Average per day I spend on food.

In my previous post I calculated that the price of food has increased very roughly by 26% over the previous 12 months (and contradicting the claimed 10.6%).  I decided to calculate the average daily cost of food for myself. Chart is below. It ends in mid-August as the average is calculated over a rolling 100 day average and mid-August is now 50 days ago.

 

The average per day I have spent on food over the previous 538 days is £4.88.  Incidentally, this is just food and exclusively bought from supermarkets -- namely Asda, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Tesco. It doesn't include any non-food products such as cleaning products and whatever.

Looking at the chart, the steep decline in the price I pay from the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2022 is accounted for by my decision to try to decrease the amount I spend on food in the face of the humongous increase in the price of energy.  But, since near the beginning of this year, despite continuing to buy cheaper food, the price I'm paying has steadily increased. This will be purely down to the fact that the price of food has steadily increased since that time. Indeed, I believe that most of the 26% inflation increase in the price of food has occurred since the beginning of this year (2022).

So, anyway, at the present time, it seems I'm spending about an average £5 per day on food. That will only continue to increase whilst food prices keep steeply increasing. 

 

Food Inflation in the UK: Why is an incorrect figure being quoted?

I talked about the increase in the price of food a few weeks ago. I found that the price of food for the products I buy if I were to continue buying those precise same products had roughly increased by 15% from July 2021 to July 2022.  

I was astonished to read a few days ago this article claiming that food prices have only increased by 10.6% in the past year.  Astonished, since the price of food has only been accelerating in the 2 months since I wrote that other blog post in late July.  So it seemed to me that the price inflation of food would be even higher than it was in July i.e higher even than 15%. So I decided to check the prices out by comparing some of the food prices I bought back in September and October 2021 from Morrisons and Sainsburys, and comparing to what the current prices are now on the 30th September 2022.  In the below table I’ve mainly included the more common foods that many people frequently buy e.g. bread, potatoes, milk, cheese etc.

Obviously, a lot of food cycles up and down in price all the time, with the low end of the cycle being labelled "offers". I always use prices at the low end of the cycle.

Weight (kg) Product 2021 2022 % Increase 4 pints Fresh Milk £1.09 £1.55 42% 0.4 Cheddar Cheese £2.00 £2.75 38% 0.2 Pecans £2.50 £2.83 13% 0.2 Walnuts £2.00 £2.22 11% 0.4 Warbs Wholemeal Bread £0.85 £0.90 6% 0.2 Morrisons Plain Yogurt £0.50 £0.75 50% 0.15 Walkers Crisps 6x25g £1.25 £1.50 20% 0.4 Jacob's Cream Crackers 2x200g £1.60 £1.80 13% 0.095 Nescafé Gold Blend Espresso Instant Coffee £3.00 £3.50 17% 850ml Ribena Squash £1.50 £1.50 0% 1 Fresh Chicken Drumsticks £1.35 £2.25 67% 1.35 Fresh Whole Chicken £3.00 £3.50 17% 0.3 Morrisons 10 Haddock Fish Fingers £1.75 £1.99 14% 0.5 Morrisons Chunky Battered Haddock £2.99 £5.25 76% 0.4 Bassetts Jelly Babies Sweets Carton £2.00 £2.00 0% 0.2 Morrisons Fruit Jellies £0.90 £1.25 39% 2.5 King Edward Potatoes £1.50 £1.75 17% 2.5 Morrisons Baking Potatoes £1.25 £1.85 48% All Products £31.03 £39.14 26%
There are 18 food products, and as an average they've increased by 26% (highlighted in yellow). Out of the 18 food products listed, only 3 of them have increased by less than 10.6%. It seems to me to be unrealistic to see how that figure could be dragged down to 10.6% by considering more foods. So how on earth is this 10.6% figure being derived? Incidentally, note how much cheaper the haddock fish fingers are to the chunky battered haddock.  And yet they have a very similar percentage of haddock fillet per unit weight (64% and 65% respectively). Fish fingers are significantly the cheapest way to eat fish, more so if one just buys pollock fish fingers (they don't label them as pollock, of course, since they want customers to assume they're cod.  They use names like omega 3 fish fillet etc, even though the omega 3 content is only a small fraction of fish like mackerel and salmon). Original screenshot of spreadsheet below (I couldn't put it in the middle without messing up all the formatting).

More on the Truss Government.

