vivweb01blog

  In a word, no..... Why ? First, some background.  In less straitened times, much more competition existed in the energy supply marketplace, and some quite competitive offers were available, particularly from new suppliers. Amongst these deals were some involving tariffs which were ‘no standing charge’ i.e. you paid a higher unit rate for your gas and electricity, and only paid for the units you used, which were all priced at this higher rate.  This benefited low users of gas and electricity, and at the time these tariffs started to appear they were hailed by environmentalists as a much fairer and greener way of charging customers, given the urgent need for us all to consume less of the fossil fuels we use to power our boilers and generate our electricity. The recent upsurge in ‘raw’ gas and electricity prices has changed all that.... We should all recognise, of course, that the UK energy suppliers are not entirely responsible for the current state of affairs themselves.  Worl

  F or many of us at this time of the summer our thoughts turn to tennis…. The trigger for this is of course the annual spectacle of Wimbledon, renowned the world over as one of the premier tournament venues for World Class tennis.  I suspect I may not be alone, however, in feeling that this 2-week ‘tennis-fest’ is becoming a little less interesting each year, with the same top players winning year after year, particularly in the singles tournaments. This isn’t a new phenomenon, of course - Djokovich and Nadal have monopolised the limelight for some years now in the mens’ tournament and the Williams sisters have managed between them to engineer a virtual 'closed shop' in the womens’ version for over a decade. Inevitably their collective advancing ages and accumulated bodily wear and tear will eventually put a stop to their monopolies, but this could take a few years yet. Why is this a concern ? As for any sport, ‘new blood’ is key to its advancement, and talented would-be

 I n a recent post on this subject which I authored back in March,  I mentioned that Putin had recently agreed a pact with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. This was much heralded by both governments at the time as a mutually beneficial arrangement in the face of increased ‘aggression’ by NATO and the West, and was clearly intended to present a counter to Western influence prior to the start of the Ukraine invasion. It appeared at the time that Putin had been the main architect of the pact, and many speculated that Xi had agreed to it only on the basis of Putin’s ‘guarantee’ that he would quickly achieve his objective of subjugating Ukraine without much resistance from the Western alliance.  As the war progressed, some reports in the media suggested that the Chinese leadership were becoming restive in the face of the marked lack of progress by the Russian military and its failure to achieve its objective in bringing Ukraine quickly back into the Russian empire, suggesting Xi was dis