What follows is likely to be particularly grumpy, even by my less than cheerful standards. In part this may be due to the fact that I started to write this on the seventeenth day I had been without the use of a landline and without access to broadband, while facing the prospect of another three days with only the most limited ability to use the internet. It’s only at times like these that one realises just how utterly dependent on the internet we are becoming as a society, and how desperately vulnerable this makes us as a nation, given the relative ease with which terrorists or a hostile foreign power could cause us major problems. Data hacks are bad enough – taking down the internet would reach a whole new level.
Less than four years after I wrote about a similar incident, history has repeated itself. On the previous occasion, I was without landline and internet for eleven days, because a badly driven car smashed into our local BT junction box, which is problematically sited on the inside of the pavement at a sharp road junction. Given the chaos caused last time, one might have thought that BT Openreach planners would carry out a belated risk assessment and conclude that the junction box ought to be moved, in order to avoid a repetition of the problem. One might have thought that, but one would be wrong. The junction box was replaced in exactly the same vulnerable location, and now it has been smashed up again.
This time a lorry slipped on black ice and carried straight on, over the pavement, instead of taking the corner. The damage was much worse than before, with the box smashed to smithereens, and the wall behind it utterly destroyed. And this is where I become really grumpy. Why did the lorry skid on black ice? In part, at least, because the Council gritters had not been out the night before. This might have been because a cash-strapped Council (try spending less on the “climate emergency”, methinks) decided to save a bit of money by not sending the gritters out. In making that decision, they may have relied on an inaccurate weather forecast which failed to predict sub-zero temperatures and the likelihood of black ice forming. Failure all round, then.
Nothing happened for a week. Then traffic lights appeared, causing quite a bit of traffic disruption, given that the accident site is on one of the main roads in and out of town, on a junction (necessitating three-way traffic control) and is near two schools. So far as I can see, the only ongoing reason the lights are necessary is so that the workmen can park their vans on the double yellow lines on the main road beside the junction box. I don’t envy them their job, and I appreciate that it wouldn’t be too convenient for them to park their van thirty or forty yards away in the side street, but it might have been an idea, given the disruption caused by their vans and the associated traffic lights.
During the ongoing outage I have received many texts from my telephone and broadband provider, the ironically-named TalkTalk, which really doesn’t want me to be able to talk to any of its staff. These have informed me variously (in the order that follows) that service would be restored on 2nd February (I had this message twice in succession); that it has been resolved (I had this message twice in succession, and needless to say the message was wrong); that service would be restored on 27th January; that service would be restored on 28th January; that service would be restored on 11th February; that service would be restored on 4th February; that service would be restored on 6th February; that service had been restored (it hadn’t, of course). This latest led me to wander down our pot-holed road (don’t get me started about the pot holes) to speak to the BT Openreach engineer who was working at the junction box. He was very helpful, and told me that he hoped that service would be restored by 6th February. In fact, it was restored at some point today, after I commenced this narrative but before I returned to finish it. Ironically, perhaps, I then received a further plethora of texts and emails from TalkTalk, the latest of which said:
| “Thanks for getting in touch and using our automated phone service to do some checks. We now need to speak to you so we can resolve your service issue. |
| We need to speak to you to try again, so please give us a call…when you’re at home. |
Needless to say, I haven’t bothered. Having told me several times that my service had been restored when it hadn’t, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that they are unaware when it has been restored.
I am grateful to the BT Openreach engineers who laboured in cold and damp conditions to restore service, but I am less impressed with the BT Openreach bosses. Last weekend, for instance, no work occurred. Why not? Had the weekend been worked then landlines and broadband would have been restored to around 450 properties two days sooner. It may not seem like much, but a combined 900 customer days without access is arguably quite a big deal. And it would have helped the traffic situation if the traffic lights had been removed two days earlier than has been the case. More to the point, perhaps, with compensation of £9.98 payable per customer per day, the saving in compensation would have been close to £9,000. Even if two engineers had been paid triple time to work over the weekend, BT Openreach (or their insurers, or the lorry owner’s insurers – whoever picks up the tab) would have been thousands of pounds better off by adopting that simple expedient. Yet they didn’t. Their other failure is to reinstate the junction box in exactly the same location, so it’s probably only a matter of time before the residents of this part of town are once more without landlines and broadband.
