> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://chagos.gitbook.io/parish-online/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://chagos.gitbook.io/parish-online/parish-online-banter-sessions/251031-31oct25-session-25-44.md).

# 251031 - 31Oct25 session 25-44

A very quiet session - mostly banter, though a substantial discussion was held on the topic of EPC data

{% embed url="<https://youtu.be/r8ooOWOl1g8>" %}

***

### Meeting Summary:

Oct 31, 2025 01:55 PM London ID: 897 5877 7706

### Quick recap

The group explored volunteer engagement in parish councils and discussed fascinating discoveries about hoverflies as pollinators, while examining bird migration patterns and environmental concerns. Technical discussions ended the conversation, focusing on challenges with analyzing EPC reports and data upload issues with Parish Online.

### Next steps

* [Graham and Chris: Meet on Monday, November 3rd at 10:30 for website tuition discussion](https://us02tasks.zoom.us?meetingId=3dEf7vwxR6CIKilycDTprw%3D%3D\&stepId=cb31df62-b666-11f0-a52f-eece3b52ffd3)
* [Graham: Download the EPC database and analyze if there's a way to convert variations in data descriptions to a standard format](https://us02tasks.zoom.us?meetingId=3dEf7vwxR6CIKilycDTprw%3D%3D\&stepId=cb31e30c-b666-11f0-bd7d-eece3b52ffd3)
* [Graham: Send Chris's response about the XMAP data upload issue to Tristram](https://us02tasks.zoom.us?meetingId=3dEf7vwxR6CIKilycDTprw%3D%3D\&stepId=cb31e4d8-b666-11f0-92d0-eece3b52ffd3)
* [Tristram: Wait for response from former Quidos contact about EPC software consistency and drop-down menu fields](https://us02tasks.zoom.us?meetingId=3dEf7vwxR6CIKilycDTprw%3D%3D\&stepId=cb31e658-b666-11f0-b149-eece3b52ffd3)
* [Tristram: Continue analyzing EPC reports to identify the most useful data fields for energy efficiency analysis](https://us02tasks.zoom.us?meetingId=3dEf7vwxR6CIKilycDTprw%3D%3D\&stepId=cb31e7b3-b666-11f0-a07e-eece3b52ffd3)

### Summary

#### Website Tuition and Insect Discoveries

Graham and Chris scheduled a meeting for Monday, November 3rd at 10:30 to discuss website tuition. John and Graham discussed a successful outcome with Somerset and a potential opportunity with Stephen Drury advocating for data export to Parish Online on November 20th. They also talked about the challenges with importing maps into Parish Online and the impact of climate change on insect populations, including the discovery of mosquitoes in Iceland. Graham mentioned that hoverflies are the second greatest pollinating insect after bees, and shared an interesting experiment involving hoverflies traveling between the UK and Scandinavia via North Sea oil platforms.

#### Volunteer Engagement and Environmental Insights

The group discussed volunteer engagement in parish councils, noting that interactive and nature-focused activities effectively attract participants. They explored the surprising role of hoverflies as pollinators, discovered through research on oil rigs, and discussed bird migration patterns, highlighting the complexity and mysteries still surrounding these phenomena. The conversation also touched on the challenges of balancing fossil fuel use with environmental concerns, though no specific decisions or actions were outlined.

#### EPC Data Analysis Challenges

The group discussed challenges with analyzing EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) reports, where Tristram explained that while the full database is available, extracting specific data fields for analysis is difficult due to inconsistent formatting across different software systems used by report providers. Graham offered to investigate if the data could be standardized through database analysis or AI, while Chris suggested exploring solar panel data as a separate layer outside the EPC reports. The conversation ended with technical discussions about software bugs and data upload issues with XMAP, where Graham reported being unable to upload any data to his account.

***

### Chat:

00:29:06 Graham Stoddart-Stones: John, re our earlier discussion, the second pollinator is hoverfly, not horsefly - I erred in the name!

***

### Audio-transcript:

42\
00:05:33.420 --> 00:05:34.650\
Chris Edwards: Hello, Joel.

43\
00:05:35.050 --> 00:05:36.530\
John Roberts: Good afternoon, everybody.

44\
00:05:36.750 --> 00:05:37.730\
Chris Edwards: Good afternoon.

45\
00:05:39.110 --> 00:05:41.200\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: John, how very nice to see you.

46\
00:05:41.730 --> 00:05:42.700\
John Roberts: Hello, Graham.

47\
00:05:50.400 --> 00:05:57.269\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Now, in our regular people today, Stuart is off interviewing, gardeners, I think.

48\
00:05:57.620 --> 00:05:58.300\
Chris Edwards: Woo!

49\
00:05:58.300 --> 00:06:00.790\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, we shouldn't be seeing him.

50\
00:06:01.320 --> 00:06:07.369\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And we have some new people who've certainly registered to join us, but whether they will or not is a different matter.

51\
00:06:13.670 --> 00:06:17.489\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: I can see that both of you have arrived brimming with questions.

52\
00:06:19.800 --> 00:06:20.490\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Oops.

53\
00:06:21.460 --> 00:06:22.070\
John Roberts: Nope.

54\
00:06:23.100 --> 00:06:24.300\
John Roberts: Is he having a bus…

55\
00:06:24.960 --> 00:06:27.190\
Chris Edwards: Sorry, go on. Sorry, John, carry on.

56\
00:06:27.490 --> 00:06:28.060\
John Roberts: Nope.

57\
00:06:28.170 --> 00:06:32.830\
John Roberts: I thought we had a good result with, through Adam.

58\
00:06:33.530 --> 00:06:34.570\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Didn't be just…

59\
00:06:34.570 --> 00:06:36.969\
John Roberts: with Somerset, that worked out okay.

