The Eleven Billion Pound rip-off: from really dumb Smart Meters!

We who live in the United Kingdom have been bombarded with adverts, leaflets, special offers (time-limited), all in the sacred name of the so-called Smart Meters: to be offered and fitted into every UK property on both electric and gas grids.

• We are told that they are free.They are most definitely not free, the cost is to the customer in every bill, but spread over ten years (I think) so the apparent cost is allegedly minimal.
• We are told that it is a UK Government initiative. This again is incorrect, as the push comes from European Union requirements and secondary legislation, on the slippery grounds of both Harmonisation, and battling ‘Climate change’.
• You have the absolute right to refuse this intrusion into your privacy, but expect to be told, time and again, that its for ‘your own good’, ‘all your neighbours are getting one’, and you always know exactly how much your utilities are costing you!
• We are told that, with a ‘smart meter’ fitted, you will be able to check your energy usage at a minutes’ notice; and that you will ‘save money’ if a smart meter is fitted.

Now let us examine that last statement very carefully. You will be able to check your energy usage? Yes you will. I have no problem with that statement. But the second phrase: ‘you will save money if a ‘smart meter’ is fitted? Now folks, the only way or manner to save money, with or indeed without one of these small ‘gizmos’ is to switch things off, so the electrons and energy stop flowing through the circuit. You can, if you wish swap to another supplier, but the ‘true’ savings are minimal, at best.

So, are we being ‘lied to’ in order to get a truly dodgy piece of kit switched into your home services? YES, is the answer, the ONLY way to pay less cash for the same electricity is to switch the damn thing off, and; when the washing machine is half-way through its’ cycle because it is ‘costing’ too much, all you are left with is a bundle of sopping wet shirts etc. which you cannot get out of the machine because the programming is telling the machine that there is still a heap of water in there, along with the half-washed shirts. If you switch the electric fire off, or switch the central heating down or off; because your ‘Smart Meter’ is telling you that it is racking up the price you will eventually have to supply by a MANDATORY Direct Debit, all that will happen is that you will feel one hell of a lot colder. That is the ‘Saving Money’ that they are talking about!

Just imagine the person watching that ‘Smart Energy’ read-out is a pensioner, on a fixed income, and not a very large income at that. He or she is of the ‘old school’, where you paid your bills on time, and rarely, if ever, got into debt which they knew they could not afford. Then imagine the radio weather forecaster coming on to warn the nation that another ‘Beast from the East’ is coming towards England, and Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, with forecast temperatures heading well below zero. That pensioner knows he or she has a choice: do they rack the heating up, make themselves comfortable in their own homes, and accept that the heating bill, whether from gas or electricity will be much, much higher, and they can see that bill clicking by on the read-out; which means that they will possibly not have sufficient cash to buy the weekly food which they consume: or do they close down the heating, wear lots of jumpers and extra clothing, and accept that, ‘Smart Meter’ or not, they cannot both heat their homes, and eat at the same time!

The ONLY people to benefit from ‘Smart Meters’ are:-

• The Meter manufacturers, having been handed a multi-billion quid contract to fit gear which will be only of use to:-

• The Power companies. Why? Because they can cut your supply off at the touch of a computer mouse if they need to ‘shed load’ for frequency-matching purposes; or

• Because if you are late paying your bill, they can chop your supply off without hesitation; and:-

• They don’t need to employ expensive meter readers, because; when the kit is working correctly, the total bill is available automatically at the power company’s monitor screens, computers and printers.

Into the bargain, because of the insane way in which Government thinks of ‘high-tech’ equipment; which is to believe that electronic, computer-controlled and software operated bits of kit will work perfectly straight out of the box: when any half-aware computer-literate bloke will tell them that this never, ever happens. The ONLY way to introduce gear like this on a National basis is simply to approach it on an area test case, where the technicians who are supposed to stick the gear into your power switch are trained to accept all areas of the technology: and then to run things on a three-month basis, wheedling out all the screw-ups, logging same and cataloguing them so the technicians know what to expect when the system goes National.

Your ‘Smart Meter’ has just been connected, your pad shows how much you are being squeezed for in the cause of the true bullshit which is Climate Change and Global Warming: and then someone pops his head around the corner, and tells you that you have to start again, because the first ship-load of kit is being superseded by another, and you have to start all over again!

The Clinton Foundation builds ………….to what they can be, tomorrow.

