The Telegraph had an article yesterday in which it described how NPower was advising people to encourage their children to go to bed in woolly hats or clutching "microwaveable rice cloth bags".

Apparently this advice met with a cool reaction, with both the (normally sensible) Civitas and the Citizens' Advice Bureau coming out against it.

Robert Whelan, of the think-tank Civitas, said: "Most people realise energy bills are a fact of life and budget for them. We don't expect Sainsbury's to tell us how to put children to bed hungry, so I don't know why an energy company is suggesting we put children to bed with hats on."

Sarah Miller, of Citizens Advice, said: "There should be better and more permanent ways of addressing the issue of spiralling energy prices. We are already seeing people struggling to pay their gas and electricity bills but we expect that this will grow massively over winter."

I really must be getting very old-fashioned. I just cannot see what the problem with this is. There are plenty of people out there who heat their homes to tropical temperatures and then wonder how they are going to pay the bills. Pointing out that there are other ways of acheiving the same effect is hardly unreasonable. PC Copperfield has described how the underclasses deal with the issue of winter heating:

I always know I'm in a council/housing association property because a) It has a kind of fuggy, overpowering warmth that you only get if you're not paying the heating bill and b) There's a massive Plasma TV in the corner with SKY+ permanently on.

And of course Tim W has pointed out that switching off the central heating will probably make you lose weight too. Really, it's about time somebody pointed it out.