Off Topic Grumpy Old Farts Corner

Only happened to once. In Greece of course where everything runs to a different timetable. We only had emergency cash but the restaurant owner merely said “come back and pay me tomorrow”. Which we did. I suspect if that had happened in the UK. I’d have been required to leave a body part as a hostage.

 

Went into a shop once where the tills had died a death due to a power cut. This is a true story. I bought 10 items for 10p each (it was some time ago). The young lady behind the counter wrote down on a paper bag each item individually so that would be 10 times 10p. I stood there whilst she attempted to add the column up with a one pound in my hand. Eventually she said "That's a pound then". I opened my hand and to her surprise she said "Oh you have the right money". I just said thanks and left given I couldn't bring myself to say more.

I have been in places several times where it has been cash only. There is a fault with relying on cash generally though. When that happens strangely I end up paying no matter who I'm with.

 

Yeah I find that too! I do usually get my pasty bought for me at Home Park though..,.

 

The results are in from the consultation on energy standing charges. Unsurprisingly, there are many out there who’d like someone else to pay their energy costs for them and an army of charity workers and pressure groups who get paid to make sure that happens.

Taxes are far far too high and an army of idlers who are much happier on benefits than working and a generation coming into adulthood who don’t intend to work, ever. We have a cohort of parents and children who don’t see the point in attending school.

There has to be a safety net for those in need through no fault of their own. Pensioners have paid their dues during their working lives. The rest need to look after themselves.

 

I'm not happy having to pay tax on my pension.....isn't that a back-door approach to being charged tax twice.

 

Your pension contributions were deducted from your pay before tax was paid during your working life. Therefore you are only paying tax once on the amount.

 

Is that all pensions....or just state pension.

 

All pensions.

 

All pension contributions into normal schemes are deductible up to 100% of your income in the year.

However, not all you pension comes from contributions. In schemes other than the State Pension, you pension contributions are invested by the pension fund and the resulting growth in value of those investments and income into the fund add to the value you eventually get. Those investment gains are less sheltered from taxation than they used to be. You do therefore suffer some taxation within private pension schemes behind the scenes. Then the pension itself is taxable when it comes into payment.

The 2024/25 Single Persons State Pension will be £11,502. The point at which a single person starts to pay Income Tax is £12,500 and this will not rise at least until 2026-27. If inflation continues to run at 5%, by then the State Pension will be pretty much consuming the entirety of the tax allowance. That's a joke considering it's barely enough to keep a bird alive and will mean100% of your private pensions will be taxable.

I'm currently paying 3.9 times as much for 1 kW/hr of electricity than I am for gas. I'm also paying 2.1 times as much for electricity standing charges per day than I am for gas. Electricity is bloody expensive and I'm sure if you look at your bills they'll be much the same.

You've already been forced to use electricity instead of gas because the government has insisted that all washing machines and dishwashers are cold-filled. Only only one inlet valve: you can't feed it with water heated with cheap gas any more you have to feed the machine cold water and let it heat it up with expensive electricity. They are of course talking about banning the sale of gas boilers at some future date.

The standing charges include corporate overheads and all that but also in there are the costs of the pipes and wires and sub-stations and pylons that bring the stuff to you. As we move to greener energy, many, many more pylons and cables and substations are going to be needed to connect to thousands of little wind and solar farms.

The greens like to say that solar and wind are the cheapest forms of generation: cheaper than nuclear for example. I've got a very strong suspicion that those costs are struck at the point of generation not at the point of delivery, so increased (and still increasing) network costs ending up in your standing charges are being air-brushed out of the picture.

So I object to standing charges being hidden away in the cost per kW/hr for two reasons:

1. While I don't object to helping the temporarily unfortunate, the sick and the old (of which I'm one!), I already pay too much to subsidise the feckless who don't take responsibility for their own lives. Indeed, I'd be happy to pay more for the former if I paid less for the latter. I've got a bigger than average house and ceilings that are 12 feet up, so we do use and pay for a lot of energy. I also already pay a fair share of the network costs. I don't want to paying for someone else's, thanks.
2. Hiding away energy standing charges will help to hide the cost of the shift to green energy. I can't help wondering if this campaign is pushing at an open Government door as the Government would be quite happy to get a little more fog over the cost of the whole thing. Again, I understand we have to go green but let's keep the costs out in the open.

 

So an electric cooker is a disaster....it's bad enough seeing the smart meter ringing the bell at the top end of the red scale when the kettle is on.

