Cllr. Gavin Ayling

With a ridiculously busy week in front of me I thought I’d relax this evening with Day of Defeat Source… Steam’s creation, though, is not working and I’m being kicked out regularly.

Grrrr, Steam.

So I’m gonna watch some West Wing instead. Just thought I’d whinge.

Like all good Brits I believe in self determination. So when asked (openly) in a petition whether Scotland should prepare for a referendum on independence, I feel it is my duty to sign it.

It’s here if you want to too.

James Higham’s got an interesting new take on the blog roundup (he couldn’t, afterall, compete with Tim Worstall’s Britblog round up).

You can read it on James’ Nourishing Obscurity blog, although whether I should have linked to it depends on your viewpoint (see the bit about Oliver Kamm).

I’d add that the internet (and society generally) is changing so fast that ‘normal’ people have no hope of keeping up. So if you already knew about Webcameron or knew that Google had paid £900 million to provide the search function on MySpace then you can consider yourself not-normal.

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On Webcameron, I wanted to make this a separate post but it seems pointless now that I’ve mentioned it. I just wanted to observe that, while it may make some people physically sick and while it does seem a little too pink, the whole idea of allowing slightly less polished presentations to be made (no matter whether they’re staged or not) is an interesting path for politicians to take.

I’m going to avoid the obvious reality TV references but I think this really will make people start to question whether politicians are different because they’re different, or whether being a politician makes all observations of you appear as though through a prism. If Cameron can come out of this looking like a normal person who has to do that politician bit, then its been a success.

The way to solve climate change, say those who think humanity is making the most difference to the world’s climate; and that it is more important than elderly people freezing to death in their own home or African children being born into a life of war, famine and prostitution, is to use micro-generating power stations.

So, in the spirit of this, Currys have recently announced solar panels and B&Q are now stocking wind turbines and solar water heating. And their literature points out that you can obtain up to 30% of the purchase price back in the form of government grants. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether it’s a good use of taxpayers money, but this money is not so easily received as you might have imagined.

Is it right (this is a question though you can take it rhetorically) that to save a small amount of money on the price of a wind turbine, you must pay a lot of money (more than the cost of the turbine)? In order to qualify for a grant for a wind turbine, for example, you must have 27cm (about 11 inches) of insulation in your loft; you must have cavity wall insulation (if you have cavity walls); you must use exclusively energy-saving lightbulbs (which are too dim in some circumstances) and you must have thermostats on each radiator.

I understand that the government want people to save energy in all ways (not just try and make it cheaply) but surely it is better that a household makes green energy and wastes a little than wastes a little and does not make green energy.

It is a false economy not to use energy saving lightbulbs, but it is true economy not to try and obtain a government grant for green energy sources.

Stupid.

From Iain Dale: