h/t Breitbart; Boris Johnson’s Green Britain has plumbed new depths of humiliating energy poverty, with the revelation that in 2020 Ovo Energy advised customers to exercise and cuddle pets if they couldn’t afford to heat their homes.
Energy firm blasted for telling customers to cuddle pets and do star jumps to keep warm
Ovo Energy customers have blasted the company that gave out advice like “cuddle with pets” or “hula hoop contests” to keep warm and avoid using heating with prices going up.
ByBen Bloch Tim Hanlon News Reporter
05:48, 11 Jan 2022Britain’s third-largest energy supplier has apologised to its customers after it was criticised for giving advice like “cuddling pets” or doing housework to avoid putting the heating on due to price hikes.
Ovo Energy said it was “embarrassed” at the advice sent out to customers to avoid using the heating amid rising energy bills, reported BristolLive.
The email, seen by the Financial Times, contained 10 “simple and cost effective ways to keep warm this winter”, and they included suggestions like having “a cuddle with your pets and loved ones to help stay cosy” and “try cleaning the house”.
Other advice includes “challenging the kids to a hula hoop contest”, “doing a few star jumps”, and “keep your oven open after you’ve finished cooking”.
The email was reportedly sent to customers of SSE Energy Service, which was acquired by Ovo in 2020.
…
Read more: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/energy-firm-blasted-telling-customers-25910019
There is no doubt in my mind that energy bills in Britain are a genuine problem. Boris Johnson’s green energy policies have inflicted unconscionable suffering on ordinary Britons.
When I lived in Britain, some of my neighbours could not afford to heat their homes – they survived winter every year in freezing cold houses or apartments, by bundling up with warm clothes and blankets, and consuming lots of hot drinks. These people, mostly older Britons who had worked and paid their taxes all their life, and trusted that the government would honour promises to look after their retirement, bore their hardship with fortitude and dignity. The heater always went on immediately when they had visitors. But I bet it went off PDQ when the visitors left.
One day I stopped one of my neighbours as he was leaving his home. The pavements were covered with ice, and he was attempting to hobble out on his cane to walk a mile to the nearest shop for groceries for himself and his wife, because he could not afford a taxi. The pavements were covered in ice because the council had run out of grit – they planned grit supplies based on MET forecasts of a warmer than normal winter. I had already slipped over twice on the ice.
I took care of their needs that day.
Given the inflation busting green energy price hikes of recent years, and the economic impact of Britain’s Covid lockdowns, it must be far worse now than when I left, especially for older people on fixed incomes.
I was fortunate, I could afford to heat my home, I was young and healthy and had a good job. But I could not deny the horror of the thought that one day I might end up just like my neighbours, living out my twilight years in a bitterly cold unheated house, risking my life hobbling across frozen pavements maintained by incompetent local governments, because I couldn’t afford a taxi.
For shame Boris Johnson. You were not Prime Minister on that day I helped my neighbours, but your inhumane high cost green energy policies have made life worse for millions of people who believed your false promise of a better future.
What was the name of that band from my misspent youth? Three Dog Night? Really what do these fools think is going to happen as the public gets more and more angry at the cost to save us from nothing.
Mater advised me against orgasm?
Good plan. Don’t breed.
There was a time, when asked for an answer to a problem, I usually replied “SEX.” So many times my friends dubbed it the “Kargaard cure.” Still an appropriate answer but my equipment is starting to fail. Needs further study by young female undergrads,
got the matter in hand then. just like Bojo
Be careful you don’t go blind.
That ain’t the way to have fun, son.
If you can’t afford to heat your house, you probably can’t afford pet food. So what then do you do with your dog?
Simple – eat it!
Unless you wish to eat your dog uncooked (since no money available to pay for gas or electric cooker power) why not entice your dog to eat you instead. All problems solved!
That’s a reasonable possibility as well.
But it’s very dark inside a dog!
Only too dark to read.
As long as you are prepared to give up books you will eventually get used to it.
Already burned the books to keep warm. Could always cuddle up to Griff.
I doubt he gives off much heat.
When I was young once, in Vietnam, in order to keep up with my friends, with us eating at a local resturant, I ate dog. I should be sorry.