Following on from my last post.  As I mentioned there, I've made numerous Facebook posts in the past 2 months voicing my fears should Truss become PM. Any other Tory leader candidate would have been infinitely better. Why the hell did Tory party members vote for her? We could have had Rishi Sunak for God's sake! Yeah, he’s fairly clueless in certain respects, e.g. understanding the plight of the poor. But at least he's competent, level-headed and knows what he's doing. So at least the economy would have been in capable hands.

What the hell were Tory party members thinking of? I was watching Tory party members being interviewed before she became PM. They all seemed to prefer her to Sunak. I was just groaning, thinking, 'Oh my Gawd, she's going to become PM, and we're all screwed!' But I was screaming in the wilderness, a forlorn Cassandra figure.

Catastrophic times ahead for the UK

This "mini" budget is extraordinarily bad on all levels.

1. It seems likely to screw up the economy.

2. They're providing help to the richest, and scarcely any help for the poorest, but the latter are precisely the one's that won't be able to make ends meet with this cost of living crisis.

3. They don't appear to care about climate change and renewable energy. 

4. Truss is being belligerent to Russia, making it more likely that we in the UK will be the first target to be nuked.

Well done Tory party members for voting for this incompetent crazy silly women to be our PM...

I've been dreading the possibility of Liz Truss becoming PM ever since Boris Johnson resigned. And it started from April.

For just some facebook posts where I mention her, go here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

As I said on the 22nd July:

Liz Truss keeps asserting that putting up taxes will be deleterious for economic growth (OK, she doesn't use the word deleterious, she's probably never heard of it). Presumably the idea is that people will work less hard the more they're taxed. But where is she getting this idea from? Where is the evidence for this? Or is she just pulling this from her ass? I suspect the latter.

A quick google to try and verify her unsubstantiated assertion. This is the very first link, I wasn't deliberately sifting through trying to find evidence that contradicts her. The link says:

economic growth is largely unaffected by how much tax the wealthy pay. Growth is more likely to spur if lower income earners get a tax cut.

But the more wealthy one is, the more benefits one receives from tax cuts. Even in the best of times, this is the precise converse of what we should be trying to achieve, given the already disgraceful inequality. But Governments (or at least Tory ones) are hell-bent in making this even worse!

And it's especially pernicious given the cost of living crisis. God knows what's going to happen to the bottom 20% of people of the income or wealth scale this coming winter. It's especially bad given that Truss is going to become PM. Why is the UK obligated to have complete incompetents as PMs??

And on the 9th August

Liz Truss’s emergency tax and spending pledges could cost upwards of £50bn a year, with experts warning they will fail to help the worst-off deal with the rising cost of living.

And even leaving the worst off aside, cancelling the national insurance rise helps those on a higher income vastly more than those on the lowest incomes that still pay national insurance. I think it's something like 7 times as much money.

Let's say there's a certain sum of money to help people, say £30 billion. So, as it stands, the worst off will receive no help. And the poorest that nevertheless pay national insurance might only get something like 5 billion, of that 30 billion. Those with greater incomes get the rest. How utterly insane and stupid can she be??

I keep saying that the help needs to be largely targetted to those who are the poorest, and this money needs to come from the wealthiest. She's proposing the precise opposite. It will be disastrous if she's being serious.

And, from what I read, it is generally believed that such tax cuts will fail to facilitate economic growth.

And on the 23rd August

Well, it's certainly going to be dire with Liz Truss as PM. I really am stumped in envisaging what will happen. She's only interested in helping the wealthy, and if she doesn't provide very substantial help for the poor, I'm afraid that could be very dangerous indeed.

26/9/22 Edited to add:   3 days later after the weekend. The pound is plummeting, reaching almost parity with the dollar.  Why on earth was this not anticipated?? 

18/10/22 A further edit:  Well, this mini budget has proved to be an unmitigated disaster.  The chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has been sacked, and a new chancellor Jeremy Hunt has been appointed in his place.  The new chancellor has U-turned on almost all the policies in the mini-budget, and it is anticipated that Liz Truss will soon be ousted as PM.

Why on earth was she ever appointed as PM in the first place?  I said back on the 6th of August that she might well be the shortest serving PM ever. 

Sitting and dementia

I've just read the following article.

Dementia: What you do while you sit may affect your risk

The study finds that being mentally active and engaged while sitting may reduce the chances of developing dementia. Conversely, sitting passively increases this risk.

Sitting passively means something like watching TV.

I always have thoughts churning through my mind, I wouldn't even know how to stop them! Indeed, I've always found it difficult listening to people, and taking in what I'm seeing when watching TV since my mind always drifts. It's why I did so cr@p at school, as that involves having to listen to teachers. If instead, we were obliged to read the material rather than listen to teachers, I reckon I would have done vastly better. Indeed, going to school was largely a complete waste of time for me.

