On Dara O Briain’s Science Club (@BBCScienceClub) this week, Dara asked Mark Miodownik (@markmiodownik), an engineer and materials scientist and Professor of Materials and Society, what he would do with a cheque for £1bn.

Mark’s answer was “Energy is our biggest problem at the moment. Making energy without heating the world, and we’ve got the technology that will the job.  Solar cells – material science came up with solar cells and actually if we had solar cells on every roof of every building…  And why don’t we do it?  Purely because, actually, we haven’t decided as a culture to just go for that goal.  And we’ve got these other political things – cheap oil, we’ve got nuclear power and we’ve got people fighting for wind but we should just go for the solar because  the stuff is just reigning down from the sky and you just have to collect it and we’re done.  No more digging for oil.  No more nuclear waste. Just collect the stuff, and we can do it.  Just give us the money.”

Can we have Mark on the Government’s Energy Committee?

Netmums, the UK’s fastest-growing online parenting organisation, surveyed over 2,000 of its members earlier this month to investigate how the economic downturn was hitting families’ incomes and what the impact of rising prices was having on families around the UK.  Their research found:

1. One in five mums is missing meals so her children can eat
2. A quarter of families are living on credit cards
3. Almost half of families have sold or pawned goods to make money to live
4. Sixteen per cent of parents are being treated for a stress-related illness due to lack of cash

Certainly none of the above is good news for the economy or David Cameron who is committed to promoting family values and cohesiveness as primary in his government’s mind.  However the UK does face itself, through little fault of the common-man, in tight-straights financially.

At RentMyItems.com has been championing the idea of making a little extra cash from little-used household items not simply because it is their business model – they also believe it makes a huge amount of sense.  RentMyItems.com believes that, in many cases, when hard-earned cash has been spent on a little-used item it is better to rent it to others than sell it entirely.

At  RentMyItems.com Finnian in Edinburgh has a Moulinex Juice Master Plus which he has listed for rent at £4 per day.  A similar item currently listed on eBay is listed for sale at £20.  It does not take much working out that if Finnian was able to hire his juicer out once a month for five months then he would have achieved the price he would have received if he had sold it outright – and he still has it in his cupboard and available to rent to others.  By renting the item rather than selling it Finnian gives himself the opportunity to earn more than the amount that he might have sold the item for online.

It’s a similar matter with Margaret, again in Edinburgh, who has a ladies electric bike for rent at £30 per day on RentMyItems.com.  A similar bike for sale, again on eBay, has a price tag currently of £180.  If Margaret is able to rent her bike twice a month for three months she will have achieved the same amount of money as the similar bike for sale on eBay – and again she will still own it and it will be in possession for her own use, the use of her friends and also to those that she rents it out to.

Another example is Gillian in East Sheen who has a Graco Travel Cot for rent at £4 per day or £20 per week – with just one week’s rental Gillian would make more money than selling it on eBay as the current price for a similar model is £10!  So by renting, rather than selling her unused Graco Travel Cot, Gillian would make £10 extra!

So, as you can see, think twice about selling or even pawning one of your household items as you could make more money even in the short term by renting it to others in your local neighbourhood rather than selling it outright.

RentMyItems.com‘s advice if you find yourself a bit strapped for cash?  List your little-used household for rent at their site, where ALL listings are currently FREE and there’s NO COMMISSION to pay unlike their other competitors.

Make a little bit of extra cash this week – with free listings, you literally have nothing to lose!

Having waited in the short queue for five minutes I ordered two coffees and two sausage sandwiches for myself and my partner.  Having paid, taken my tray with the coffees on it (plus two pots of cold milk – why, oh why always cold milk unless you ask specifically for hot?) and collected cutlery, condiments etc we sat down.

Our coffee, cooled by the cold milk, took little time to drink, and then we waited… and waited…

During this time a young waitress brought the order for people at a table near us and, on being asked if she had butter, the waitress said, at the same time as pointing in a general direction, “Yes, it’s over there”.  My partner and I both raised our eyebrows.  Our own, of course, not each others.

Having finished our coffees, and still waiting for our sandwiches, we ruminated on the young waitress’s reply.  Should it not have been “Certainly.  I’ll just get you some”?  Or as the order was for toast should she not have brought it anyway?  A general pointing and retort as to where the customer may themselves get up to fetch an item that should have been brought by the waitress in the first place seemed somewhat lacking in customer service.

Time passed.

We watched the yummy mummies and dozzy daddies largely ignoring their young progeny as they played (the progeny, not the parents) on the climbing frames and ball pit.  Thankfully The Garden Centre Group has now fully boxed in the children’s play area – I assume for safety, but most thankful of all it cuts out most of the babble and shrieks of happy, sugar-filled children.

