Monday 9 May 2022: Water Neutrality

 Monday 9 May 2022: Water Neutrality

What is water neutrality?

Although I have never heard the term before, I imagine that it is analogous to 'carbon neutrality', that is, a situation in which overall water usage is not greater than the rate at which the natural environment can replenish it, with the consequence that rivers return to full natural flow, water tables stop sinking, and aquifers are no longer being depleted. I imagine that water neutrality requires reduction in water consumption, and the cleaning and re-use of grey water.

In order to achieve water neutrality in a home or flat, solutions need to be installed or built in:​

• What water saving solutions are you aware of? (please specify if for a home or flat) ​

• What do you think motivates customers like yourself to install water-saving solutions such as these in their homes? Why?​

• What are the barriers? Why? 

There are devices that can be (retro-)fitted, such as tap aerators and toilet cistern water displacement devices. There are devices that can be fitted at refurbishment, such as dual flush toilet cisterns and aerating power showers. There are maintenance programmes to ensure that taps are not dripping and toilet cisterns not leaking. There are water storage containers (such as water butts) in which to store rainwater and grey water for use, say, in the garden. There are customer education programmes to encourage customers to think more carefully about how they are using water. There are smart water meters that allow customers to monitor their water usage on a daily basis in order to understand how they are using water, with a view to reducing unnecessary water use. My personal motivation for water use reduction is due to my long-standing commitment to reducing my impact on the environment as a whole. I imagine that this commitment applies to some people. I am also motivated by shame that I was responsible for the wasting of nearly a million litres of water, although I was ignorant of the burst mains pipe until the water started to make its way to the ground surface. I am partly motivated by a need to reduce my bills because I have no income. In my view, the greatest barrier to customers reducing their water use is neither knowing, nor really understanding, how much water they are using, and that the effect, as a society, on the natural environment as a result of overuse is significantly damaging. Smart water meters would go some way to countering this ignorance.

What is meant by 'water re-use'?

Water re-use generally refers to the capture, treatment (if required) and use of alternative water supplies for non-potable purposes. It includes rainwater harvesting, greywater (typically the used water from baths, showers and hand basins) and black water (sewage) recycling and any other type of water recycling or reuse.

What is rainwater harvesting?

The ancient practice of rainwater harvesting (RWH) can be traced back at least 4000 years. Rainwater harvesting is the term used to describe the collection of rainwater that falls onto surfaces, such as roofs, and is stored for future use.

Is rainwater harvesting the same as storm water or surface water harvesting?

Some people use the term RWH to include both the capture of rainfall directly from roof areas as well as the capture and reuse of surface water runoff (also known as storm water or surface water harvesting). These two types of rainwater harvesting may vary quite a bit in terms of water quality, scale, application, cost etc. depending if it is rainwater from roof areas only or a surface water harvesting system.

What is grey water recycling?

Grey water, especially where it is limited to that from baths, showers and washbasins (sometimes termed ‘light grey water’) can be considered high volume, low strength wastewater with high potential for reuse. Most existing buildings plumbing directs all wastewater to the sewer. Separating out grey water from the more polluted wastewaters (e.g. from toilets, often termed ‘black water’) means it can be treated and used as an alternative source of water for non-potable purposes. Generally, grey water recycling (GWR) systems can supply water for toilet flushing, irrigation, outside water use and laundry.

What is black water recycling?

Black water is any wastewater that is contaminated with water discharged from a toilet, so this can and usually does contain grey water. It can also be used to describe wastewater, process or cooling water from industry. Blackwater recycling requires treatment before it can be reused. This usually involves aerobic screening, biological treatment, ultrafiltration, ultraviolet disinfection, TDS (total dissolved solids) and nutrient removal and chlorination.

After reading the definition of rainwater harvesting, what do you think are the pros and cons of this water-saving solution? Why?

What do you think would motivate you to install a RWH solution in your home/flat, what are the barriers? Why?

Yes, please. I already harvest what I can, but it is the proverbial drop in the ocean in relation to my needs. The pros are obvious: quantities of water that fall from the sky that does not have to travel though the water supply system with all the attendant costs. The principal cost is that of creating the storage capacity. I am already highly motivated towards rainwater harvesting. However, harvesting the water is pointless if I have nowhere to store it. What I have is 1,000 litres of storage. What I require is a means to store up to 500,000 litres of winter rainfall for use during the now-annual spring and summer droughts.

After reading the definition of grey water recycling, what do you think are the pros and cons of this water-saving solution? Why?

What do you think would motivate you to install a GWR solution in your home/flat, what are the barriers? Why?

Again, yes, please. I manually save bathwater, and use it for toilet flushing. Vegetable and fruit washing water gets used to water the greenhouse plants. Washing up water is also used for toilet flushing. I would love to be able to divert all grey water into proper storage (we currently use lots of buckets), but I not only do I need pipework from, say, the showers (and the bath), but again, there is the major issue of storage. This latter is the principal barrier to making fuller use of grey water (say, from showers). Whilst I have no reservations about using grey water appropriately, I have no doubt that there would need to be quite a lot of customer education in order to encourage ordinary (uncommitted) people to make use of it.

