Warm Home Discount - £140 Energy Costs Rebate

I'd never heard of this.....

Warm Home Discount

and neither had several of my neighbours. All older, and one in rather poor health.

Perhaps you know of some older people, or people on a very low income, who could find this useful.

More detail here....

.GOV Site 


Here is how the discount looks for someone who uses an electric pre-payment key meter.

Film - The Station Master - Shot at Stogumber Station on the West Somerset Railway

Award winning short film. 

A lonely Station Master at a remote, rural outpost encounters a woman stranded overnight at his station, and after some hesitation, invites her to spend the night in the warmth of his humble home. This unexpected encounter reawakens the Station Master’s enthusiasm for life as the two talk long into the night, but in the morning, when her train arrives, will she leave along with his heart? 


The Station Master



The locomotive is from the former Somerset and Dorset Railway. If you do any of your shopping at Sainsbury in Bridgwater, your feet are on the site of the S & D Bridgwater North station.

Morning Thought

As I made breakfast this morning, I thought.

" The sun is always shining somewhere..."

The Government of Somerset By London Parties..

Regional Assemblies, Federal Counties, County Banks that invest in county business. Representatives that speak for their constituents rather than mouthpieces for London parties....?

Will you hear any of this soon ?

The Scotsman

Gas Fracking In Somerset

Last Tuesday evening, I fully intended to watch a football live feed of Stranraer v Glasgow Rangers.
I support Stranraer. 

However, I suddenly remembered a poster outside the Roxy Cinema  in Axbridge. They were due to screen a film about gas fracking. With a Q & A to follow.
As I was almost completely ignorant about the subject, I headed for the Roxy.

The film was very illuminating.

Here it is, put together by FrackFreeSomerset .

I regularly listen to BBC Radio 4. Shortly after the current Westminster government came to power in 2010, R4 interviewed new appointees to several ministries. All were investment bankers, fresh from the City.  I thought ... "Uh, .. new government brings in their friends .".

So I was not surprised to see, about 1 minute into this film, that the government has inserted
Pro-Fracking people into strategic departments.., Treasury, Energy and others. They are there to promote the interests of their corporate background sponsors, to ensure that day-to-day activities are in line with the promotion of gas fracking policies, and to ensure that every effort is made to ease the path of fracking.

What does astonish me is the numbers, the scale of it. 

Film is also available on DVD from FrackFreeSomerset.

Shipham Community Cinema....

I took a short trip up to Shipham Community Cinema last Friday evening. I like it there. They had Ken Loach come down a couple of years ago. He's a director at Bath City FC. The son of one the Cinema organisers was in the Bath youth team. And contact was made that way. Loach spoke, and did a  Q&A, for about an hour before they screened 'Looking For Eric'. Ken Loach worships footballers, and the opportunity to make a film with Eric Cantona was irresistible.

He spoke of learning his trade, directing plays, with the BBC. He also described how, during the Thatcher years in the 80's, he had huge difficulty in getting his work screened in the UK. At one point he had been so desperate he'd had to make a commercial for MacDonalds.

Anyway, Friday night was black comedy night. Django Unchained by Quentin Tarantino. Small excerpt here, as some of the locals prepare to sort out the heroes............

Cringeing Apologies in Bath

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-25940958

Why apologise?

The original is a lovely photograph, printed by a commercial magazine
in a US city, for its readers.

It isn't an international iconic photograph, before which we must all bow.
The recreation  has no trace of mockery, or cheapening of the original.

So why apologise..?

Or, behind the scenes, is this about a small local mag being threatened with legal costs if they don't
apologise. 

Ian Liddell-Grainger MP and the Flooding

Flooded farmland near Burrowbridge Mump - the only land above water in the area.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-25844285


Ian Liddell-Grainger said nothing when his colleagues at Somerset County Council started their mass sackings. And he said nothing when his government did the same at DEFRA. Now, with an election looming, he pipes up.

My local MP, Tessa Munt, also says nothing. Because she's a member of the government.

Party loyalties seem to be the primary reason why councillors and MP's in this area
have been almost totally silent.

What a bunch. Who do they actually represent?

Ian Liddell-Grainger MP

Tessa Munt MP