Late Invoice Payment

I seem to remember writing something a while ago about tackling the problem of late payment of invoices, which puts a severe strain on small businesses that do work for large corporations.

Well, it seems Labour has a plan to address this, which has the full support of the Federation of Small Businesses. 

Under Labour's proposals, big businesses would be required to provide details on their company’s payment practices in their annual report. While being a step in the right direction, in that it warns off small companies who may be approached by a large company for services, many SMEs simply have no choice. I still think swingeing interest rates for late payment are the best way forward.

Starmer & Freedom of Movement

Starmer has said that he will not support the return of Freedom of Movement.

A very canny pronouncement, if I'm not mistaken. My reasoning:

1. To win the next election, and win as big as Blair's first term, he needs both constituencies - a healthy proportion of reasonable Brexiteers as well as the Remainers.
2. To achieve this he needs to forestall any possible attack from the Conservatives and so is setting out his stall early in the eventuality of an early GE.
3. Unilateral FoM without a quid pro quo from the EU for British citizens is an open goal that the Tories would exploit and bilateral FoM won't happen unless we're in the Single Market.
4. Remainers will, in the main, not die on the hill of FoM. I certainly wouldn't.
5. He will focus instead on immigration for available jobs, not people simply turning up for jobs that may or may not appear. The latter is primarily what annoys Brexiteers and any reasonable Remainer wouldn't balk at that. FoM with attendant benefits in the instance of not getting a job in the UK would not be good.
6. Starmer might possibly be in a secret pact with the LIbDems, such that any votes lost from Remainers who are prepared to die on the hill of FoM won't be completely lost in the case of a coalition, should it be needed.
7. Pragmatic gravity will inevitably lead to the UK rejoining the EU at some time in the future, and that will entail FoM as a necessity anyway. Starmer knows this.

Endothermic Reaction

Apropos of yesterday's post regarding using enormous air-source heat pumps to convert Global Warming het into electricity, a friend of mine pointed out that due to the fact heat can neither be created nor destroyed, such heat pumps would achieve little, if anything at all.

However, I then thought; "Hey - the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics refers to energy, not heat." Energy can't be created or destroyed, but it can be converted into some other form of energy. Witness the nuclear bomb, which converts matter into heat and light and Einstein's famous E=Mc^2. Also the incredibly dense and hot plasma soup of the early universe was converted into all the matter in the universe.

Reverse this notion and you come up with heat being turned to matter via a reverse nuclear device. We simply need a device that accomplishes this task - a device that sucks heat energy out of the atmosphere, converts it to matter and deposits small boulders around its base - an endothermic reaction. Even a small pebble would be the equivalent of a lot of heat when Einstein's equation is used. 

Photosynthesis actually achieves this, converting light and CO2 into sugars and oxygen. So, just cover the earth with trees. Oh, hang on, lots of people are actually advocating this already and we're chopping them down in huge quantities in certain countries.

Climate Change

Apparently some energy companies are using offshore wind turbines to create hydrogen gas from the electrolysis of seawater, which overcomes the storage problem associated with wind.

A large number of people don't seem to like wind turbines and see them as ugly; however, I would posit that the Venn diagram of those who don't like like turbines and don't like modern art is almost a perfect circle of intersection.

A study has shown that painting one blade of a wind turbine black reduces the chances of killing birds by 72%, but does nothing for preventing domestic cats killing birds.

There's a lot of geothermal used in a number of countries to harness the heat from the Earth's core, but surely using the earth's own heat will merely hasten the cooling of the Earth's core.... It's not an inexhaustible supply, when you consider aeons.

That said, there's a heat source that many haven't considered - the heat produced by Global Warming itself. Turn wind farm turbines into massive air-source heat pumps to capture atmospheric heat for steam turbines to generate electricity, Then the climate denying fossils can continue burning fossil fuels to their hearts' content, paying more and more for their power while we who use renewable energy pay less and less, at their expense. There would still be the problem of pollution though, but only from a very small proportion of the population.