My cousin as a guest of Chinese Hong Kong partners was served a what he said was very nice but expensive dish. At the end of the meal he inquired about content. Answer (monkey’s brains) was not as tasteful .
Not an accomplished world traveler, but the most exotic thing (if you can call it that) that I’ve eaten aside from snails is lamb’s tongue.
If you are concerned about CO2 emissions you should have a dog – emits more CO2 than 2 x Toyota Hiliux
I thought “three dog night” was a comment on the groupies that followed the band…
Must’ve been some homely groupies.
Just remember that three dogs produce as much CO2 as an SUV.
But make sure you are fully jabbed and double-masked first – gotta ‘stay-safe’ you know
Remember to be effective you have to have the boost and less than 4 comorbidities 😉
Just don’t try to fake throwing the ball to us!
Who, pray tell, was Prime Minister on that fateful day (in East Anglia by any chance?).
Those of us without pets and arthritis are pretty much screwed in the land of Princess Nut Nuts
Some of us run oil – I tanked up before winter…my personal 3 months winter store – and the wood shed was bursting..
I don’t know, it sure seems to be going to plan as far as I can tell.
“If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” Obama said, responding to a question about his cap-and-trade plan. He later added, “Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
– Barck Obama
Barck’s motto:
The Socialists always help themselves by using other people’s resources, the rest of us try to help other people using our own resources.
yep. B.J. The best leader the Labour party ever had. In Britain you now can choose between socialist or socialist to kill the economy. B.J. is everything he promised not to be. What does that make him. And that goes for nearly all ‘leaders’ in the Western world. Puppets of those who can print all that is needed to buy/corrupt the system.
The news is bigwigs in the UK energy sector say [gas] prices will not come down before 2024
This is to be expected because policy focus has shifted from providing cheap, reliable energy to reducing emissions.
Every form of socialism/collectivism requires sacrifices are made.
There are two options to avoid the pain
Start fracking
Abolish VAT and green levies.
I know what I would do
A.N. Heretic.
Why not both?
You have to do both, Fracking extraction volumes would take 15 years to ramp up enough to make a difference. So get Fracking now and cut the levies and taxes.
Shivering in the Dark is well on its way to become an Olympic Sport, but none of those nasty gold/silver/bronze medals, please. Instead maybe unicorn farts? Decomissioned windmill blades? Certificate “Science Advisor” of NASA?
As posted previously.
Note takeoff socket in thigh for fartharvesting hose.
Don’t cuddle bad public policy either.
Time has come, unless you have written signed and dated invitation to give cuddle to anyone (including your dog) you might appear in court on charge of assault.
It is time to go, Boris!… You were no longer needed after you have consummated Brexit, now you are being a nuisance.
He was never a supporter of Brexit He is a fraud. He as most politicians is on the pay list of those behind the curtain.
Elections are only to make us think we have a voice and freedom. Direct Taxation tells us we are just slaves.
I know, I never said that he supported Brexit: I said he “consummated” it; something that was already decided but Theresa May was not able to do. (by the way it is not my intent, being a foreigner, to be disrespectful by stating my opinion about the politics of other nations)
Don’t worry – he’s already in the departure lounge – let’s hope we get a decent PM and Cabinet (not Labour/Liberal Dem) who actually puts the welfare of his citizens above shams like AGW, EVs, tax rises etc – we need to frack, develop the North Sea gas field (Jackdaw), get Drax back on coal continuously, instead of imported wood pellets so we have reliable, affordable, secure energy
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
None of the steps by which successive Governments have brought us to this point has ever been mandated.
It becomes clearer by the day that those we elect are not the ones in charge
“keep your oven open after you’ve finished cooking”.
Cooking!! … bloody luxury that.
All that would do anyway is allow all the heat to escape in one go, rather than providing a gentle warmth for longer.
If the UK keeps going down the socialist eco-lunacy route, people won’t be cuddling their pets, they’ll be getting rid of them because the money spent on dog food and vets bills will be needed to pay extortionate energy bills.
Along the same lines, Marie Antoinette purportedly said “let them eat cake” ….
That’s Carrie Antoinette…..
She meant the cake lining the chimneys of the wood burning bread ovens. At least she was not against CO2 or smoke – didn’t help though!