Last time this happened I discussed what lessons might be learned. Well, I did learn some – as I contemplated at the time, my wife and I decided to have a smartphone each instead of rather meanly sharing one between us, and we subscribed to monthly packages that supply a decent amount of data. I also took note of the advice I was kindly offered at the time, and learned how to use my smartphone as a wi-fi hotspot so as to give me access to my laptop. However, it was, to an extent, in vain. Where we live the 4G (never mind 5G) signal is extremely poor, so anything we tried to do online was painfully slow, and the signal regularly dipped out. We also seemed to burn through data at an extraordinary rate, necessitating constant phone top-ups. At one point £20 of top-up promptly disappeared, and it took 24 hours for it to be reinstated, after an on-line complaint, which had to be made from the one phone that still had data available at that point. Needless to say, our smartphone contracts are with a supplier who also requires everything to be done online, and doesn’t make anyone available to speak to customers. All well and good, but what happens if you can’t go online?
So much for me. What about the authorities? They seem to have learned no lessons at all. As mentioned above, BT Openreach continue to put the junction box back in the same problematic location. The UK government continues to go hell for leather for “net zero” (involving electric vehicles, electric cooking, electric heat pumps, etc) and for “decarbonisation” of the electricity grid, making us more and more dependent on electricity for the necessities of life, while leaving us vulnerable to the vagaries of renewable energy and to the risks of the grid coming under attack. Also, every day, we seem to be pushed more and more towards reliance on the internet for almost everything. I don’t think this is what resilience looks like.
Postscript
As a vaguely relevant aside, I recently had to deal with His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in my capacity as attorney under an elderly relative’s Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA). Despite HMRC increasingly trying to force taxpayers in the UK to do everything connected with itself online, it point-blank refused to avail itself of the excellent online system provided by the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG). This allows attorneys to go on the OPG website and generate a code which can then be supplied to those with whom the LPA needs to be registered. I have used this system successfully in many cases, including with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), who have been a pleasure to deal with. But not HMRC. No, they insisted on being sent the original document through the post. I think I may have worked out why – the OPG-generated code is available for use for only thirty days, and then it expires. I don’t think HMRC are capable of doing anything within thirty days.
Why do I mention this? Because the talk of successive Prime Ministers of various political persuasions about the UK “leading the world” is poppycock, whether it be in connection with the alleged (but extremely dubious) merits of net zero or with regard to our putative status as an AI datacentre superpower. Don’t make me laugh. Swathes of the country don’t even have functioning 4G, and huge and powerful government outfits like HMRC are highly selective about using the internet, preferring to rely on pen and paper when it suits them (but not when it doesn’t). I suggest that we try walking before running.
Energy Consents Unit (ECU)
One final point relates to the above. The ECU is the government body in Scotland which administers certain planning applications in relation to energy infrastructure, which are made to the Scottish Ministers for determination. Currently these are applications for consent for the construction, extension and operation of electricity generating stations with capacity in excess of 50 megawatts (applications below this threshold are currently made to the relevant local planning authority); applications for the installation of certain overhead electric lines and associated infrastructure; applications for necessary wayleaves to confer rights over land to install electric lines; compulsory purchase orders promoted under the Electricity Act 1989; and applications for consent for large gas and oil pipelines. For a long time now the ECU has accepted the submission of objections by email. Out of the blue, and (so far as I am aware) without any consultation, the ECU has recently declared “Please note that representations@gov.scot can no longer be used to submit public representations for cases where the public consultation opened on or after 16 January 2026. For these cases, representations must be submitted via the portal – account registration is not required.”
This will have the effect of forcing objectors to go down a specific route, thereby losing the freedom to phrase their objections as they wish. Many elderly objectors might be comfortable with using email, but be less comfortable with using an online portal. I can only surmise that this is a deliberate tactic, calculated to make it more difficult to object, or – at the least – to deter people from objecting, in the belief that objections will be more difficult to submit than was previously the case.
