How to Become a Petrol-Saving Bore

Boodle and Annette in 1989 

I had never taken much notice of how much petrol I used, probably the result of having it free from the farm in my youth, and I think that almost the first time I noticed that I was using a lot was in 2005 when I saw that the Lexus 4x4 was returning 12mpg in London driving. And that was after I had driven 5.0 litre Jaguars and Daimlers that must have been even more thirsty.

The first Lexus at Richmond. This was actually quite frugal car despite its sportiness as it was a 2.5 twin-turbo

But in those days, apart from looking at the mileometer and working it out from when one filled up at the pump, there was little way of knowing what mpg the car was doing. In any event, petrol was then relatively inexpensive and few had connected climate change to the use of cars.

Kei in the Lexus 4x4 - much more thirsty especially in London driving

I would like to report that it was my concern about its mpg that persuaded me to change the Lexus to two Priuses, but it was more the fact that insuring the Lexus for Kei to drive at 18 was prohibitively expensive. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the fact that the Prius had a clear read-out of how much petrol one was using and it showed that I was driving more frugally. However, to begin with that obscured the fact that I had maintained my fairly swift driving style and the average 52 mpg that I was now getting (in my third Prius) was not particularly good.

My first Pruis on Old Winchester Hill. 

It was the drumbeat of climate change reports in early 2019 that caused me to look again at the mpg that I was achieving and think about how to improve it. It turned out to be less difficult that I imagined. I set the car to 'eco' and drove more slowly, and found that I could maintain an mpg of about 63 in normal conditions and up to 65 mpg on long journeys, a marked improvement. And of course my gentler driving style scarcely altered the time taken to reach my destination, and indeed it became obvious to me that the time taken to reach anywhere isn't the point. What matters is to set out in good time and not hurry.

I would now like to further improve my mpg by getting a plug-in hybrid or even a full electric car, but will wait until my car needs changing before making the switch. In the meantime, I am enjoying the challenge of getting the best mpg I can out of the current Prius while becoming a petrol-saving bore.

Update in April 2019: On a two-hour drive along the A272 in April, the Prius achieved a whisker short of 70 mpg - 69.9 - and the missing .1 was because the last 100 yards was up a steep uphill drive!

Update in May 2019: 75 mpg achieved on a 140 mile run up and down to London.

Update in May 2021: On e the same A272 journey as in April 2019, we achieved 71.7 mpg. 

Some comparisons to think about:

2L Petrol-engined car: average life 300,000 miles @30mpg = 10,000 gals or 38,000 litres of petrol costing £47,500 @£1.25 a litre.

Hybrid car: average life 300,000 miles @60mpg = 5000 gals or 19,000 litres costing £23,750. It's also worth noting that road tax is Nil.

EV 300,000 miles @ 0mpg - petrol cost nil, but about £500 a year to charge at home overnight and about £5 for a quick charge at a charging station. Also Nil road tax. 

NB 1 gallon of petrol contains 33kwt/hour of energy. Electricity costs £0.16 a kwt, so electricity is a bit more expensive than petrol, but an EV goes much far further on the same amount of energy.  A Tesla has a 72 kwt/h battery, the equivalent to a 2 gallon tank, but goes 330 miles on that amount of electricity, and so is much cheaper to run. 

Having talked to a number of people about this, I am struck by the entrenched attitudes that I encounter. The most common is that none of this makes any real difference, so why bother, and 'as most pollution comes from China and the US, it is they who should tackle the problem'. This, however, isn't the whole story, and driving fuel-hungry cars does actually make a difference. 

The fact is that we are all responsible for polluting the planet, and in fact, CO2 pollution really started right here in the UK in about the 1850s as heavy industrialisation became widespread. NASA have just released a study of tree-rings that shows increased CO2 levels beginning at that time. As we (the industrialised countries) have benefited from more than a century of industrial activity, even though some are now using less fossil fuel than we once did, we actually have the most responsibility for its global effects. The other point is that we should try and use as little of the earth's resources as we can, and conserve what we can, as a careless attitude to the use of energy and other resources breeds a similar careless attitude to conservation in general, leading to a decline in many species.   

