A decade ago Pullyman - aka Michael Cowin - was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, a condition that affects people in different ways. Michael discovered writing and Island Life is featuring some of his musings. Sometimes topical, sometimes nostalgic, read about life as seen through the eyes of Pullyman

Do you ever leave the light on if you go from one room to another? Do you throw food away if it goes 10 minutes past the use by date? When your heating switches itself on, do you heat any rooms that you don’t use?

I think that, if we put our minds to it, we could all be saving much more of that one important precious commodity that we never seem to have enough of. Money.

If we turned the heating thermostat down by just one degree, it would save a bit.

If we switched the heating on when we arrived home, rather than using the automatic time clock, would that save money?

And what about hot water? Is our hot water too hot? Where is the logic of heating water to wash the dishes or wash your hands, and then having to add cold water to the sink because the hot tap is too hot.

When I was just a young Pullyboy, there were no such things as a showers. We did have a bathroom, and it did have a bath, but it was a rare treat to actually use it.

At best, kids would have a bath once a week and, to be truthful, I have no memories whatsoever of bath times. Now, it’s the first job of the day.

Just to digress slightly, we had only been married for a short time when we went to live in Greeba.

There was an outside toilet connected to a septic tank, but no bathroom. Our only inside running water came from the hot and cold taps in the tiny kitchen.

If we fancied a bath, it was either the tin tub in front of the fire, or if we felt in need of a deep clean, it was the public baths in Victoria Street.

I wonder how many folk can remember those big, deep, cast iron tubs with a spanner to turn the taps on and off. The attendant in the ladies section would fill the baths with just enough water to wash your necessities, and take the spanner away.

However, the man in charge of the gents department would leave the spanner on the tap. Sheer luxury.

But back to wasting water and electricity.

One thing that I have noticed is that more and more toilets in pubs and restaurants have lights that work on demand and are not switched on permanently. All well and good, but have you ever opened the door to go in and the room is dark. You’re standing there, looking for a light switch and busting for a pee.

When you think about it though, our electricity bills just get bigger every year. Living on a small island does have many benefits, but it also comes at a cost.

We have to import all of our fuel, and generate all of our electricity.

In all aspects of manufacturing anything, there are fixed costs. To supply electricity, the first thing that you need is a power station, and power stations are expensive to build and operate.

We only have a population of eighty(ish) thousand people to share these fixed costs so there is little hope of bringing down our electricity prices.

Unless we use some radical thinking.

Now from time to time we all get phone calls from complete strangers who invite us to change our gas and electricity suppliers.

These callers obviously don’t know that the Isle of Man is not part of the UK. We may only live a few miles from Liverpool geographically, but as far as electricity supplies are concerned we are oceans apart.

The MEA, or Manx Utilities, whatever they are called today, have tapped into a natural gas pipe line that passes the island on the North West coast area on its way to somewhere else.

This gas is used to fuel our power stations. But we also have two electricity cables that join us to the UK.

So, the next time that the Chief Minister gets a phone call from one of those nice men selling cheap electricity, why doesn’t he make that nice man’s day with 80,000 new customers.