Powercut

Sorry, love, power's off

High winds and overhead power cables don't mix. Low population density does not make us a priority for reinstating our supply. We were among about 500,000 without power, then among 190,000, then 74,000, then in the last 30,000 to get our electricity back.

Now, I understand how things work at the moment. It is a public relations exercise, turn the stats to your advantage, so that the more people you get back on line in the shortest time, the better your reports are going to read. I'd like to suggest an alternative approach.

After eliminating any real and present dangers (like substations on fire, supplies to hospital operating theatres, that sort of thing), I'd propose listing the other areas, putting them into some random order generator software, and then cracking on with whichever came out in the top three of or four (no need to delay kicking off operations).

The others should then be put into some sort of competition. I don't care, really, rugby sevens, football, spoof, Texas hold 'em, trivial pursuit, whatever. I know the most populated areas would be at an advantage, anyway, with a wider pool of player to choose from, but at least some gutsy underdog would stand the chance of jumping the population numbers queue, and there'd be some more interest generated, albeit difficult to follow without power, wifi, and all that stuff.

I would particularly like spoof. A spokesman said:

“Instead of just going for the most-populated areas in prioritising our repair works, we've provided an even playing field by starting with computer-generated random operations, and then left it to bunch of blokes with between zero and five coins in their hand. We don't fully understand what they're doing, but they seem happy with the method and are dropping out in turn, giving us a reverse-order to work to.”

Or arm wrestling. “The Southeast champion outgunned Essex's best, so we're concentrating our efforts there before moving east of the Dartford Crossing”.

Light that candle

So, with the light just about fading enough to justify lighting a candle, with the fire lit for heat, and the cooker doing oven stuff to keep one room warm, the power was restored.

Easy, then. Resort to the candle, and, instantly, power's back on.

Useless without electricity

I got the food processer out before realising it would be useless. I tried to charge up battery-dead phones. Eventually I found a radio that worked on two AAA/s. Overall, I didn't do very well. I got as much work done as possible without remote access to photographs and files. Then I got sort of lost. I kept having that “ah – that works on battery power” brainwave, before realising that the wifi needs mains electricity, rendering the inspiration useless.