elyob
Start Here: the Solar & Battery Story
A battery, seven garden panels and a half-hourly tariff — the whole story, mapped: the build, the brain, the money, the scoreboards.
The Year the Garden Woke Up
December: 4.5 kWh. June: 72. One year of a scavenged garden array — the season it went quiet, and the season it woke up.
So, Am I Winning?
One-word answer, then the evidence: a 43% cheaper July in an 11% dearer market, a battery filling at 6.5p, and a paper trail that proves it.
Price Capture: the One Number That Judges My Charge Planner
A dearer market, a cheaper bill. One number — achieved price minus market average — isolates the charge planner's skill from weather, solar and luck.
The Days My Solar Beat the Grid — 2026
30 days in this year my ground-level garden panels beat the grid outright. The month-by-month breakdown.
The Night My Safety Net Fought Itself
A week ago I said my battery had never breached its floor. Last night it did — not because the safety net failed to fire, but because a second safety system was running month-old code and kept turning the charger back off. Two backstops at war, and a human at 2am.
What Wins the Future of British TV?
Satellite and terrestrial TV switch off within a decade and everything moves to the internet. But that's just the pipe — the real fight is what wins inside it: fragmented pay-streaming, four million dodgy Fire Sticks, and a BBC weighing whether to firewall iPlayer.
Gas vs Electricity: A Year, and Six Weeks Away
Electricity and gas behave nothing like each other over a year — one flat, one seasonal. And six weeks away turned the flat into an accidental experiment in what's heating and what's always-on.
What the Electricity VAT Cut Would Have Saved Me
The government's taking VAT off electricity for six months. Measured against my actual bills, it would have saved me about £12 — a number with a story behind it.
One Year of Letting a Python Script Buy My Electricity
A year ago I let a battery and a Python script take over when I buy electricity. Here's what 3,901 half-hourly decisions actually added up to.
61% of my energy bill is now standing charges
The charge planner squeezed a month of energy down to £16.93 — so the fixed daily fees are now the bill.
27 Years, 11 Weeks: Launching Local-Hotel.com
I've owned local-hotel.com for 27 years and stalled twice trying to launch it. What changed in 2026 wasn't the idea — it was finally having Claude as the engineering team. A builder's log: 11 weeks, 2,321 commits, more test code than app code, and the honest traffic numbers.
My Photos Are on Wikipedia in 35 Languages — My Brother's the Real Photographer
My brother's the keen photographer with all the kit — but it's my casual Flickr snaps that ended up across Wikipedia in 35 languages. Every one, and where it's used.
Did You Mean Elyon? No, I Meant Elyob
Google keeps gently suggesting I meant 'elyon' — a name of God with a few-thousand-year head start and its own MMORPG. A short tale of one adjacent keystroke, and a bin calendar.
Making the Numbers Honest: A Maintenance Day Under the Hood
A Cloudflare 502 sent me to fix one thing. By the end of the night I'd found three more — numbers that had been quietly wrong for weeks.
Five Years of Energy Bills: Cheap, Crisis, Solar
Five years of monthly electricity and gas bills laid out side by side: pre-war calm, the Ukraine spike, the partial rebound, and what installing solar + battery + Octopus Agile did to the line ever since.
Octopus Suggested £97.78. My Bills Say £58.
Octopus wanted to double my direct debit. My own bills — and the slice the battery and Agile actually control — say otherwise.
Why My Battery Busbar Was Always Too Hot — and What Fixed It
I swapped my undersized £12 Amazon battery busbar for a pair of Victron 250A 6P bars after temperature sensors flagged 76°C peaks. The busbar end now runs 24°C cooler under the same load. Better data made a better decision possible — instrument the wire, not just the cells.
Two Databases, One Repo: How SQLite Glues This Site Together
The 0-byte ghost.db fossil at content/data is a Ghost migration leftover. The one that actually runs this site lives one directory over — 13 MB, 44 tables, and the entire reporting and automation layer for GPS, energy, SEO, alerts, and the planner.
What My Battery Compares Every 30 Minutes
Most home batteries charge whenever the rate is cheap. Mine compares this cycle's cheapest slot against the next cycle's, the projected drain, the SOC-aware ceiling, and a forecast of tomorrow's solar — every 30 minutes.
I Wired Up a UK Bin Calendar — and Improved Three Councils Upstream Along the Way
A small wrapper around an amazing open-source UK bin-collection scraper — plus three upstream council fixes I sent along the way.
Adding a Seventh Panel: 100W More for £63
A £63 upgrade — one extra 100W mono panel — bumps the garden array from 600W to 700W and should pay for itself by autumn.
Twenty Years of GPS: Where I’ve Actually Slept
Every night since 2006, written down by GPS. 4 AM local tells me where I slept — including red-eyes. Twenty years on the map, including the years where nothing happened.
1,000 kWh Through the Battery — Plus 420 kWh From the Sun
The Fogstar Drift battery just hit 1,000 kWh of lifetime throughput — and 420 kWh of that came straight from the solar panels.
Countries Visited
38 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America — by motorcycle, bicycle and scooter.