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Rank the following preferences: (my ranking shown)

1. Reducing environmental impact by decreasing the amount of water abstracted from rivers and groundwater sources.

2. Reducing the amount of water going into the sewage network by using less water, recycling grey water and rainwater harvesting.

3. Saving water – around 112,000 litres could be saved every year for each water neutral home built.

4. Improving resilience for the future by minimising the additional pressure on water resources and networks.

5. Saving money – annual savings on water and energy bills of around £44 per home can be achieved from reducing water demand in the home to 85 litres per person per day (for those on a meter).

6. Enabling future housing growth in water scarce areas by reducing the impact of new homes and buildings on the water environment, and preventing water resources being a constraint to growth.

Please explain your ranking ​

1. What was 1st place and why does this appeal the most to you? ​
2. What was last place and why does this not appeal as much?

My first place ranking is about protecting the natural environment. Human hubris is bringing the world to the edge of disaster, and both individually and corporately we need to centre-stage the natural environment. To be fair, the first six statements are all important. However, I reserved for last place prioritising economic development. As a world we need to be stepping back from economic development, as we are already using annually the replenishable resources of 1.6 planets (Earth overshoot). Here in the UK, (the sixth largest economy in the world, we are using resources at a very much faster rate than the world average, so the stepping back has to be very much greater than the world average. There is a desperate need for new housing, but this does not have to be as greenfield developments. The most pressing housing need is for one and two-bedroom social housing, which would be much more environmentally-sustainable if built as flats on brownfield sites in cities and large towns (concentration of services, availability of public transport) as low-rise multiple-occupancy buildings. I should prefer to see no new greenfield developments, and allow the term 'water neutrality' to be applied more widely to cities, towns and villages.

Thinking about grey water systems. These require specialist plumbing and storage space. The unit requires space equating to the size of an American style double fridge. If you were buying a newly built house and knew that the system could save you around £44 per year on your water and energy bills, what would you be prepared to trade-off/ give up in order to make space? Please select from the list below and explain why in the comment box

I’d give up approximately five feet of garden space

I’d give up having a patio

I’d give up the full garage and park my car on the road

I’d give up one car worth of space in a double garage

I'd give up something else(please describe)

I wouldn’t want to give up anything

Personally, I would make any of these sacrifices, because I feel so motivated by the issue. However, I suspect that I may be in a (very) small minority.

Grey Water installation can cost between £6000 and £8000, as well as fees for annual maintenance, but it could save you a third off your water bill every year -  How do you feel about this and why?

I can't afford the installation cost. It sounds like it would take at least ten years to recover the installation cost. I would require the water supply company to install it and allow them to reap the benefit of my reduced fresh water use.

Monday 4 May 2022: Customer Service

Monday 4 May 2022: Customer Service

1. Which utility companies (not Affinity Water) do you feel provides a truly great customer experience and why? 
• What specifically do they do which makes their overall service so great? 
• What do they do that actively makes you happy to be their customers?
• Outside of resolving queries/issues, how do these providers go above and beyond for you?
2. Thinking about Affinity Water…
• How do they compare when it comes to great customer experience? 
• What would an exceptional customer experience (from start to finish) look like for Affinity? 

My experience specifically of utility companies is that I am mostly treated as an account, not as a person. I used to like taking my Toyota Avensis to be serviced at Minories Toyota in Canterbury because:

1. I was welcomed, and called me Mr Hughes, rather than either avoiding my name, or else using my first name (for which I rarely give businesses my permission).

2. The service having been scheduled, I was expected, and my car was slotted straight into the smooth running of their day.

3. The work to be done was explained to me.

4. The expected costs were detailed to me, so that there would be no surprises.

5. A telephone number on which to reach me was written down so that if something unexpected was discovered I called be called, the matter discussed, including if extra time would be needed, and what the additional costs would be.

6. I was offered coffee and a comfortable place to wait (with an electrical socket for my laptop and a wi-fi signal), if I wished to do so, or offered a lift into Canterbury if I preferred.

7. When I collected the keys for my car, the work done was gone through with me, and the bill was clearly itemised.

In summary, my customer experience journey had been thoroughly thought through, and the staff trained to help me through that journey. The social transactions were personal (but not 'matey'), friendly, transparent and collaborative. I was always left feeling good about having participated in that journey, despite having had to pay out hundreds of pounds.