 Oh well, if my constant churning thoughts help me to avoid getting dementia, then that's a positive.

ESP Debate: Is Belief in ESP Irrational?

I read the first part of the below linked article where Steve Pinker attempts to explain why belief in ESP or psi is irrational:

ESP Debate: Is Belief in ESP Irrational?

First of all, as of yet, I haven't read Brian D. Josephson's response. Nor indeed, have I ever read anything that Brian D. Josephson has said on this topic or indeed any other topic. So my own thoughts will not have been influenced by what he said.

My own position is that belief in ESP or psi is not irrational. If people like Pinker maintain that it is, then they need to address my reasoning that I lay out in a post in my main blog. In there I endeavour to rebut the contention that psi could not possibly exist that was made in a Skeptical Inquirer article. Here are a couple of questions I would like to ask Pinker. What do I say in my post that could be deemed to be irrational? Where do I go astray in my reasoning?

Although Pinker's arguments are already largely addressed in that blog post of mine (these arguments by skeptics all tend to be extremely similar), let's briefly look at a couple of things he says.

Pinker says:

In the case of ESP, the empirical case would have to be stupendous to outweigh the overwhelming prior odds against ESP existing. All of our experience, and all of our understanding of the physical universe, speak against both the possibility of the future affecting the past, and against an ability to sense the state of the world without the transmission of information by physical energy.

Clearly, not all of our experiences since that would amount to no one ever reporting experiences of ESP. However, in fact, it’s been reported across virtually all cultures and throughout recorded history.

If ESP really existed, not only would the laws of physics have to be overturned.

I address in detail in my aforementioned blog post both the contention that physical energy is needed for ESP, and that the laws of physics would need to be overturned if it existed. But briefly, our understanding of the physical Universe as revealed by physics wholly leaves out consciousness in its description of reality. Hence, the laws of physics as we currently understand them cannot possibly be entirely correct. Further, if we have no mechanism or explanation for the very existence of consciousness, then, of course, a fortiori, we could not expect to be able to discern any mechanism for any possible abilities of consciousness. Such abilities not only include ESP, but also the ability to move our own bodies in accordance with our intentions.

The knowledge afforded by telepathy or precognition could easily be exploited to bankrupt casinos

I also address this is my aforementioned blog post. But, to repeat, I doubt it. Even if we grant psi is continually operating (something I would reject), why can't the effects be very slight? Or why can't various psychokinetic effects from differing people cancel each other out? If I'm in a casino, mightn't any very marginal psychokinetic effect from me wanting a certain outcome be cancelled by other people wanting other outcomes?

But, in any case, it’s not clear to me that psi can just be turned on at will. It seems likely that one has to be in a certain emotional psychological state, which a casino is unlikely to elicit.

If our prior belief [in psi] is very low, say, 00000000000000000001

My prior belief in psi isn’t low at all. A prior belief that psi has a very low probability of existing is a consequence of the modern western world-view, especially the notion that the mechanistic philosophy is largely correct and that some flavour of materialism is highly likely to be the correct depiction of reality. But I think reductive materialism is incompatible with the very existence of consciousness. And any looser definition of materialism, aka some type of non-reductive materialism, is contradicted by the direct experience of our own causal agency.

Though many phenomena at extreme scales of space and energy—near the Big Bang or a black hole, at the size of a photon or of a galaxy—are incompletely understood, this cannot be said about the physics of everyday life. As Sean Carroll shows in The Big Picture, on these scales, from nanotech to moon rockets, the laws of physics are completely understood. We aren’t in need of strange new forces or fields to explain how a bicycle works, or why eclipses happen.

I've addressed this argument of Sean Carroll's in my Sean Carroll and the philosophy of mind and science, although that focusses on the causal efficacy of consciousness rather than ESP. But the exact same rebuttal applies. In brief, of course we don't need new physics to explain how bicycles work and ellipses happen (and I just said that in an exasperated voice). But we do need new physics to accommodate the casual efficacy of consciousness, and indeed psi or ESP too. Again, since physical laws leave out consciousness, and a fortiori abilities of consciousness such as its causal efficacy and ESP, then current laws do not describe reality in their entirety. They need to be modified to allow for the existence of consciousness. One can describe these laws as being “overturned” if one chooses, but the history of science teaches us that laws are continually “overturned” e.g. quantum mechanics overturned classical mechanics. And Einstein’s general theory of relativity “overturned” Newton’s theory of gravitation.

