Electricity update

Fair play to the electricity people in the end. They have been reasonable and we have reached an agreement. They have reissued the bill to start from the last meter reading they took that falls within the 2 year window now provided for under the new rules (bizarrely, it seems that they were taking regular meter readings throughout the period during which I was not being billed). This means they are going to charge me for about 16 months–worth of electricity, which is a damn site better than the 6 years during which I was not being billed. They have also given a 25% goodwill discount on that amount and agreed that payment be made in instalments (interest free) to acknowledge that the existence of arrears has resulted from an unusual situation not of my making.

SCUBA

Spent the weekend on a course doing the pool sessions and classroom work to learn to SCUBA dive, ready to do the open water bit in Sardinia in August. First time I’ve tried SCUBA equipment. Top fun swimming around under water without having to come up to breath.

Track day

A good confidence–building track day at Donington GP circuit. This was my first excursion on track with the bike since Brands Hatch last year, when I crashed. Took things a bit steadier than I would have done before the crash, but had a good day, didn’t bin it and was much more confident on the bike on the ride home along the M1 than I have felt in over a year. A few pictures, courtesy of traxpics.co.uk:

Gig - RHCP

Reducing the level of political controversy on the advice of my security staff, I instead note my attendance at the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Earl’s Court last night, from the vantage point of the seated area, stage left, now that I am well mature and grown up. An enjoyable gig. It was perhaps a bit of a surprise to me that Dani California was one of the highlights I thought; sounded really good live. I always like it when they play Me and My Friends as well.

Gunboat diplomacy

Without making any comment about the rights and wrongs of the Palestinian issue, I can’t help admiring Israel’s robust approach to the defence of its citizens, particularly where those citizens are involved in the service of the State. It sends a clear message out to other countries — “if you kidnap our people, we will send in the gunboats”. Damn right. We used to do that sort of thing in Britain, but if you come under attack by Johnny Foreigner these days, it seomtimes seems like the strategy of the Foreign Office is more likely to be to seek to minimise the links between you and the UK or even worse, side with Johnny Foreigner and work very hard to nail you on your return to Britain as well, should you ever be able to do so. If it had been British troops, Hamas wouldn’t even have needed to mount the daring kidnapping raid. They could have just banged in an extradition warrent.

Elec-tricky situation

When I moved into my flat six years ago, I was advised by the estate agent that the service charge — which appeared substantial at around £250/month — included water and electricity bills. On the annual audited accounts for the flats, electricity duly appeared as approximately £35,000, split between the flats pro rata based upon square footage. The fact that I never received any utility bills was occasionally a problem when trying to prove my address and I thought on more than one occasion that this arrangement was not the greatest way to encourage people to save energy, but, I thought, such is metropolitan life.

I was therefore rather surprised to receive a very substantial electricity bill last Friday from a company of which I had not even been aware I was customer, which led me to discover:

1. the estate agent was a lying bastard;
2. the £35,000 on the audited accounts was just for the electricity used in the common parts of the building;
3. tenants were responsible for their own electricity separately; and
4. I was six years in arrears.

This is going to take some sorting out, but in looking into it I have found out some useful information that may be helpful to readers. Contractual limitation in England and Wales is set at 6 years by the Limitation Act 1980. So there was nothing in principle in the general law to stop them billing virtually the whole amount outstanding. However, thanks to a recent decision of Ofgem, from 1 July 2006 electricity bills may not be backdated more than two years.

I wonder whether that was why the electricity company sent me the bill one day before 1 July 2006? Whether it was or not, I’m not having it: the bill is based on estimated figures, so I’m going to insist upon a meter reading. If they don’t like it, I would note that also from 1 July 2006, customers can refer complaints to the Energy Supply Ombudsman, who apparently has the power to award customers up to £5,000 in compensation.