Begum

Shamima Begum is once more in the news with her appeal against having her citizenship taken away.

It strikes me that the government it making an example of her and using her as a warning to others who may be contemplating similar action in future.

When you look at it from a pragmatic point of view, this seems entirely pragmatic; however, making an example of an individual, purely on the basis of an alleged dual citizenship, is morally questionable. So it's pragmatism versus morality. 

Then there's the fact the UK is handing the problem over to a 3rd party - the Kurds. Shouldn't the UK clear up its own mess?

I still believe she should return to the UK and face justice here as she is a British citizen by virtue of being born here and all British citizens should be treated equally before the law.

Just look at how much the government spends trying to extradite white, British criminals from abroad to face justice here. Ronnie Biggs, is a case in point.

Garage Update

The window has been fitted to the workshop and, now that the suspended floor is being fitted, I'm starting to realise just how bug the space is. Celotex is going between the joists for insulation before the flooring is laid.

We're not bothering to line the workshop just yet, as we'll let it dry out for several months before we decide on plasterboard or ply.

The oak cladding on all the exterior should be finished by the end of today and the two crates that the roof slates arrived in are to be converted into a solid workbench by Colin, our tame builder.

Next week Hay's dad starts on the electrics.

Braverman on the Ropes

This should be seen by everyone calling refugees illegal immigrants and ,maintaining they should arrive by safe and legal routes.

Suella Braverman was put on the spot about safe and legal routes - and by a fellow Tory.

In the same grilling by the Home Affairs Select Committee she blamed people coming in boats, which is a direct consequence of her and her predecessor's policies on shutting down safe and legal routes, of causing the backlog in processing.

She also blamed the people smugglers, which while true, is a market she and Priti Patel created.

World Cup

There are many reasons Qatar should not have been awarded the staging of the World Cup, such as the allegations of corruption and the weather, but I'm coning round to the conclusion that it's record on human rights and its treatment of migrant workers isn't one of them.

When you think about it, which has done more to highlight the plight of gay people and migrant workers in Qatar - not having the World Cup there and no-one talking about it, or having it there, everyone talking about it and the Qatari government feeling acute embarrassment? There's no denying that changes to Qatari law, albeit small, have been made in respect of workers' rights.

 

Incompatible Facts

When the state pension came into existence, there were some 8 working people per pensioner (or was it 12, I can't remember the actual figure). This meant state pension schemes were affordable. Currently this figure is 2.5 and fast approaching 2, which means state pensions are becoming less affordable and increasing the pressure on the working population, despite the pensionable age goalpost continually being moved.

In order to have a growing economy, the capitalist system demands a growing population of customers for all the new products.

While the world population currently stands at 8bn and growing, this is set to decline in the latter half of this century, depending on factors taken into consideration.

 

All the above means that, as a country, we will need to increase the number of young workers in order to afford state pensions and sustain growth. This is not possible with a declining world population and an ageing population, and we in the west are the fastest declining.

To avoid complete economic collapse, we must therefore attract young worker to this country - immigrants - from other countries, risking overcrowding. I suppose the pensioners could be shipped off-shore to less populated areas, but there would have to be a means of plugging them into the growing economy to keep purchasing from the home country.

The alternative is to replace workers with robots, allocating each person a robot or two to earn him or her a salary and save for a pension. Herein lies the problem, would a company using robots want the improved productivity, and thus profit, being squandered on unproductive humans? Only legislation would ensure this, although the prospect of revolution and complete anarchy would be a huge driver.

Of course, the attendant problem is that resources are finite and yet capitalism depends on inexhaustible resources. Unless we can attain near 100% recyclability, there will have to be a new world order.

I Simply Can't Believe It

Heard an advert on TV yesterday and through my ears were playing tricks, so I looked it up on the Interweb and, yes, a loan company charging 99.9% interest.

Here's their web page.

I suppose some people are really desperate, but 99.9% interest is criminal - it's loan sharking, surely?

