Tag: cost of living

Reach out to WordPress?

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I keep trying to submit a question about Jetpack to WordPress but the support submission form won’t open. I filled in a question on another page but at the bottom it said this comment box is not for questions and to use the support form. So I tried and it still won’t open. I feel like I’m going round in circles and that people like me are too unimportant to WordPress.

This is what I wrote:

I don’t have enough memory on my android phone to add another app. I’ve asked what to do and someone suggested deleting other apps but I use them daily. Or I get messages that deleting them will affect the performance of my phone. I cannot afford a new phone (I can’t afford to pay for fuel, how can I pay for a phone?) This is stressing me out and I only have five days to try and work out what to do. I feel this is for the convenience of WordPress and Jetpack and not their customers. I’ve been told to ‘reach out’ but don’t have a solution. I will have to spend my pension money on a new memory card if I want to keep using WordPress on my old android phone, I feel so frustrated about this.

Cards?

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I’m hoping to get some cards made from my pottery paintings. I need to start selling things, but it’s a balance between what I can afford and what I can sell. The cost of living is making life difficult for everyone. This painting is loosely based on a Burleigh ware design although it’s not an actual copy. It’s totally imagined so I had to decide on where the shadows would fall. The background is meant to look like wooden panels reflected in a desk or table. The minds eye is an interesting concept. I actually can imagine how things look, and by talking my way through things I can generally get a good idea of what I’m doing.

Window open

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Brrrr. I’m sitting feeling quite cold. Our central heating system is due to be serviced but even though its a very cold day I was expecting a bit more warmth… Its been a sunny day so it helped warm up the house…. But then hubby just said ‘I’d better shut the bedroom window!’ Wait? WHAT?

He had opened it about six hours ago because it was too hot up there. So I’ve had the central heating on full blast and we have effectively been heating the whole atmosphere!!! I asked him, again, not to do this, but he’s forgetful and he likes fresh air. Tempted to shut all the heating off….. Then he said I’d better turn the hose off… Ape that’s been on for four or five hours. No doubt there are icebergs in the garden now! Grrr and Brrrr

New Prime minister

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Our new Prime minister is a woman. She is choosing her cabinet at the moment which is very diverse. That’s great, but most of them are her supporters. Where are the people to quietly tell her that her ideas may be wrong? Sycophantic behaviour is not good for running a country. There are dictators who have yes men telling them their ideas are wonderful. But at this time of crisis we need people who are serious about changing things, taking sensible decisions rather than populist policies that grab headlines. I know I’m being political, but sometimes you have to say something.

Things she needs to deal with: inflation, cost of living, the environment, national health service, climate change, social care, crime. Who would want the job?

Whoopee! Five pence off a litre!

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Our wonderful Chancellor has today reduced the cost of fuel at the pumps by five pence. That works out at around .33% off the price or one third of one percent! Given that petrol and diesel prices have recently gone up by 50%. This does not seem like an overly generous cut! Given other taxes are going up I wonder what they would like us to think about this? The cost of living and inflation is increasing. Living standards are falling.

Keep warm

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The cost of energy in the UK is going up 54% in April this year. That means that the average household bill will be around £2000 per year. There are already people having to choose between heating and eating. All this in an age when we have been told (and rightly so) that we need to cut our carbon footprints. There are ideas and suggestions, being considered, but whether those will work no one knows. I am lucky to live in a first world country, but the poorest in the economy will be hit hardest by this price hike. They spend a higher percentage of their money on energy.

Why as an artist, am I writing about this? Partly because it means that creative people are being squeezed. If people have higher bills they can’t afford to pay for luxuries like art, music, restaurants, just anything that they have to balance their bills. It means that children are going to suffer more poverty. Life continues to get difficult.

So we face hard times, but what about the rest of the world? Life is hard, conflict increases, people have lost their homes, people starve. I have no solutions to offer, but I wish things were better.