My 600W Solar Array Just Hit 692W — And the Physics Behind Why That's Normal
My 600W solar panels hit 692W. Here's how irradiance, temperature and panel physics make that not just possible, but expected.
Home Assistant as the Brain: How My Solar System Manages Itself
Discover how Home Assistant automates your solar energy system to maximize savings with Octopus Agile pricing and intelligent self-management.
A Year of Energy Data: How Solar Changed Everything in the Second Half
Discover how solar power transformed energy independence in just 6 months. Explore real data, battery tech, and dramatic electricity bill savings.
Q1 2026 Energy: An Accidental Savings Experiment (Plus Solar Doing Its Thing)
Discover how a Q1 2026 energy experiment revealed unexpected savings with solar power and smart meter monitoring. Real data, real results.
India — Goa, January–February 2026 (40 days)
39 days in Goa, India — moving slowly between Vagator, Arambol and Agonda with no fixed plan. January to February 2026.
The Days My Solar Beat the Grid — 2025
In 2025, not once did my garden panels beat the grid — the honest baseline, month by month, before the year that changed it.
Spotted on Google Street View — Soča Valley, July 2019
Caught by a Google Street View car on the road north of Bovec, July 2019. Years later, I went looking — and found myself.
Motorcycle Around Europe: UK to Eastern Europe and Back, June–July 2019
A 27-day solo motorcycle ride through 19 countries — east through Germany and the Balkans, then back west via Greece, Italy and France. Around 9,000 km (6,000 mi) in total.
Lake District, Scotland, Northern Ireland & Mach Loop — July–August 2018
KTM motorcycle trip through the Lake District, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Festivals, ferries and 2,000 miles of summer riding.
Normandy & the Somme — July 2018
Portsmouth to Saint-Malo by ferry, then D-Day beaches, Mont-Saint-Michel, the Somme battlefields and back via the Channel Tunnel.
Lille, Le Mans & Bayeux — May 2018
A short motorcycle trip through northern France — Lille, Le Mans and the D-Day beaches at Bayeux.
Le Mans — October 2017
Motorcycle tour through northern France visiting Le Mans racing museum and circuit, Rouen, Tours and Deauville across 1,400 km (870 mi) in October 2017.
Padstow, Cornwall — August 2017
Three days in Padstow with my brothers — Fovant Downs, the Camel Estuary, and a mass open-water swim in the harbour.
WAW Motorcycle Trip: UK, Ireland & Western Europe — July 2017
4,500 km (2,800 mi) through the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria by motorcycle.
West Country with Ray & Dave — June 2017
Three days riding Dorset and Devon with my brothers — Weymouth, Lyme Regis, Torquay, Exmoor.
Southeast Asia 2017: Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos — 38 Days
A 38-day trip through Southeast Asia from 2017-02-01 to 2017-03-10, covering Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos with transit through Turkey and Belgium.
Spain, Portugal and France Moto Trip — September 2016
3,200 km (2,000 mi) by motorcycle through France, Spain and Portugal.
BREXIT — UK & Europe by Motorcycle, July 2016
A motorcycle loop through France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, weeks after the Brexit vote.
Jakarta to Bali by Motorbike
Three weeks across Java and into Bali on a rented motorbike — Jakarta to Denpasar via Bandung, Yogyakarta, Mount Bromo and the Gilimanuk ferry.
Southern Thailand Motorbike Loop
Nine days looping out of Phuket through Krabi, Trang, Surat Thani and Phang-nga on a rented motorbike — 1,200 km around southern Thailand.
Asia: Motorcycle Trip & Hong Kong — Feb–Apr 2016
Eight weeks on a motorbike through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, plus Hong Kong.
Motorcycle Round the Alps – September 2015
2,800 km (1,700 mi) through France, Switzerland, Italy and Austria, crossing the Alps by motorcycle.
UK & Ireland Motorcycle Trip, August–September 2015
2,500 km (1,600 mi) around the UK and Ireland by motorcycle — Edinburgh, Belfast, Dublin and Cork.
Belgium & Koblenz — Tobacco Run, August 2015
Motorcycle tour through Belgium and Germany: De Panne tobacco run extended to Koblenz via Ghent, Rhine valley, and Ardennes on a KTM Adventure.
Motorcycle Trip: London to Grenoble, May 2015
A quick motorcycle run from London to Grenoble via Calais and Lyon.
Ireland Motorcycle Trip, September 2014
2,000 km (1,000 mi) around Ireland by motorcycle — Galway, Cork, Belfast and back.
2013 Tour de France — Mont-Saint-Michel Stage
Rode a Piaggio Beverley 350 from England via Portsmouth ferry to watch Tour de France Stages 10-11 in Normandy, culminating at Mont-Saint-Michel.
The Blades — Sywell, Northamptonshire, UK — 31 October 2009
Won a competition to fly with The Blades aerobatic team at Sywell — piloted by Sqn Ldr Andy Offer, former Red 1 of the Red Arrows.
LEJOG & Orkney by Bike, May–June 2008
Land's End to John o'Groats by bike, with a detour to Orkney. 1,700 km (1,100 mi) the length of Britain.
London Canal Ride — April 2006
A Sunday ride along London's canal network with Liam — Hammersmith to Little Venice via the Thames towpath. April 2006.