Twitter

 Perhaps Elon Musk could turn Twitter into a force for good.

He could hire a team of social scientists, philosophers and lawyers to draft a code of ethics, or a constitution, with the aim or turning Twitter into a virtual country.

Users pay to be members, thereby generating immediate taxes, or revenue. With 395.6m users, quite a bit of revenue could be collected.

Any profits above the running costs (plus a bit of a bung for Musk to recoup his investment) could be devoted to good causes, such as Climate Change or alleviating poverty in the poorest countries/

Of course, any country (virtual or otherwise) has a duty to protect its citizens.

Naturally, it would be an autocracy but, as Musk came up with the funds, that's only natural and better than it being the Wild West.

Still Standing

Hay was feeling a bit stir crazy yesterday, what with having had Covid for over a week and then one, full-on day at the clinic she works at 3 days a week. 

I therefore took her out to Nailsworth for the afternoon and then, before coming home, decided to show her the dry stone wall I'd contributed to on Rodborough Common when I did my dry stone walling course.

That's my bit on the right - the more regular looking half. It's still standing, and will be long after I've left this earth.

On the strength of what she saw, she'd now like to do a short course in dry stone walling.

About Face

What I find incredible about the Tory U Turn on Truss and Kwarteng's budget is that there are some 8 ministers within Sunak's government that were also ministers under Truss and, at the time of Kwarteng's budget, they were extolling its virtues. They are now extolling the virtues of exactly the polar opposite. Isn't that a mark of either self-serving opportunism or utter incompetence?

As for Hunt claiming Ukraine and Covid are to blame for the tax increases, what about the £65bn cost to the Bank of England of the Kwarteng budget? What about the OBR's comment that Brexit has adversely affected the UK economy by 15% over the longer term?

That said, the budget did seem quite reasonable, albeit that its necessity is a creation, in great part, of Conservative mismanagement of many issues.

Discovery

An old school friend (thanks, Dave) pointed out to me yesterday that Lidl, my favourite supermarket, sells live kefir. I was a tad suspicious of this, as I was under the impression that all dairy products had to be pasteurised; however, he was correct.

On inspecting the product (Milbona) I discovered that it is priced at 26.9p per 100ml, compared to 11p per 100ml for the homemade stuff, which is the cost of the whole milk. Think I'll stick to the homemade and less than half the price.

And I discovered another little product - boxed Jam Shed Shiraz in Tesco, which is cheaper than the promotion price on the bottles. 

OK, it's Australian Shiraz and not Argentinian Malbec but, to be honest, there's not a great deal of difference in the taste. It keeps for 6 weeks after opening, which is far longer than I expect an opened box to last.

Can't remember exactly, but I think it's £8 for a 2 litre carton, or £4 per litre on the Club Card, compared to the normal bottle price of £7, or £6 on promotion with a Tesco Club Card. Even the occasional 25% discount on 6 bottles, combined with the Club Card discount (yes, you can use both together) is more expensive by 50p.

Not sure why it should be, but it does taste a little more acidic than the bottles stuff, which may be because it's not opened to the air at all.

Bacteria

Given Hay thinks her gut biome has gone all awry since contracting Covid, she decided to dig out the kefir grains that have been in the freezer for well over a year now (if not 2 years) and brew some up. It's meant to help the gut biome and do you the power of good.

Miracle of miracles, it worked perfectly. I thought it would have been dead as a dodo by now. Just 48 hours produced the best kefir yet without any signs of splitting which, although not looking nice, doesn't adversely affect the end result.

What with the sourdough and kefir revived, I'll have to give making homemade Greek yoghurt another try, if I can find some natural, unpasteurised yoghurt at a supermarket as a starter. Non pasteurised yoghurt is becoming more difficult to find in supermarkets.

Fiscal Black Hole

We've seemingly been led into the belief that there's a Black Hole in the economy and that this is the reason the government is preparing to pare back public spending. 

