Blackout blitz
It didn't surprise me in the slightest to find the power cuts in London's West End on Thursday ending up making the national news in print, on TV and on the radio.
Word emerges that an area of a scant few square miles loses electricity for several hours...and it's suddenly a major news story jostling for attention alongside war in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course if it had happened anywhere else in the entire country, even on a scale ten times as large, it wouldn't have won as nearly as much coverage - if any. No, it was just because this all kicked off on the media's doorstep that it found itself worming its way up the news agenda and colonising the headlines.
It's happened again today. In fact, the order came from the office that we shouldn't even bother making the journey in, and instead spend the whole day working from home. Which I subsequently did, albeit popping out at lunchtime to chase up my landlord and to get my hair cut.
The upside of this was that I didn't have to use the Underground at all, on what turned out to be yet another sweltering day. The downside was that I had workmen gutting some basement or other right outside my windows. And that it got very hot. Which wouldn't have been a problem were I sitting in my air-conditioned offices. The very same air conditioning, lest we forget, which caused the power cuts in the first place.
Role on winter, eh?
When no doubt all the pipes will freeze and burst and there'll be even less water to go round.
Word emerges that an area of a scant few square miles loses electricity for several hours...and it's suddenly a major news story jostling for attention alongside war in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course if it had happened anywhere else in the entire country, even on a scale ten times as large, it wouldn't have won as nearly as much coverage - if any. No, it was just because this all kicked off on the media's doorstep that it found itself worming its way up the news agenda and colonising the headlines.
It's happened again today. In fact, the order came from the office that we shouldn't even bother making the journey in, and instead spend the whole day working from home. Which I subsequently did, albeit popping out at lunchtime to chase up my landlord and to get my hair cut.
The upside of this was that I didn't have to use the Underground at all, on what turned out to be yet another sweltering day. The downside was that I had workmen gutting some basement or other right outside my windows. And that it got very hot. Which wouldn't have been a problem were I sitting in my air-conditioned offices. The very same air conditioning, lest we forget, which caused the power cuts in the first place.
Role on winter, eh?
When no doubt all the pipes will freeze and burst and there'll be even less water to go round.
posted by Alistair Myles at 7:48 pm
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