60\
00:06:37.500 --> 00:06:45.149\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: I went to, as it happens, the next day after last week… last Saturday, I met, Stephen Drury.

61\
00:06:45.180 --> 00:06:47.669\
John Roberts: Who is the guy that Adam mentioned?

62\
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John Roberts: Yeah.

63\
00:06:48.670 --> 00:06:59.759\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And, he was, flabbergasted and excited about Parish Online, and says that in November the 20th, he will be advocating

64\
00:06:59.940 --> 00:07:04.030\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: for all of the data to be exported to Paris Online.

65\
00:07:04.130 --> 00:07:05.689\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: So we'll see where that goes.

66\
00:07:06.120 --> 00:07:21.950\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: But he certainly got an earful from me about biodiversity, and an earful from Andrew about the local nature recovery strategy, because it all depends on maps, and none of the maps that

67\
00:07:22.400 --> 00:07:27.439\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: are in the strategy document, are importable into Cache online at the moment.

68\
00:07:27.910 --> 00:07:30.309\
John Roberts: No, that was the original question.

69\
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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Exactly.

70\
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John Roberts: Hopefully we'll get somewhere.

71\
00:07:33.640 --> 00:07:40.129\
John Roberts: The Danish study that I pointed you towards was… is to do with climate change.

72\
00:07:41.180 --> 00:07:46.630\
John Roberts: Cause what they're looking at is… The insects they're getting now.

73\
00:07:47.170 --> 00:07:50.099\
John Roberts: And the insects they used to get that aren't there now.

74\
00:07:50.590 --> 00:07:51.190\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Yes.

75\
00:07:51.190 --> 00:07:54.219\
John Roberts: A direct result of climate change.

76\
00:07:54.500 --> 00:08:00.649\
John Roberts: To the fact that they're now… they've now discovered mosquitoes on Iceland.

77\
00:08:02.120 --> 00:08:02.600\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And that.

78\
00:08:02.600 --> 00:08:03.449\
John Roberts: That's mute.

79\
00:08:03.950 --> 00:08:06.880\
John Roberts: And that is new, they've never had mosquitoes there before.

80\
00:08:06.880 --> 00:08:07.860\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Oh my.

81\
00:08:09.130 --> 00:08:12.929\
John Roberts: And to be fair, that can only be down to climate change.

82\
00:08:15.940 --> 00:08:17.020\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: So…

83\
00:08:22.220 --> 00:08:27.579\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: If I talk to you about pollination, what do you think is the greatest pollinating insect?

84\
00:08:28.370 --> 00:08:31.360\
John Roberts: Most people will say bees.

85\
00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:31.970\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Yep.

86\
00:08:32.159 --> 00:08:37.969\
John Roberts: But, I think… I'm not… I'm guessing now, but I'm gonna say probably moths.

87\
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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Actually, it's… horseflies is number two. The bees are number one.

88\
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John Roberts: Hmm.

89\
00:08:45.960 --> 00:08:51.569\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: But they've discovered that, in a very interesting experiment, I thought, that they

90\
00:08:51.680 --> 00:08:54.859\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: gave a bunch of horseflies in the

91\
00:08:55.210 --> 00:09:01.779\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: A particular poem, which they'd sort of doctored with a dye or something would show up.

92\
00:09:01.910 --> 00:09:09.470\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And they let them loose, and they found exactly the same, pollen in Scandinavia.

93\
00:09:09.580 --> 00:09:19.469\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And the reason that the horseflies had been able to transfer that far was because they stopped on North Sea oil platforms on the way.

94\
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John Roberts: Yeah.

95\
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Graham Stoddart-Stones: And they caught them, and they found them there, you know, with this peculiar colored pollen on them, and they thought, well, that just goes to show.

96\
00:09:27.470 --> 00:09:32.010\
John Roberts: Yeah, they find… they find the same thing with the birds now, with the platforms.

97\
00:09:32.500 --> 00:09:36.000\
John Roberts: But they'll end up with, they'll get…

98\
00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:37.329\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Agreeing, buds.

99\
00:09:37.330 --> 00:09:40.289\
John Roberts: Yeah, they find them covered in birds, and then the next day they're gone.

100\
00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:42.580\
Chris Edwards: They're just having to rest.

101\
00:09:42.950 --> 00:09:43.710\
Chris Edwards: Mmm.

102\
00:09:44.590 --> 00:09:51.420\
John Roberts: But, yeah, it was… it just intrigued me, was all these cars driving around with these nets on their route.

103\
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Graham Stoddart-Stones: That was fascinating, yeah, I agree, absolutely. It looked marvelous.

104\
00:09:56.110 --> 00:10:00.070\
John Roberts: And the results they got from it. It just shows that if you make it

105\
00:10:01.150 --> 00:10:10.940\
John Roberts: enjoyable enough or worthwhile, then the public will participate. If you bombard them with facts and figures and nothing else, they tend to switch off.

106\
00:10:10.940 --> 00:10:12.020\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Absolutely.

107\
00:10:12.020 --> 00:10:16.590\
John Roberts: But, yeah, anyway, I mean, that rant over on that one.

108\
00:10:16.590 --> 00:10:31.880\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, no, but, I do a banter session on Wednesdays in, the aid of climate change and so forth, and lots of people ask every time, how do parish councils manage to get volunteers up and running?

109\
00:10:32.160 --> 00:10:39.389\
John Roberts: And the answer is always the way that you suggest. You've got to ask them what it is they want to do, and then say, we'll go and do it.

110\
00:10:39.910 --> 00:10:42.810\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: But if you tell them what needs to be done, they won't.

