquired the thing – probably scooped up on some bygone charity shop shopping trip but even with its badly hand-painted exterior, beady eyes and random gold spots, it is a thing of beauty. It’s also the perfect repository for our pound coins, entry fee and prize money for our sweepstake. Due to inflation, each coin now acts as a token fiver as that’s what the winner receives from each participating family member.

Place your bets

Teams are drawn totally at random, names written on scraps of paper pulled from a Tupperware container that’s ceremoniously passed round in a flurry of laughing and much larking around. Even at this stage, competitive banter abounds as teams as loudly cheered or booed before being hastily jotted down then officially circulated on a spreadsheet to prevent any allegations of cheating or corruption.

The draw

Once drawn, that’s your footballing lot. No selling or swapping of teams with other family members is permitted. Your destiny or path to lifting the Chicken is completely in the lap of the Gods or rather the numpties on the pitch.

But it doesn’t end there as someone’s got to update the spreadsheet. Guess who? It’s the person with the least interest in football but who loves tinkering with spreadsheets and has nothing better to do since leaving the rat race. I’ll have you know, I take this job very seriously. I may not watch any of the games but believe me, rigorous checking of results follows.

To keep up the family fun, I email the spreadsheet round after each major stage in the tournament accompanied by some frivolous punditry, banter and other tongue-in-cheek remarks designed to gee up everyone.

As teams get knocked out, things get quite high-spirited as anyone still left in at this stage is mentally drawing up a list of things they’ll spend that prize money on (all of £36) and hoping they’ll be the one who gets to keep the Chicken for the next four years.

If Spain reach the final in any given World Cup year, there’s a family pilgrimage to the Ancient Mariners house to watch ‘El Partido’ (the match), sink a few beers and be proud of our Spanish heritage. Faces painted in red and yellow and wearing a motley assortment of footie kits, red T-shirts or random Hispanic themed garments to cheer on our team. Vamos! It’s such a hoot!

A tense finale to this year’s tournament between Argentina (daughter) and Spain (other half), with the best team giving those barging Argies a deserved thrashing. GOL!!!!!!

Spain lifts the trophy

World Champions 2026 - Spain

Having lifted the Chicken, scooped up his winnings, the other half has proudly hung his Spanish football shirt out of the bedroom window so that all the neighbourhood can see that in this household, it’s Viva Espana and not Three Lions.

What will the neighbours think?

BURN 'EM!

I don’t like Mondays, least of all those Mondays where a new Prime Minister is being ushered in to No 10.

The question in our household is not what policies will be proposed by this new incumbent but how long he’ll last in the hot seat. There’s another 3 years until the next general election and at today’s current PM replacement rate then we could easily see one, possible two more in power before we hit the polling stations.

Any other disappointed Muse fans reading this post? Well, weep no more at the lack of decently-priced tickets for their gigs for I have discovered the antidote to this dynamic pricing snake bite which I’m going to share with the world at large. It's Cydonia Knights.

A brilliant tribute to Muse

Cydonia Knights are billed as the UK’s premier Muse tribute band and having checked out their grooves last Friday night at The Brook, Southampton, I can honestly say that unlike Ticketmaster, they didn’t disappoint. Great gig!

They may have lacked pyros or the over-the-top visual stage show that usually accompanies well established bands but musically, I shut my eyes and was instantly transported back to my favourite Muse album – The Resistance.

‘You’re beginning to sound like Jeremy Corbyn’s sister’ groaned the other half as from my bar stool I began to spout forth on how the dynamic ticketing menace could be quashed once and for all if every gig-going punter voted with their feet en masse and just stopped buying tickets. 

Hype. Demand. Price Hike. That’s the formula used to manipulate fans into coughing up more than is decent to watch musical acts but if there were no audiences then surely things would have to change? Up the revolution! That’s what I say (fist pump).

Tribute bands – the closest you’ll get to your heroes at a fraction of the price. These are the unsung stalwarts of the music world. And just to give you an idea of how cost effective it is to follow these bands then here’s a numerical example to put things into perspective:

Cheapest single ticket for Muse at the O2 London on Ticketmaster = £113

Single ticket for Cydonia Knights at The Brook = £15

Seven fans can go to see a Muse tribute band for the same price as one Ticketmaster seated ticket.

Another thing about tribute bands is that whilst many of them may not physically resemble those that they are paying homage to like The Devout (Depeche Mode tribute); they often give fans a better listening experience usually playing longer sets so you get more bang for your buck.

These humble bands are not hampered by having to promote a new album so can deliver all those popular favourite tracks beloved by fans plus throw a few obscurer album tracks into the mix. Tracks that many real bands rarely play live. Yeah, Radiohead. I still remember your gig at the O2 where you failed to play ‘Creep’ – the track your fans were most desperate to hear on the night.

And so, this brings me neatly back to our new PM. Is he the real PM thing or just a bad tribute to a band of manipulative, cowardly, Labour party reprobates who will throw him under the political bus as soon as he shows he’s got a mind of his own and isn't toeing the party line?