To begin with, we’re talking about a phenomenon that, if it existed, would be tiny in magnitude, on the order of one tenth of a standard deviation.

I have no idea what a “standard deviation” means (I wish my A level maths had included probability!) But dreaming of the future that actually transpires, or perceiving an apparition of someone who has just died etc, wouldn't appropriately be described as tiny in magnitude. Of course, doubtless he’s referring to parapsychological research. But it’s not due to such research that people believe in psi. Rather, it’s due to their own direct experiences, the experience of people they know, and the collective experience of humankind.

They are a miscellaneous collection of oddities and anomalies rather than a systematic phenomenon whose conditions and outcomes are identified a priori.

That’s not true. We’re talking about characteristic phenomena of a very similar nature that is universal across space and time e.g. telepathy, remote viewing, crisis apparitions etc.

Also, the classic claims for ESP in controlled experiments cited by Horowitz, such as those of J. B. Rhine and his intellectual descendants, have been exposed as artifacts of investigator bias, leakage of information, selective reporting, overinterpretation of coincidence, questionable research practices (such as post hoc data exclusion), and outright fraud.

Even if, for the sake of argument, we grant that the research is fatally flawed, this could not overturn people's direct experiences of ESP. So flawed research couldn't make people's belief in ESP irrational since most people's belief in ESP is independent of such research. My belief in ESP certainly is.

But we also need to bear in mind that those whose prior expectation is that ESP is overwhelmingly unlikely, are scarcely likely to be impartial in any assessment of any research that suggests its existence. We would need to look at their arguments, but then, before making up our minds, also look at the responses of those who disagree with such an assessment.

Back to 1869

Imagine you suddenly slipped through a wormhole in the space-time continuum and found yourself back in the year 1869.  If you could convince someone that you came from 2022, would we also be able to convince them of what 2022 is like, especially in terms of technology?

I don't think so, since a lot of it would be unbelievable to their ideas about what is possible.  Yes, motorcars would be believable to them since they had trains, although I assume they wouldn't envisage the complete ubiquity of cars on our roads.

What about the believability of the existence of small hand held devices that can enable you to instantaneously communicate with anyone on the planet who has a similar device? And that you can use to find the answer to any question that human beings know the answer to?  That can play chess, take photos, even use as a torch?  I would think they would think I'm barmy!

What if I approached a physicist and tried to explain quantum mechanics to them?  Not that I know much about QM.  I would have to say reality isn't continuous, but rather discontinuous.  And that reality exhibits differently, apparently changing its very nature, depending on our experimental apparatus.  That electrons exist both as particles and waves.. oh wait.. he'll ask what is an electron! OK, photons then (and would he know what "OK" means??).

Would I in fact change history?  Well yes, due to the butterfly effect.  But they wouldn't be able to use my knowledge of developments in physics even if, miraculously, I was taken seriously for one second!  

Mind you... if I had my smartphone on me...

Don't put central heating on this winter and save yourself ~ £600 to £1,000

My energy bills (electricity and gas combined) for last winter:

Oct-21 £84.48
Nov-21 £101.40
Dec-21 £100.32
Jan-22 £113.33
Feb-22 £98.31
Mar-22 £97.81

A total sum of £595.65

I'm trying to work out how much more I'll pay this winter. It would be vastly simpler if they simply specified kwhs used for both elect and gas. But, it is what it is, so...

First of all, this applies to the UK.  OK, price caps were and will be:

Oct-21 £1,277
Apr-22 £1,971
Oct-22 ~£3,420
Jan-23 ~£3,850

For the upcoming 6-month winter period, we need to take an average of the Oct 22 and Jan 23 price caps. Average of £3,420 and £3,850 is £3,635.

So bills in the forthcoming 6-month period from 1/10/22 to 1/4/23 will be £3,635 divided by £1,277 multiplied by one's 6 monthly bill from 1st Oct 21 to 1st April 22.

Hence, in my own case, this is 3635 divided by 1277 multiplied by 595.65 = £1,695.53. This is an extra cost of £1,099.88 for me (£1,695.53 - £595.65 = £1,099.88) compared to last year.

However, most of us received £150 from the Government, and we're all getting £400 (I think?), and other additional help for the poorest too. That's a total of £550 for most of us. So, for most of us, we need to find an extra £500 to £600 or so (but might vary a lot).

Of course, in practice, we'll be putting our central heating on less frequently. This is where it would be useful to know the price per kwh hour for both elect and gas.

But, anyway, Of that £565.65 cost last year I spent on energy, £264.49 of it went on gas.  That's 47% of my energy bill for the 6 winter months.  

