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I was going to bid for the 1895 pattern (F777) at Noonan's today. A similar specimen sold for £3500 on Baldwin's list in 2011 but today it went for £10,880 !!!!!!!!! Needless to say, I didn't buy it.

I expect he sees the ones he wants to see! He can probably see all of them - it's just a convenient excuse for getting out of answering any of my questions after he comes out with his usual nonsense. It's the same old story - there is no real perspective or realism in Peckris's blithe platitudes. It's all taken at face value from the media or politicians. He hasn't thought about it. He "hopes" China will come round - Xi has said that China will only change over to renewable energy when "others have shown it to be a success". If China can gain vast economic power from being the only country in the world that can do energy-intensive manufacturing, Xi isn't going to kill his golden goose - virtually limitless cheap energy, and the unfortunate result of net zero will be the complete economic ascendancy of China. So we're basically enabling a slave state to become the economic powerhouse of the world because they can, and do, burn as much coal as they want. To make all our renewables like solar panels for instance! Xi is safe enough in his stance - no one will ever make a success of it of course, as the renewables shebang has two huge flaws: its energy is not storable on any scale thus has to be used when made, and the supply is variable and uncontrollable. It's weather dependant, and cannot be magicked up when needed. You can't have bigger elephants in the room than that. "The wind will keep on blowing" - as you say, not if we have an anti-cyclone above us which happened for a prolonged period this Winter. And in Winter solar is basically useless with long nights and weak light, not forgetting it produces nothing for 50% of the year, ie night. So solar is only really significant on high Summer days when we least need the energy. So on not very windy days in Winter, how many nuclear power stations, small modular or otherwise, would we need to effectively produce 100% backup for ALL our energy needs? That would entail charging all vehicles, warming all buildings, hot water, all industry and all current electrical stuff? And how is our nuclear building programme going at the moment? We're tricked on every level - we're told renewables produce up to 50% of our electricity, often craftily called "energy" instead as if it's our total energy requirement. And yes it does produce up to 50%, but only now and again. But it also produces less than 5% of our electricity at other times. They don't tell us that, but just employ the phrase "up to". They don't mention that much of the rest of the electricity is generated by gas. And that's to order, unlike renewables. But electricity is only currently about 20% of our total energy consumption, the remainder being mainly fossil fuels with a bit of nuclear, that means our billions of pounds investment in renewables provides 20% of between 5% and 50% - so less than 1% to maximum 10% of our total energy requirement, produced randomly of course. Where does one start on this? - there are so many holes in it. Like some elderly acquaintances of ours who have just bought a mid-range EV, so as to tell everyone they're "saving the planet"! Help, help, help.....!!!