Good
morning everyone.
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For
the second time in less than a week, we have been subjected to a
power cut. On both occasions, power was not restored until around
05:45 and was certainly "off" for at least 1 hour. Power
cuts are common in the Bride Valley area of Dorset, particularly
during the later part of the year, specifically late August through
to mid to late March. This is particularly galling since the vast
majority, if not all of the homes in this area are reliant on
electricity as the sole source of energy. There is no pattern to the
cuts which can occur at any time of day, or in the instances today
and as during this week, at any time of night.
If
these cuts are associated with "routine maintenance" (which
I do not believe for one minute) then it should be possible to advise
users that power will be "off" during a specified time.
However, where power cuts occur at random, for an unspecified
duration with monotonous regularity, it pushes the concept of
co-incidence a bit far. I appreciate that (yet) another privatised
company is responsible for the actual supply of power and that
Scottish Power or Southern or EDF or who ever, is only responsible
for the collection of money for supply to individual home accounts,
however, it is not unreasonable to expect that they have some kind of
formal contact with the supplying company and would be able to
impress upon them that constant and irregular power outages to homes
reliant purely on electricity for cooking, washing, domestic
appliances etc. is intensely annoying and unacceptable.
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| Liberation when in service |
A
survey of passengers has revealed great dis satisfaction with the
Condor Ferries service between the mainland, Poole, and the Channel
islands. Large numbers of islanders, particularly in Jersey, are very
fed up with Condor and its "Flagship" Liberation which came
into service in March of last year, and has spent much of the time
since then having running repairs carried out on engines, or out of
service completely having more serious repairs including hull damage,
carried out in dock.
There
are now growing demands to bring Condor operations back to Weymouth
and return to a two vessel operation to improve services and reduce
crossing times. Personally, I am not to concerned about time of
crossing and would prefer to see ferries operate out of Weymouth with
two Ro/Ro conventional ferries. One leaving St Helier at 22:00 every
night and one leaving Weymouth at 22:30 every night. I always used
this form of crossing when it was still operating and found it both
convenient and comfortable. Still, when have Condor or the States
ever listened to what the passengers prefer?
British
Home Stores has finally closed its doors across the country
consigning its workforce to an uncertain future. There is also the
unresolved question of the £571 million "black hole" in
the BHS pension fund and Green's plans to "fix" the
problem. For the former 20,000 BHS workers it cannot be very
comforting to hear that Green will pay an as yet unspecified sum,
provided that the regulators drop their investigations into Green's
activities. A not very subtle exercise in blackmail.
The
former workforce are also surprised and probably concerned to learn
that Green has
been
"working
to resolve the problem every day
for 18 months". As always seems to be the case with this awful
man, lots of rhetoric, words and statements of intent between
quaffing glasses of Dom Perignon 1934 and scoffing Beluga caviar on
Fortnum and Mason biscuits.
He should be in the dock instead of swanning around on one or other
of his yachts.
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There
was, and I suppose, still is something a little unsettling about
Keith Vaz. Perhaps it is his mannerisms or the quiet, almost sinister
tone of his voice or the invariable appearance of "neatness"
with suit and tie or maybe, a combination of all three. Whatever it
as, it was there. Perhaps that is what was so surprising about this
weeks story in almost every newspaper. Despite all the rumours from
previous years, the
few revelations and allegations all of which were quickly passed
over, it was with some mild surprise that Keith Vaz was so publicly
and completely exposed as a hypocrite, leading an almost secret
double life. From Chair of the influential Home Affairs Select
Committee, to political, social and personal disgrace in just a few
hours, we shall not be seeing much of
the suits or hearing the quiet voice very much in the future.
A
story in today’s New Agenda on Sunday, amongst numerous other
interesting articles, carries the threat (or promise) that, "Next
week could see hottest September day for 100 years with temperatures
reaching 31 degrees".
Good job that I did not put the fans back in the garage then.
Have
a nice week, (even if it does reach 31 degrees)
John
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