How to Be a Bore about Almost Anything

The Scourge of Intensive Farming

Old Swan House Garden in March 2019

The gardening year always begins sometime in March; in Old Swan House garden it started on 13th March when the grass garden was cut down.

Before that, the garden was mostly asleep, guarded by the dark yew hedges and the still darker box, apart from the astonishing Daphne that has been casting its scent over the pond since January.

The Daphne scents the garden from January to April

The grasses have been marvellous all year and are no less interesting in winter.  The tallest, Miscanthus 'Prof Richard Hansen', throws a bright shaft of light nine feet, drawing the eye from all over the garden but particularly from the house.

The garden in February with Miscanthus 'Prof Richard Hansen' throwing up its beam of light against the dark hedge

The wildflower patch is cleared in the autumn but retains intrigue behind its rusty fencing.

The wildflower area

And then the grasses come down, along with the sedums and other small plants that dot the gravel garden, and the whole area feels refreshed and new. 'Stipa gigantea' is already throwing up masses of sharp green leaves, while the pheasant grass (which is not cut down) shows its pleasing colouring now that the most prominent grasses have gone. This year two of the tallest grasses have been removed (leaving one) as they were becoming somewhat 'thuggish' and beginning to crowd out others. 

With the clearing of the grass garden, the 'borrowed landscape' over the wall comes more clearly into focus and will remain so until the grasses return to draw the eye back to the area in May and June. 

One plant that does beautifully almost all year is my favourite, euphorbia. Not only are the acid-green whorls of 'wulfenii' out already, but its creeping cousin, 'myrsinites' is brightening the gravel with its fascinating spread of octopus-like arms.  

   

John Kay 1936 - 2019

Hazel and John at Litchfield

John was a most interesting man; born to schoolteachers in China, as a child he was interned by the Japanese for three years in Shanghai. After school, he joined the navy and flew from aircraft carriers. A clever man and a fine natural mathematician, he later joined IBM where his coding skills were greatly appreciated.  A lover of classical music, he had a fine singing voice, as I knew well, since we usually sat together at church at Litchfield, when he could always be relied on to lead us through the trickier psalms. 

Sylvia Haymes, who among other things plays the organ at Litchfield, gave this lovely eulogy at his funeral at All  Hallows, Whitchurch, on 7th March 2019:

John was a dear man and a wonderfully integrated combination of opposites. He was vague, particularly about trivial aspects of life that some might give much attention to – what to take on holiday, for instance – but he was also astute and determined about things he thought important: Hazel, Mathematics, the liturgy, friendship, beekeeping and, of course, music.

He loved music and had not only a fine voice but also a fine appreciation of good music: he loved stirring hymn tunes and choral music as part of the liturgy.  I think he had a feeling for the poetry of the earlier hymns and he certainly loved the cadences of the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was always a treat to hear him read from the Bible in his distinctive brown-bear voice. Despite all this natural ability and discernment, he didn’t, latterly, find sight-reading music easy (as he often said) but he could still pick up – or make up - a bass part with the best of them.  He could also find his way through the pointing of the psalms – a virtue not accorded to many.

John was a clever man but never arrogant. He enjoyed solving puzzles and mathematical problems. Conversations with him were always rewarding and you never quite knew where they would lead.  He had a unique perspective and a fund of stories which enriched the discourse. He would really listen.  I think that he also had that gift of making the person he was talking to feel that they were clever too. One friend who cannot be here today said that talking to John at parties was something she always enjoyed.