However, according to many economists, this is because the accounting rules and the manner in which forecasts are produced has been changed and that the Black Hole is entirely illusory, being based on right-wing ideology, which is opposed to public spending in the first place. The reasoning is described here and here. While there are many similar stories in the media, they don't seem to be gaining traction in interviews with politicians.

The voices suggesting austerity is needed include Matthew Lesh of the Institute of Economic Affairs, which is funded with Dark Money and supported Truss' disastrous Trussonomics, and Tim Pitt of the right wing think tank Onward UK.

If we've learned anything from previous austerity measures it's that they make the situation infinitely worse. Germany learned this and quickly reversed its austerity measures of 2012. With the stranglehold on government policy of these right-wing ideologues, it's no surprise than the UK is alone in Europe in having an economy smaller than pre-Pandemic levels.

We're sleep walking into public service decimation with the eventual objective of a sell-off. According to many, the definition of madness is repeating the same thing over, and over again, in the hope of a different result. It's also the mark of the ideologue who ignores evidence. Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

Shorts Win Wars

I bought Rory Stewart's book, 'The Places in Between' a few weeks ago, which recounts his walk across Afghanistan just after the Taliban were thrown out. I heartily recommend it.

Spurred on by that read, I wanted to reread Fitzroy MacLean's Eastern Approaches, which recounted a similar but mar more extensive walk in the USSR before WWII. I couldn't find it in my library and so settled for The Phantom Major, a biography of Col. David Sterling, who founded the SAS during the North African Campaign in WWII. However, bugger me, Fitzroy MacLean popped up in The Phantom Major as one of the SAS operatives under Sterling, which I'd forgotten, the SAS being phenomenally successful in blowing up German and Italian planes on Axis airfields, behind enemy lines.

Another book I want to reread is Paddy Mayne, who was also central to the SAS' desert campaign. That is when I find it in my library. I know it's there, but my catalogue system is woefully inadequate.

The BBC drama, SAS Rogue Heroes, has a codicil at the opening saying the more unbelievable bits are the truest bits and, having read the book on David Sterling, I can attest to that.

One thing that struck me in my ancillary research is that while Monty's 8th Army are always shown in shorts, you're hard pressed to find any images of Rommel's Afrika Korps in shorts.

It can thus be determined that shorts are the route to final success, as evidenced by posties.

Covid

For the last week Hay and I have been cooped up in the house with Covid and today, for the first time since last Sunday, I tested completely negative. The positives on Friday and yesterday had been getting successively fainter and fainter.

For me the only real symptoms were a bit of chestiness and great difficulty swallowing on one side of my throat; however, I discovered that the difficulty in swallowing was not due to Covid itself, but a huge ulcer one one side of the back of my tongue, which may have been caused by Covid suppressing my immune system, and thus an incidental secondary symptom, rather than a primary symptom. Apparently it's called Covid Tongue and no-one is certain why it appears.

Hay, on the other hand, was knocked totally sideways and couldn't get out of bed for 2 days, lost her appetite almost completely and felt severely weakened.

I had my Covid booster on the 20th September and thus was partially protected, whereas Hay, being only in her 50s, hadn't had the latest booster. There again, I have never had the slightest reaction to the Covid Jabs, whereas Hay always feels ill for a couple of days. I'm now  maximally protected for a while, having had the jabs and the wild strain.

Hay caught it from me and it's ironic that I totally evaded Covid during its height. I suspect I caught it from my work colleague, who attended a Butlins event in Minehead a couple of weekends ago, along with 3,000 other revellers. He came back feeling awful for about 5 days, but maintained he tested negative. There again, he may not have been administering the test properly. It's strange that No.1 Son caught it around the same time as me and had been in the car with my work colleague on the same day I think he transmitted it to me. No.1 Son was almost totally symptomatic too.

Thank God we caught the attenuated virus and not the original strain.

This & That

Here's a novel solution to public sector pay rounds - apply a Triple Lock to public sector pay. Why are pensioners a special case?