Garrison Kiellor gave similar advice some years ago on his radio show when he said that if people in Lake Wobegon are cold in their wintertime bed they pull up another cat.
Like most programming on NPR, I never understood how this show ever achieved popularity. ‘Car Talk’ was the exception.
MIT graduates, surprisingly.
So, no wood burning in the fireplace is allowed?
Oh, right! I forgot:
BoJo is The King and The King’s forests may not be touched. Henry II would be SO proud!!!!
I have an Ash tree in my garden. That isn’t so surprising until you learn that it is a garden of an Edwardian terraced house in south London.
With careful management it provides us with a lot of wood and somewhere for the marsh tits, blackbirds, pigeons, magpies, crows, parakeets, jays etc etc etc to perch.
Charles will be king. A day I really dread
But for how long? and will it actually make any difference?
I mean Her Maj. has lost all credibility making T Bliar a knight of the Garter.
No one listens to the royals any more.
When even the EU starts talking about nuclear and gas, as ‘renewable’ its pretty clear which way the sea has changed.
“Frack today, nuclear tomorrow!” will get the next PM elected.
I note today that our coal power stations are up again and we are exporting to the EU again.
https://www.change.org/p/the-prime-minister-tony-blair-to-have-his-knight-companion-of-the-most-noble-order-of-the-garter-rescinded
1,000,000 signatures and counting!
leaving your oven open will do nothing, unless it hangs out your window. exercise requires an increased food intake. pets require food.
looks like they are dropping standardized tests in UK too.
It’s a bit like raising your taxes, and then giving you “helpful tips” on saving money, innit.
Mainstream media has steadfastly refused to report the energy disaster that is ongoing in Britain and Europe.
Because of the utter failure of wind and solar-electricity generation (combined with Europe’s colossal wrong-way bet on natural gas supplies from Gazprom), the prices of electricity and natural gas in Europe are now 7-8× what they are in the U.S.
It is a gigantic clusterf*ck and there is a genuine possibility of large scale cold-related fatalities (and, most assuredly, of energy poverty). There have already been instances of large industry closures due to skyrocketing feedstock prices (see European fertilizer manufacturers for one glaring example).
The failure of U.S. media to report this is mind-boggling. They are deliberately and intentionally failing to inform the public.
It is the height of irresponsibility.
MICIMATT is responsible only to corporate press.
I thought these guys were against owning pets?
That’s not going to make any difference — the heat will still diffuse out into the room eventually in any case.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10393369/Ovo-energy-boss-blames-employee-ridiculous-embarrassing-message.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490
“‘Somebody had a bad day, and sent out an email’: Millionaire Ovo energy boss blames employee for ‘ridiculous’ and ’embarrassing’ message telling cash-strapped customers to ‘cuddle your cat’ and ‘do star jumps’ if they are cold”.
And the real reason that Gas prices are so high – courtesy of the dictator who really, really wants to kill his only export (gas) in order to help mitigate climate change and give up his only economic weapon to boot (sarc).
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/01/12/ftse-100-markets-live-news-shares-pound-inflation-energy/
“Russia is to blame for the energy crisis that is wreaking havoc through economies across Europe, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said.
IEA executive director Fatih Birol said Moscow could boost gas deliveries to the continent by at least a third from current levels, but it’s keeping spot sales capped despite high prices.
That’s the equivalent of 3bn cubic metres per month, or a new cargo ship carrying liquefied natural gas arriving every day.
Mr Birol said: “There are strong elements of tightness in the European gas market due to Russia’s behavior. The current storage deficit in the European Union is largely due to Gazprom.”
The EU is scapegoating Gazprom for the EU’s colossal wrong-way bets.
And blocking NordStream2, ready to go right now.
How long this pandering, in-sync with D.C., can go on will be very telling indeed.
Stock up on Popcorn, or better French Fries with Mayonnaise!
So, Gazprom sees an economic opportunity and now they get “blamed”? Who wouldn’t turn the screws if they saw an opportunity to make money? They’re just being the good capitalists we’ve always wanted them to be!
Of course, if Britain and/or Europe had it’s own fracking industry they could thumb their noses at Putin. But that would make too much sense, now, wouldn’t it?