So, if hypothetically, I don't use my gas at all, my energy bill for the forthcoming winter would be just 53% of my calculated £1,695.53, which is £902.72.  However, I'll need to get showers and wash the dishes.  Also, I bought myself a heating blanket in April that I will use this coming winter, which will marginally increase my electricity bill. But, maybe I could limit my total energy cost for those 6-months to, say, £1,100, a saving of ~£600? I should also point out that I only ever had my central heating on in the lounge, and not on all the time. Hence, others may save more than £600, possibly as much as a £1,000?

Since most of us are getting, or have got, £550 from the Government, that means, in terms of energy price inflation, many people, providing they never put on their central heating this winter, won't be any worse off than last winter! (of course there's food price increases, and all the rest, so don't get too relieved).

There is, of course, next April (2023).  But no one knows what the price cap will be then, nor what any Government help might be.  So let's just kick that worry-can down the road.

Update  26th August 2022   The price cap has been announced that will apply from the 1st October to the 1st January.  Above I mentioned that the estimate was £3,420. It will, in fact, be £3,549.  Much more importantly, though, the price cap for 1st January 2023 to 1st April 2023 is not now estimated to be £3,850, but rather an utterly staggeringly high £5,386!  So for the 6-month period beginning on the 1st of October, the average will not be the £3,635 I mentioned above, but rather £4,468.

At this point, even if not putting the central heating on at all won't make ends meet, there's nothing else I can advise. We just have to sit tight and hope and pray that the next PM will supply adequate help for those that need it.  This will require a huge sum of money of many many £billions.  Since our next PM will almost certainly be Liz Truss, then there could be turbulent times ahead.  It could be very grim indeed for many people.

Are companies permitted to lie about the terms of a contract over the phone or by webchat?

Back in May (2022) I agreed to subscribe to a 24-month broadband contract with Vodafone for £20 a month.  Crucially, I only agreed to this as I was assured the price would stay at £20.  Given the inflation rate, that made it reasonable value.  Here is a screenshot of that assurance (I've covered up her name).

It's not very clear, so I reproduce below:

Vodafone: you can get up to 70.5 Mbps download speed,

Download speed 38 Mbps to 70.5 Mbps Minimum guaranteed 35 Mbps 

Upload speed 10 Mbps to 18.4 Mbps

Vodafone: 24 month contract :)

Me: 24 months! Can you not make it 12 months? Also is the £20 price guaranteed, or might it go up during those 24 months? 

Me: Just grabbing a coffee, be 1 min 

Vodafone: we dont do 12 month contracts for broad band, only 24 months and no the price will stay £20 through out the 24 months, there will be no price increase at all :) 

Also, when I received the confirmation email, it said:

So that satisfies me since it implies that it will not increase before that 24-month period has elapsed, not even to keep up with inflation.

However, I've just read a telegraph article.  It refers to BT broadband bills increasing by somewhat more than inflation.  It says:

It puts BT at risk of a clash with the industry watchdog Ofcom, which is preparing to take action on misleading small-print charges.

At that point, I became concerned and did a search for Vodafone's small-print terms and conditions.  I found the following.

So, if I'm interpreting this correctly, the £20 charge will be increasing by inflation plus an additional 3.9% charge!  So this directly contradicts what I was told via webchat.  And clearly, I would never have agreed to the contract if I had been aware that I had been misinformed.

Are companies permitted to lie to people about the price they will pay?  Surely not?  Or is the law even more of an ass than I originally thought?

What in God's name is going to happen this winter with eyewatering energy prices?

Energy price cap will rise to £3,420, then £3,850 in January (2023)

I wonder what the hell will happen come October.  I think it's likely there will be  mass non-payment of energy bills. Not merely because of the effectiveness of any concerted action to withhold payment, but simply because many people simply won't have enough money. So by necessity they won't pay.  People have to be able to feed themselves.  It wouldn't surprise me if they were riots if the Government don't take sufficient action.

I'm hearing very little indeed from the Government.  We (the UK) are going to get Liz Truss as our PM.  Her solution is to cut taxes.  But if you have a sum of money to help people, then it's a colossally stupid idea to give the lion's share of that cash to wealthier people, since these are the very people that don't require help to make ends meet.  And, of course, many of those on Universal Credit and other benefits, and many pensioners, don't pay income tax.  And come January energy prices alone will be close to £3000 extra compared to 18 months previous to that.  Something somewhat more than tax cuts is required.

I first talked about energy price increases and the calamitous consequences almost a year ago. And this in March.