Why not focus on the morality of Just Stop Oil protests, rather than the delays caused? The morality can't be doubted, unless you're a climate science denier. They're not saying do without oil completely and live in a cave, simply stop new exploration of a finite resource that will only go up in price and which makes us hostage to dubious or unstable regimes, focussing instead on inexhaustible renewables under your direct control and are much, much cheaper to produce. The French have introduced a law with will force car park owners with parking space for more than 80 cars to cover them in solar panels, generating some 11GW of electricity - a neat idea that keeps your car dry, as well as allowing you to charge your EV.

Have you noticed the dearth of Remembrance Poppy sellers? The problem is that they're mainly retired people and a lot of those are wary of catching Covid. When you think about it, given another 50 years or so Remembrance Sunday may go the way of Trafalgar Day and Waterloo Day, although linking the event to remembrance of all the fallen, regardless of when or where, may just be the thing that saves it, as war itself will never disappear. 

Common Currency

It's not generally recognised, but humanity has used a common currency for most of recorded history in the form of silver and, more latterly, gold. The advent of paper money and, more importantly, different traded currencies, has only a two to three hundred year history, but for most of that time a county's paper money was backed by a commodity like gold, so there was a link to something with intrinsic value.

A currency not backed by a commodity is called fiat currency and is dependent on a country's reputation. As such, if is at much greater risk of fluctuations and inflation. That's not to say commodity currency isn't at risk from debasement or clipping, or that a large find of gold, such as happened when the Spanish found huge stacks of gold in South America, cannot cause inflation, as it did in Spain.

A crypto currency, on the other hand, is not backed by any commodity or country, but by its users and the fact there's a finite limit to the amount of currency in circulation. However, even the word circulation is erroneous, as it's only the notion of the currency that circulates. Even the word currency is misleading, as it's more a security than a currency and a quasi-commodity. Even then, it's not totally immune to either inflation or deflation.

Garage Update

The garage is progressing nicely.

One side is roofed with the other side about to be started, along with that of the back workshop. The weather isn't helping though.

I'm glad we kept the old, oak, front window frame from when we replaced it in the spare bedroom (AirBnB) with a door. That will go at the back end of the workshop and exactly match the one at the back of the bedroom. 

I'm currently planning a late addition of a couple of oak uprights either side of the garage entrance, with a couple of oak braces as embellishments in each top corner. I suppose a large baulk of pine would suffice, but it wouldn't last as long as oak. Also pine may not weather the same as the oak cladding, which is what the house is covered with and what the garage exterior walls will be clad with.

They will look something like this (without the stone pediments):

However, I'm toying with the idea of curved brackets, although they're about £60 each. 

The brackets are meant to be morticed in during construction, but that can't be done as an afterthought, so screws will have to suffice on at least one end of each bracket.

I'm planning to have 4 strip lights in the ceiling and another 4 mounted along the long sides, the latter being to aid visibility when spraying paint. I'd love to put a full, Olympian spray booth and oven in, but the cost would be prohibitive. 

That said, you can get them 2nd hand for about £5-6k and blow-up spray booths are only between £300-400. Still, I can get a 3rd party spray job for a lot less than an Olympian and I may only do the one spray job.

MoT

Apropos of yesterday's post about the Triumph GT6 I intend to rebuild, I find it illogical that I could simply superglue a few panels to the car and drive it without a certificate to say it's safe, merely because it's older than 40 years and had no substantive changes.

Surely a 40 plus year old car is more likely to be unsafe as the older a car is the less likely it is to pass an MoT? One in five classic cars that actually have an MoT tests fail and driving a classic car subsequently found to be unsafe still lands you with a substantive fine.

I guess the thinking is, and I can find no definitive answer, that those who possess cars older than 40 years really look after them, which may well be true for the majority, but that's not a guarantee.

GT6

I got some more photos of the Triumph GT6 I'm hoping to buy from a chap who no longer has the impetus or space to continue with his rebuild. He's prepared to wait until my garage is built, meaning I could be taking possession of it (or the bits) some time in December.

