Jaffa's Juicy Bits

The name Brabantia will likely need no introduction to any homeowner - chances are you've got one of their waste bins somewhere in your home. In fact, the first bin I ever bought was a Brabantia - a little pedal bin for use in the bathroom in my first place after I left home.

After moving into a new home with a garden, it became clear that my green testing had become a little...how shall I put it? Ungreen! My original benchmark energy test involved washing and drying a set of towels from our weekly wash - but of course there is nothing at all eco-conscious about using a tumble dryer when the sun is shining!

Enter the Brabantia Lift-O-Matic rotary dryer.


Continue Reading "Brabantia - Solar Powered Clothes Drying" »

There are lies, damn lies...and car awards and they don't get much more ridiculous than The Green Car Awards presented by the Environmental Transport Association.

I'm not entirely sure who the ETA are trying to be, they appear to sell breakdown cover, but they claim their Green Car Awards have been running since 1992. ETA SERVICES LIMITED, the company behind the awards, was actually first incorporated on the 6th February 1997 but under the name of "MOTIVESELL LIMITED". They rebranded to the ETA name on 4th August 1997 after just 6 months in business and the eta.co.uk domain was registered in the same month. Their nature of business is registered at companies house as "non-life insurance" which might go someway towards explaining how they appear to have such limited knowledge of Environmental matters.

So why have I taken issue with these awards?
Continue Reading "ETA Green Car Awards" »

When Honda UK invited me to a press event for their new CR-Z hybrid vehicle, I didn't know what to expect. As you grow up, you tend to get exposed and influenced by the cars of friends & family. Despite probability claiming the opposite, I never actually knew anybody with a Honda.

Back in 2001, I once considered a Honda Accord Type R to replace my MX-5 but a divorce ruled family life off the agenda for a while so I bought a Mazda RX-7 Twin Turbo instead. When I'd had enough of that, I considered an Integra or Civic Type R to replace it but ended up with a Golf R32 instead as I just didn't like that torque steer feel of a high power front-wheel drive car. The CR-Z would be the first Honda I had driven since that rainy Civic test drive in 2004.
Continue Reading "Honda CR-Z - Conscience without Compromise" »

There's still some debate over how much it costs in electricity to fully charge a Nissan Leaf from empty. Originally I was told "something like 1.20 Euros" but this didn't apply in the UK so I did the maths.

The Nissan Leaf UK tour came to the O2 last week and a group of journalists and fleet reps came to see the new car and learn about the stats. Some correspondents told me that Nissan were still claiming £1 for a full charge, so I probed further.The end result was that @UKNissanLeaf responded: "We estimate the cost to fully charge a LEAF overnight would be in the region of £1 to £1.50 using low rate Economy 7 electricity".

So there we have it. To get charging costs as low as the claimed figures, you may need to be on a different retail tariff for your electricity. But how will that affect your overall electricity bills? Read on...
Continue Reading "Nissan Leaf - Charging on Economy 7" »

Following the Nissan Leaf running cost article I wrote last week, I've had a number of people asking about its Green credentials and what kind of carbon footprint it might create for a potential owner. I thought I may as well get my calculator out and do some more sums.

Just to clarify, the Nissan Leaf doesn't have a combustion engine. It doesn't have an exhaust pipe. It's just a milk float style vehicle that is charged from the owner's electricity supply. So driving the car creates no direct emissions and it's CO2 output could be considered as nil, but not if that electricity is sourced using fossil fuels.
Continue Reading "Nissan Leaf - Hidden Emissions" »

Nissan have this week announced that the new Leaf model will be made at their Sunderland assembly plant. Great news for the UK and particularly good news for the North East of England with hundreds of jobs secured for the foreseeable future making possibly the most appropriately named "green" car ever.

The Leaf is entering a new market for Nissan in that it, like a milk float, will be powered completely on electricity from on-board batteries. Between uses it will be charged from the mains and the stored charge will be enough to give the car a claimed range of around 100 miles. They also claim (through @neilatnissaneu on twitter ) that a full charge will cost "something like 1.20 Euros". This left me wondering, after all electricity is many things but it really isn't cheap. Would 1.20 Euros really get a UK owner 100 miles? What will the true running costs be? Let's do the maths...
Continue Reading "Nissan Leaf - The Maths" »

Way back when I was a kid (making myself sound old again) we had 3 or 4 TV channels and most of the sport was on BBC1 with the odd bit on ITV. As things like the Snooker were the only things on at certain times of day, more people watched them. You went to school and people had been allowed to stay up late to watch Dennis Taylor win the final at the Crucible. I was recently told (by Dennis himself) that more people were watching that snooker win, after midnight, than were watching rower Steve Redgrave break the medal winning record at the Olympics - in the middle of the day. That is how popular televised sport used to be.

But it all changed, mainly due to Sky Sports who bought the rights to televise all the big football games. People flocked to satellite TVs which quickly started racking in massive revenues, which allowed them to buy more sport, and the cycle continued. Now pretty much all sporting events are on Sky for a ridiculous price and people are now paying around £70/month for the top packages. The old BBC coverage used to cost us about £5/month as part of the TV license. It's also now affecting other TV shows as many of the latest popular TV shows are exclusive to channels like Sky One - the buying power of Sky is so massive, it's hard to compete. It seems to be a fixed destination journey with all roads leading to Sky. There may be options for how to receive it, cable or satellite, but the source broadcaster is the same and the price is still high. Setanta Sports tried to compete but proved that there is pretty much a monopoly in televised sports these days. So what is the solution?

I propose the solution is to pass legislation that introduces compulsory secondary broadcast rights for all televised games. These rights would come into effect from the moment the full-time whistle is blown. So Man U are visiting Chelsea and the game is being filmed by the crew at Stamford Bridge. Sky, due to their buying power, would most likely own the rights to the live broadcast and it would go out on Sky Sports just as it does now. They may concurrently broadcast some other games live on other channels too, as they do now. Where things would change would be that the remaining channels, like the former Setanta, or even BBC/ITV could purchase the rights to broadcast the game with a time delay. A 3pm kick off would be done and dusted by 5pm at which point the kick-off could be shown on the secondary broadcast. The same game, in full, just not live.

How would this change things? Well, for those unable or unwilling to pay Sky, it would mean they could see the full game in the daytime; instead of edited highlights on Match of the Day. The broadcaster, if it's not free to air, may charge a fee for the channel but, as it's not live, it's going to be a LOT cheaper. Likewise, as they'd only have exclusivity for 90 minutes, Sky would be willing to pay much less for their rights which could make their channels cheaper too. Less money for TV rights would mean less money for Football Clubs who could no longer afford to pay such ridiculous transfer fees for players and bring the football economy down to earth a little. Nobody can argue that football players don't earn too much.

I understand business and I understand the need to let them have "exclusive live" contracts which means they are the only broadcaster for that match but my legislation, in summary, would revoke that exclusivity the moment the match ended. This would introduce forced competition into the market and a better, more affordable, "2nd class" option for sport viewers.