So Near, Yet Solar.

Do any of you wonderful blog readers know anything about solar panels? The fellow on the corner of my road has had a spanking array of shiny new panels fitted to his roof. Since then I have been approached by no less than three separate companies all claiming to have fitted them. I'm no green warrior but anything that could save me money must be worth looking into.

 I had done a little research on the net but it still wasn't clear what the benefits of solar energy were and it seemed there were several ways to skin this particular cat. When a company rang out of the blue asking if they could send a sacrificial lamb, sorry salesperson, round to give me a free estimate about how much I could save, I agreed. I was hoping to fill in the gaps in my knowledge and see what all the fuss was about. 

Their saleswoman turned up at the appointed time, I quizzed her for an hour and ten minutes and I still failed to see the benefits. It seems to me the system works as follows. I cough up £6,600; the company take the cash and fit 10 solar panels. The government pay me an amount per kilowatt hour plus a small export tariff on 50% of what I generate on the assumption that it is going back into the grid (although it isn't because the company don't fit the export box). In eight years I'll get my money back. Meanwhile the energy I make is fed into my meter reducing the amount I need to buy off the electricity company. She confidently predicts that in 20 years I will make a guaranteed 8% return on my investment. Spot the quantum leap there.


She suggests I could cut my electricity bill by 80% by using all the energy I produce. However, there is no storage battery so this would only be possible if the entire family are home all day. In the summer when it's producing the energy in copious quantities the family and I are at work and it would be wasted. You tend to use more energy in the evenings when the light is failing and everyone is home or in the winter when its dark at 4PM. Granted it would power your fridge and freezer during the day but would it be worth paying the interest on a six grand loan? I think not. Alternatively, if you have the cash, there are other safer and much shorter term investments that would make more sense and for a lot less risk.

 I don't regard myself as the sharpest knife in the draw, in fact to plagiarise Terry Pratchett who possibly stole it from someone else, I'm probably a spoon but I am failing to see a serious benefit here. Perhaps one of you kind blog readers can see what I'm missing. I expect it would suit people who have heavy electric usage and are home all day. And another thing, were does the energy you don't use go, into the ground? Am I going to end up with electrified flower borders? The general consensus it that the price of solar panels is dropping rapidly, I think I'll hang on another couple of years and the government will probably be giving them away free to meet its EU targets. 

Man to Man

It's my considered opinion that all gentlemen should have a little blokiness in their lives. I'm lucky in the fact that I have a handful of male friends with whom I can have drink, play music and go and see the latest 'all action' blockbuster at the cinema. The kind of films most women wouldn't be interested in. Girls are all very well but it's just not the same.

It's hard to define what this blokiness actually is. It's not just talking sport for example. I work with women who can talk football and rugby all day but that would bore me silly. It's not about butchness or machismo either; some of those women are rougher and hairier than I am. I went out with a male friend the other day and when we weren't talking about music, we were talking about fixing and mending things; about history, science and bloke type interests. We were sharing a mutual view of the world that is of no interest to most women. I don't remember mentioning children, fluffy animals or shopping once.  I'm sure ladies have their equivalents with their 'girly chats'.

Dearly Beloved's sister and her husband go fishing together; (hello Carl and Maxine). To be fair Carl does all the fishing and Maxine does a lot of reading. Fishing is possibly the last bastion of male dominated pastimes. If you go down the local canal on a Sunday how many women do you see fishing? That's right, none. Perhaps it's something to do with the maggots. I tried fishing in my youth and discovered it was not for me but I can understand the attraction of sitting quietly on a riverbank all day, communing with nature and watching the wildlife with no distractions. Fishermen don't really talk to each other except to politely enquire about the size of their catch. Blokes can sit there all day quietly bonding and sharing the experience with almost no conversation and then retreat to the pub in the evening for a quiet pint and discuss how nothing actually happened. You wouldn't catch a woman doing that.


As time passes people get caught up with their children, work and relatives while friends tend to fall by the wayside which is a shame. I'm pleased to say that Dearly Beloved is my best friend and we share most things together, we have a laugh and she's a pleasure to be with. However, there are things which I can share with my male friends which she's just not interested in. It's because she's not a bloke and, quite frankly, I'm pleased about that.