Back to the empty-cup filled table…

After much door singing from the entrance/exit to the kitchen and some twenty minutes after we ordered, a [how shall I say?] mature female waitress (as opposed to a young waitress) came to our table with our order.  After confirming the sandwiches were the ones we ordered, this waitress (who I would guess was the young waitress’s age plus twenty years) apologised for us having to wait giving a reason that there was a new chef in the kitchen and she hoped we would understand.  We did, mainly as her acceptance of the time the order had taken, her ability to instantly apologise, and her honestly beaming face immediately softened any moans that may have been brewing.  Additionally, noticing our empty coffee cups, she asked if we would like two refills.  We thanked her and said that would be good.  Within a few minutes she was back with our coffees, and we knew we would return in the future.  Again we thanked her for the coffees and also her excellent customer service.

So, is good Customer Service down to age and experience?  Generally I feel it is.

There is no doubt that experience comes with age.  This obviously does not mean that all young people give bad customer service and all ‘more mature’ people give excellent customer service, I am simply talking generally.  I believe with age comes the wish to be treated well by others, which itself allows an understanding that this also means to treat others as you would be expect to be treated.

As my mother used to say – “Do unto others as you would wish they do unto you”.

I used to go ‘yeah, yeah’, now I fully understand what she means.

Tweet from @rentmyitem:  Huge thanks to@paulsavident for the amazing press coverage we have had this year inc.#BBC, #thesundaytimes, #yahoo &#msnmoney. Great #PR!

As you may know I am also COO of RentMyItems.com – though it’s always nice to get an unexpected thanks from those you work with.

The launch of RentMyItems.com has been, as all startups, challenging, enjoyable, frustrating, exhilarating, confounding and inspirational.  I’m sure all will continue in 2012!

My friend was clearly stating that with inflation falling things were going to get cheaper so we must be on our way out of a recession and 2012 was going to be looking a damn site rosier than 2011.

Now, putting aside that there is, I believe, far worse to come in 2012 than in 2011 (for me personally and financially 2011 itself has been rather ‘challenging’) I just could not comprehend the words being uttered around inflation – and coming from someone I think has a good head on her shoulders it sounded even worse the more I thought about it.

Inflation, put simply, is the rate at which prices rise over a given period.  Generally in the UK we are talking of how prices have risen compared with this time last year.  The Bank of England‘s simply description is that “Inflation is a general rise in prices across the economy” and that “The inflation rate is a measure of the change in prices over a specified period” – so when we hear in news bulletins of inflation we are ALWAYS talking of a rise, not a fall – this would be deflation.

So, if in November 2011 we were looking at a headline inflation rate of 5.2%, this means that what we could have bought a year ago for £100 would in November have cost £105.20.  Now, if inflation falls back to the government’s inflation target of 2% in November 2012 (ie falling from 5.2% this year to 2% next year), though this is a significant fall in the rate of inflation it will mean that that same basket of good will cost £107.30 in a year’s time – obviously an increase in the price even though there has been a decrease in inflation.

So please – will people just simply understand that a fall in the rate of inflation is not about falling prices, simply of prices rising less quickly.

As the bus stopped outside of Wilkinson in West Ealing, an eighty-or so year old lady, clearly frail with a metal three wheeled walking-assistance frame, was told in a rather too aggressive voice by the driver that he could not let her off the front of the bus (as I have seen others do a thousand times) and she had to go to the back side-exit to get off.  She was confused and did not understand what he meant so he decided to say the same again, though with a louder, edgier voice.

It became clear to this elderly lady that she must be doing something wrong and she shuffled, with the help of her walking-frame, to the exit lower down the bus, where the door was open.  But she could still not get off as the bus as it was sitting high above the pavement as it had not been lowered to the curb by the driver.  I got up to help her off the bus as did another young guy, though others just stood or sat oblivious, yet in some cases obviously concerned.

As the other guy was helping the lady to the curb I went to the front of the bus and asked the diver why he had not lowered the bus so she could get off more easily.  He said that the front was not an exit, seemingly ignoring my question which had nothing to do with the front ‘exit’ but rather concerned why he had not lowered the side of the bus to ease the dis-embarkation of his passenger.  He ignored me again and, with his voice raised, said if I did not sit down then I should get off the bus.  As I walked to my seat he made a comment for which I gave a retort that I could not understand how he could be so rude.

Maybe this is the customer service we should now expect, with full disrespect from those who think they have a position of authority.  It is certainly a sad world we live in if this is so.