I do not have anywhere near as much experience with Affinity Water, so I am less certain about generalising. However, last week, I had the experience of an Affinity Water employee coming to my house to perform a leak and water-saving survey. He arrived at the correct time, which was good. I asked him for ID, which he showed me. I asked him to wear a face-covering, with which he was happy to comply. He was friendly and respectful throughout. He told me how long the survey would take, which was useful. He fitted two taps with aerators, and explained why other taps could not be fitted in the same way. He asked me questions about the major leak we had had, expressed how impressed he was with the water meter reading spreadsheet that I had printed out to show him, and asked whether I had registered with Affinity Water for Priority Services because there is a severely disabled person in my family (i.e. he was being attentive and thoughtful). I discussed with him about smart water meters (which Thames Water are now fitting for domestic customers). At the end of the visit, I was left feeling good about having participated in that journey, despite having had to have someone in the house (we are continuing to isolate ourselves pretty strictly). If this is the type of encounter that Affinity Water wish to have with its customers, then I applaud it.

1. Can you tell us about a provider who provided an exceptional customer service when you had an issue/ query? 
• What happened and why did they exceed your expectations?
2. When contacting Affinity customer services, what could customer service representatives do that shows outstanding customer service? (If you have any examples of this with Affinity or another utility company, we’d love to know)
3. Do you have a preferred way of contacting customer services for Affinity Water e.g. do you have a go to method (phone, email, text)? Does this vary for different contact reasons?
4. Some Affinity Water customers need additional support e.g. flexibility with payments, language support, priority services due to medical conditions. What do you think a brilliant customer experience should be like if you/people you know need more support?

I could give so many examples of customer service being badly handled, that I have mostly given up ever trying to pursue matters. What's the point in doing so when I know that I shall encounter heavily defended call centre staff whose only interest is to get off the telephone as quickly as possible, maybe because they have targets to meet, and company complaint systems intended primarily to exculpate themselves and thereby absolve themselves from any responsibility. So very many examples, including insurance companies.

However, I had a recent experience with the NFU insurance company in response to a tree crashing into my house and coming through the roof. The call centre person was friendly and gave the impression that she was not working against the clock. She took down details, provided an e-mail address to which to send photographs and further written details. She asked whether we wanted a loss adjuster to visit and arrange for trades people to make good, or whether we would prefer to organise the repairs ourselves. As we chose to make our own arrangements, we were told explicitly where to send the tradespeople's invoices. Money was duly paid out. It was as though the customer journey had been thought through and the member of staff who dealt with us had been well trained.

I like to be able to contact people by e-mail. (It is unbelievably frustrating that none of the many NHS medical staff we are frequently required to deal with have e-mail addresses. Instead, we can spend many hours trying to get through to them on the telephone.) Text messages are fine for very small pieces of information, but not as a primary means of communication.

People who require more support need to be interacting a member of staff who:

1. knows everything about the range of support available (knowledgeable),

2. has / is given the job of ensuring that the person who requires more support receives all the support that can be offered (in contrast to local and central government staff who are permitted to mention specific support only if it is explicitly requested by the service user);

3. are empathic (that is, they try to get a view of things from the perspective of the enquirer;

4. are warm and friendly.

I think that this would deliver an excellent customer experience.

People can be Affinity Water customers for years and years, particularly if they stay in the same area over very long period. We’d like you to come up with an idea of how Affinity Water could show these long standing customers they are appreciated (beyond just discounts on their bill!)

INSTRUCTIONS: Upload an image that represents your idea, then fill in the following boxes to describe your idea in as much detail as possible...

1. Name of the idea...
2. Key features/how it would work
3. Why you think this is a good way to show appreciation

Affinity Water lapel pin

Many years ago, I used to be a blood donor. I found this hard because giving blood always made me feel unwell. However, I felt emotionally committed to doing so. It came as something of a surprise to me to be issued with a Blood Transfusion Service discreet lapel pin once I had given blood ten times. I felt inordinately proud of myself, and wore the lapel pin on my jacket, in the same way that the photograph shows a discreet lapel pin being worn. I doubt that anyone ever noticed my lapel pin, but I knew that it was there, and that is what mattered to me. I gave up wearing tweed jackets twenty years ago, and regret that I no longer know where the lapel pin is (otherwise I would have photographed it and uploaded it here). Maybe Affinity Water could issue lapel pins or brooches (customer to choose which) to long-standing customers. (Remember that high court judge a couple of years ago who became identified by the spider brooch that she wore.)

Monday 25 April 2022: Sewage Management

Monday 25 April 2022: Sewage Management

We’d like to explore your understanding and experiences of waste water and sewage…​

• How do you think your waste water and sewage is managed? ​
• Who do you see as managing these services?​
• What, if any, problems have you had with your waste water? This may include, but isn’t limited to sewage flooding in the house or garden, drain covers popping up, or the toilet being backed up all the way to the sewer and refusing to flush. Please tell us how you dealt with the problem.