I am not a fan of Nigel Farage, and I won’t be voting for Reform UK any time soon. But I can’t help thinking that his claims about “broken Britain” have something in them. Failing infrastructure, a complete lack of urgency with regard to urgent repairs, cancelled local authority elections (for the second year running), and changes to the planning regime (the above change, plus the changes in the Planning & Infrastructure Act) aimed at making it harder for objections to be made to large infrastructure projects which many consider to be utterly inappropriate. And now we have revelations about a political elite that wouldn’t be unfamilar to a greedy eighteenth century aristocrat grubbing around for well-paid sinecures and favours for friends and family. None of this speaks of a democratic country in robust health. I fear we’re going to the dogs. Please feel free to disabuse me by making comments which will cheer me up (or not, as the case may be).
Climate Scepticism 
insisting you use “their” portal serves one purpose- you are limited to the number of characters you can use…..therefore, you objections, suggestions, requests etc. have to be clear, concise and without unnecessary “frippery” that could bring clarity to the objection, suggestion or request.
Your BT comms box for instance, have you advised BT how many times it has been struck since it was installed?, have you gone and looked at the location for signs of BT pavement access covers which indicate cable locations?, and have you considered that regardless of the stupidity of the BT comms box location, Local Planning may be responsible for only permitting installation at this risky location.
As to your issue with HMRC, yes they are stupid and never bother trying to ring them for help, you do not have sufficient hours of life left to hold on their “your call is important, here is some cheap shitty music to listen too while we work from home”, write a email to the Head of HMRC (john-paul.marks@hmrc.gov.uk), copy in your local MP, explain your issue and advise that a response is required within seven days- you will get a response, promptly. I also recommend never writing to any company unless it is addressed to the CEO, copied to the CFO, they do not like getting involved so insist you are sorted- pronto.
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Regarding you comments on Nut Zero- the World is watching and seeing how the cradle of the Industrial Revolution and Modernity is decarbonising and destroying its manufacturing industry leaving just financial services and agriculture to provide 35,000,000 jobs, subject to these not being designated Green Employment.
But
We thought we knew how fossil fuels are formed.
The clue is in the name, after all.
Fossilized organic material – plants and animals – millions of years of heat, pressure and decomposition – and so on…
But did you know that there are other theories that challenge the fossil-based origins of coal, oil and gas?
Here we describe one such theory, known as abiotic oil owing to it’s non-organic (i.e. ‘abiotic’) formation process.
In summary, the theory suggests that:
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Davison family – thanks for commenting. Three points in response to your first comment:
Regarding the ECU portal. Your explanation may be the correct one, or it may not. In Scotland these things are normally subject to lengthy consultation, but this change wasn’t, and was just slipped through with a stealthy announcement that caught many people by surprise. Many people are upset about it. I know which explanation I believe.
As for BT, I don’t have to tell them how many times the junction box has been hit. Given how much it must have cost them in repairs and compensation to customers, they certainly know. As regards re-locating it, I doubt if your explanations hold weight. Moving it just a few feet to either side would take it out of the firing line, so to speak, yet they have restored it in exactly the same location twice now. I’m not an engineer, but while I accept there might be difficulties in moving the box a few feet, I can’t see that they would be insuperable. If, as you suggest, planning permission may be the issue, then you make my point for me – massive infrastructure projects with huge planning implications are nodded through by ministers on both sides of the Scottish border, yet moving a BT junction box a few feet causes massive planning problems? I doubt it, but if true, it’s part of the theatre of the absurd.
As for HMRC, I did indeed copy in my local MP and also the MP for my relative’s constituency. The response from HMRC was still tardy and unhelpful. In fairness to my MP, he raised with the government a side point I mentioned in my correspondence, namely the usefulness of creating a “tell us once” type of service around LPAs – just as when a relative dies, their death can be notified to all relevant government bodies (DWP, HMRC, DVLA, local authorities etc) via a single online notification, so it makes sense to implement a similar scheme with regard to LPAs. His office forwarded me the reply he received from the Baroness Levitt KC, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice. It was basically along the lines of “it can’t be done, the technical difficulties are too great”, and then told me that of course the OPG has implemented an excellent online system of code generation that can be utilised to register LPAs without the need to send the original document through the post. This, of course, is where the correspondence started – HMRC refuse to utilise that excellent system, which is why a “tell us once” type of system would have been a great help. And so we go around in circles, while civil servants and junior ministers do nothing to try to make life better for the public. Digital ID? Digital superpower? You’re having a laugh.
