2015 — 9 May: Saturday
I nearly overlooked1 E-ON's annual summary of my electricity and gas consumption that arrived yesterday. My use of gas (for heating, hot water, and cooking) has crept up year-on-year by 4% to 16,047 kWh (costing £663-79). I simply (some might say "lazily") leave my central heating system on 24x7 and rely on the thermostatic valves on each radiator to do their control-freak thing. I therefore assume the difference is either a colder winter or (unlikely!) perhaps an extra tad of cooking.2
As for electricity (lighting, and my toys — hi-fi, video, PC) my use has dropped year-on-year by 15% to 2,993 kWh (costing £409-06). I attribute this drop mostly to the LED3 bulbs now installed throughout the house, and partly to my switch from spinning rust technology to SSDs.
I continue to rely, heavily, on my electric kettle to boil precisely one cup of water each time :-)
Proof?
It's now time (06:59) for my next cuppa! Lovely sunny morning out there, and the music is grand.
Some of the items...
... on this list of nine post-election reasons to be cheerful amused me. This one, in particular:
Why? Well, it's true, for starters. Though that's no reason not to be nice to one another as we rotate.
I was blown away...
... by the exotic Brazilian first track "Metaphors" played on the BBC's always excellent "Building a CD library" this morning. The CD featuring that track is now on its way to me. BTW, FWIW the puny search capabilities of Mr Bezos' little online store seem to me to be as nothing compared to those of Mrs Google.
I've just junked...
... the latest (ever more desperate) attempt by the bearded entrepreneur to inveigle me into using both his broadband (up to 152 Mbps) and cable TV and save me £386 in the first year on a range of film, entertainment and sports options I would pay to avoid. I don't know what my demographic is, but I do know what it isn't. And I doubt Mr Branson supplies music of the quality of last night's "World on 3", either. Namvula is half-Zambian and half-Scottish... and she's all-musical.
Next Wednesday evening's "Live, in concert" also looks very promising, featuring an Oud player joining the Academy of Ancient Music. Should be a blast.
William Giraldi...
... reviewed the same book — Scott Timberg's "Culture Crash" — three months ago. Here's today's snippet:
Timberg pays homage to those who once spent their days enriching the public with their knowledge of records, movies, and books. He and his subjects wistfully recount tales of the excitable nerd behind the counter who ignited their passions; of the vibrant bricolage of yesterday's Main Street, now supplanted by faceless chains...
To ascribe self-effacing nobility to working in a video store, record store, or bookshop is to promote the sentimental idea that mere proximity to culture outweighs the benefits of decent pay. Even before the Internet and the chains began their ascent in the late 1990s, there were few people working in independent bookstores
whose salaries put them anywhere near the middle class.
To my annoyance, I was unsure of the meaning of "bricolage". [Pause] Nor had I met the concept of "segmented sleep", though I must say that seems quite natural to me these days. (Link.)
I was looking back...
... through a wodge of emails between me and Carol to see if I could find any plausible reason for not having read this excellent book...
... when I actually bought it, rather than this afternoon — a mere nine years later. I found this:
I'm now in some imminent danger of joining you as a person of leisure (I jest), as — if I read the runes right — my job (such as it is) is expected to transition smoothly over to Bangalore sometime within the next 18 months. Did you know you could buy the services of two or more Indian Davids for one incarnation of the genuine article?
We have made the mistake of saying that we have 37 extra person's worth of Java work to do beyond the current plan and have been told by some doubtless macho senior exec that, although he wants all that extra good work, he can make no extra money available for same. Hence the genius idea to trade off further UK jobs against Indian ones. So my next task is to devise an imaginative exit strategy that will permit me to start picking up my IBM pension (not that it's terribly heavy, of course) and stop going into the Lab. Preferably at about the same time, of course.
Early retirement remains at the company's discretion. Trouble is, Dr 3rd-line finds my services useful (and Mr 1st-line says he'd simply have to recruit a replacement for whatever portion of the 18 months I'm not there for) so I was not given much immediate encouragement of receiving said discretion. However, I had foresightedly already laid some of the groundwork by establishing with Mr 1st-line that I did not want/intend to work on much longer now that C is actually picking up her State Pension, and I had got him to the point where he was therefore already assuming I'd be a "gone-deal" on something like an 18 month horizon (before this particular bit of excrement hit the fan). Timing is, as ever, everything.
I think it's not unreasonable to conclude I had other things on my mind... It's an excellent tale, well-told.