As I understand it, rain that falls on my house, and foul water (including solids) generated by my household are combined into sewage, channelled from my property, join sewage from neighbouring properties, and together the sewage is conveyed (by means of gravitational flow) by underground pipe to a local sewage treatment plant where solids are removed by filtration and flocculation. Liquor from the sewage treatment plant is discharged into a local water course, and the solids are further processed to remove noxious substances, and then transported by wagon to be spread on fields as a fertiliser (sometimes referred to by local farmers as "rocket fuel").

Southern Water has the contract for eastern Kent for managing waste water and sewage. I assume that they own the waste water and sewage pipes, and the sewage treatment plant. I assume, too that it is Southern Water that organises the detoxification of the sewage solids and arranges for its disposal into agriculture.

Personally, I have experienced no physical problems with waste water and sewage. However, the village in which I live has experienced considerable problems. In particular, during periods of prolonged rainfall, the water table rises, causing the local winterbourne to flood. I assume that this disrupts gravitational flow and also overwhelms the local sewage treatment plant. Consequently, houses located close to the winterbourne have experienced sewage flowing into their gardens and houses, and the winterbourne itself, instead of sewage pipes, has become the sewage conduit. For months on end, a couple of winters ago, Southern Water put up notices urging people to stay away from the winterbourne because of sewage contamination. The winter before last, sewage from the village was having to be pumped daily into tankers and transported away. (This totally destroyed the road surface through part of the village, and although Southern Water made a somewhat half-hearted attempt to repair the road surface, it still looks a mess.)

Affinity is a water-only company, and does not process any of your waste water. Your waste water is managed by Southern Water.

1. Were you aware that your sewage and waste water is not managed by Affinity Water? How do you feel about this (positive and negative)?​

Yes, I am aware that Southern Water manages our waste water. I do not understand the rationale for this division. I do not like the fact that my waste water bills are based not on the quantity of waste water I discharge into the waste water and sewage system but on the amount of fresh water I use. This method of charging for waste water is unfair and contrary to the good management of grey water. In my direct experience communication between Affinity Water and Southern Water is remarkably poor.     

2. Based on the image above, please tell us who your sewage supplier is. What are your opinions on the company that manages your sewage? What thoughts or questions come to mind?

I know relatively little about Southern Water. I do know, however, that since 2007 Southern Water has been owned by Greensands Holdings Limited, a consortium of investors representing infrastructure investment funds, pension funds and private equity. Currently the largest shareholders are JP Morgan Asset Management (40%), UBS Asset Management (22%), Hermes Infrastructure Funds (21%) and Whitehelm Capital (8%). I have a revulsion for this form of capitalism because its sole value is money, and therefore requires extensive regulation to make it conform to other values. For example, in June 2019, Ofwat proposed a fine of £126 million as a result of Southern Water's failures to operate its wastewater treatment works properly and deliberately misreporting its performance. Ofwat found that failings had resulted in unpermitted and premature spills of wastewater from treatment works, with wastewater being released into the environment before going through the required processes. In 2020, Southern Water pleaded guilty to 51 offences related to dumping untreated sewage into the sea, and was fined £90m.

3. How does knowing this impact how you feel your sewage is managed? Any reassurances or concerns?​

I would feel considerably more reassured were waste water in the hands of municipalities, and elected councillors directly responsible to electors for poor performance. 

4. How do you think you will manage any sewage issues in the future?

I do not know.

You may be aware that in recent times there have been incidents of sewage discharge. Below are two links which provide an explanation of why this can happen and an example of when this happened at the Thames earlier this year. ​

https://www.southernwater.co.uk/the-news-room/the-media-centre/2019/july/protecting-homes-and-managing-storms

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60046320

1. What do you think waste water companies should do when this kind of situation arises? Please tell us what you think should be made a priority and why.​
2. Are there any extra actions or steps you think Affinity should take to improve the current situation? If yes, please tell us why.

The first question asks what should be done when the situation arises. However, in my view, the water company should never have allowed the situation to arise. Water provision and disposal was a public utility. The public rationale for its privatisation was so that adequate investment would be made. Plainly, investment has been woefully inadequate to the task. In the first of the two articles, Southern Water appears to suggest a level of diligence and beneficence that would make Mother Teresa look half-hearted. If I had the time, I should like to take apart Southern Water's public relations sheet line by line. 

In the second article (BBC report) Thames Water appears to claim that to have prepared adequately (for the floods) was far beyond what could be reasonably expected of them. Both Southern Water and Thames Water fall back firmly on the legality of (at least some of) their discharges.

Maybe I am missing something obvious, but if Affinity Water supplies its customers only with clean water, then how can Affinity Water impact on the disposal of waste water?

Monday 11 April 2022: Water companies and their relationship with environmental standards

 

Affinity Water are working to significantly reduce the amount of water taken from sensitive sites and making changes to river channels and banks to help improve flow and biodiversity within the river. These are set out by the Environment Agency and are mandatory, so Affinity Water must do them.​

​1. Were you aware of Affinity working to these requirements? How does this make you feel?

