We are not talking 2050 and Jetsons stuff here but the next couple of months in the Peoples Luddite Republic. By complete coincidence, in the early hours of yesterday morning, I was rudely made aware of issues to which I referred last week.
Power. To be more specific electrical power. At some time between 0200 and 0500 yesterday I was thrust into a world without any. I awoke from my slumbers preparing for a round of golf after a refreshing cup of tea to find that our property had no power. None, not an electron was moving anywhere. Check the circuit breakers in the house (two sets) - no problem. Mumbling and grumbling I set off up the drive carrying a candle lit lantern (I am not joking - I felt like a bloke out of Pickwick Papers) to check the main breakers up by the gate in the tractor shed. These also looked tickety boo. No choice but to get on the blower to Genesis. Now when I moved whare a few months back one of the bonus attractions of the new location was the lack of cell phone reception. At 0530 on a Sunday morning with no power in the house this advantage seems to evaporate. Anyway we get through after standing in the cell phone reception 'special place' (all hunched up right in the far corner of the master bedroom). Is the rest of the road all lit up? One of the advantages of this road is that you cannot see the rest of the road. We agree to skip this bit. Have you checked the circuit breakers? Yes. Have you paid your bills? Rude sod. OK, the Genesis man will be round in '4-6' hours. Great.
Time to assess what I can actually do on my property when I have no electrical power. Answer? Nothing. Nothing at all. I can't get water out of a tap, I can't use the phone, the freezers and fridges start warming up, there is no light (obviously) and no gas as there is a safety cut off on the gas hob that cuts in when the electric cuts out. The garage doors have to be lifted up by hand and to get off the property the electric gates have to be disconnected from the rams. I can't even use the laptops to get on the net as the modem and wireless router have no power. What to do while awaiting the Genesis men? Go and play golf.
Return four hours later and find to my surprise that all is sorted - on a Sunday morning don't forget. It turns out that this little episode is not David Parker's fault. What an enormous disappointment. It would appear that the main switch from the road transformer to the meter had burnt out. And I mean seriously burnt out - like destroyed. Moisture is the best bet. Quite how I don't really understand as the switch box is meant to be in the box where it is and looks to be perfectly sound. No matter, by the time I returned from a blistering two over handicap round, our electrician had replaced offending switch and the Genesis man was up the power pole kitted out in all his OSH mandated kit (you would have thought he was off to the North Face of the Eiger) replacing the 'main fuses'. Have you seen these babies - about the size of Coke cans and rated at a squillion amps - all for me. Flick the switch and we are all hunky dory again.
So six hours after finding the fault it is all sorted (including getting some replacement parts) on a Sunday morning. Genesis were excellent and our electrician better (but I knew that anyway - that's why we use him).
Now the weirdy green beards would say this little tale is evidence of all that is wrong with how I live my life. It shows what can happen when I position myself to be so dependent on twenty first century technology. It shows how much better off I would be living in a cave and cooking my bison over an open fire. Well all I can say to them is bollocks.
I live in the twenty first century and not the eighteenth. The whole point of man's evolution is so I can live a techno life and marvel at aircraft carriers. I see that the Government is today launching the 'Save Power' campaign to cover up for their lack of planning in under supplying the country with electricity generating capacity. I am not going to save one skerrick of electricity - I will use as much as I want (which will exceed the 'as much as I need' figure) and then pay for it.
There has not been an increase in electricity generating capacity in this country since 1990. That is bloody scandalous. I am realistic enough to realise I am not going to get a nuclear power station installed in Albany by the end of the week. However there will be an emergency generator in my tractor shed in the same time frame. The only question I need to address is whether to go with petrol or diesel.
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