Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Help The Aged

Hello There,

I hope you are well and yes I successfully survived the 3 mile+ road run last week. Im still on my stress busting mission - hence Ive done another 5.5 km this evening with my personal trainer Mrs Tillbrook ! It takes my mind off all the strains of the day(s) and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is suffering from anxiety or those damn negative demons that sometimes come into your life and you may find difficult to exorcise?

On a much more serious note - look at this picture - its awful isnt it? You can feel the cold in this lady's bones. One really positive point this week so far - June Whitfield. What a super lady ! June is championing a Help The Aged led campaign to highlight fuel poverty within our senior population and the assistance and advice householders can obtain free of charge. June even mentioned the Warm Front scheme on BBC Breakfast news - I bet the phones at Eaga were ringing off the hook! However I suspect that June's tip to stuff old newspaper against the outside door to prevent draughts wont be covered by any grant (lol). I think its fantastic that June mentioned that assistance was available from all energy suppliers - not just Gritish Bass.

Its great that such a high profile charity is getting firmly behind this major issue - especially when older people may be particularly worried about rising fuel prices. Anyone watching the Panorama programme last Sunday on the price of gas supply to the UK may well have cause for concern.

Similarly the sight of Malcolm Wicks MP on the Rough gas field off the East coast of England in a bright orange boilersuit should have put those minds at rest. Apparently we are presently able to store up to 11 days' worth of the country's total gas supply at this facility. The same place that was subject to a serious fire recently which its now revealed reduced the available supply at the time to just 2 days !

It was also interesting to note that the spokesperson from Centrica (BG to you and me) did concede that as soon as wholesale gas prices started to reduce, the benefits would be passed on to all their customers - we shall see how long this takes and how many customers they sign up to fixed price deals before they cut their tariffs? I guess its watch this space...

Much would appear to depend on how many gas fields and pipelines of reliable supply remain once Russia has snapped up most of the critical mass in mainland Europe. They havent done anything wrong - its just good business sense. The problem that we have results predominantly from our appalling record of storing our own resources or practically giving away our own high calorific content domestic supply (North Sea gas)?

Add this into the mix alongside poor energy efficiency and lack of public awareness and its a recipe for disaster. However as Professor Stern mentions its not Doomsday .... yet.

And dont get me started on the Arctic - watching Planet Earth on Sunday left me in despair about the polar bears' plight. Blimey I havent bawled at something on the TV like that for ages - it was very upsetting but blatantly poignant. Sir David Attenborough is just such an absolute God - its not just what he says about such issues, its the way he says them and the reverant respect that he commands effortlessly.

I know, lets put Sir David in charge of EEC and our Climate Change policy - far superior to the David we have right now?

In the meantime please add your voice to June's - lets shout this from the roof tops (preferably those that contain up to 270mm loft insulation)

Enjoy the Wednesday exploits and make good choices (from Mandy again x)

From Your Friend The Energy Angel

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