2. Thinking of other areas you would like Affinity to prioritise, is there anything that you think Affinity should put above these environmental goals? If so, what are these?​

• What about repairing leaks/ infrastructure repairs/ achieving Carbon Net Zero by switching to self-generated solar power? Do you think Affinity should prioritise these over environmental work? Why/ why not?

I have mixed feelings about the brief information statement. The first sentence makes it sound as though Affinity Water is behaving virtuously, and is expecting praise from people who are concerned about the environment. The second sentence states that the behaviours are mandatory, thereby negating any virtue in the motivation to carry them out. Indeed, as the behaviours are mandatory, I am left puzzled about the purpose of requesting my opinion.

I have searched through the Environment Agency website and cannot identify the documents that set out the environmental responsibilities of water companies. I have no idea how detailed nor how onerous these responsibilities are.   

I suppose that my response to Q.1 is: "As these requirements are mandatory, I should be surprised were Affinity Water were not attempting to work to them."

Q.2 asks me to prioritise four things:

1. Repairing leaks (thereby wasting less water, with the consequent need to abstract less)

2. Repairing infrastructure (thereby increasing the resilience of clean water delivery)

3. Generating solar power (thereby reducing carbon dioxide emissions)

4. Looking after the riverside environment

Points 1 and 2 are about the raison d'être of Affinity Water: the business exists to deliver clean water, and if it falls short of doing so then it is failing. Points 1, 3 and 4 concern the negative effect of the business on the natural environment. Whilst I consider all of these to be a duty not to be shirked, I guess that I have also listed them in my priority order, although I would prefer 3 and 4 to be listed as equal third. 

Beyond these goals, set out by the Environment Agency, Affinity Water could go further by accelerating the implementation of these projects, or increasing the scope to deliver wider environmental benefits than they are legally required to. 

​1.     Do you think they should stick to the required targets, or increase the scope of these goals? Why/ why not?​

​2.     Additional targets/accelerated timelines may result in an increase to your monthly bill - how do you feel about this? ​

• Is there an amount that you feel would be fair to contribute towards broader environmental goals?​
• Is there an amount/increase that starts to feel unfair?

My immediate response to Q1 is to want to know:

1. What are the specific responsibilities that are mandatory?

2. How completely are those responsibilities currently being met?

On the one hand I see no reason to limit environmental targets to mandatory responsibilities, but if they are not currently being met, then the focus should be on meeting them.

Q2 appears to make the assumption that any increase in cost should be met by customers. Why should increased costs not be met by shareholders (e.g. through their dividends)?

No, I do not think that the consumer should be asked to pay more. Some people have little or no income, and demanding that they pay more for their water in order to protect the environment is fundamentally 'regressive'. The government should be paying for environmental improvement through taxation: 'progressively' through income tax, and through business taxes of any company that is impacting negatively on the environment.

Some customers really struggle to pay their water bills, and a small proportion of Affinity Water’s customers are in what is called ‘water poverty’, that is, they spend more than 5% of their disposable income on water bills.  ​

Affinity have some schemes in place already to help these customers. For example, customers on low incomes and/or in receipt of certain benefits are offered lower tariffs which cuts the cost of their bill. They are also offered payment plans to help spread these costs. ​

These schemes are supported by customers not living in water poverty and on average it adds around £5 to the average customer bill, annually. ​

​1. Were you aware of customers in water poverty being supported in this way? How does this make you feel?​

​2. Affinity Water could go further and increase the support available so that no-one is paying more than 5% of their disposable income on water bills, but this might cost customers not in water poverty an additional few pounds on their bills. ​

• How do you feel about this?​
• What is the most you would be happy to spend annually in order to support those in water poverty?

Q1. I am aware that water companies have schemes to lessen the impact of water bills on people in water poverty. However, it makes me feel angry to think about a fundamental life-necessity being controlled and charged for by commercial companies. That is why I believe that every person should be entitled to a minimum water allowance for which they are not required to pay.

Q2. I have no income, and am too old to expect ever to earn an income again (although I am too young to receive a pension). Due to disability, my family has lived on life savings and paltry state benefits for some years. We simply do not have disposable income. In this context, spreading the cost of water bills is meaningless. As the water bill-payer, I am not in receipt of any state benefits. As I understand it (maybe incorrectly), the 'lower tariffs' are merely a cap on higher water use, and my household's water use is significantly less than the majority. If Affinity Water does have something meaningful to offer me in terms of a reduction in water charges, then their website information has not made this clear.

I consider it unfair that all water customers are required to pay a levy to support those in water poverty. I believe that adequately supporting people in poverty (Including those people not in employment) should be a government responsibility managed through progressive taxation. 