Church services were important to him, as were those in the congregation – many of us here today count ourselves as friends.  He was acutely aware of the presence of spirituality in places where worship was sincere and Christian love apparent.  To see John, smiling as he came through the doorway, gave you the idea that all was right with the world: he was happy and at home in his local churches: All Hallows, St Mary’s, Tufton and St James the Less, Litchfield all benefitted from his voice in their pews. However, I think he also appreciated the grander scale of things in the cathedral at Winchester and he and Hazel went for several years to the beautiful and uplifting services held each summer in Edington Priory with professional singers and players.  In other situations he might, at times, be inattentive, but watching him listening in church, particularly if Hazel was preaching, there was no doubt that he was fully engaged.  He was, of course, so proud of her: ‘Wonderful! Wonderful!’ he would say of her sermons.

Although they lived in separate houses for so many years, it was, and is, impossible for many of us to think of John without Hazel. They might have been separated by a wall but there was no doubt that they were together. ‘Hazy’ was his anchor and his pride and joy. (There is a pleasing irony in the name as she is unfailingly clear although John might not always be so.) The sheer happiness of their wedding day is something that those lucky enough to be there – and there were many – will never forget. John naturally inspired love and affection but he was especially lucky and blessed to have found Hazel.  Love, true friendship, travel and the million little incidents that make up daily life could be shared.  Towards the end of his life, her care and devotion were almost super-human.  Perhaps most significantly, she thoroughly understood him.  One of my favourite instances of this was her observation - apropos the remarkable array of vacuum cleaners lined up against the wall - that John liked to have one of each sort.

He achieved this good and full life despite his life-long struggle with deep depression.  Recently he seemed to shed the cloud, finding some sort of equilibrium even in the midst of his trials.  As Hazel says, ’he never complained’.  Quite simply: he was happy.

There is a lot that I have left out: the bee-keeping, for instance (he was known to some locally as ‘The Bee Man’ and I know Mark Christian learnt a lot from him) I have no details of the allotment, apart from being grateful for an excellent crown of rhubarb that with typical generosity, he gave me. There is nothing here about John’s family, his working life and his early internment as a child in the Japanese camp to mention just a few aspects. I don’t understand enough about them to begin to give an accurate picture: others will be much more competent.  However, I do know that John had a stature and a presence that made me proud to know him.  

As I said, he was a dear man. I am glad, as are so many other friends, to have such happy memories: we have been enriched by his life and are profoundly grateful for it

John was buried at Litchfield. 

Cognitive Biases

The 17 Cognitive Biases That Explain Brexit

It’s all in our heads. Unfortunately

http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2014/09/16/on-research/

I was reading an article in the Guardian the other day, in which the author suggested that the current problem of #fakenews relates to a specific new type of cognitive bias, called Tribal Epistemology — that is, that truth no longer corresponds to facts or evidence, but rather whether a specific assertion agrees with the viewpoint of the tribe one belongs to.

I like that term, Tribal Epistemology. It seems like a nice term to define the cognitive and social constructs behind the fake news phenomenon.

It got me thinking, are there any other well-known cognitive biases that could go some way to explaining Brexit and all that shite?

Well, as it happens, yes. There are. 17 of them, in fact.

1/ Tribal Epistemology

Information is evaluated based not on conformity to common standards of evidence or correspondence to a common understanding of the world, but on whether it supports the tribe’s values and goals and is vouchsafed by tribal leaders.

The one that started me on this thought-trail.

How does Tribal Epistemology explain some of the reasoning behind fake news, and as a result, all the weirdness/awfulness in politics right now?

Well, if information is not considered factually true based on evidence but rather whether it conforms to ideals of the tribe, then you arrive at the silo state we’re in now, whereby any news or evidence that goes against your tribe’s beliefs is shunned as “fake news” , considered biased, or ignored entirely.

Only trusted sources count and so what effectively happens is that we double down on our beliefs — we believe something is true because our news source of choice tells us that, but our news source tells us that because we think it’s true.

A very neat explanation of the total shitshow we’re in, don’t you think?

2/ Dunning Kruger Effect

The tendency for unskilled individuals to overestimate their own ability and the tendency for experts to underestimate their own ability.

Most people are pretty stupid.