111\
00:10:43.510 --> 00:10:51.660\
John Roberts: No, they won't, and you've got to pitch it as… it's got to be interesting, interactive,

112\
00:10:51.810 --> 00:10:54.230\
John Roberts: This is one of the problems when people join

113\
00:10:54.670 --> 00:10:56.999\
John Roberts: Younger people join a parish council.

114\
00:10:57.100 --> 00:11:00.520\
John Roberts: They think they're going to be so involved in everything that's going on.

115\
00:11:00.620 --> 00:11:03.179\
John Roberts: Then they find, no, it's not like that.

116\
00:11:03.290 --> 00:11:04.710\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And they drift away.

117\
00:11:05.690 --> 00:11:09.209\
John Roberts: So… There was somebody the other day that said.

118\
00:11:09.630 --> 00:11:10.810\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: the two…

119\
00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:21.250\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Catch things that will always get volunteers, apparently, are anything to do with nature, that always brings people out of the woodwork, and, much to my surprise, waste management.

120\
00:11:22.690 --> 00:11:27.629\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, I was not aware that people would do anything they could, I suppose, to clear up the,

121\
00:11:28.120 --> 00:11:30.559\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Litter pollution they find around.

122\
00:11:30.560 --> 00:11:36.899\
John Roberts: I'll back that. We've got a thing in the village called Stowe Green Spaces, which started out as a group litter picking.

123\
00:11:37.500 --> 00:11:40.109\
John Roberts: And over the years, it's grown.

124\
00:11:40.880 --> 00:11:46.269\
John Roberts: And they now do grass cutting, tree planting, anything to do with nature.

125\
00:11:46.270 --> 00:11:46.720\
Chris Edwards: Hmm.

126\
00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:47.170\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Right.

127\
00:11:47.170 --> 00:11:49.959\
John Roberts: And that started with volunteers, just litter picking.

128\
00:11:50.940 --> 00:11:51.810\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Interesting.

129\
00:11:52.190 --> 00:11:56.549\
John Roberts: And they're a bit like an ALMO of the parish council, because they're doing a lot of the work that

130\
00:11:56.990 --> 00:11:59.219\
John Roberts: You know, we would like to do and can.

131\
00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:06.070\
tristram cary: Yeah, that's good, interesting. We've got a very active litter picking group, but we haven't, branched out into tree planting.

132\
00:12:06.070 --> 00:12:06.520\
John Roberts: Excuse me.

133\
00:12:06.520 --> 00:12:07.200\
tristram cary: Love stuff.

134\
00:12:08.620 --> 00:12:14.140\
Chris Edwards: John, you, you were talking about, oil rigs,

135\
00:12:14.400 --> 00:12:19.499\
Chris Edwards: it's a stepping stone for flies and birds and so on. Yeah.

136\
00:12:19.700 --> 00:12:27.350\
Chris Edwards: Do you think we should send multiple email messages to Ed Miliband, saying, let's have more oil rigs, please?

137\
00:12:28.350 --> 00:12:31.210\
Chris Edwards: Yeah, because he's trying to… he's trying to cut them all out.

138\
00:12:31.210 --> 00:12:32.619\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Really?

139\
00:12:32.620 --> 00:12:37.650\
John Roberts: It, it, it's… It's best not start me on that one, Chris.

140\
00:12:37.650 --> 00:12:38.210\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Oh, okay.

141\
00:12:38.210 --> 00:12:38.910\
tristram cary: Oh my god.

142\
00:12:38.910 --> 00:12:42.959\
John Roberts: You've got to remember, I spent my life teaching people about plastics.

143\
00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:44.270\
Chris Edwards: Oh, dear.

144\
00:12:45.420 --> 00:12:48.960\
John Roberts: And… the short answer is, is…

145\
00:12:49.660 --> 00:12:53.600\
John Roberts: Look at… if they stop drilling for oil completely.

146\
00:12:53.790 --> 00:12:57.050\
John Roberts: You need to look at everything you're going to lose.

147\
00:12:58.250 --> 00:13:00.370\
John Roberts: Now, I happen to agree with

148\
00:13:00.470 --> 00:13:02.969\
John Roberts: Some of their arguments re-fossil fuels.

149\
00:13:04.780 --> 00:13:08.700\
John Roberts: But you can't just stop oil altogether.

150\
00:13:08.930 --> 00:13:11.010\
John Roberts: It just will not happen.

151\
00:13:11.190 --> 00:13:11.720\
Chris Edwards: Nope.

152\
00:13:14.330 --> 00:13:24.920\
Chris Edwards: Should we bring Tristram in on this? We were talking earlier about, pollinators, and Graham told us that after bees.

153\
00:13:25.060 --> 00:13:28.760\
Chris Edwards: The second greatest pollinator would be horseflies.

154\
00:13:28.980 --> 00:13:30.879\
Chris Edwards: Which, which is news to me.

155\
00:13:31.270 --> 00:13:31.830\
Chris Edwards: And…

156\
00:13:31.830 --> 00:13:32.390\
tristram cary: That means…

157\
00:13:32.390 --> 00:13:40.460\
Chris Edwards: They discovered some horseflies on oil rigs, which were sort of a stepping stone on their migratory roots.

158\
00:13:40.460 --> 00:13:41.280\
tristram cary: Monday.

159\
00:13:41.280 --> 00:13:45.109\
Chris Edwards: Discovered that, you know, they had pollen on them.

160\
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tristram cary: That's extraordinary. I didn't know they migrated at all.

161\
00:13:50.570 --> 00:13:51.400\
Chris Edwards: No, I didn't know.

162\
00:13:51.400 --> 00:13:55.299\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: I don't think anyone did it until they, they, they, they, they.

163\
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tristram cary: Extraordinary.