As you can see, it has already been renovated to a large extent, with any rust removed, new metal inserted where necessary and new panels purchased.

The reason I was looking for a car in this condition is that I can see what I'm getting. I could have budgeted for a few thousand more for a more complete car, but could have discovered a rat's nest of problems once I began the restoration, which is what happened when I restored an MGB roadster in my 30s - expecting a simple refurbishment, it turned into a real, bottom-up rebuild.

Work completed this far includes new drivers floor tack welded in, new drivers sill (inner mid & outer) plug welded in, new drivers rear wheel arch partly welded in, roof front replaced (some pin holes to fix). It needs the front lip trimming and trim piece fitting (included).

All the paint will have to be removed in a painstaking operation, but I don't want to risk any reaction between old paint and new paint, especially as paint technology has moved forward considerably since this car was originally put together. I may paint it myself, but if I want to use more technologically advanced paint, then I'll have to avail myself of the services of one of two paint shops where I know I can get a good discount.

Modern, professional paints, rather than being cellulose based are water based and I've never used that type of paint before. While I quite like the original yellow, it's a bit garish in a 70's kind of way and I feel an urge for something different, such as the strontium yellow my Triumph Daytona was painted and had a beautiful, pearlised sheen, or possibly Gulf racing colours of baby blue and orange, as shown on the Spitfire below. Opinions welcome and originality is not necessarily my aim - I'm after Wow! factor.

It has also benefitted from a few upgrades, such as a Ford type 9 5 speed gearbox with shortened gear change mechanism and conversion kit, Canley trunnionless front uprights, Canley aluminium hubs and axles and Spax adjustable front uprights, all of which will improve handling.

Other additions are a fibreglass ‘Le Mans’ style bonnet with light covers and jigsaw racing flush hinges (the original bonnet comes with the car), fibreglass and steel doors both sides, rollover bar, PI manifolds and air box for modification to fuel injection, custom made wiring loom including provision for EFI (mega squirt), Koni adjustable shocks rear, MGF rear brake callipers and discs for conversion, stainless sports exhaust, alloy rocker cover, electronic ignition, electronic speedometer sensor fitted (speedo included) and Mini Lite style alloy wheels.

Not bad for £4k, especially when the owner had bought it for £4.6k and has spent a lot of money on it already. I saw this part-restored GT6 on Facebook Market being sold for £6k, which hasn't had any upgrades at all.

Also this one on eBay, which reached £4,100 on bids, but needs completely dismantling.

I'm really going to enjoy finishing this project, which will be financed by selling the 1994 Mercedes SL500 I have, when the loom is fixed (it's still languishing at the garage I took it to, waiting for some spare hours at mates' rates).

The problem I have with more modern classics, like the R129 SL500, is the overabundance of electronics, which are expensive points of failure, if you can even find the parts. An early classic doesn't have all these electronic gizmos and is therefore much easier to maintain and repair. It's also the reason why cars you think are going to be classics drop in price like s stone - cars like the Jaguar KXs. An old, 1960s Aston Martin or Porsche is no different, in restoration terms, than an MGB of the same era - none of them had magic electronics (except bulletproof screens, ejector seats and machineguns, in the case of James Bond's car, although I suspect they were mostly mechanical, rather than electronic). 

As an aside, 315,000 Triumph spitfires were produced, alongside 41,000 GT6s. It's debatable whether the two can be combined, as the engine of the GT6 was totally different (being a Vitesse 2L). Comparatively, 512,000 MGBs were made, most being exported to the USA), of which 125,000 were GTs. Thus the GT6 is far rarer than the MGB GT and thus more valuable.

I've even heard of people shoehorning a 3.5L Rover SD1 V8 into the GT6, making it a GT8, just like the MGB GT V8 but in a lighter body. I wonder how it would go with my wife's 3.2L V6 Crossfire engine (same engine as the Merc SLK). The ultimate engine conversion would be to go electric and there are companies that specialise in e-GT6s.