Before you get all aggy about that statement, do the maths. At absolute best anyone of average intelligence or below is by definition, pretty stupid. Depending on which average we’re talking about, that means potentially at least 50% of the population are thick as shit.

Maybe that includes you. Maybe that includes me (hint: nah).

The Dunning Kruger Effect suggests that people unskilled in intelligence (stupids) will not recognise just quite how unskilled they are in intelligence.

So you arrive at a situation whereby, let’s say 52% of the population (ahem) think they know more than the experts. We’ve had enough of experts, after all.

There might just be a slight relevance to Brexit in this one. Just a tad.

https://edzardernst.com/2018/01/the-dunning-kruger-effect-how-it-explains-alternative-medicine/

3/ Availability Cascade

A self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (or “repeat something long enough and it will become true”).

Brexit means Brexit. No deal is better than a bad deal. We’ll just trade on WTO terms

All either tautologous or literally not true. But people fucking love the sound of ‘em, eh?

4/ Confirmation Bias

The tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.

I’m definitely guilty of this. In fact, I found a series of tweets I posted that totally backs up that assertion.

Not often you get banter of that quality about cognitive biases. I looked for other examples but I couldn’t find any.

Example Brexiter’s view: all the projections about Brexit destroying the economy haven’t come true; PROJECT FEAR.

Me, an intellectual (and Remainer): it’s not actually happened yet you shithawks. Wait til next Christmas when you’re bartering your last tin of Heinz beans and sausages for a blue inhaler.

https://www.deviantart.com/tomfonder/art/Happy-Jar-Confirmation-Bias-457186601

5/ Backfire Effect

The reaction to disconfirming evidence by strengthening one’s previous beliefs.

The IMF predicts the economy will collapse post-Brexit — TRAITORS

Airbus is gonna leave the UK — WELL THEY WOULD THEY’RE BLOODY EUROPEAN

Almost every economist, every lawyer, every business leader, everyone with even one iota of understanding of what Brexit will actually mean is against it — PROJECT FEAR! TALKING THE COUNTRY DOWN! BREXIT MEANS BREXIT!

6/ Curse of Knowledge

When better-informed people find it extremely difficult to think about problems from the perspective of lesser-informed people.

The cross we must bear.

7/ Empathy Gap

The tendency to underestimate the influence or strength of feelings, in either oneself or others.

People really don’t like the EU. Brexity people I mean. I never realised quite how much they dislike it. I do now. I still can’t understand why, but I know they do. My empathy gap has got smaller. Go me.

https://www.scoop.it/t/empathy-and-compassion

8/ Illusory Truth Effect

A tendency to believe that a statement is true if it is easier to process, or if it has been stated multiple times, regardless of its actual veracity.

No deal is better than a bad deal seems to make sense right? A bad deal is a bad deal, how can anything be more bad than a bad deal?

What that, quite frankly brilliant piece of propagandising doesn’t take into account (though is fully aware of) is that no deal is a bad deal.

But that’s confusing, isn’t it. No deal is a bad deal and is as bad as a bad deal and really there is no good deal, just bad deal. Fuck that shit, I VOTED LEAVE…

9/ Irrational Escalation/Sunk Cost Fallacy

The phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the decision was probably wrong.

Count the number of times you’ve seen a positive ramification of Brexit appear in the news since the 2016 referendum that hasn’t immediately been shot down as total bollocks.

Literally, every piece of evidence points to it being a ridiculous, awful, suicidal decision for our country.

But we’ve done it now, will of the people, so we can’t change our minds. Article 50's in, can’t back out now (not true, fyi). We’ve opened the alt-right fuckwit can of worms, can’t stop now or they’ll be angry.

We’ve sunk a lot into this already, but that doesn’t mean we can’t cut our losses now. It’s Irrational Escalation/ Sunken Cost Fallacy holding us back.

https://lindalisten.wordpress.com/2016/10/12/the-sunk-cost-fallacy/

10/ Negativity Bias

Psychological phenomenon by which humans have a greater recall of unpleasant memories compared with positive memories.