164\
00:13:56.620 --> 00:14:01.880\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Once they discovered that they were big pollen carriers, then they started giving them,

165\
00:14:01.980 --> 00:14:08.069\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: pollen that had been, sort of, laced with color or something, so that they could track it, and then they found that

166\
00:14:08.310 --> 00:14:17.879\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: the, plants in Scandinavia were showing the same pollen, and it was only because the flies had got from one country to the next, and they…

167\
00:14:17.880 --> 00:14:18.620\
tristram cary: the other rings.

168\
00:14:18.620 --> 00:14:21.970\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And yes, they found them on the oil rigs.

169\
00:14:22.270 --> 00:14:24.470\
tristram cary: Makes you wonder what they did before the other rigs.

170\
00:14:24.470 --> 00:14:27.199\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, I don't think they exported the oil.

171\
00:14:28.060 --> 00:14:28.730\
John Roberts: Right?

172\
00:14:28.730 --> 00:14:29.780\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And you might… you had…

173\
00:14:29.780 --> 00:14:31.149\
Chris Edwards: We went by far…

174\
00:14:31.150 --> 00:14:34.049\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: stayed in the holiday, but they stayed in England.

175\
00:14:35.980 --> 00:14:41.209\
John Roberts: It's funny because, we were listening to something on the day before yesterday.

176\
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John Roberts: And about bird migration, and I was surprised how little they actually know about bird migration.

177\
00:14:49.060 --> 00:14:57.310\
John Roberts: And they're finding things out. I mean, they still don't really know how birds or why birds migrate.

178\
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John Roberts: There was one bird that lives in the northwest of Canada.

179\
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John Roberts: And they've now discovered it migrates via, again, via Iceland, to sub-Saharan Africa.

180\
00:15:12.770 --> 00:15:17.430\
John Roberts: and then back. It actually spends 6 months of the year migrating.

181\
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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Wow.

182\
00:15:18.030 --> 00:15:20.249\
tristram cary: It's quite… it's quite extraordinary.

183\
00:15:20.250 --> 00:15:22.729\
John Roberts: Yeah, and… I mean, how that could be…

184\
00:15:23.310 --> 00:15:28.170\
John Roberts: The same bird, or group of birds, live on the other side of Canada.

185\
00:15:28.290 --> 00:15:30.579\
John Roberts: And they migrate, but they go the other way.

186\
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tristram cary: Extraordinary.

187\
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Graham Stoddart-Stones: It's mind-blowing, isn't it?

188\
00:15:33.900 --> 00:15:38.460\
John Roberts: Yeah, it really is, and it's surprising, really, how much we don't know.

189\
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Graham Stoddart-Stones: If you look into the stormy petrol.

190\
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Graham Stoddart-Stones: That's a very tiny bird, and it goes huge distances over the ocean, and because it's quite happy landing on water, I don't quite know what it feeds on, but…

191\
00:15:50.730 --> 00:15:57.299\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: It's not so bothered by the fact that it's flying over water, whereas your average land bird is going to have a lot of trouble.

192\
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tristram cary: Yeah.

193\
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tristram cary: But is it that Swifts? The Swifts don't land at all. They go for 6 months on the wing.

194\
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Chris Edwards: Yeah.

195\
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Graham Stoddart-Stones: They never land? Oh, but we…

196\
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tristram cary: So 6 months, until… until they… no, until while they're migrating. So it's been 6 months.

197\
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tristram cary: In the, I mean.

198\
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John Roberts: The albatross will only land when it breeds.

199\
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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Yes.

200\
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tristram cary: Yeah. Yeah, but they're not putting in too much effort, they're sort of gliding, aren't they? But when you… when you look at those sweats, they're bashing away, you know, their wings go at about 100 RPM.

201\
00:16:30.890 --> 00:16:32.459\
tristram cary: That was one of the points.

202\
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John Roberts: program was making is this bird from Canada, it weighs 20 grams.

203\
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tristram cary: What they'll say? Yeah, fly… fly… yeah, the bird they were talking about in Canada.

204\
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John Roberts: sub-Saharan Africa, they actually weigh an average of 20 grams.

205\
00:16:46.950 --> 00:16:49.180\
John Roberts: And yet, it's flying those distances.

206\
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tristram cary: stroller.

207\
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John Roberts: Yeah. That's nothing to do with parish online, though.

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Chris Edwards: I can recommend that.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: My.

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John Roberts: Yeah.

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Chris Edwards: I went… I went to an open day at the Yoe Valley Farm.

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Chris Edwards: in Somerset, and they put on a wonderful display of arts and crafts, gardening, implements, and lectures, and I went to the lecture to listen to the author of this book.

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Chris Edwards: And she took us around a garden there, which is purely for insects.

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Chris Edwards: And she pointed out things which we had never even knew existed, and it was just a wonderful day out.

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tristram cary: Good.

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Chris Edwards: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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John Roberts: It's not the same as in Yale Valley, the dairy people?

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Chris Edwards: Yogurts, butter, cheese, milk, yeah, yeah.

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tristram cary: Well, I've got a topic of discussion.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Excellent. We're all set.

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tristram cary: Is this… have we got the full crowd in a show?

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, there are two… three newcomers who've signed up, but they haven't actually shown up yet, so…

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tristram cary: Okay, so here's my… here's my topic of conversation. EPC… Reports.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Yes?

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tristram cary: Because, you know, we can't, at the moment, download, data extract the full EPC report and run queries on it.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Yes.

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tristram cary: So I've been on to Chris and the team, and he says it's a huge database, and it's too difficult to do all at once. But he then said, if we could work out the specific questions and fields that we wanted to analyze.

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tristram cary: Maybe we could download that data, a subset, and work on that.

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tristram cary: So I had a look at the… at the EPC reports.

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tristram cary: And two things strike me. I mean, there are fields that we definitely would like to know about, like the build form and the property type.