I thought of the old, frail lady who has most probably gone through a World War and given her all to society.  I thought of how she might see this clearly upsetting incident.  Her day ruined for no reason that she could comprehend.  She had been let off the front of the bus many times before, why had she not been let off the same today?  Why had she been shouted at as though she was in the wrong?  Why could she not be treated with some respect?

Interestingly the bus driver was not a ‘hoodie’, he did not appear to be young, in fact he seemed a little less than ten to fifteen years short of retirment himself.  So, why had he been so disrespectful to this old lady?

There were a few grumblings as I took my seat again – I could not determine whether they were due to my actions or those of the bus driver.  I hope those of the bus-driver otherwise we are all damned.

As the E8 pulled into Ealing Broadway Station drop-off point at 10.58am a young woman tried to get off the front of the bus, and the driver would not open the door at the front (as I have seen happen a thousand times at this stop before – all doors open for disembarkation).  I to the woman said that he would not let her off the front of the bus as it was an exit, as he had pointed out to an old lady not ten minutes prior.

We all know the stories of ‘the youth of today’, though I wonder, after today, whether we are being too disparaging to the ‘youth’ and again should be looking at their parents as the root of the problem.  If someone who is 55-60 years of age does not show respect to an elderly, frail woman, then why would anyone younger think of doing so?

If this is what we can offer those visiting for the Olympics in London 2012 then…

Cuadrilla goes on to state that the quakes were due to their drilling hitting an “unusual combination of geology at the well site”.  It goes on to say that conditions which caused the minor earthquakes were “unlikely to occur again”.

Now, Cuadrilla must have known of the “combination of geology” at the time before they decided to go ahead with their test drilling yet decided to drill so it is clear they had no idea what earth tremors their drilling was likely to cause.  Additionally if their drilling is “unlikely” to cause the same tremors again, this by all chance means that there is a small likelihood that it will – they just aren’t sure.

We are supposed to be re-assured that fracking is in fact safe as a government committee has recommended that fracking should be allowed to go ahead, though with the recent back-tracking and u-turns seen in the energy industry over FITs how can we believe that, in a few months time, they won’t come out with another report saying exactly the opposite?

When elephant.co.uk called earlier, with the usual scripted banter, the dialogue went like this:

Elephant.co.uk:  Hello.  Is that Mr Savyidint.

Me:  Yes. {note, I did not bother to correct them on the pronunciation of my name}

Elephant.co.uk:  This is elephant.co.uk and we was just calling to make sure all was OK with the quote you got yesterday.

Me:  I don’t know, I have not looked at any of them as yet.

Elephant.co.uk:  [Pause] That’s fine.  So was we competitive with any other quotes you may have had?

Me:  Following my earlier answer may I presume that you believe I am psychic?

Elephant.co.uk:  [Pause] Ah well.  Do give us a thought for next year’s insurance.  Bye.

Now I do not think having had Derek Acorah as a client earlier in the year has meant his gifts have rubbed off on to me – though maybe elephant.co.uk think otherwise!

David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband, in my humble opinion, have no idea of the pain being felt daily by the people they verbally try and appease. Our three main parties (if indeed the Lib Dems can now be called a main party) are out of touch, sight, sound and smell of the difficulties being faced daily by myself, my friends, the people I meet and the remainder of the general UK public.  Finding money to pay the mortgage is not something any of the party leaders truly understands, nor finding the money for food on the table, fuel in a car, ever rising energy bills, let alone some spare cash for some downtime. Much has been made by all parties about family and family values, whilst the real issues of what makes up a happy, modern family and family life in the large have been mis-understood.

David Cameron’s speech was full of rhetoric and re-writing. Full of phrases with headline rather than real meaning, full of the ‘British’ stiff-upper-lip rather than the understanding of a struggling multi-cultural society and full of resolve rather than resolution. All can see the UK is in for a long-haul of financial difficulty which will push family stress levels, let alone those of the workplace, into a space in which little comfort can be brought to the common man.

There is no doubt we are in difficult times, and it is better to know that those in charge have an understanding and appreciation of the plights of the people rather than them simply putting up a stoic front at a conference.  If we are not careful, instead of journalists and commentators hanging on the every word of a politician, we will have real people hanging themselves on the end of a noose. For too long middle-Britain has been squeezed with little appreciation being given to how middle-Britain is the conveyor belt which actually runs the economy – these are the people who pay most taxes, take the least handouts and work to deliver a better life for themselves and those around them.

By ignoring the plight of middle-Britain politicians of all parties are driving us all into a brick-wall where growth delivers only a decline, family values get lost and families fall apart, and the nation’s moral compass spins wildly out of control.

Rhetoric does not pay the nation’s bills.