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UTILITY WEEK | 12TH - 18TH JUNE 2015 | 31 Community Editor, Utility Week, and content director, Utilities: Ellen Bennett, t: 01342 332084, e: ellen. bennett@fav-house.com; News editor: Jillian Ambrose, t: 01342 332061, e: jillian.ambrose@ fav-house.com; Associate news editor: Mathew Beech, t: 01342 332082, e: mathew.beech@ fav-house.com; Assistant editor (insights): Jane Gray, t: 01342 332087, e: jane.gray@fav-house. com; Research analyst: Vidhu Dutt, t: 01342 332026, e: vidhu.dutt@fav-house.com; Reporters: Lois Vallely, t: 01342 332080; e: lois.vallely@fav-house.com and Lucinda Dann, t: 01342 332083; e: lucinda.dann@fav-house.com; Business development manager: Ed Roberts, t: 01342 332067, e: ed.roberts@fav-house.com; Business development executive: Sarah Wood, t: 01342 332077, e: sarah.wood@fav-house.com; Publisher: Amanda Barnes, e: amanda.barnes@fav-house.com. General enquiries: 01342 332000; Membership subscriptions: UK £577 per year, overseas £689 per year, t: 020 8955 7045 or email membership sales manager Paul Tweedale: paultweedale@fav-house.com. ISSN: 1356-5532. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Printed by: Buxton Press, Palace Road, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6AE. Published by: Faversham House Ltd, Windsor Court, Wood Street, East Grinstead, West Sussex RH19 1UZ 3,580 Average circulation Jan–Dec 2014 Membership subscriptions: UK £577 per year. Overseas £689 per year. Email: paultweedale@fav-house.com Tom Jamieson @jamiesont Explaining to my 11yo there was a time before social media when we could go for weeks without knowing what we should be angry at. William Marchant @richonlyinname Loch Mess: Energy Ombudsman accepted 16,220 complaints in the first quarter. More than half, 8,840, related to ScottishPower. Monstrous. Tim Reid @TimReidBBC SNP MP John Nicolson ticked off by the Speaker for reading a newspaper in the Chamber. Jessica Lennard @JessicaLennard Bill Cash and Chris Heaton-Harris both on the ballot for Private Members' Bills. Be afraid #renewables industry. Be very, very afraid. Carl Sargeant @WG_NatResMin Plans to end onshore wind subsidies would threaten billions in investment and thousands of Welsh jobs. Urging DECC to reconsider. Energy for London @energyforlondon "Still don't understand why still more expen- sive to install #solar in UK than in Germany" @GregBarkerUK at @thesolartrade conference. Richard Gueterbock @LiquidAD @REAssociation @BiogasUK Key message to Amber Rudd - address issues in DECC. Better internal coms between sectors eg between FIT & RHI teams Leonie Greene @LeonieGreene Blimey! We're in top 2 countries with % peo- ple who *don't care* about climate change. Nice?! No wonder it's a slog! Tom Greatrex @tomjgreatrex Interesting debate amongst delegates on onshore gas at GMB Congress in Dublin. Resisted simplistic posturing. Andy Colthorpe @pv_techandy Conclusion: virtual power plants (ideally with #solar & #energystorage) will be a really big deal, one day. Soon. Top Tweets Disconnector Panning for gold When you're in a hole, stop digging. It's obvious advice but it's surprising how many people ignore it. People like Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for instance – Turkey's most powerful politician. Turkey went to the polls recently in a bitterly contested election to determine, among other things, whether a referen- dum would be held on giving sweeping new powers to the president, a largely ceremonial post currently occupied by Mr Erdogan. The president is an autocrat who ruled Turkey as prime minister for more than a decade before becoming president last year. He has oen been lambasted for his lavish lifestyle, but when an opposition leader ridiculed him for kitting out his residence in gold-plated toilet seats, it was the last straw. A furious Erdogan invited state broadcaster TRT to visit him at his official residence and see for themselves. No gold toilet seats were in evidence, but the interview was conducted in a room decked with gold furni- ture, which did little to help his cause. Indeed, it might have been wise to keep the press away from the presidential palace anyway. The 1,000-room complex was built on Mr Erdogan's instruction and completed shortly before he moved into it. It cost £400 mil- lion and is bigger than either the White House or the Kremlin. Last Sunday, his party lost Disconnector its parliamentary majority aer 13 years in power. The role of president will stay as it is. High water mark If there's one country in the world that might appreciate gold-plated toilet seats, it's Japan. The citizens of the land of the rising sun are nuts about luxurious toilets and spend upwards of £4,000 on electroni- cally programmable domestic toilets cum bidets. The Japanese take going to the toilet very seriously. So, in the wake of an under- ground tremor last weekend, the authorities are discussing whether they should install water supplies and emergency toilets in lis in case people get stuck in them when a big earth- quake strikes. Getting stuck in a li for hours can be awkward if you need the loo, but it still seems like an overreaction. Disconnector hopes our Japanese friends don't have occasion to frequent some of the UK's inner city high rise council housing, where the lis pretty much double up as public toilets as a matter of course. Healthy water Spending thousands of pounds on a toilet seems an eccentric way to spend your money but it's not insane per se – it depends on how much you value the whole "going to the toilet" thing. But if there's one thing that does mystify utility folk it's that people are willing to pay so much money for bottled water when better quality stuff comes out of the tap for free. It's the ultimate victory of marketing. Well, things are about to get a little bit sillier still with the advent of "health waters" such as "artichoke juice" and "birch tree sap". The beverages follow the success of coconut water, which has been endorsed by celebrities such as Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rihanna for its nutritional properties. Disconnector is reminded of the old adage that a fool and his money are easily parted. Perhaps that holds even more true for a thirsty fool. Jurassic pee The truth is, of course, that water is water. There's been a pretty much constant amount of the stuff on Earth for mil- lions of years. And according to calcu- lations by internet science programme Curious Minds, this means that almost all the water on the planet has passed through the guts of at least one dinosaur. Dinosaurs drank a lot of water and the Mesozoic era lasted 186 million years. You just have to do the maths. This means that whatever label we stick on the bottle, we're all essentially drinking dinosaur pee.