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tristram cary: and the, you know, whether it's rented or owned, and the main construct… the data construction, and things like the roof type, I suppose. So there are a few, you know, out of 100 fields, or whatever it is, there probably are 10 or 12 that would be really useful.

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tristram cary: multi-glaze proportion, I don't know, that sort of floor… is there under… is there… is it a cavity? Is it a suspended floor or solid, all that stuff.

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tristram cary: number of bedrooms, maybe. But then… but so then I started to look at some of these reports, and it then started to worry me that there's… the…

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tristram cary: when the inspector fills in the database, a lot of the fields seem to be sort of left open to a description, which, again, would be very difficult to analyze, but some… some are not. So, for instance, when it says.

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tristram cary: Glazing type.

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tristram cary: One guy's put in double glazing unknown install date.

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tristram cary: You know, so that looks like a descriptive field. It's not… it's not picking… it's not picking a value from a drop-down menu, which you'd need to have to make any sense of an automatic data extract.

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tristram cary: And so then I… and then I wondered, are… you know, I know there are several

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tristram cary: groups, companies that offer software for doing EPC reports, like Elmsthurst is one, and Quidos is another. And I wonder if they've got the same… exactly the same questions, the same drop-down menus, or are we going to run into trouble by finding that the EPC reports just aren't consistent?

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tristram cary: So I wondered if anybody could shed any light on… on that topic.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: So…

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John Roberts: something I've had a lot to do with.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: I'm surprised he finds it too big to manage, because I think the whole country is about 5GB, which is ought to be manageable by,

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: SQL, and you just run a report on that, but…

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tristram cary: Yeah, I think… I think it's, again, it's the quality. I think it's the issue of the reports are not very…

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tristram cary: uniform.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Oh.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: But doesn't it all come from the same database that the government.

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tristram cary: No, I don't think it does, because they're different… because there are different companies that do… that have different software to do the EPC reports.

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tristram cary: I'm slightly guessing, I'm slightly guessing, but I've… so I've looked… I spent a happy half hour this morning just downloading a few randomly around the country.

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tristram cary: And they're not, you know, they're not very uniform.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: But you didn't take the one from the government. There is one central database that the government.

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tristram cary: No, no, no, I still… ugh.

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tristram cary: Nice.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: It'll obviously be exactly the same format all the way through. And that's a big file, it's a 5GB file, but you can, you know, it's downloadable.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, it is, but…

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tristram cary: Does that necessarily… does that necessarily follow? Because different companies have different software. Maybe the date… they say some may, for instance, have a drop-down menu to constrain what you can put in, others don't. And quite a lot of the entries do seem to be very descriptive.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: I see what you're saying, yeah, okay. But then, for what you're…

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tristram cary: So you can download… you can download the database, which we've done, you know, we do have all that data, it's in… all that data is in Paris Online, but what you can't… you can't data extract from it.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, you can if you do as you're suggesting, and then come up with a few fields that we want, but… and particularly the ones that are likely to have been done with the drop-down list, they can be yeses or nos, aren't they? Yeah. Well, no, no, no, no, not at all. Not yeses or nos. They could be, for instance, property type. It could be flat, house.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Yes.

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tristram cary: whatever, end of terrace, and I'm just looking at the window's description, you know, or, sorry, floor.

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tristram cary: And one of them says suspended, no insulation assumed.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: So I don't suppose that comes from a drop-down menu, that looks like it's just… he's just filled that in.

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tristram cary: And a hot water description from main system, no cylinder thermostat.

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tristram cary: That's not… that's not going to be analyzable in a… unless you use… unless, of course, you use an AI engine to…

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tristram cary: Work out what it's trying to tell you.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: But I think the important things that people want to know, really, are what certificate category are they? You know, are they A, B, C, D, E, or F?

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: And… I'm just looking at the data that they're storing at the moment. Things like…

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Heating cost current and heating cost potential are all just straight digits.

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tristram cary: Yeah, yes, I know, I saw that.

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tristram cary: Same thing, it's another, another question.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: I'm just looking at the ones that give you…

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Yeah, a hot water description I can certainly see could be very confusing, because you could get anything in there, and the floor description could also be…

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: You don't know if it should drop down on this or not, but…

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tristram cary: Yo.

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tristram cary: So I've actually contacted somebody to ask who knows about it, who works… who used to work for Quidos, and he's going to… he's going to try to get me some data about

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tristram cary: what… what are drop-downs, and, you know, ask some people who really know. But I was… I was interested, because if we're gonna… if we're gonna do this, some way to crack it, and if we could start with some simple… some very simple flags, like property type and date of construction.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Absolutely, yes.

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tristram cary: And that would be… we could start to get a bit more purchase on the data.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, I've got the down… I'll download the data and take a look and see if there's a way of,

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Taking what people have put and converting it to a standard.

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tristram cary: Probably true.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Yep.

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tristram cary: How would you possibly do that?

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: What you could do is, in a database, you could just find all,

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Variations on a theme.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: I think you're right.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: even easier for AI to work on it. That'd be a very good…

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tristram cary: Yeah.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: You'd have to… what you'd have to do is go trolling through the big database and come up with the variations of describing the same thing, and then say the word that you want the AI to use. So if you come across semi-detached residents, with hyphens between semi and detached, then that is the same as semi and detached with no hyphen.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: And just make it the same.

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tristram cary: Yeah.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Because I agree with you, when you get to starting to, you know, descriptions like flooring and so forth, but do we need to know that for the exercise that we're doing here in Paris Online?

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tristram cary: Well, yes, because the idea… what we're trying to do in HART is… is get each parish to analyze its CPCs and come up with things like what proportion are

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tristram cary: below D… below C, rather, what proportion

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tristram cary: You know, have, have, loft insulation, what proportion have double glazing?