Some years back, I wrote a novel about the American car industry; the plot also involved advertising, murder, love and deceit. It wasn’t a great success, but there again, half the enjoyment; to me at least, was writing the story: if anyone else buys and likes it, so much the better. I would copy, for the reader’s interest, a small passage from this book, partly because I tried to commit, in writing, the perfect crime: and, if the reader progressed through the storyline, how that crime was ultimately detected, and the perpetrator brought to justice:-

Chapter 9

In the early hours of the morning, a slow cruising Ford Station wagon slid onto the drive of a house in KingsBurgh, which lay about twenty miles north of New York. A figure got out of the passenger seat, and walked quietly towards the rear of the substantial, double-storeyed residence. He checked the presence of two large propane gas bottles, in the standard protective enclosure, before heading for the wide patio sliding doors. Knowing all the basic entry tracks backwards, he slipped two circular suction pads on to the glass, hooked a lifter bar between them, and simply lifted the door right out of it’s groove. He forced the latch open with a screwdriver, then eased the window door open while sliding it gently back on the track. Heading, with the aid of a pencil torch clamped to his brow with a strap, he walked slowly towards the kitchen, and once there, aimed for the big gas cooker in the centre of the far wall. Leaning over, he located the gas entry pipe, which terminated in a stop valve, and a hose connection. He closed the isolation valve, removed the hose clip which had kept the reinforced rubber connection hose tight for the past three years, before replacing it with a hose clip from his pocket which had a very worn  thread, and thus did not hold the hose steadily on to the connector. He then briefly turned the valve on and off, while he listened for the ‘hiss’ of the gas escaping, before heading for the central heating boiler, and adjusting the timer control.

Casting the light across the broad lounge, he spotted a bulging briefcase lying by the side of a corner desk, and moved quickly across to open and scan the contents. He pulled out an entire clutch of paper, held together by elastic bands, with a scrawled heading ‘Continental Re-run’, rolled it up and shoved all the file into his pocket. He then returned to the open window, replaced it onto the track after easing the lock into the open position, turned the gas valve fully open, left the kitchen and exited from the house via the now open patio window, slid it closed, and gently removed the two suction lifter pads. He walked back to the drive, slipped into the big car, and the Ford gently rolled back down on to the road, before turning and slowly heading down about two hundred yards away from the big house, then parking under the branches of an overhanging tree. Both men in the car stretched , lit cigarettes, wound the windows down, and waited patiently in the dark.

The timer control for the hot water was a standard dual time model, with selections for morning and evening operation. The gas now running from the faulty connection had infiltrated most of the ground floor rooms, plus the games room which lay underneath the main block of the house. The micro-contact, driven by the drive motor on the timer, slowly lifted up on the riser cam, as the new timer setting, which ensured that the gas had been running free for nearly thirty minutes, approached the operating position. As the cam clicked over, the contact made the circuit, which would normally have started the boiler heating the water for the morning baths and showers of the resident  family. The presence of the propane, in the immediate vicinity of the minute spark caused by the contact of the cam, was enough to set off an explosion which had the same effect as a high explosive shell. Within seconds, the whole of the ground floor was ablaze, followed within seconds by the first floor, which held the sleeping members of the family; Howard, a college lecturer; Amy, a junior high student; Jack, an eleventh grade student; and Allison, who spent her days as an account director with Morson, Hutcheons, Drew and Zeno. All died in the conflagration which followed the explosion. As the explosion flashed out, and the fire took hold, the waiting Ford was started up, and slowly drove away towards the turnpike.

The fire crew investigator, completing his search during the morning at the request of the police department, tossed the hose clip in the air, after briefly cleaning it with a cloth. He turned to the two detectives, who stood watching him, and simply said, “There she blows, boys. Simple criminal neglect! If the guy had bothered to spend fifty cents at the hardware shop, his family would still be alive. The thread is all worn, so it could not grip the hose. The hose finally worked loose under pressure, the gas comes out and mixes; the timer starts up for the boiler, and ‘boom’ , no house.”

“Accidental death?” grunted the senior of the two policemen.

“Yeah, call it that if you wish. No point in letting the guy be buried under the tarnish of  what he had done. Yeah; accidental death, on all members of the Klein family!”

I show this small sector of my book because I noted a small tragedy which occurred in New Jersey, where a ‘gas explosion’ literally flattened a house in the small town of Newfield, killing the two occupants. A ‘Conspiracy’ website picked this tragedy up, and asserted that the dead woman, Carole Paladino, was somehow to be a major witness with the FBI’s actions and cases against Hillary Clinton, and her Foundation’s allegedly illegal activities related to the use and advancement of an anti-allergic medication.

Conspiracy? Na.a.a.a.h. It just could not be. I mean to say: the wife of a former President, herself a candidate for that Presidency; a conspirator in a double murder? Ridiculous!!!