Southpaw

Leonardo da Vinci - Lefty 

I am left handed which, as everyone knows, denotes me as being more intelligent, creative and generally more brilliant in every way than all you right handed people. In some ways it's a curse because everything is designed for right handed people such as can openers and potato peelers but we lefties learn to become ambidextrous so it just becomes another way to show off our innate superiority. I sincerely believe that if we are ever approached by aliens from a planet significantly more advanced than ours they will all be left handed, or tentacled.

Where I work we 'hot desk' if you remember that phrase. I confess it amuses me to watch one of my colleagues trying to log in but unable to find the mouse. The momentary look of confusion is priceless, then the penny drops and they realise I've moved it to the other side of the keyboard. There follows a short grumble which often includes the words 'bloody lefties'. Highly snigger -worthy.

There doesn't seem to be any logical, genetic pattern between right handed 
and the superior left handed babies. Both my first wife and I were left handed but our son was born right handed. My female colleague at work has had three children and they are all left handed although she is a righty. As there is no obvious explanation it suggests that it could be for evolutionary reasons thereby confirming that us lefties are further up the evolutionary ladder.

In the Dark Ages being left handed was the sign of a witch; the mark of the devil. People were executed in the name of God for being left handed. It's generally known that the word sinister is Latin for left. This is clearly further evidence of the left handed attracting attention because of our greater humanity and intellectuality. The right handed establishment attempted to destroy us because of fear and their inability to explain our natural advantages. They claimed it was the work of the devil. Unfortunately the dull-witted righties fell for it hook, line and sinker and the rest is history.

Albert Einstein - Lefty 

These days people are much more enlightened and I am pleased to say you righties have been forgiven for past transgressions. It's true to say that we can't all be winners and it seems the right handed population have finally accepted this. There is no need for right handed people to feel dejected about this, they can still make a meaningful contribution to society. However, I can't help but wonder how much more advanced human beings would be now if the Dark Age purge had never happened.

The Oompa Loompas.

Just around the corner from where Dearly Beloved and I live there is one of those hand car-washes which have started springing up. Originally, it was a Perspex drive-through cubicle where you put money into the machine and received seven minutes of high pressured water out of a hand held wand which you waved at the car. You invariably got wet but it was good fun. Sadly it was barely used and languished at the back of the petrol station car park looking sorry for itself. An enterprising East European managed to arrange a deal with the petrol station to take it over. He turned up with some friends, put a makeshift notice outside offering to clean your car inside and out for a tenner and customers started to come. By some trick of fate the workers were all short, swarthy fellows dressed in similar outfits with cheerful smiles and limited command of English. Apart from the colouring, they looked for all the world like a bunch of Oompa Loompas.

Since then the business has grown. I went there to get my car washed today and there were at least a dozen workers all beavering away furiously with a queue of waiting cars stretching back to the main road. As I was watching, it occurred to me that I know nothing about these people. For all I know the chap cleaning my windscreen might have a masters' degree in astrophysics. Perhaps he couldn't get a teaching job in his own country and came here to improve himself and is just cleaning cars to make ends meet. Maybe the guy blacking my tyres is actually an excellent drummer who spends his days daydreaming about making it big. It's possible that the guy hoovering out my boot might have some strange and precocious talent that sets him apart from the rest of humanity. Perhaps the little guy collecting the money is the world's funniest comedian, if only I could understand his language.

Whatever your thoughts on Immigration, I think most people would have to admit that it takes a lot of balls to leave your friends and family to travel to a foreign country to try and find work. It involves personal expense, sacrifice and potential hardship to start at the very bottom doing the most menial of jobs. Even if they can earn a month's money in a week here and most of the homeland population are dirt poor it would still take a lot of courage and determination to walk away from everything you know into the unknown. If the situation were reversed I couldn't say for definite that I would have the inner steel necessary.

As I drove out of the petrol station and my thoughts turned elsewhere the workers ceased to be individuals and just became the Oompa Loompas again. To be given no more thought than my postman or local shop worker; just simply there to perform a function. They blended into the faceless mass of 'Immigrant' people to be argued over by politicians and the media for political point scoring. I'm not saying immigration is right or wrong but, as individuals, perhaps some of them should be commended and respected for their bravery and determination to make life better for themselves.