Hake cakes

Of late, I have been noticing the manufacture and consumption of fish cakes made from left-overs, most recently at reference 1.

Yesterday they came around again, with the difference that the fish used was hake rather than cod or haddock, the price of hake in Sainsbury's yesterday being around half that of more or less comparable cod. I remember hake as have a rather fishy taste about it - rather an odd way to describe cooked fish, but it is the best I can do - but on this occasion, it was fine, as were the fish cakes that followed this morning. Only varied by the addition of some left-over peas (frozen) and carrots (fresh) after the initial stir of the fish and potato.

White bread from Waitrose, one of their basic small tin loaves, rather than one of their boules, unavailable yesterday, adequate rather than good. Bought due to a gap in the baking timetable.

Over hake cakes, I tried to make sense of reference 2, the starting point of which is the arrangement whereby a lot of wind generated electricity is paid for according to the prevailing price of gas - that is to say when the windmills are not turned off due to a lack of transmission capacity. With the price of gas presently spiking. And while one may be lucky enough to have a fixed price contract for the stuff, as a country we do not have much in the way of storage capacity. Nothing much to soak up the spikes. All a bit of a mess really.

But I failed to get to the bottom of reference 2, even with the help of Wikipedia for things like 'contract for difference' and 'renewables obligation' and abandoned the attempt. I shall have to rest content with the need to make things attractive enough for investors to be attracted to building windmills. With another tricky bit of policy being deciding how to split the costs between the general taxpayer and the consumers of power. Best to leave it to the wonks and hope for the best.

Then, while we are on electricity, we noticed this morning a red flashing light on our smart electricity meter, not something that we had noticed before.

Was this something that we should be worrying about? Should we phone up EDF, long performance on the telephone notwithstanding? In the event, I asked Gemini, the first time that I have asked him something that might be important.

The start of this short interchange is snapped above, and I came away entirely satisfied. He told me what I wanted to hear in a convincing way and, on this occasion, I shall leave it at that.

I dare say, if I had thought of it, I could have read the little leaflet that probably came with the gadget which came with the meter and which lives in some drawer - a meter installed by a lady electrician from Romania as it happens - but this was much quicker. The gadget remains in its drawer, the location of which is probably known to BH.

In fairness, I should add that I was reassured by his saying that: 'On most Aclara meters, you will see text near the light that says 1000 imp/kWh'. It does indeed.

I might also add that Gemini is quite good a dragging the conversation out: one can see how this kind of thing might be addictive and might inhibit healthy growth in a child or young adult. At least I am too old for that to be a serious problem.

PS: in the margins of all this, Microsoft and the Mirror between them, bring me the news that Denby -  the famous pottery people - have gone under and that resurfacing looks unlikely. Energy costs being just one of their problems. Maybe our various bits of their pottery will become collectors' items, apt to fetch useful sums at car boot sales?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/more-fish-cakes.html.

Reference 2: Milliband's 'break the link'' plan is not a magic formula for lowering Britain's energy bills - Nils Pratley, Guardian - 2026.