Exactly. Gazprom has fulfilled every contract in full and on time with EU and other European countries. Quite why we in the capitalist west should expect a Russian company to be less capitalist than us is quite beyond my comprehension. Our government advisors (UK) created this fubar opting out of contract pricing and committing to the spot market in full knowledge that China was becoming a “preferred customer” reducing potential surplus Russian supply. Let’s hope we don’t fall out with Norway!
IEA did not get the Bloomberg memo – not very well informed, I’ll say!
“…his only economic weapon”
and who handed that to him on a platter. It was all jokes and smiles back in the day.
Merkel said the pipeline heralded “safe, sustainable partnership with Russia in the future” and made a major contribution towards a reliable energy supply for Europe. (spiegel.de)
Wrong… again.
Only Banton could quote the daily mail eh and expect to get away with it??
Is it the paper that is continuously spouts ” weather disasters” and battering with “named storms” and / or dire prophecies that never come true,- mirroring the met office and their crappy abilities to predict tomorrow’s weather and get it 100% wrong for years in succession for whole summers at a time??
You have no credibility whatsoever.
I see a clear link between the UK MO rubbish, and say inability to deal with simple flooding of somerset levels (they sold off all the dredging equipment on UK MO say so..) or much worse, the unending bollox about climate change and what the UK will be like in 80yrs time!!
“you can’t make it up”, in Banton’s case ends up being “you can make it up and will;”
I tried cuddling with my parakeet. It didn’t help and she was not amused.
Invoking Poe’s Law.
I would not advise cuddling up with your pet alligator or boa either.
Don’t worry – 53% gas + 5% coal are currently keeping the UKs lights on – fossil fuels are the future for at least 3 decades
Quiz: What did citizens in advanced western nations use before household pets & farm animals for keeping warm in the winter?
Electricity & natural gas!
Scary to think that less than a century ago, these people used to run most of the civilized world. Now they’re reduced to sleeping with pets and farm animals to survive winter, just like their pre-industrial ancestors.
Progress!
This is funny. The tables have turned on the usage of the word “unprecedented.”
Sweden to help households as electricity prices soar – ABC News (go.com)
“It’s a crazy situation to be in,” said Hannah Hall who lives in an old wooden house in Kristinehamn, a small town in central Sweden. “I was aware it would be an expensive winter, but it feels unprecedented.”
Hall was billed 10,400 kronor ($1,150) for her December electricity consumption, about tripled the previous year, to heat her 130 square meter (1,400 square feet) home.
Progressive War on the Middle Class: Energy costs skyrocket. The rich don’t care because it doesn’t affect their standard of living in any material way. The poor get decimated, so Progressives will subsidize their energy bill, largely paid for by the middle class. The middle class gets both the bill and to suffer a lower standard of living.
The same logic applies to pretty much every policy put forth by politicians.
It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. – Thomas Sowell
BoJo and the Tories won election promising to carry out Brexit, unlike former PM Theresa May. Brexit normally should have proven to be a boon to the British economy, free from the onerous regulations of the EU, and able to keep North Sea oil to itself (or share it with Norway).
But BoJo’s nonsensical goals of becoming “carbon neutral” have paralyzed the British economy and led to widespread suffering of the British people without the excuse of World War II that Churchill had during a similar period of suffering, which the British people bravely endured to defeat Nazi Germany. While that was a worthwhile sacrifice, who wants to live in a cold house just to try to cool the climate by a fraction of a degree 50 years from now?
Speaking of Germany, today’s Germany ran into economic decline due to their shutting down of nuclear power plants to rely on wind and solar, the latter of which is in short supply due to frequent cloudy weather and low sun angles. If BoJo were smart, he would take advantage of Germany’s decline to boost his own economy with development of MORE fossil fuels, not less.
The Tories used to be the party of economic prosperity and support for businesses and jobs. When are the Tory MP’s going to realize that BoJo’s “global warming” policies are killing them politically, and have a vote of no confidence?
The same people who cannot see the extraordinary irony of that situation
How was Brexit ever going to be a boon? It was the only trade deal enacted with the aim of making trade harder. The British government decide to leave not only the largest free trade zone in the world but also the customs union all of which means more paperwork and higher tarifs for exporters. The claim that improved trade with Australia would make up for free trade with Europe which is a short train ride away was always nonsense. Plus of course the UK was always able to keep the North sea oil to itself.
