Someone at work put me onto this: Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air. It’s a website and a book (free download or a print version is coming out). Dealing with the current debate on reducing energy use and what sort of energy supply we should use in the UK, it seems to have some hard numbers to work from. Or at least I hope so: the author is a Professor at Cambridge Uni.

Here’s one of the slides on the site (quite similar to some in ‘An Inconvenient Truth’):

I discovered some annoying additional charges had been added to our BT phone bill, and that led me investigate a range of cost saving options when I couldn’t sleep the other night.

It started because we use Sky Talk for phone services but still getting line rental from BT. They get miffed by this arrangement and decide to charge you £7.10 per quarter for two of their services if you don’t place 6 calls a quarter over their network. (The 1571 answerphone service we do use and what’s worse the caller display service we don’t (can’t) use. Hmph.) The answer is to remember to dial 1280 on 6 calls a quarter, which routes back through BT, not Sky. But who’s going to get that right?

Well, I hope the Orchid Dialler will, so I don’t have to. You plug it in next to the master socket, and it has a built in clock that allows it to be programmed to switch to different carriers at different times. So, Sky at some times, and cheaper carriers such as 18866 at other times. Or 1899 for all calls to UK mobiles. It also allows you to translate one number for another, ideal for translating all 118 calls to a low cost 118 number, or for pushing certain numbers we call every few days back through BT. It also allows you to bar call types (Mobile or Premium Rate), or calls to specific numbers, and some other things.

I’ll post again when I’ve sorted out what the best settings for the dialler seem to be.

What the world really needs is another blog. With only 175,000 created every day, there is clearly a gap in the market.

Indeed. Still, a quick look at Mark Easton’s new blog, made me subscribe. Here’s how he describes what he’s trying to achieve:

Since 2004 I have been BBC News’ home editor, a title which has some strange consequences. I get sent samples of “premium quality laminate floor-coverings”. I have been asked to review hammer drills. And offer opinions on Italian furniture design.

But my interest and certainly my expertise is not in the world of interiors. In a way, it is quite the reverse. I try to look at Britain from outside, endeavouring to make sense of the dramatic and rapid change affecting the UK by standing well back.
…
What I want to do, (and what this blog is really about), is join some of the dots left by the dozens of stories we report each day. I want to understand our country, to see which direction we are heading in and what challenges lie ahead on our journey.

The one that caught my eye was his commentary on “So have we got our response to child sex abuse in proportion?” Unfortunately he ultimately ducks the question, but he does at least bring out the complexity of the debate.