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tristram cary: And to try to… to try to prioritize

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tristram cary: action, and then what Hart wants to do is amalgamate the parishes together, and then offer retrofit companies to say, look, there's a clutch of properties here, which

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tristram cary: could benefit a lot from campus wall installation, or whatever it is, and we'll give you… if you go and do them in that, you know, we'll promote you as a trusted partner, and…

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: You can.

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tristram cary: offer a discount. To do that sort of thing.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: We're doing that mostly with just the strange… the straightforward energy rating, because knew anybody with D or below is worth looking at.

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tristram cary: Well, we're keen to go do a bit more.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, then my question to you is, is what is the bit more that you want?

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, that's what I'm sort of asking. Well, you're waiting for your answer, I take it, from your computer.

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tristram cary: We've only just… this is… this is all only three days old. We had the meeting on Tuesday this week. So we've got… I've got as far as starting to look at it. I've got as far as asking somebody about the different software, whether these… whether this data would be consistent across the country, or at least a parish or a district.

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tristram cary: And I'm… and I'm looking at the reports to say, you know, what would be the most useful. And I think there are… there are data fields, like, you know, potential number of habitable royal enhance that there's

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tristram cary: low energy heating, for instance, is just a number, whether that's a percentage or no. But the thing you were saying, the,

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tristram cary: What were you even do?

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: The floor description.

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tristram cary: No, this thing, these things that were just numbers.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Oh, yes, well, that's all the things.

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tristram cary: I don't know what those mean. Current energy efficient, 64, 71, 30, 69, I don't know what that means, but that could be, you know, if that's scientifically calculated, you might say, well, actually, that's a really useful, due to that efficiency, tells you where to aim. You should deal with the most inefficient.

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tristram cary: But I didn't know what they mean.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, but I'm sure it's quite easy to find out from somebody who's doing this all the time. Like, as you say, there's a lighting cost current, a lighting cost potential, a heating cost current, a heating cost potential, they're all straightforward numbers.

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tristram cary: Yeah, but I have been told that the quality of those numbers is highly, can be highly variable. Different inspectors say they put their finger in the air and say 61.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Yeah, but just because the data is patchy doesn't mean to say not use it.

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tristram cary: No, exactly.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: You bring some human being in to intervene at some point.

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tristram cary: Yep.

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Chris Edwards: Wistrom, I'd like to ask, what about solar panels for residences?

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Chris Edwards: Well, that'll be honest.

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tristram cary: They're not in the EPC, are they?

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Chris Edwards: Well, I don't know, so I'll have to ask you about that, so…

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tristram cary: I don't… well, I've been looking this morning, I don't think I've seen any… any reference to solar panels. So I think the EPC is all about… it's not about energy generation, it seems to me it's all about energy conservation.

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Chris Edwards: Okay.

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tristram cary: I think.

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Chris Edwards: Don't we… could we have another layer, not within the EPCs, but somewhere else?

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tristram cary: Yes, absolutely, that's being done.

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Chris Edwards: Good.

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tristram cary: Are you shocked, but I've got another parish next to me who's taking a big interest. Actually, David Morgan-Jones, who I think you know from this meeting. Oh, yes. He's very interested, so he knows where the solar panels are, and we've got another… we've got another look at potential.

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tristram cary: So we want to look at the potential of roofs, and then cross off it, you know, where solar panel's already been installed, to get a better handle on it.

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Chris Edwards: Okay, thank you.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: How you doing, Alastair? Just seen you pop in, hello.

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Alastair Boyd: Good afternoon, how are you?

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, we're discussing almost anything, except Paris Online, given the…

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Alastair Boyd: That's what makes it interesting.

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John Roberts: Exactly.

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Alastair Boyd: Nice to finally get hold of you. The buttons wouldn't work this afternoon.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Oh, right.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well,

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: David Morgan Jones has suggested that it's more important to deal with the person who knocked on his door than it is to come and talk to us.

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Alastair Boyd: That doesn't.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: What's up?

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tristram cary: Talking.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Yeah, I… but that's… I told him that some people just seize on any excuse.

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John Roberts: That will be dependent on who it is knocking on his door, but…

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Of course.

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tristram cary: Well, anybody… anyway, just to finish that discussion, if anybody has any good ideas and wants to look at the EPC reports, I think that would be interesting, because I think that would be a project we could… once we get it going in heart, we could maybe offer that as a sort of template and get feedback so that it covers a wider area.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, I think Chris's idea is also useful. You and you were going… you did quite a lot of work on… which are south-facing roofs which don't have…

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tristram cary: Solar panels on them.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: That was working with a satellite image company, was it?

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Chris Edwards: CG.

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tristram cary: Union.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: done slides in presentations? Yes, yes, no, it wasn't, it was… it was an air… it was a…

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: And, air photography.

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tristram cary: I think it was… I think it was APGB we used.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Okay.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: But it strikes me as a sort of thing, if we can get some funding, it would be really worthwhile. You're turning that into a…

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tristram cary: be useful there.

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tristram cary: Well, that's the big if, but yes, that's what we're aiming to do.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: You…

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, the problem with XMAP at the moment is turning into a larger one than I thought. I thought, well, if I'm not able to upload the data, let me ask the support people if they will. And Chris has come back and said, we can't upload any data either, which I think is mind-boggling.

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tristram cary: Well, into your account?

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: Well, I asked it to be into my account, yes, but I can't believe you can't upload any data.

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Graham Stoddart-Stones: What's this?

368\
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tristram cary: 11.

369\
00:31:38.610 --> 00:31:40.320\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Not my account, it's very weird.

370\
00:31:40.690 --> 00:31:42.760\
tristram cary: I haven't seen that response.

371\
00:31:42.760 --> 00:31:45.069\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: No, well, it came to you, didn't?