It’s a boom by freeing Britain from the suffocating EU regulations.
It doesn’t help matters that it is entirely common for British houses to lack insulation of any kind. This makes them drafty during the winter and far more expensive to keep warm than they ought to be, especially given the fact that winters in the UK aren’t particularly cold.
Mate, try Australia. Insulation here is nonexistent.
The labor government tried to get it sorted a few years ago. There was so much incompetence that people actually died because of their idiotic governance. That takes some skills, causing deaths by trying to insulate people’s houses.
BoJo is an alcoholic. Period
His mind is not, is never, “On The Job”
Check out the front page of UK BBC news right now. His life revolves around booze.
Google him to see a whole string of drunken arguments, with women, extending back for the last decade at least
That amount of booze, any amount in fact, brings on chronic depression, leading to magical thinking but esp the tendency to over-react in otherwise trivial situations. i.e. He panics easily aka paranoia
If that doesn’t describe BoJo’s response to C19 here in the UK, please tell what does.
He and vast numbers around him, cabinet, senior civil servants, MPs, advisers of all colour also alcohol dependant and are thus: Totally Unfit For Purpose
Sack the lot of them with immediate effect.
Again, in parallel with soil erosion, is something I’ve saying on here for years.
Even worse, BoJo’s chronic depression and paranoia affects his pronouncements of Climate Change and what he imagines the UK should do about it
Hiss electric car and heat pump dreams are exactly that = Dreams
BUT, he is Prime Minister and nobody to date has had the guts or the power to rein him in. He is, buoyed up and egged-on by his eco-warrior princess is completely out of control.
If any ordinary citizen behaved like that in any public place in the UK, they would be promptly led away ‘to the cells’ for a few hours to sober up.
PS Maybe someone has already said but the energy company involved rapidly retracted their advice and apologised
no matter, in this case the inability to recognise a party in a garden and “bring your own bottles” will mean booze is the final downfall at No10.
Good riddance Bojo! Couldn’t happen to a nicer person eh?
You would think, wouldn’t you, that high ranking politicians would have advisors to give them serious advice about PR and optics? You’d think.
Eric,
who was the prime minister when you were in the UK? I doubt that Boris was PM when you the events that describe happened? Fuel Poverty in the UK is long standing and a lot of it can be traced back to Thatcher’s privatisation of energy companies.
It cannot be as bad as in the Netherlands. Taxes on natural gas exeed a 100% uplift. Or as in my case I pay 23 ct (new contracts go for over 120 ct) for the gas and 60 ct tax. per m3. Thank God the new gouvernment is considering nuclear power because solar and wind in our crowded little country just consume too much area and are more of a burden than a solution.
“For shame Boris Johnson. You were not Prime Minister on that day I helped my neighbours,”
FYI, thanks to partying with booze, some relief can be had, he is unlikely to remain much longer as PM.
show the lying toad the door, with princess Nut-nutz, and see how they would like to be frozen out!
BoJo is being controlled from behind by his wife, Princess Nut Nut. While everyone in the UK was in lockdown where gatherings of more than 5 people was “illegal” he and her attended a garden party at 10 Downing St with 40 or more people.
The incident is being investigated even though there are pictures available of the event. When BoJo is asked about it he just laughs.
Even more people in the UK are having to chose to eat or heat.
I thought pets were more “polluting” (CO2) than a SUV?
Thing is, though, the Brits have always been a hardy bunch and have always lived cold in the Winter. Thirty years ago, my friends there would turn the heat on a little for guests, and turn it off after. I had a storage heater there in the 90s that only ran at night, when the electricity rates were lowest, and it would bleed heat in the morning. Everyone wore sweaters at home.
Of course, if BoJo wasn’t a moron, he and the rest of the country would welcome a little global warming.
‘Try cleaning the house’- what are you insinuating, Ovo?
The comedian Andrew Lawrence gave his thoughts about Ovo’s advice on twitter @andrewlawrence . Well worth looking out for as long as you’re not of a sensitive disposition. I was going to include a link but I suspect Anthony would remove my privileges.
To keep warm you simply tear up old newspapers and stuff that between your body and your clothes. Excellent insulation just don’t get too close to any fire.