‘Burn ‘em!’ is what we’re all likely to be shouting after the next Budget.

NHS - NOT GOOD ENOUGH

Can’t we just fast-forward to autumn? I whined to the other half as we plodded round Worthing last weekend, sweating like pigs and chugging down water like it’s going out of fashion. This super-hot summer has become almost as tedious as all that tennis on the telly.

It's funny how all media reporting has failed to highlight the impact of this year’s ‘El Nino’ weather phenomena on current conditions, preferring instead to hammer home the point that the reason we’re all frying is pretty much our fault. Oh yes, should I mention 1976? That mother of all heatwaves. And also, an El Nino year.

Like the proverbial elephant, I remember summer 1976. Catholic secondary school. Early teens. Lessons under shady trees on the school playing fields. Knee high socks could be swapped for ankle socks or sandals. For once, ties banished to the outer recesses of your floordrobe. Hurrah! There were no school closures in them days.

Hot weather is no laughing matter for the elderly or infirm. Now is definitely not a good time to get sick. Not that there is any particular period when going down with a bug or two is preferable but in today’s NHS world, patients may as well be sat under a shady tree on a school playing field because trying to get a quick or timely diagnosis on anything is pointless.

The saga of mother’s chronic conditions continues. I’m now on her GP’s speed-dial as in my role of care-concierge, calendar updater, prescription collector and chauffeur to the ancient wonder, I am also first in the chain of command on all things medical.

‘Eez bed neeuws’ uttered the good doctor in an Eastern European accent that would have gone unnoticed in the Kremlin.

This ‘bed neeuws’ or rather bad news, is that the NHS’s Iron Curtain Deficiency Clinic have refused to accept mother’s referral for further investigation of her ongoing anaemia and iron deficiency on the basis that her ‘markers’ appear borderline. In their view, she doesn’t meet the ‘criteria’. What criteria would that be exactly? The criteria that her anaemia may not be a sign of something seriously wrong with her?

I held my tongue as the doctor read me the letter of response sent by the specialist department. Outrageous! I thought as an explosive barrage of expletives detonated silently in my head. I appreciate the NHS is skint but to play God with sick people’s lives is beyond the pale. Who in the NHS will take responsibility if mother deteriorates further whilst waiting for someone, somewhere to conduct specialist investigation of her conditions? It’s a ***king disgrace, is what it is!!

What’s even more outrageous, is that according to Doctor Google this situation is not new. Reading this article published in May 2022, it seems this practice is what the health service prescribes at large:

https://www.patientsafetylearning.org/blog/rejected-outpatient-referrals-are-putting-patients-at-risk-and-increasing-workload-pressure-on-gps 

Happy to provide advice and guidance but anything like proper testing, in-person examinations or specialist consultations then forget it. Not a good time to get sick, not now, not ever.

As I’ve said many a time on this blog - pushing out care into the community, things are only going to get worse as time goes on. The NHS has thrown up a blockade so formidable that not even Trump can bomb his way out of it. Seeing your GP is going to be the end of the line for most of us. Anything else and it’ll cost you. Privately.

There’s not a day goes by when some poor bugger has had to resort to private healthcare in order to get drugs, surgical interventions or access to new treatments that would not otherwise have been possible on the NHS. The media is full of these tales. The sad thing is that once-upon-a-time these stories would have been an exception, now they’re just the norm.

It just isn’t good enough!

BOOKING.MEH

Cyber life is becoming more and more of a gigantic pain in the arse as time goes on. Websites that could once be trusted to delivery a quality service or product now appear to be nothing but platforms for shysters.

Rapidly going down the shitter in my estimation is that popular website Booking.com. Where once you could select guaranteed hotel or other types of accommodation for a reasonable price, now it’s become a repository for foreigners offering sub-standard rooms that blow you out at the last minute throwing a gigantic spanner in your travel plans.

It has been my misfortune to be at the receiving end of these practices not once but three times in the past few months. Cheap accommodation booked for concerts well in advance, cancelled just days before travel leaving me fuming and totally in the lurch.

Cancellations happen – yeah, I get that. Sometimes there are mix ups with room bookings, etc. Nobody’s perfect but when this starts to happen regularly particularly during dates when there are multiple big events or concerts happening at the same time especially in London then I start to get a bit suspicious.

Take my room booking for this weekend for example. I’d booked 2 nights at a property in Woolwich more than six months ago costing £64 per night. Bargain price for a weekend in London. I messaged the property mid-June to confirm my time of arrival as they’d requested.

Then today, two days before I’m due to jump on a train to the Big Smoke. Wham! Sorry, your room’s cancelled. There’s been a double booking so sorry, you’re getting canned. Tough.

What! Exactly when did this double booking occur? You failed to mention this 3 weeks ago when I messaged so I can only assume I’ve been given the boot either because the Hyde Park festival is on or because England miraculously qualified for the World Cup quarter finals and are playing Norway this weekend. Maybe you’ve found another sucker that’ll pay more for a bed than I am or you’re having all your mates round to watch the footie.

