vivweb01blog

A Warning to low Electricity and Gas users:   If you are anything other than a high user of both fuels, don't be tempted by offers from your supplier to fix your tariffs now.... Suppliers are now piling on the pressure to fix with a plethora of different and highly confusing offers, none of which include a reduction in the standing charge . These offers have been coming in thick and fast since last month following the latest price cap rise, and the unexpected rise in the cap from January, and OFGEM are effectively 'co-conspiring' with suppliers to try to get you to fix now, by soft-pedalling on a final decision on the precise details of any SC reductions. There is also a nasty rumour that OFGEM has caved in even further to the cartel and is likely to set a minimum consumption level (ca 666 kWh for electricity and 2500kWh for Gas) for a 'low' user to qualify for a reduced-SC tariff. This is ridculously high and would exclude many pensioners who have already cut their...

  A couple of years ago I attempted to answer the question ' Are we alone in the universe '.  At risk of appearing to be a 'glutton for punishment',  I thought it would be useful to follow this up by looking at an even weightier and perhaps even more topical question - 'How did the universe start and how will it end ?'. There is a lot of argument about this currently, with the principal 'Big Bang' theory, until recently taken as gospel by cosmologists, now being challenged in the light of new evidence from the JWST. More evidence suggesting the presence of 'bio-signature' gases in the atmosphere of a 'nearby' (relatively speaking!) exoplanet has also caught the media's attention and promoted discussion about our place in the universe recently, thus re-igniting the debate. Another recent development was the observations on supernovae from DESI suggesting the universe may already have started contracting again. Read on for a short '...