Remember bendy bananas? Or the fish that we used to have or something? I dunno, whatever it is that the EU took away from us. Sovereignty or whatever.

What about all the stuff the EU gave us:

EHIC, freedom of movement, environmental protections, multilateral trade, right to reside, roaming-free mobile networks, enshrined human rights etc.

None of that is as juicy for our ape brains to grab hold of though, we just remember that they took our bananas. The bastards.

11/ Normalcy Bias

The refusal to plan for, or react to, a disaster which has never happened before.

Why did David Cameron’s government not have a plan in place to deal with a leave win?

How come the current government is only just now beginning to cotton on to the fact that no-deal is the most likely outcome?

Normalcy bias. None of this has happened before. No point planning for the non-happeny.

12/ Planning Fallacy

The tendency to underestimate task-completion times.

Linked to the above.

Wonder if Theresa May wishes she’d just given herself a few extra months to negotiate?

Wonder if David Davis still thinks negotiating a deal will be “the easiest thing ever”?

Or I wonder if perhaps, they were subject to Planning Fallacy?

https://t.co/X0YfrDPy65

13/ Reactance

The urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice.

Somehow, the most backward, inward, regressive vote in generations managed to get branded as an anti-establishment, kick-up-the-arse-of-the-status-quo vote.

This was mostly because certain types of people will often turn to Reactance when making decisions. What do the people who control things not want to happen? Fuck it, let’s do that then.

Also explains why so many thought voting leave would simply be a protest vote. Few thought the establishment would let it happen.

14/ Semmelweis Reflex

The tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts a paradigm.

What if I was to tell you we could have had blue passports all along? What if I was to say we could have had stricter border controls this whole time?

Well, we know that now. But Brexiters don’t seem to accept that.

That’s the Semmelweis Reflex in action. To accept these facts as truth would destroy part of the image of the EU as the big bad dictatorship they have in their minds. So they don’t accept them.

http://donmcminn.com/2017/04/avoid-semmelweis-reflex/

15/ Third-person effect

Belief that mass communicated media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves.

Vote Leave cheated and broke electoral law. Russia interfered in the campaign to steer the direction of the result towards leave.

WELL I DIDN’T VOTE LEAVE BECAUSE OF THAT!

Well, you might have.

There’s a reason why advertising and PR exists. Because it works.

You might think it doesn’t work on you. It does.

You probably voted leave because you saw loads of Russian bots spewing fake news on Twitter.

Sorry, but it’s true. You are just that easy to manipulate.

16/ Parkinson’s Law of Triviality

The tendency to give disproportionate weight to trivial issues. Also known as bikeshedding, this bias explains why an organization may avoid specialized or complex subjects, such as the design of a nuclear reactor, and instead focus on something easy to grasp or rewarding to the average participant, such as the design of an adjacent bike shed.

I love this one. To me it sums up Brexit perfectly.

How do we go about renegotiating trade deals with each individual EU member state on 100s of different areas of trade without breaking world trade rules?

We just leave and trade on WTO terms.

…erm, yes, but I mean, how do we do that, specifically, without drastically increasing the price of existing consumer goods or flatlining our manufacturing industry?

We leave, and they’ll come to us. It’s simple, they need us more than we need them.

No I don’t think you… oh forget it.

http://markbidwell.com/blog/parkinsons-law-of-triviality-2/

17/ False Consensus Effect

The tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them.

Sometimes I think everyone has come to their senses and realised Brexit is total bullshit. That doesn’t last long.

I think a lot of Brexiters believe most of their fellow countrymen, even if against Brexit before the vote, now back it. They don’t.

Strange to suggest that one of our problems is that we believe we agree on more than we do, but I think that’s actually the case here.

Hopefully you understood that this piece was an attempt at a humorous explanation of Brexit through the lens of cognitive biases, and if you didn’t, well I’m afraid you’re probably guilty of all of the above. Lol.

See also The Five Signs of Lack of Intelligence