Baroness Leavitt KC, by the way, is Alison Frances Josephine Levitt, Baroness Levitt, Baroness Carlile of Berriew. Along the way, she was the principal legal advisor to the DPP from 2009 to 2014, working under Keir Starmer. Among other things, she conducted the CPS’ review of its handling of allegations made in the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal. Her report found that “shortcomings” in the CPS’s handling of the cases allowed Savile to avoid prosecution, but it found no evidence that Starmer was personally involved in the decision-making process. In late 2024, Levitt was nominated for a life peerage by Prime Minister Keir Starmer. I make no allegations of impropriety, and I have no evidence of impropriety, but isn’t that all very neat? What was I saying about grubby politics in the eighteenth century?
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Nothing beats a good rant. I trust you feel better now 🙂
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Oil & Gas: ABIOGENIC THEORY.
Davisonfamily, this is just a quick note on a topic I hope to return to. Suffice to note for now that this topic is addressed in “Oil – a beginner’s guide”, Vaclav Smil, Oneworld, 2017, pages 67-68.
Regards, John C.
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Mark and Davison family, You are indeed right about the ECU changes — many people are seriously annoyed, and actually the portal doesn’t seem to work at all for many people. Our local paper, Southern Reporter, has this as its main front page story. There is increasing pressure in the Borders to force changes in SG policy, and there was a Borders Convention held three weeks ago where some 50+ Borders communities vented their ire. Shortly there is going to be a round table event at Holyrood, when the Borders will meet up with the Highland Convention, and NE Scotland Convention, which were held earlier last year.
Whether there is the slightest chance we will get Scottish Ministers to listen is moot — but there are now many MSPs who are starting to listen seriously. All rural areas of Scotland are coming together, all with the same feeling that the Scottish Government does not care about our views, and will make things as difficult as possible for us. The ECU saga is just a small part of that. You are not the only one feeling hacked off Mark ….
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Mark, salt in the wound….as you may already know, BT is planning to close down all hard-wired landlines by the end of this year, replacing them with some internet gadgetry which will not work if/when the power goes off.
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MikeH, I know! It’s not a great idea, so far as I can see.
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heriotjohn,
Thank you for the view from southern Scotland. I am aware of the conventions, and I wish them success. It’s important to make a noise, since the only thing that seems to motivate many politicians is the prospect of losing so many votes that they might lose their seats.
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“‘Prepare for blackouts’: Miliband’s net zero revolution is a hacker’s dream
Experts warn of a rising threat of cyber attacks from hostile states on Britain’s grid”
https://archive.ph/UXt0Q#selection-2221.4-2225.90
...Energy security is a guiding principle of Miliband’s net zero agenda, underpinning his rush to ditch fossil fuels – but for some cyber security experts, there is a major blind spot in his promise to keep Britain’s lights on.
They say the complex energy grid he is building is no longer an isolated system but one that is increasingly hooked up to the internet – making it a tempting target for Britain’s enemies.
A cyber attack from a hostile state or hackers is an increasing probability because of the increasing amount of tech and data used in Miliband’s green energy push, they warn.
Britain’s grid once linked just a few dozen large power stations dotted around the country. Attacking them would have likely involved a physical breach of the site.
But now, Britain’s grid is expanding with hundreds more generators connected to the system – and connected to the internet.
Each of those generators is potentially a hackers dream, says Andreas Schierenbeck, the chief executive of Hitachi Energy. Hitachi makes transformers for the UK grid.
He warns that the growing connectivity of every grid component and every generator risks creating an open door for cyber terrorists.
“Cyber-security [in power grids] has become a major risk because it concerns the nerve centres of our electricity networks,” he says. “No system is un-hackable, so we have to prepare for the eventuality that there will be hacks and attacks. It is not a question of if it will happen, it’s a question of when.”
