one_ian_taylor

Listening on 5 live "Villa can't seem to get a foothold in the game". Depressingly familiar. When did we last have a manager who was proactive in making changes?

You'll be waiting a long time for support for solar PV - after removal.of the feed in tariff, I don't think there will ever be support for PV again apart from possibly changes to the smart export guarantee. The payback on PV is probably better than it ever has been right now (excepting the early days of the feed in tariff), though it depends on how much of it you can use at home. Batteries help you use more obviously, but I'm not sure they are quite there yet. A hot water tank like a mixergy would be another option to make the most of PV - would basically mean free hot water during the summer, but most homes don't have hot water tanks

Bit of a myth with heat pumps that you need to have the building well insulated. While ot might be better to do so, it's possible to make a heat pump run well in any building if it's designed and run properly. Most heat pumps are designed to run at a lower temperature, which may mean you need bigger radiators and the right sized pipework (ironically new build homes can be some of the most difficult to retrofit because of microbore pipework). Where heat pumps have failed in the past, this has often been down to poor sizing of the heat pump itself and design of the system. A good heating engineer will tell you how they would be able to make a heat pump well in any building The very niche and nerdy BetaTalk podcast goes into a lot of this at length. Good episodes to start would be "5 common mistakes with heat pump installs" and "Can every home have a heat pump". There are a few issues though -first one is the relative price of gas to electricity (roughly 1:3 ratio), so even if a heat pump is working at 270% efficiency (1 unit of electricity in gives you 2.7 heat) compared with a likely 85% (or more realistically 75%) efficient boiler, you are still better off doing practical draught proofing and insulation to bring down running costs and help improve system efficiency. Cost is another one, disruption of installation (e.g. for those new builds with microbore pipes), and siting of the heat pump/planning. Most heat pumps will also require a hot water tank - we got rid of most of ours with the switch to combi boilers and space now needs to be found. There's been some coverage recently of boiler efficiency/optimisation. Amazing it has made it into the news. But it feels like gas boilers get a bit of a free ride when in fact many of them aren't working to the stated efficiency. Partly because they are running too hot (set up to 70 degree flow temp when 55 would use less energy and create less wear and tear), pump speeds are set too high, and the heating system (controls, radiators) are not set up/maintained as they should. There's a terrific amount of wastage from boilers not running properly, particularly from condensing boilers never getting into condensing mode.

Great spot - I think what you're saying is let's sign Dele Alli and play him with Sanson. We'll be unstoppable.

I guess an old fridge feeezer would use a reasonable amount, so with a few other things on while you're away, 4 kWh sounds high-ish but not ridiculous. Tumble dryer is a big culprit, but obviously that won't have been on while you were away. 1 load per day will be around 4 kWh I'd guess. Dishwasher and washing machine maybe 3 kWh between them (depending on setting/cycle). That leaves 4-10 kWh per day on other appliances, which is really high - if you have a plug power meter (costs under a tenner) it's worth going round and seeing how much you're using for different things. Do you have an electric shower? Everyone is different and has different needs, but for comparison, we're a family of 4, one newborn so at home a lot with plenty of washing. Typical daily use during the summer is 8-10 kWh including hot water and cooking. Washing always dried outside in summer. In winter we have a heated drying rack, which probably doesn't use loads less than a tumble dryer, but does mostly heat the kitchen.

Seems a little high. But the 15-21 kWh of electricity per day seems huge - what's that used on? Is your hot water and cooking (including hob) electric?

This isn't quite as crazy as it sounds - social prescribing is already a thing. What this would mean is rather than paying to keep everyone's bills low, you target it at the people that are most likely to die or need to be hospitalised, so protecting other services. The basic idea has been around for years, though it's usually "warmth on prescription ", I.e new heating system and insulation to make a home fit for purpose and reduce risk of hospitalisation. The problem with the above is that the policy quoted in the Sun above doesn't fix the long term issues, and a failure to do anything meaningful about housing stock's energy performance for decades (and particularly the last 12 years) means that it's a desperate idea, coming far too late

This post can't get enough likes. "New year's eve fundraiser wirh Russian oligarchs' wives to build a legal fund for sex pest MPS. This must not, I repeat not, turn into an all night rave" ("And it's fine to join in")

bats at 8 sometimes - what are we waiting for?

Onana sounds like a bit of a rocket polisher

Are you sure?

I thought it was a convenience store

Apart from the c. 20k people who already die every year as a result of living in cold homes. And that was before the price increases

Don't know about those. Have heard Captain Calamaris is hood. Then there's also those blocks which have a load of different things on them, letters, numbers, pictures etc and some rattle etc - can't remember what they're called.

I had to seriously question whether it was real or a joke about halfway through that

I know he's thinking Russell Crowe in the Coliseum but it's giving me more of a Wolf in the NIA with a baying crowd brandishing big foam fingers kind of vibe

Clearly something was leaked about a move to a claret and blue club - someone assumed Trabzonspor. Romano assumes us. There'll be a few surprises no doubt when he ends up in Scunthorpe

I'd maybe swap Cowans for Platt, but otherwise yes for me

It's very Thundercats. Which I'm not saying is a bad thing

Give me Castrol GTX on the back and I'm in. Preferably on a bomber jacket though

He'd most likely be out for the marjoram-ty of games. Oregano sign him really? I'm sure some think it would be mint. I think they're as daft as Basil Brush.

Or is Purslow talking up McGinn's value and talking down Bissouma's (odd way to get a player to want to come to us admittedly if it was)?

Ok, I'll have a go. This is far too early in the summer. This transfer saga should have dragged on much longer. VTers have been cruelly deprived of the opportunity for a 360 page thread consisting of 4.9% bad Twitter rumours one way or the others, 0.1% actual news when he stays put/signs for someone else and 95% fish puns. I for one feel utterly bereft.

Anyone remember when Sophie's in Cotteridge was called Sophie's Choice? (For those that don't, it was a chippy).

That's true. Or rather, they won't give them up unless there's a really good reason to do so - a carrot or a stick in other words. Government isn't really willing to provide either. They would rather have everyone believe that it's relatively easy to switch to electric cars, and that's all we need to do, you can drive as much as you want. I'm not saying we shouldn't have electric vehicles, but to have a strategy that is wholly predicated on a switch to electric cars seems incredibly short sighted. It's switching one kind of resource dependency (oil) for another (nickel, other minerals, massive investment in nuclear and renewables etc - all of which have an environmental cost), when surely reducing dependency should be part of the plan. As an aside, I'm not sure what roads can/should be made of in a post hydrocarbon world - anyone have any ideas?