Posts

I did hear either on the radio or television the other day that it is the Governments (and it wont make no difference which one) that it's their hope that the majority of the UK homeowners, by doing so this will take care of us in our twilight years should we need looking after by the state. On the flip side those that are renting will still need their rent to be paid, the state pension wont be enough to cover it and I doubt very much a private one will either. 

Well according to Zoopla my house has gone up by £39,100 for the year. Its only good if your selling I guess but I have seen a huge increase in property prices around where I live and have seen a few hovering around the £0.5million mark. My next door neighbour knocked one evening a few months back and asked if I'd consider selling to him, seemed a bit of a strange request to me.... Anyway I told him that when he manages to find the other £100k on top of his offer I may consider it haven't heard from him since

Now that the US federal reserve has raised interest rates by 0.25%, the UK will no doubt follow suit in the next few months so we'll either see some frenzied buying now or people will be frozen out of the market even more... Not sure whether the current housing market is good or bad either for owners or those wanting to own their own home or for those renting as either wages need to rise extraordinarily to pay for it or the house market crashes... One or the other needs to happen.......

Well the share price plummeted since the initial news broke out earlier in the year this is mainly down to the lack of the flow testing results (suppose to have been done during the summer) The CEO resigned to start a new venture out in Cuba and and the share price dwindled down. But the worst culprit in the downfall was parliament / Government for up until yesterday they were against fracking, now they have had a change of heart and voted to allow it. What many people don't realise is that the UK has been extracting oil from the ground in this country for over 50yrs, only now the technology on how to get it has changed.

No Government is going to object to another source of income especially on it's own soil. The flow rate test result is critical though. Independent tests have been carried out and both of these tests came back positive. I'm quite optimistic about the end game, now that Parliament has fully backed the idea of fracking it will be full steam ahead on extracting oil and gas from beneath our feet... My only issue with it all, is on the one hand you have the Government saying ok lets go and get all this oil and gas and on the flip side telling everyone to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels to save the planet. So don't expect cheaper fuel prices as this will be no more than another taxable income stream for the Government whilst trying to convince us mere mortals it is taxing us to save the planet.... 

If the Daily Mail readers have anything to do with it.... We'll be out

Forgot to mention about the flashing amber lights and the white halogen floodlights

Where I live we've just had and in some areas it is still going on, every house in the neighbourhood has been drilled under and roads dug up for National Grid to install new gas mains. This has been going on for the last 3 months, now the council has sent everyone a letter to tell us that for the next 3 nights they'll be digging up all of the road outside outside my house so they can raise it 4 inches so the teenagers at the local school can cross the road safely. Taking into account that this road is completely grid locked first thing in the morning, not one child has been hit by a vehicle in the last 40 years from this school, the work could have been done in daylight hours in conjunction with National Grid, all I can currently hear is the alarms of reversing vehicles going back and forth and JCB diggers vibrating....For someone who only ever sleeps for around 4 hours I'm not too pleased.... 

Hi John, don't bank on smart meters to solve your problems, in fact you could find yourself with another headache with the new not so smart meters. As to your other issue with the current bill I think the UK average combined energy bill both gas an electric is roughly £1250.00. My customers ask me how much will their electricity bill be when they change their heating to electricity, the truth is providing they go on the right tariff and use the heating wisely then their costs rise by around £100 a year, it all depends on the type of heating system they choose to have. Have had a few complaints that their electricity bill has gone up by around £500 a year... Then I remind them that their gas bill has gone down the equivalent amount. 

For you to have a £3200 bill, kind of beggars belief especially if you live in a flat. Unless you have a heavy demand appliance such as a boiler or hot water immersion heater on say 12 hours a day I cannot see how they arrived at this figure, even if you did the appliances would shut down on temperature so there would be no demand. The only other exception I can see for this to be possible other than a faulty meter is that over the last 5-6 years they have only done estimated bills and now they have done an actual meter reading and have billed you for the discrepancy. Having said that somewhere in the back of my head I was told once that all energy companies have to read / inspect all utility meters at least once every 2 years, have just googled that and it is a legal requirement 

I can still remember when it was cool to walk the streets with a mobile phone the size of a brief case which held a total charge for around an hours use.... We were pioneers in the 80s... Nowadays I can fit 4 mobiles in my back pocket and not worry all day whether I will run out of charge... Lithium is the way ahead for the motoring industry, were still probably 10-20 years away from before we get 300 miles plus per charge but eventually there'll get there. Will always need oil though without it the wheels won't turn, planes won't be able to fly or ships sail...

This particular insurance company has a dedicated website made by some disgruntled customers, trawling through it yesterday a guy paid something like £180 for his bike insurance with this outfit, he made no claims throughout the life of the policy. The following year on auto renewal they upped it to over £1000 and thanked him for being a valued customer... He tried to cancel and they told him it would be £36....what I'm annoyed about is that even though I had cancelled the direct debit mandate online with Halifax which you have to imput a password to carry out such an action, also notified the insurance company in writing, that they can set the direct debit back up without my consent or knowledge. If that is the case then direct debit payments aren't really a safe way of f banking as it would be possible to take payments 3,4, or 20 years later as long as they had previously taken payments...