Disconnector Online

Now it is quite possible that you missed this. The great man certainly did. Disconnector is referring to the UK’s first Energy Saving Day, or E-Day, as it was dubbed. It was organised to run last week.

You would have had to have been living on the moon not to realise that the UK is going through some sort of Damascene conversion at present vis a vis bottled water.

No doubt former Severn Trent group chief executive Colin Matthews is pleased about the timing of his latest job move. He left Severn Trent at the end of last year, three months before the water company’s appearance in court following a Serious Fraud Office investigation. Now he’s got a new post.

Now here’s a sort of X Files moment. Last week, the biggest earthquake to hit the UK caused a lot of structural damage and certainly put the wind up many householders who thought they might have been inadvertently relocated to somewhere near the San Andreas Fault.

The LDA announced last week what it called “pioneering plans for the UK’s first scheme to harness waste heat from a power station to heat homes and help save carbon emissions”.

Now here’s an intriguing historical tale. Back in 1808, scientist Sir Humphrey Davy, who did early work on electricity and was a mentor of Michael Faraday, was awarded a medal by Napoleon for his contribution to science.

One contributor to a staff and skills feature in this week’s issue says that utilities find it hard to attract women (though there are exceptions to that rule)...

North of the border, it is getting personal. The great man refers to the Peeblesshire hamlet of Cardrona, which has an unmanned treatment works. Mind you, owner Scottish Water might have to reconsider that fact.

This week, the Drinking Water Inspectorate has pronounced on Severn Trent’s performance during last year’s floods. It involved the biggest ever deployment of bowsers in memory. Some 1,500 bowsers were pressed into service, many from neighbouring water companies. Some, of course, did go missing and a number appeared for sale on eBay. They came in all shapes and sizes. This was not the only disparity. Their fittings were often rather different. And sadly, apparently didn’t. Fit, that is.

What’s in a name? The great man ponders thus on the news that Labour backbencher Lindsay Hoyle MP has tabled a Commons Early Day Motion calling for Chris (De Burgh = DEBERR = Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform) to revert to its old moniker: Trade and Industry.

The arrival of the competitive water market in Scotland on 1 April has coincided with yet another debate among Members of the Scottish Parliament over whether Scottish Water should remain in public ownership, be made a mutual company owned by customers (often compared with Welsh Water, though its parent Glas Cymru is of course not a true mutual but a Company Limited by Guarantee) or be privatised like the English water undertakers. The debate was triggered by the Scottish Conservatives, spearheaded by shadow cabinet member Mary Scanlon MSP, more as a means of embarrassing Alex Salmond’s ruling Scottish National Party and Labour than a realistic attempt to force a sell-off. .