Broken Biscuits

As a self confessed kayaker who would be more accomplished given less work and more leisure time etc , I just saw this on the BBC website and I now have a big grin on my face: 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7735439.stm

Typical that Welsh Water have condemmed this - especially given that Wales is one of the worst countries in the world for access to good canoeing rivers...(see http://www.riversaccess.org/ for details)

You've got to love the somersault at the end

I was listening to Radio 5 last night and the subject came round to the household gas and electricity suppliers.

Apparently there's a Commons Select Committee that has been looking into the energy market in terms of dodgy dealings in switching suppliers and also the lack of competition that the current commercial arrangements bring to the market.  The view expressed was that OFGEM was not speedy enough in reacting to some cases of mis-representation by energy supply companies and also that the market wasn't working - as evidenced by the view that gas and electricity prices are linked to the price of oil when it goes up, but apparently not when it goes down.

I'm not going off on one (again) about that - but lets just recognise that the price of oil is now around $56 a barrel and has been below half its peak value for the last month...

Anyway, before I stray too far, the point of this post was that the other night, I answered the door to a couple of youths purporting to represent one of the electricity companies.  One of them had a list with my name on it, and after confirming my name and that I currently paid my bills by direct debit, launched into an immediate patter about how he could save me £120 a year on my gas and electricity bill.

He also mentioned that 'Jane' from Number 24 had signed up and was going to take advantage of this major saving opportunity, which apparently was all the evidence I needed that this was the deal of the century, because everyone knows just how astute 'Jane' is..    He then told me that all I had to do was read the meter in about six weeks and that would be it, so could I just sign on his sheet...which was when my internal scepticism alarm went off.

I was a bit suspicious of this whole doorstepping sales approach - I personally don't feel happy when someone tries to give me the hard sell  - and its rare that anyone will talk me into a decision without letting me see any evidence to back up their claims.  So I refused and the aforementioned youths wandered off to pick on someone else on our street.

It was only afterwards that I thought about what I was being sold - basically they knew nothing of my circumstances, which tarriff I was on, did I have insulation & double glazing, how much I paid per month, what the state of my boiler was, whether I primarily used gas or electricity for heating etc... so the only thing he could have been referring to when talking about my potential savings was the fact that I paid by direct debit.  Which leads me to the conclusion that all he was selling to me was a £120 discount per year for paying using this method.  There was no comparison of tariffs, no talk of usage, only that I would save simply because I didn't pay cash or cheque.  The salesperson on my door step wasn't telling me any lies, but was extremely careful only to promise a £120 discount on my bill, not a reduction in what I was currently paying to my existing supplier. 

This is exactly the kind of mis-representation that was being talked about on Radio 5, and the reason it stuck with me is that this issue was supposed to have been addressed by the industry, and yet it seems to me that this mis-selling is still going on.

Doesn't time fly, eh?  This weekend we took Georgia to see her first gig.  At this rate it won't be long before she's off to uni...

Jamie and John had bought 6 tickets to see Scouting for Girls at Wolverhampton Civic hall on Saturday night, so at lunchtime we closed the door on our dust fulled house with its still-not-finished extension and drove down to Coventry to J&J's.

After a restorative cup of tea, followed by a livening beer, we walked to the station, and got the train to Wolverhampton at 4:45.  This is the first time I'd ever been out in the city, having previously only used Wolverhapton as a cut through between the M6 and the M5 on the occasions when there is midlands motorway gridlock - anyway I digress (as usual ). 

When we got off the train it became fairly obvious that the Wolves had been playing at home, which meant finding somewhere to get food was slightly tricky as most venues that sold both food and drinks were busy and also were manned with door staff.  Anyway, after asking a policemen, we found our way to a bar/restaurant that managed to meet our needs for pre-concert food and drinks.

As it was Georgia's first gig, it was decided to let her get the full money's worth from the tickets and so we wandered over to the Civic Hall at about 7:45 - as luck would have it this was a good move as it was now raining, but the door queues were very short, making it easy to get in out of the rain.  On the under card was some bloke with a guitar (sorry whoever you are if you read this - I didn't catch your name amongst your rather bizarre waffling intro) and a band called The Days.  Both were competent performers and did the required job of warming up the gradually filling hall. 

In addition a couple of pints of cider also did the required job of warming up yours truly.  Georgia and Emily decided to leave us old fuddie duddies and go further forward towards the stage as SFG came on.  As you'd expect from a band with a large teen following, there was lots of good humoured shouting and singing along - mainly by the accompanying  mums, which made the whole thing very enjoyable, although my impression was that the band have written a lot of their songs to a plan with the same theme...they do all sound pretty similar.  Anyway all good fun. 

That is until Georgia found herself feeling a bit hot and sicky because of the crowd and heat, so had to go out for a cool down - Jane took her out so they missed one of the songs, but managed to get back in right at the front next to the stage.  Cuh!   True to form Jane also got told off by security for climbing on the speakers for a better view .  Unfortunately we had to leave the hall at 10:35 to make the last train back, so missed the encore, but had that was tempered by the happy experience of meeting The Days who had decided to meet and greet everyone leaving in the foyer - nice touch lads - and it must have worked cos I still remember who you are

We spent the last week on holiday - in Thornton Le Dale - a village just to the east of Pickering in North Yorkshire on the road to Scarborough.

It was really nice to get away for a bit of a wind down.  I've been travelling rather more than I like with work recently - I've had 4 trips in the last 8 weeks - 3 to the US and one to Hungary - so it made sense to spend the half term week away to just chill for a bit. 

We rented a cottage that slept 6 (2 doubles and one twin) and we went away with Nancy and Tony.  The cottage was really lovely - about 265 years old, but it had been decorated and fitted out immaculately.  I'd attach some photo's only Emily forgot to pack the camera charger, and so we didn't take any .   In lieu of our own photos, here's the online brochure: http://yorkshirecoast.sykescottages.co.uk/cottages/2001.php

Anyway, there were two bathrooms, 4 loos, a really lovely sitting room plus a fab kitchen/dining room.  Also it gave us the chance to road test our new kitchen as the sink and cupboards were identical to the ones we are currently having fitted.

The village of Thornton Le Dale was lovely - a small river runs through the village, plus it has all the amenities you'd expect - 3 pubs, two bakeries, a general store, two tea rooms and a chocolate shop .  It was also only 2 miles to Pickering, which has more of the same, but on a bigger scale, so we walked there a couple of days too - so we could work off some of the calories gained by lazing about.

We had a couple of trips out to Scarboroough (not all that impressed), Whitby (really fab with fantastic fish and chips), Eden Camp (WW2 Prisoner of war facility, now a museum) as well as the aforementioned trips to Pickering.  the weather was cold but mostly dry - apart from one snow shower and a little overnight rain.  Whilst we were in Whitby, we encountered a rather higher than usual proportion of Goths - our arrival just happened to co-incide with Goth Week, with various music entertainments being available for those who like to wear black.  Why would Whitby be associated with Goths?  I puzzled over this until in the tourist information shop I found out that Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in Whitby.  Now it all made sense .