Saturday 9 April 2022: Wordle

Saturday 9 April 2022: Wordle

Wordle is a word puzzle game, the aim of which is to guess the day's target word of five letters. Six guesses are permitted. Each guess must be a valid word of five letters. Invalid words are inadmissible. As there are tens of thousands of five-letter words, without some help, up to six guesses is an insignificant number, offering little chance of success, and the game would be purely one of chance. In response to each guess Wordle changes the background colour to each of the five letters in the most recent guess from white to grey (a letter not in the target word), yellow (a letter in the target word but not in the correct position in the target word) or green (a letter in the target word in its correct position in the target word). When the game is played adequately, the grid of 30 squares (six rows of five columns) progressively changes from a background white to initially mostly grey descending to increasing amounts of yellow and green. The target word, if guessed correctly is all green: a green row.

The skill involved in the game is to choose words for one's guess that reveal letters, and positions of letters, in the target word as efficiently as possible. A least insightful approach would involve mechanically and progressively filling five of the six rows with 25 different letters (and thus potentially revealing the use or otherwise of the 26th letter in the target word), no doubt a significant feat in itself, might reveal none of the positions of letters in the target word, and one would be left with an anagram of the 'yellow' letters to solve (for which there may be several solutions) for the final guess. I suspect that many Wordle players consider six guesses to be close to failure, whereas a mere three guesses is satisfying and a parsimonious two guesses something of an achievement. A better strategy is to take into account that  the letters 'A', 'E' and 'S' are to be found in many words, whereas the letters 'X', 'J' and 'Q' are relatively uncommon. A first guess, therefore, might contain five of the most commonly-used letters. At present, I use the word 'TEARS' as a first guess, and whilst there are occasions when none of these five letters are in the target word, there have been occasions when four of the letters are in the target word. The distinction between vowels and consonants becomes important, as every word in English must contain at least one vowel, so the absence of 'A' and 'E' in the target word means that a second guess will almost inevitably contain an 'I', 'O', 'U' and/or 'Y'. Some people use the word 'ADIEU' as a first guess. I do not currently do so for several reasons. First because my second guesses are tailored to respond to my first guess of 'TEARS'. Second, because vowels themselves seem to me to be less helpful than consonants at homing in on the target word; or to put it another way, I can more easily run out of guesses trying to identify a single consonant than when trying to identify the correct vowel(s): 'STADE', 'STAGE', STALE', STAKE', 'STARE', 'STATE', 'STAVE'. Third, and perhaps trivially, I consider 'ADIEU' to be a French word, and the version of Wordle that I play (the New York Times version) uses words employed in English. I know many French ('TASSE'), German ('SUPPE') and Dutch ('HEEFT') five-letter words, and suppose them to be inadmissible because they are not English words. I am also uncertain to what degree of informal (blasphemous, coarse, vulgar or offensive) language Wordle may stoop in its target word.

Once a valid guess has been submitted, it cannot be withdrawn. For players of a particular disposition, it is possible to spend hours attempting to identify the next best guesses. For more experienced players, therefore, there is not only kudos in guessing the target word in a small number of guesses, but also of achieving the goal in as short amount of time as possible, and these two aspects are in almost direct opposition to each other, and attempting to manage this conflict can be revealing, if only to oneself, of what kind of a person one is. For example, thinking in terms related to Myers-Briggs typology, some people are highly (or irritatingly) methodical, and others are highly (or irritatingly) intuitive; some people are able to manage significant amounts of uncertainty and (irritatingly) are not straining for closure, whereas other are (irritatingly) intolerant of uncertainty and are focused on rapid closure.

More advanced play might involve substituting as-yet untested letters in place of 'green' letters. For example, having established that the second letter is 'L', and that third letter is 'A', there remain three letters yet to find and place correctly. A simple choice might be to guess 'BLACK' (which might be correct, but might not be). A more advanced choice might be to guess 'BLOCK' (which is certain to be incorrect, but reveals whether the letter 'O' is a letter elsewhere in the word. I express this strategy in terms of not spending guesses on 'green' letters (letters already in their correct position).       

I use and build tools. I have been building myself a database of five-letter words. In itself, this is not especially helpful in solving the day's Wordle puzzle because most of the five-letter words in my ever-growing database are words that were either Wordle target words, or else inspired by Wordle target words. I do not know whether Wordle re-uses words, but I doubt it. Consulting my database, however, does allow me to consider visually (or audially) similar words.