372\
00:31:45.480 --> 00:31:47.590\
tristram cary: Oh, I thought you were copying me on the listener.

373\
00:31:47.590 --> 00:31:51.770\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: I have been, but I don't know whether Chris has been on. Let me just go and check what he's got.

374\
00:32:01.590 --> 00:32:04.109\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: No, it didn't involve you, I'll send it to you.

375\
00:32:04.510 --> 00:32:05.470\
tristram cary: Yeah, please.

376\
00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:10.659\
tristram cary: Because my… my talk to Chris, I've got

377\
00:32:11.980 --> 00:32:21.429\
tristram cary: I think he thinks it's a soluble problem. They're just nervous about making… fixing old bug in case it causes new contagion.

378\
00:32:24.260 --> 00:32:32.180\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: I've completely failed to understand what the issue is, because how did it suddenly arise? What's suddenly changed?

379\
00:32:32.520 --> 00:32:35.950\
tristram cary: Well, that's the thing about software bugs, they're very mysterious.

380\
00:32:37.050 --> 00:32:38.170\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Yeah, it's true.

381\
00:32:38.170 --> 00:32:43.860\
tristram cary: No, seriously, you know, if these things arise, you can't, for the life of you, work out what the hell's happened.

382\
00:32:44.040 --> 00:32:47.529\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: How did we manage to go this far without spotting it before?

383\
00:32:47.530 --> 00:32:51.819\
tristram cary: And they're very… they're always usually edge cases that are sort of unusual.

384\
00:32:51.990 --> 00:32:57.710\
tristram cary: Something's happened. It's caused a… glitch.

385\
00:32:58.860 --> 00:33:13.939\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: When I was running an IT support company, we had the issue, which was really a Microsoft problem, that they've got so many people using so many different versions of hardware, the versions of Microsoft, Windows, and all the rest of it, that

386\
00:33:14.090 --> 00:33:26.780\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: The bugs keep popping up because people insist on doing things that the software programmer had no expectation that any human would be that daft. But lo and behold, they can be.

387\
00:33:26.780 --> 00:33:29.240\
tristram cary: It's known as the Stoddot Stones Effect.

388\
00:33:31.100 --> 00:33:31.880\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: See?

389\
00:33:31.880 --> 00:33:36.690\
tristram cary: It's probably because you're using your weird Linux computer.

390\
00:33:37.770 --> 00:33:47.539\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, when we were at Dartmouth, Youngstown, the, junior Division Officer of Hawk Division, in the days when I was there, was Robin Marks.

391\
00:33:48.070 --> 00:34:01.329\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And Robin Marks later went to work for the, Military Pension Society, and my father, who'd been a Royal Air Force officer, wrote in and said, you know, I have a question, please, could you help me out?

392\
00:34:01.330 --> 00:34:15.780\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And Robin Marks wrote back and said… said, it's such an unusual name that you must be the father of Robin and Graham. He said, and when they were both at Dartmouth together, we coined the phrase, you can always tell a lot of stones, but not a lot.

393\
00:34:18.850 --> 00:34:22.349\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And, so I thought that was very unkind.

394\
00:34:26.480 --> 00:34:28.429\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: My father thought it was hilarious.

395\
00:34:29.989 --> 00:34:33.299\
John Roberts: it's a problem with software faults. You can spend

396\
00:34:33.489 --> 00:34:37.989\
John Roberts: Hours, days, weeks, and never actually get to the bottom of them.

397\
00:34:39.549 --> 00:34:43.969\
John Roberts: And, some of the automotive and medical machines I worked with were

398\
00:34:44.419 --> 00:34:47.309\
John Roberts: You know, they were millions of pounds per machine.

399\
00:34:47.759 --> 00:34:50.729\
John Roberts: And… They would go wrong.

400\
00:34:50.829 --> 00:34:56.389\
John Roberts: and I would go in, And I would spend half a day tinkering.

401\
00:34:56.499 --> 00:34:59.059\
John Roberts: when in actual fact, all I actually did

402\
00:34:59.309 --> 00:35:04.759\
John Roberts: Was switch the machine off, pull the fuse, wait 10 minutes, and switch it all back on again.

403\
00:35:06.030 --> 00:35:08.600\
John Roberts: But I couldn't let the customer know that's what I'd done.

404\
00:35:09.910 --> 00:35:12.370\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: But you had solved the problem thereby.

405\
00:35:12.630 --> 00:35:13.230\
John Roberts: Yay!

406\
00:35:13.720 --> 00:35:14.310\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: I'm tired!

407\
00:35:14.870 --> 00:35:20.310\
John Roberts: Time and time again, it would… it would happen, and… It was… the machine…

408\
00:35:20.440 --> 00:35:27.569\
John Roberts: Basically, people trying to program the machine and getting it wrong, and the easiest way to do it was to kill the machine and then it start again.

409\
00:35:28.150 --> 00:35:29.350\
Alastair Boyd: Indeed.

410\
00:35:29.350 --> 00:35:31.099\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: One of the earliest,

411\
00:35:31.150 --> 00:35:48.659\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: clients that we had, and certainly the largest, was the Wellcome Foundation, you know, the pharmaceutical people. Yeah. And they had a big mainframe which wasn't able to cope with the workload, and they asked us for our solution, and we said, switch to the PC version of the software, and then you'll have

412\
00:35:48.660 --> 00:35:55.150\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: the problem will go away. But they decided that, no, they were going to go for the mainframe version, and what they needed was more memory.

413\
00:35:55.410 --> 00:36:01.680\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, they wrote to IBM and said, how much would it cost to have more memory? And they said, £5,000.

414\
00:36:02.020 --> 00:36:10.180\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And, I watched the technician come in to fix the new memory in place, and he opened the cabinet door, flicked a switch, and shut it again, and that was it.