Either way, I’m now as mad as hell because I can’t get my train tickets refunded so £42 out of pocket.

My previous cancellations followed the same pattern. Harry Styles plays Wembley so my cheap rooms booked in Camden got unexpectedly cancelled and so did the replacement rooms at the Colonnade Hotel. Bit of a coincidence or what?

Needless to say, I shall in future be using Travelodge, Premier Inn or any other bona fide hotel chain if I feel the need to visit the City so your loss not mine.

Let this be a warning to anyone out there that is using Booking.com to snag themselves a bargain break. Be prepared for last minute heartache and headache. Should you be using this platform then make sure that whatever arrangements you’ve made are fully refundable even if it means paying that little bit extra for travel or accommodation.

RE-DESIGNED CAT LOO

Tut, tut, tut, Andy. Your toe's not over No 10’s threshold and you’re already upsetting the applecart with your Nanook of the North plans. 

Your desire to turn back time to a pre-Thatcher era is a brave move I’ll give you that but unless you’ve unexpectedly discovered a gold mine under Larry the Mouser’s litter tray then it ain’t gonna happen without loads of dosh which even that muppet Miliband can’t miraculously magic up.

Why do you think Thatcher privatised everything in the first place? It wasn’t because she wanted to live up to promises of turning plebs into shareholders. 

No – it was because the Government couldn’t afford to run the utilities; those unionised environments being a complete money pit draining Treasury coffers of every single penny. Same for council houses. They got sold off so that local/central authorities wouldn’t have costly maintenance headaches to continually fund.

Agreed that privatisation of essential utilities was a bad move, we're now seeing the dire repercussions of that policy but re-nationalisation of these industries is only going to work if they're run with an iron fist.  

And as for your plans to ‘Manchesterize’ the world – seriously? Whatever next?

Re-distributing the wealth of snooty southerners to fund crap hats and coats? Somehow, I don’t think your newly found politico mates are going to allow that without a fight. But hey, your shenanigans are at least helping to alleviate the boredom of endless footie and tennis on the telly so crack on.

Back at the funny farm, I’m tackling sporting monotony by re-designing Bertie’s kitty loo because:

• a) I’ve got nothing better to do with my retired time
• b) I’m too tight to pay for an enclosed cat loo.
• c) There’s a Manchester sized pile of MDF offcuts cluttering up the garage that need using up.

Cats are very clean creatures but every time they pop off for a pee, a shingle bank suddenly appears on your flooring. To hold back the tide of kitty litter, I’ve designed a high sided box for Bertie’s tray to sit in. The extra tall sides should help to contain any mess and keep it off my new LVT floor.

BEFORE - looks untidy

How can I stop cat litter getting out?

Here’s how to make your own high sided litter tray container out of MDF:

First take a nice piece of chunky MDF or OSB then pop your cat’s litter tray on top. Using the tray for reference, draw a rectangular shape a few inches larger than the dimensions of the tray. Cut to size. This piece will form the base of your new structure.

Cut rectangular base larger than your litter tray

Work out how high you want your box to be. My box has 40 cm high sides/back but a shorter 14 cm high front piece. Basically, you are making a rectangular box with a short front for the cat to hop into.

Once you have worked out your measurements, cut four pieces of MDF – two rectangular pieces for the sides, one for the back and a shorter one for the front.

To prevent jabbing myself in the eye when cleaning out the litter tray, I’ve rounded off the front corners of each side piece. This can easily be achieved using a plate to create a nice curved shape. Place plate on top of your MDF rectangle near the corner then draw along the curved edge. Repeat for the other side piece. Cut your shaped edge using a jigsaw. Sand any ragged edges.

Use a plate to create a rounded edge

Next cut some lengths of timber batten to fit the internal dimensions of the box. Line these up along each outer edge of the base panel to make a frame. Using thin wood screws, fix the battens to the base screwing in from underside. Remember to countersink all screws so that no heads stick out.

Use timber battens inside box to secure panels

Using a flat surface, position the first side panel so that it sits outside of the base. Make sure front and back edges are aligned so that nothing protrudes. Countersink and screw side panels to the internal battens in a neat line. Repeat for the remaining sides.

Front panel screwed to battens

Back panel screwed to internal battens

Use a strip of small batten attached along the top inside edge of the front and back panel pieces to reinforce the structure.

Smaller battens fixed to top of back and front panels

Voila! A box to contain your cat litter tray. Place plastic tray inside to check it fits then prime/paint in whatever colour you fancy.

Litter box enclosure ready to prime & paint

No more cat litter to pick out from between toes or carpet. Okay, so the screw heads do look a bit clunky on the outside but it's only a cat litter box and I can live with that.  If you want it to look perfect then either glue it all together or use a nail gun.

Cat litter tray sits nicely in new high sided box

You can even colour drench your new kitty box enclosure to match existing décor so it doesn’t stand out from the crowd.

AFTER - Meow!  I wanted a blue one

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!