Wordle has helped me to consider the relationship between a word and how the word is spelled. For the first time in my life, I am having to confront directly that I am mildly dyslexic. I have been reading from the earliest of ages, probably three years old. The circumstances of my learning to read were deeply unpleasant, and involved a lot of corporal punishment. By the time I was about six years old, I loved reading, and derived a lot of pleasure from the stories I consumed. However, I was, and remain, a slow reader. For me, there is a time lag between, on the one hand, reading a word, and on the other hand, its sense emerging. Not infrequently, the meaning of a passage may elude me, and I find it necessary to reread the passage, sometimes multiple times. One would not have thought that this might apply to Wordle. However, I can sometimes fail to recognise that a collection of five letters actually constitutes a word with which I am entirely familiar. In addition, there is an aspect of Wordle that is like trying to solve an anagram, at which I am not skilled. The required focus on individual letters disconnects me from making sense of the word, or even that the sequence of letters constitutes a word. The problem, my problem, is sequencing. I have long been aware that I have a problem with way-roundness: for example, but far from limited to, correctly attributing left and right. For not quite as long, I have also been aware of some difficulty in distinguishing the order in which two or more things happen (sequencing). For example, I may be able to hear two musical notes perfectly clearly, but when they are played at speed, I find it impossible to say which of the notes comes first. This is where I return to dyslexia: when I am reading, the letters in a word are all over the place. Although not startlingly skilled, I am not especially bad at spelling. It is, for me, the meaning of a word, not its spelling, that determines (in my mind) what the word is. Each word I read is meaning (or function) first, and this meaning (or function) then determines its spelling. Even simply looking at what is on the computer screen, the spelling of many words is made stable (i.e. not appearing visually jumbled) only by knowing the sense of what I have just written. Often, I am unable to ‘see’ (read) words in a sentence that do not contribute to the sense of the sentence. An easy example is that I might, in error, type a word twice, but find myself unable to see the repetition. When typing, I rely heavily on the automatic spelling check function, and the grammar check function. It is true that my eyesight has deteriorated over the years. However, the issue about which I have been explaining would apply even were the letters in 72 point. When it comes to Wordle, the only aspect that involves meaning is determining whether a trial combination of letters actually constitutes a valid word. Otherwise the puzzle is all about letters.

One of the several ways in which my dyslexia manifests itself is in an almost perpetual obliviousness to the possibility of a second occurrence of a letter, either as a double letter (e.g. ‘LL’) or more usually not (e.g. ‘STATE”). A second way is that yellow letters have a dual, but contradictory, significance: the yellow letter does appear in the target word, but does not appear in the target word in its current position. This contradiction is significantly interfered with by my difficulty with way-roundness: because yellow letters do not appear in the target word in their currently-guessed position, I repeatedly confuse the functions of yellow and grey letters. In my mind, I find myself hunting for words that contain one or more grey letters whilst intentionally omitting yellow letters.

As well as a growing database of five-letter words, I also have a very small spreadsheet showing the letters in order, and as I work through a puzzle, I paint each letter’s cell with its current colour (no-fill, grey, yellow, green) according to status. Wordle does this automatically on an onscreen keyboard, but I am unable to look at a keyboard and make any kind of sense of the sequence of letters. My spreadsheet, on the other hand, presents the letters in a single, vertical sequence relating to the frequency with which they appear in English words, with ‘S’, ‘E’ and ‘A’ at the top, and ‘X’, ‘J’ and ‘Q’ at the bottom. However, this  spreadsheet tends to amplify my obliviousness to a second (or even third, e.g. ‘SISSY’) occurrence of a letter. If I can be bothered, I might add double letters as separate entries on the spreadsheet, although getting hold of data about their relative frequency might be near impossible. The "if I can be bothered" is important, because it is clear to me that Wordle is nothing more than a game, to which there must be a limit on the investment of time and effort.

One of my principal strategies is to try out letters with preference always given to letters according to the frequency with which they appear in English words. This strategy has drawbacks, not least because the frequency with which a letter appears in an English word is dependent on the length of the word. I do not have a letter-frequency chart for five-letter words. There is also an issue of what constitutes a valid (Wordle) word. I understand that 2,500 words have been earmarked as potential target words for Wordle puzzles, from a list of 25,000 words that Wordle recognises as valid. I am uncertain how correct my understanding is. I use only Scrabble dictionaries (note the plural, because UK, US and Australian Scrabble dictionaries are not the same) to determine whether a word might be valid in Wordle. I am aware that Wordle ‘favors’ US spelling, although I do not know if British spellings ever make an appearance. Again, I understand that Wordle target words are rarely plurals, so ‘S’ appears at the end of Wordle target words less frequently than common in English.

If I can be bothered, I should like to add to my spreadsheet two further features: popular pairs of letters, e.g. ‘CH’, ‘CK’, ‘ND’, ‘RD’, ‘TH’, ST’, etc.; and frequency of each letter in a specific position, e.g. as a first letter, or a last letter – for example, ‘E’ is uncommon as a first letter, but common as a last letter. To this end, my database of about 1,200 five-letter words also includes a spelling out of each word as five separate letters. At present I can only use this feature to filter out words, just on the off-chance that the Wordle target word happens to be in my database. I have not yet worked out how to calculate the number of occurrences (and therefore the frequency) of a specific letter in a specific position. I guess that it will involve SQL, learning sufficient of which will demand a reasonably substantial commitment of time and effort.

One strategy I continue to employ, despite consistently proving to be utterly useless, is intuition. I use my intuition successfully in a variety of different circumstances, including when interacting with people, when cooking, when encountering computer software for the first time, and for choosing a geographical direction when out walking. However, with Wordle, my intuition has proved to be worse than useless because it is a persistent distraction. 