My dearest has the habit of putting the kettle on and going off to do something else whilst it boils....of course she is never back at the right time....so she turns it on again and low and behold she is to impatient to wait for it to boil and off she goes again....I just cringe in the corner....I don't know how many times I've mentioned it....i just as well stand out on the pavement dropping coins down the street drain.....it's probably cheaper.

 

We all have our little foibles Plym.

I like lamps. They are warm and homely. If I'm at home and awake, they're on in all the downstairs rooms, day or night. But they all have energy saving bulbs of some sort so they're probably taking 40 watts added together. Just speaking hypothetically, I shouldn't be criticised by anyone who wangs on 3 loads of washing when the weatherman says "rain" and then bungs the whole lot in the tumble drier, should I?

Of course, that is another bit of energy saving bullshit, that you save money by turning off lights. You do, but it's pence. The real reason they want you to do it is that added together all over the country, it saves a lot of CO2. So say that then.... not that it saves the individual money.

What actually saves you serious money is heat not light: hot water, central heating, cooking.

 

I can remember when we first got married in the 1960's.....we where adamant that we wouldn't be like our parents.....who turned out lights as they went from room to room.
We just left lights on....but that wore off after a few years .

 

Yes but each bulb used to 40 watts minimum . Now you get the same amount of light out of 3 watts.

 

Gas boilers are not being stopped now for a while , new builds soon.
But as of the 1 Jan 2024 the Government have put a levy on gas boilers this year of max 150 depending on supplier. this is so that we all switch to heat pumps and this is the the suppliers or manufactures getting fined for not hitting heat pump targets so thats passed to us. Next year it rises..
Yeh we fit heat pumps and renewables and have done for 10-12 years,, very expensive and very difficult is a lot of houses to install and costly even tho there is 7.5 k grant you stil will need another 6.5 for the instalation as radiators need to be changed and a tank fitted ..

 

I should probably consider myself lucky I’ve just had to buy a new one then!

 

My gas boiler is less than a year old.......but a Heat Pump as an alternative was never mentioned and I never asked.

 

I think there’s significant doubt whether they are the answer for most properties. Is it something ridiculous like half of our houses were built before WWII in the Victorian and 1930’s building booms? They aren’t intrinsically efficient enough to be heated by a heat pump. Then there are the huge numbers of flats.

Certainly one wouldn’t work here. No cavity walls, conservation area so no external cladding, Victorian town house garden so nowhere to put it!

I don’t see they are going to do much else but look at hydrogen in the existing gas pipes.

 

MY MOANS AT THE MOMENT.

1.....Turning Greater London into a ULEZ area too quickly.

2.....Phasing out gas boilers...but not having a working alternative for all types of property.....plus excessive cost.

3.....Phasing out petrol cars.....the cost of electric cars and the lack of electric charging facilities nationwide means limited travelling range.....plus the fire potential with electric.

4.....Phasing out of banking facilities on the high street.....and the squeeze on the use of cash.

5.....Forcing the use of mobile phones to acquire car parking.

6.....Supermarkets limiting us to how we pay for our purchases....dwindling staff operated checkouts...forcing people who are not comfortable using self paying checkouts.

There must be many other things being forced upon us...to make us conform to a certain way of having to live.

It took awhile years back to get used to filling your own car with petrol.....and of course having your windscreen wiped over by the attendant as he fills your tank up with petrol.

Even my new gas boiler is more difficult to understand.....the manual that came with it looks like it could challenge ...War & Peace....for the amount of pages.

The simple act of adjusting the pressure has become more complicated......the old boiler....two adjusting taps underneath the boiler took only moments to use.....the new boiler...you cannot get to underneath the boiler...instructions didn't seem obvious...because there was 2 or 3 different ways for different models covered by the book.....went online and found an idiot proof demonstration video......I couldn't get underneath my boiler without removing the bottom plate....fiddling for ages to find the release clips.....on the inside of this plate was a key thingy....which you had to struggle unclipping...this key then went into a hole which meant getting your head into an uncomfortable position to locate....you had to turn the key thingy till it went into the hole fully....if you turned it the wrong way you depressurized it ?......then you had to tap your way through the digital read out till you found the right program and then turn the key....it told you that as you turned the key a little dribble of water would come out to start with....by now my back was complaining about the uncomfortable position I was in....oh for my old easy to use boiler that would single up a fault code number to tell you how to correct the problem.

I feel a lot better now.

 

Advocating smaller glasses and measures when selling wine. That one is shocking.

 

A comprehensive list even by my standards.