415\
00:36:10.400 --> 00:36:22.059\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: The systems all came with the memory built in, and then you got what you paid for, and if you wanted more, you paid a lot more, and the guy came and just toggled it into place. It was extraordinary. 5,000 quid.

416\
00:36:22.740 --> 00:36:27.830\
John Roberts: With our machines, the full programs were always loaded into the machine.

417\
00:36:27.830 --> 00:36:28.530\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Right.

418\
00:36:28.630 --> 00:36:29.560\
John Roberts: But the customer…

419\
00:36:29.560 --> 00:36:32.500\
Alastair Boyd: only had access to what they'd paid for. Yeah.

420\
00:36:32.500 --> 00:36:37.459\
John Roberts: I've changed my mind I want something else. Yeah, like you said, it's just a flick of a switch.

421\
00:36:38.500 --> 00:36:39.149\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Excuse me.

422\
00:36:39.150 --> 00:36:39.830\
tristram cary: That's great.

423\
00:36:39.830 --> 00:36:40.470\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Sweet.

424\
00:36:40.470 --> 00:36:41.440\
tristram cary: Very sensible.

425\
00:36:41.440 --> 00:36:42.010\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Yep.

426\
00:36:43.570 --> 00:36:47.390\
Alastair Boyd: A bunch of, useful advice I had when I started

427\
00:36:47.510 --> 00:36:50.580\
Alastair Boyd: Then I found the computers, which was an old Apple IIe.

428\
00:36:50.980 --> 00:36:56.999\
Alastair Boyd: And that was the, salesman when I rang him up one night about 10 o'clock, I said, well, it stopped again.

429\
00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:03.860\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: He says, well, I've told you before, you're the master, you just switch the switch off.

430\
00:37:05.580 --> 00:37:06.749\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And he would.

431\
00:37:06.750 --> 00:37:11.550\
Alastair Boyd: Oh, yeah. Many times has it done that. I still do it even with a modern tackle.

432\
00:37:12.080 --> 00:37:15.869\
Alastair Boyd: If it won't reset itself, you sure you really have got problems.

433\
00:37:15.870 --> 00:37:24.940\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: I came across a huge, novelty for me the other day, which really surprised me, was we've had, fiber installed as our Ethernet supply.

434\
00:37:25.070 --> 00:37:29.660\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And it stopped working, or it was just not working as well as it should.

435\
00:37:29.840 --> 00:37:43.089\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: And I called up the help desk, and they were very helpful, and they said, you can try this, you can try that, and we're coming in remotely, and we can take a look. Oh, we see it's arriving at full speed at your wall mount, but it's going very slowly inside.

436\
00:37:43.290 --> 00:37:57.549\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: So, the solution, they said, would you please unplug the ethernet cable from the router, and then plug it back in again? And just that was all it took to clear it. So, I've got no idea what the cause of that was, but I was amazed at the solution.

437\
00:37:59.800 --> 00:38:03.800\
Alastair Boyd: Well, we had, ours… we only had Ayton for 3 weeks before it stopped.

438\
00:38:04.130 --> 00:38:09.519\
Alastair Boyd: And the second engineer found that the cable had been eaten further up the road by squirrels.

439\
00:38:10.010 --> 00:38:18.140\
Alastair Boyd: And we would have been off for 3 weeks waiting for them, because I had to get the proper order to shut the gate… the road.

440\
00:38:18.410 --> 00:38:28.059\
Alastair Boyd: And, I bought another system which a Thai-powered London home worker uses, so it cuts in when the other one stops.

441\
00:38:28.640 --> 00:38:33.159\
Alastair Boyd: It's just very annoying to have £25 a month that we shouldn't need to have to pay, but there we are.

442\
00:38:34.890 --> 00:38:36.090\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Probably jiggy.

443\
00:38:40.490 --> 00:38:49.439\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Now, I did promise anybody that was looking to do anything this week to discuss B for bookmarks, but I don't suppose anyone here needs bookmarks, do they?

444\
00:38:51.160 --> 00:38:52.270\
Chris Edwards: Occasionally.

445\
00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:58.969\
John Roberts: Yeah, it's something I've used, like Chris just said, occasionally.

446\
00:38:59.210 --> 00:38:59.850\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: But…

447\
00:39:00.110 --> 00:39:02.409\
John Roberts: Not very often. I have to admit.

448\
00:39:04.690 --> 00:39:05.240\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Oh.

449\
00:39:05.430 --> 00:39:11.720\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: In the interest of everyone saving time and everything else, I shall decline to show you how bookmarks work.

450\
00:39:15.160 --> 00:39:20.579\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: does anybody have any questions at all that they want to extend today's session?

451\
00:39:21.480 --> 00:39:23.630\
John Roberts: I'm sorry, no, not this week.

452\
00:39:24.690 --> 00:39:26.139\
tristram cary: No, that's alright.

453\
00:39:26.140 --> 00:39:35.440\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: But rather than take up everyone's time, I'll declare the meeting shut. I'm sorry, Alistair, if you're going to be… your afternoon enjoyment has been quite cut short.

454\
00:39:36.180 --> 00:39:37.080\
tristram cary: I mean…

455\
00:39:37.080 --> 00:39:41.309\
Graham Stoddart-Stones: Having fought to get into it. Yeah, it's very sad, isn't it?

456\
00:39:43.190 --> 00:39:44.259\
tristram cary: Thank you very much.

457\
00:39:44.260 --> 00:39:47.510\
John Roberts: Thank you, take care, have a great day. Bye-bye.

458\
00:39:47.510 --> 00:39:47.950\
Chris Edwards: Sure.

459\
00:39:47.950 --> 00:39:48.680\
Alastair Boyd: Right.