Off Topic And Now for Something Completely Different

France, for instance, isn't suffering in the same way because a great deal of its power comes from its own nuclear power stations.
Norway and Sweden generate lots of hydroelectric power; in Portugal, half of the energy supply comes from water or wind.
Germany tends to avoid problems because it's burning a huge amount of coal. Ditto in Poland, for example.
That's quite handy for the security of supply, albeit it's very bad for the environment, as well as people's lungs.
And there's the UK, which leans heavily into natural gas, with its soaring price.
Britain not only uses a lot of natural gas but has limited capacity for keeping it in storage, so has to rely on imports.
After Brexit, the UK left the European Union's Internal Energy Market, and there's little doubt that the supply process, between Britain and the EU, is now more clunky than it was before. But, fundamentally, it's about the global gas price rising, rather than simply in Europe.
And there are other important issues. Normally, the UK's supply could be supplemented by energy sold to us by France, and provided through the interconnector between the two countries but, as bad luck would have it, that system has been badly damaged by a recent fire that will require lengthy repairs.
At the same time, a number of the UK's most important nuclear plants are not working at full capacity and the recent calm weather has starved the grid of wind power.

So, a bit of a perfect storm.

 

It's ok, the situation is easing by the day .....

 

Excuse my ignorance but while that explains sustainability and resilience issues why is that we now pay more for the same lump of gas than anyone else in Europe does?

(storage is woeful in comparison too though)

 

Don't know! Just that there's more to it.
Anybody else?

 

Well the Govt know
It was all reported to them as an assessment of what would happen if we left the EU prior to 2016
Increased prices and reduced storage were flagged up then (although mainly storage was hit in 2017 when Centrica closed a huge amount to save money…for their shareholders presumably)

Anyway we pay more…much more…than the rest of Europe

 

I read where they're stopping off at greasy joe cafe's and offering £100,000 a year to drive for the supermarket chains.

 

There is an increasingly serious shortage of bus drivers across the UK now, many bus services are being temporarily withdrawn as a result. Bus drivers are getting jobs as lorry drivers where they can command higher hourly rates, and bus companies seem resolute in not upping their wages, exacerbating the problem.

That said, you don't need to sleep in a layby and **** in a box when you're a bus driver.

 

I saw an article in the paper a couple of weeks ago saying that Waitrose were advertising for drivers at £54k a year!! As you say bus drivers with the appropriate licence will bail out of their own jobs fairly rapidly...The supermarkets will have Turkey's at x.mas but we'll have no ****ing buses to go and get one!!!

 

Bus ****er!

 

Just what is your problem with bus drivers!!

 

My mistake, cheers

 

A big part of the shortage of bus drivers is the number isolating due to covid. A psv is a separate licence and training to HGV, and being regular schedules to designed points, a very much easier job, hence being a much lower wage.

 

Yeah, I spotted that too, but thought 'minor detail'

 

You need a bus to go and get your turkey at Xmas, how bl**dy big will it be?

We manage to get one in a plastic bag!

 

It has to be big,the Cratchit's like their chuck...That Tiny Tim can ****ing eat!!

Anyway, "God bless us every one"..

 

My luck appears to be in!

 

I would disagree with that. Bus drivers constantly deal with passengers, some friendly some horrible, handle cash, remember a complex range of tickets, wipe down puke off the back seat between journeys. Truckers do none of that.