On the other hand, a more successful strategy is that I always use the same starting guess, and have written a partial list of second guesses depending on Wordle’s response to my starting word. This means that I am on my third guess within about 30 seconds. My average number of guesses is about 3.7. I have had only one ‘2’.

Should I bother? I certainly have better, more creative and more important things to do with my time. What would give me a great deal of satisfaction is creating what would amount to an algorithm that would get close to solving each day's Wordle puzzle for me. I have written some very complex spreadsheet equations for calculating annual projected use and cost of electricity, and for calculating when the heating oil storage tank will run out of fuel. These complex equations are extremely useful and afford me much satisfaction. Were I able to do the same for my engagement with Wordle, I might save myself some time and effort but still achieve the satisfaction.      

 Monday 4 April 2022: Smartphone application

1. What are the main activities you do on the Affinity Water site?​
   • Is there anything you find difficult/frustrating about the Affinity Water website?​
2. Which device (mobile, tablet, laptop or desktop computer) do you typically use to access the Affinity Water website and why?​
3. Have you ever tried to contact Affinity Water by WhatsApp? If so, how was this experience?​
• If Affinity Water added a live chat function to its website, would you prefer to use that, or WhatsApp? Please explain why.

I have very rarely looked at the Affinity Water website. When I have done so, it is more with a view to seeing what is there, and reading some of the information provided. I am very aware of the recent Water Community activity about the website, so it now feels as though I am looking at the website better-informed. My cognitive impression is that there is a lot of information available, and that it is fairly well organised. I did not realise that there are several YouTube-hosted short videos to watch. Neither did I know anything about SureStop. Why does Affinity Water not fit this device as standard?

My aesthetic impression (which is not what you are asking for) is that many of the webpages are too busy, have too many different print fonts, have different styles of heading, present information in more than one column, have hollow and filled boxes, along with images and videos: all of which I find somewhat distracting. My impression is that websites are increasingly being designed to look good on smartphones and tablet computers, regardless of their appearance on the screen of a desktop or laptop computer.

I access the internet using a desktop computer. The area where I live has almost non-existent cellphone coverage, never mind smartphone coverage. Consequently, I get exasperated when websites constantly exhort me to use smartphone applications (including WhatsApp). I am not able to do so.

Using my desktop computer, I often use Live Chat functions on websites, and I believed that I had done so with Affinity Water about eighteen months ago, but your question makes be think that my memory must be faulty. Provided that there is a warm-blooded person (as distinct from an AI robot) at the remote computer terminal, I have almost always found Live Chat to be useful.

1. What do you think about the idea of Affinity Water creating an app?​

• Are there any features/options that you think the Affinity app should include?​
• Beyond what is offered on the mobile website, is there anything else you’d like the app to be able to do?​
• If the app only offered the same features as the mobile website, are you likely to use the app?​

2. Do you currently use an app for a utility provider?​

• What can the Affinity Water app learn from this?​
• What features do you like/dislike? Please explain your answer.​

3. Affinity Water might be able to integrate the app with other smart technology providers and suppliers, such as Hive, or an energy partner to deliver additional benefits. How do you feel about this integration and the potential features outlined below? Would you be confident in the accuracy of these features?​

 For example, the app could be used to…​

• Monitor your own water usage ​
• Work alongside a water leak device to identify any potential leaks in your home​
• Help you keep track of any appointments​
• Allow you to track the progress of repairs/works

I did not know that this is where you were going. The information that you give depresses me no end. I live in a semi-remote village in the North Downs of Kent. There is no circumstance in which a cellphone company would be willing to spend £100,000 installing a cellphone mast for a couple of dozen houses. (I know because they have been asked.) Maybe my neighbours and my family live in the only place in the UK without smartphone coverage - from the way that utility companies go on about smartphone applications, it certainly seems like it. In 2020, 87% of adults in the UK had a smartphone. Even our 2G and 3G signal is very weak and extremely intermittent. I have retired from paid work, and spend my time at home all day. Were I to own a smartphone, it would be totally redundant. Good Energy are perpetually bombarding me with exhortations to record and report electricity meter readings using their smartphone application. It does not endear them to me. Is there a difference between Affinity Water's website and Affinity Water's mobile website (which you mention)? Money aside, is there any technical reason why the functions you mention should be exclusively for those people with smartphones? Of the additional functions you mention ... 1. Monitor your own water usage ​ 2. Work alongside a water leak device to identify any potential leaks in your home​ 3. Help you keep track of any appointments​ 4. Allow you to track the progress of repairs/works ... in the real world how frequently would the average Affinity Water customer actually use functions 2 through 4? On the other hand, if Affinity Water is committed to encouraging people to use less water, then function 1 would be valuable. For the record, as I have written before, I read the water meter on a daily basis and record the readings on a spreadsheet.