Schierenbeck will tell world leaders gathered at the Munich Security Conference this week, including Sir Keir Starmer, that all such systems are vulnerable and are being increasingly targeted….
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I’ve just received another text from my broadband and landline supplier apologising for the ongoing problems (connectivity was restored a week ago) and telling me they hope to restore it by 20th February! I suppose when it comes to the compensation to which I’m entitled I shall come clean and let them know it was restored two weeks earlier than their projected date for fixing it….They’re so useless it’s tempting to let them pay up, but that’s not my way. I’m honest, even if it seems some politicians might not be.
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Further to my brief comment on 5th February regarding ABIOGENIC OIL & GAS, Smil (op. cit. above) largely pours cold water on the theory for the majority of deposits. Smil writes:-
“Evidence for the biogenic origins of oil, an explanation shared by nearly all European and North American petroleum geologists, has been strengthened by the use of the latest analytical methods. Biomarkers in crude oil (including porphyrins and lipids) are clearly derived from organic molecules; isotopic analyses confirm matches between carbon isotope ratios in hydrocarbons and in terrestrial and marine plants. Isotopic analysis of carbon and hydrogen rule out the occurrence of globally significant abiogenic alkanes.”
Regards, John C.
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“Miliband’s net zero obsession ‘puts Britain at risk of Russia attack’
Former Nato chief says scrapping fossil fuels too quickly could lead to cyber hacks from Moscow”
https://archive.ph/Trh9N#selection-2139.4-2143.99
Labour’s “hellbent” desire to hit net zero risks leaving Britain’s energy industry vulnerable to Russian attack, a former Nato chief has warned.
Gen Sir Richard Sherriff, Nato’s former deputy supreme allied commander Europe, said the clean power push by Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, risked crippling the UK.
The defence chief said ramping up the pace at which the nation was scrapping fossil fuel use was a mistake and could harm the country’s overall energy resilience, exposing it to sabotage and cyber hacks by Moscow.
“We’re sleepwalking not only into an energy crisis but a war crisis,” Gen Sir Richard said, adding he feared Britain could be targeted by Russian “grey zone”-style attacks.
“The hellbent ‘go-green’ agenda from the likes of Ed Miliband is undermining our ability to withstand energy shock. It’s about building redundancy.”...
…cyber security experts have warned Mr Miliband’s net zero drive could be a prime target for Russian-backed cyber hackers, who could seek to disrupt the system.
They say the complex energy grid he is building is no longer an isolated system but one that is increasingly hooked up to the internet, making it a tempting target for Britain’s enemies.
A major hack from a hostile state is an increasing probability because of the increasing amount of tech and data used in Mr Miliband’s green energy push, they warn.
Two months ago, Poland’s growing network of green energy systems was exploited by hackers to break into the grid. The perpetrators, probably Russian, used communications terminals embedded in 30 wind and solar farms….
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“The Road to Hell Goes via British Telecom”
https://dailysceptic.org/2026/02/22/the-road-to-hell-goes-via-british-telecom/
Sounds familiar to me!
I’ve given it a month. By now I’d expected my rage at the memory of a Christmas spent alone, ill and without broadband to subside. It has not. One whole month to fix a fault that was diagnosed on day one and could have been put right within 24 hours – if human common sense was still in charge. But at British Telecom, common sense has left the building. Replaced by systems that don’t recognise problems that are out of the ordinary and do not give employees the discretion to fix them. Everything is process. Everything is script. When they encounter anything not in that script, front-line call handlers simply palm you off with excuses because they don’t know what else to do.
I tell this story because I believe there is a lesson in it. We are being frightened right now into thinking that AI and the computer systems it uses can take over most things humans do and execute them better. AI will be the master, we humans no more than its dull and powerless servants. People like the call handlers at British Telecom seem already conditioned to see themselves that way. But AI is just a bunch of algorithms that synthesise and organise at lightning speed information that already exists. When those systems are presented with the novel, the unexpected, they hit the buffers.
Rather than teaching people they are stupider than AI and therefore must be passive components of the machine, surely we should be empowering them to take responsibility, make decisions and solve problems using qualities essential to being human that machines will never possess. I honestly believe the world will dissolve into chaos unless we do....
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