It's all about the rising cost of energy and the level of bills that we will soon be experiencing. Firstly let me say that we use as little energy as possible during the day. We try not to put the heating on until 3 pm at the earliest and later if possible - sometimes 5 pm. We turn it off when we go to bed as neither of us like to sleep in a hot room which we find unhealthy. We also stop putting it on as soon in the year as we can.
I feel so sorry for people on the breadline who cannot pay their bills. In a modern society this is a tragedy and sadly the energy companies aren't exactly struggling. It means all our costs will be going up. Inflation will be going through the roof and people with savings will find them seriously eroded.
The point that is going to make me unpopular is a personal view and one that could seem uncaring. We always hear about those struggling to pay, but others are ignored. I won't struggle to pay the increases but it does mean we will have to cut back on certain things (like having heating on).
But the point is, I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, neither was my wife. We were both born into working class families, although mine did impinge on middle class. My father was a television engineer and my mother a school cleaner. My wife's father worked on the railways in Yorkshire. When we got married our bank balances were virtually zero. We had to be very careful about how and what we spent. As a young reporter at Beccles my lovely boss used to send us on the jobs where food was available so that we would get a good feed. Ok we weren't penniless but we didn't have money flooding out and had to be very careful for a number of years.
Over the years we worked hard, we saved and we invested our money wisely and that gave us the lifestyle that we have today. We have never claimed a penny in benefits, but we have never been in a position where we couldn't pay our bills. I feel so often we are the forgotten people. Yes we now have a very nice lifestyle but it is something we have worked hard to achieve. It isn't something that has just fallen into our laps. Nobody has chucked money at us. Yet there seems always to be this view of "it's ok for you. You've got plenty of money."
Rant over. Do let me know what you think about this.
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Yesterday I mentioned taking on the editorship of Good News magazine. This is mainly a church-related mag, although we are slightly changing its focus to include more news and features.
don't know how many people have seen the film "Belfast". We are going to see it on Saturday (hopefully). Our Rector Derek McClean was born and brought up in Belfast during The Troubles. I'm hoping to have a chat with him soon about his memories which will make a nice feature for a number of publications including Good News.
I did a little research into the Rev Charles Bullock who was editor of the magazine that included a sheet from Hethersett and which I highlighted yesterday. He sounds like a fascinating character. He was born in 1829 and educated at St. Bee's College, Cumberland. He was ordained in 1855 to the curacy of Rotherham and moved in 1856 to Ripley and then to Luton. In 1859 he became curate of St. Nicholas', Worcester, and held that post for 14 years during which time the church was restored at a cost of £3,000 and a rectory was built.
In 1874 he removed to Blackheath, in order to devote himself to the dissemination of pure literature. He edited magazines including The Fireside (first published in 1864), Home Words, and The Day of Days, for Sunday reading. In 1876 he founded Hand and Heart, as a penny illustrated Church of England newspaper.
It later changed its name to The Church Standard. He wrote "The Way Home or, the Gospel in the Parable," "England's Royal Home," "The Home Life of the Prince Consort," "Doubly Royal," "What Church? or, The Only Faith and Fold," "Words of Ministry," "The Best Wish," "Earthly Stories with Heavenly Meanings," "The Syrian Leper," "The Parents' Gift: a Help to Early Prayer and Praise," "Heart Cheer for Home Sorrow," "The Forgotten Truth," "Hugh Stowell: a Life and its Lessons," "The Sunday-School Gift," "What do we owe Him?" "Can Nothing be Done?" "Within the Palace Gates," and "Robin's Carol, and what came of it." Obviously none became bestsellers but he did leave a small indent on literature.
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I do like to highlight rip offs - after all none of us wants to pay more than necessary. A few days ago I booked tickets to see Curved Air in concert in March in Norwich. The tickets are priced at a certain level (obviously), but when you come to book out another £1.50 is levied as a charge for printing out the tickets. But get this. The tickets are sent via e-mail and the £1.50 charge is for me to print out the tickets on my printer using my ink and my paper. This is a ridiculous charge that basically means I'm paying for nothing. I know it's not much but it is a rip off and an unnecessary charge. There are lots of these charges for booking things - money for old rope as the saying goes.
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Back to energy companies, although this comment applies to lots of things. We never seem to stay the same... everything changes and as somebody once said without change we would all still be living in caves. But sometimes something that works really well is changed and doesn't work as well. I actually find that is usually the case.
It always annoys me when you get used to a layout in a shop or supermarket. You get to know where everything is and where to find it. Then they change the lay out and change where things are and that leads to confusion. They do this in an attempt to sell more of different items in an enticing kind of way. As if you are going to say "last week they had apple pies on that shelf and today it's carrots so I will buy some carrots." Life just doesn't work that way and all it achieves is confusion and frustration.
Same thing with websites. You just get to work out how to use one and it gets changed. You have to set up new passwords and put your details in again.
We have solar panels and each quarter we have to send a reading to EON in order to receive payment for energy generated. Usually this means logging onto a website where my passwords are already entered and sending them a reading. It takes a minute at the most. Now suddenly they've changed things with a new look website where I need to log in again with a new password. It took me two phone calls and a good hour to get this sorted and then I found I couldn't enter my readings anyway as they had changed the date for readings and I have to wait another month. This was despite sending me an e-mail stating that the latest readings were due. Rant over.
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I remember one of the biggest shocks for me of going from Junior to Grammar School was the way I was addressed. Suddenly masters all wore gowns and carried mortar boards. Occasionally they put these on. But we were all called by our surnames and I didn't find that very friendly or conducive to learning. I'm sure that practice has long gone.
The first form I was in at Grammar School was 3X. No idea what the X stood for. We had a lovely form master by the name of Mr Sewter who was nicknamed Sooty. He was a kindly and young teacher who I remember with fondness. But he was the person who had to introduce our being known by our surnames. It seemed rather alien.
I remember on one occasion he was taking us for Latin. He wanted to illustrate a point about Roman Legions and this involved shouting out a name. So he bellowed "Chard" at the top of his voice. Isn't it ridiculous how silly little things like that stick with you?
Now the point I want to make is that on Wednesday we went to sit on babies, sorry babysitting which is a nonsense term for looking after a nine and almost seven year old. Anyway grandson Elliot has been picked for the Norfolk Under-11 cricket squad and he's got all these smart new tracksuits and shirts. The shirt has Steward 22 on the back. He was most proud to have his surname on the back of his shirt although he had no ideas what the 22 referred to. A few years ago he had a Norwich City shirt which had Elliot 99 on the back. Now those two numbers add up to 111 which in cricket is referred to as Nelson. It's just an old superstition that in cricket the number 111 and any of its multipliers e.g 222, 333, 444 are unlucky. There are a number of ideas about why this is one of which refers to Norfolk son Horatio Nelson and which is rather rude and a reference to the body parts he lost in battle. But enough of that and enough of this interminable waffle.