Power Cuts

[Michael Wallace]

We have had a lot of power cuts recently. In fact, this morning took our total to 8 in the last 3 weeks or so (and the third this week). I am writing a Very Angry Letter, and I'm thinking of a line about compensation (because this really does take the piss, plus I'm disabled so omg I might die etc. etc.). Any suggestions on how to phrase it? If I sort-of demand it will I just look like someone who is a prick and over-reacting, or is it reasonable to expect some remuneration when the service has had so many disruptions? What if I drew a picture of a raccoon?

Also, do you have any fun power cut stories? (This is my half-arsed attempt to make this thread anything other than me bitching about my power cuts.) The only fun thing that's come out of these ones is that I had Soreen for the first time in years, but I've already talked about that.

[Ryan Taylor]

One time when I had a power cut around winter time my mum lit lots and lots of candles that children had bought for her as gifts last Christmas (she works in a school). This kept us warm and also we had lots of light so we decided to use this light to play a game of scrabble. The scrabble game we owned was actually one that my nanna had once owned and what her children (my dad) had played when they were younger. There were lots of drawings on the inside of a very tatty box (the tye of box were the lid is just flat because all of the corners have been bust even after being sellotaped). The racks in the scrabble box were made of wood and I think there were 4 racks and 3 of them had been personalised by the 3 children who used to play it Stephen, Andrew and Rebecca. I took the rack that Stephen used to use as I saw his writing was the neatest, my brother took the blank rack and personalised that one whilst my mum used Rebecca's and my dad used his old one. The scrabble tiles were actually one short as the X tile was missing from the set but somebody had cleverly drawn an X on one of the blank letter tiles and so there was actually a blank tile missing. The game got under way and it was cool playing scrabble in candle light with the family. Then the power came back on and me and my brother raced off upstairs abandoning the game of scrabble to try and defeat Robotnik on Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Sega Megadrive.

[Michael Wallace]

Awesome story, although when the personalised racks came out I was expecting it to turn into a ghost story. "Suddenly, the tiles on my rack started to rearrange themselves and I realised the ghost of Stephen was telling me to kill my family... then I played QUIXOTRY for 365 points and they all died of a heart attack. Mwahahahahahahahaha"

(I reckon c4cers could write some pretty epic countdowny ghost stories.)

[Charlie Reams]

One time when I had a power cut around winter time my mum lit lots and lots of candles that children had bought for her as gifts last Christmas (she works in a school). This kept us warm and also we had lots of light so we decided to use this light to play a game of scrabble. The scrabble game we owned was actually one that my nanna had once owned and what her children (my dad) had played when they were younger. There were lots of drawings on the inside of a very tatty box (the tye of box were the lid is just flat because all of the corners have been bust even after being sellotaped). The racks in the scrabble box were made of wood and I think there were 4 racks and 3 of them had been personalised by the 3 children who used to play it Stephen, Andrew and Rebecca. I took the rack that Stephen used to use as I saw his writing was the neatest, my brother took the blank rack and personalised that one whilst my mum used Rebecca's and my dad used his old one. The scrabble tiles were actually one short as the X tile was missing from the set but somebody had cleverly drawn an X on one of the blank letter tiles and so there was actually a blank tile missing. The game got under way and it was cool playing scrabble in candle light with the family. Then the power came back on and me and my brother raced off upstairs abandoning the game of scrabble to try and defeat Robotnik on Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Sega Megadrive.

Have you considered a career as a train driver?

[Ryan Taylor]

Have you considered a career as a train driver?

Not railly.

[James Robinson]

Have you considered a career as a train driver?

Not railly.

I think we might be getting a bit off track here.

[Ian Volante]

Have you considered a career as a train driver?

Not railly.

I think we might be getting a bit off track here.

Chuffing hell.

[Ben Wilson]

Best power cut in my experience was when I was working in tech support and we had a hugely complicated daisy-chain of surge protectors that all ran into one socket underneath my desk. The wire coming out of that socket was pulled taut, and one errant kick from me managed to KO the entire department. Literally the entire department went stone dead. I was hailed as a hero, right up until I plugged it all back in (nearly electrocuting myself in the process).

[JimBentley]

We don't seem to get power cuts up here, or certainly nowhere near as many as there seem to be down south. I've lived in my current house for twelve years and I think there's been two power cuts, one for about half an hour and one for a couple of hours.

Anyway, my favourite power cut was when I was when I was on a family holiday in France when I was about 8 or 9 (around then, it would've been the late 1970s or very early 1980s). We were staying in a villa at the end of a long dirt track (and my dad let me and my brother take turns at "driving" up and down it (although we were only steering really as we didn't have long enough legs to reach the pedals)). That's not really relevant, just setting the scene and that.

So one night there was this power cut and apparently in France they don't sort them out quickly, so it was likely to be off all night at least. But we had candles, so they were all set up over this long kitchen table. And luckily that day we'd bought a pack of playing cards, but of course they were French playing cards, so the kings weren't Ks, they were Rs (Rex? Reg? can't remember), and the queens weren't Qs, they were Ds (which is Dames, I remember that). Confusingly I think the jacks were Ks (Knaves?) and the aces were 1s. They were fucked up cards, man.

But they were cards and that was the night that my dad taught us to play poker. It was awesome. We all had little piles of centimes and learnt how the betting worked, and learnt the order of the hands (which dad had written down on a piece of paper) and must've played for hours. I remember the first time I got a straight and how awesome it was scooping in the pot (which must have been all of fifty centimes (actually that can't be right, maybe five francs or something) - anyway, it was about 40p at the time - easily enough for a couple of toy cars from the Mammoth hypermarket, which had an amazing range of toy cars, loads of stuff you never saw in England). I definitely ended up winning that night, although it's obvious in retrospect everyone was letting me win as I was the youngest one there.

Anyway, it was amazing and quite a significant moment in my life. We've played poker as a family ever since. END OF ANECDOTE.

[Ryan Taylor]

We don't seem to get power cuts up here, or certainly nowhere near as many as there seem to be down south. I've lived in my current house for twelve years and I think there's been two power cuts, one for about half an hour and one for a couple of hours.

Anyway, my favourite power cut was when I was when I was on a family holiday in France when I was about 8 or 9 (around then, it would've been the late 1970s or very early 1980s). We were staying in a villa at the end of a long dirt track (and my dad let me and my brother take turns at "driving" up and down it (although we were only steering really as we didn't have long enough legs to reach the pedals)). That's not really relevant, just setting the scene and that.

So one night there was this power cut and apparently in France they don't sort them out quickly, so it was likely to be off all night at least. But we had candles, so they were all set up over this long kitchen table. And luckily that day we'd bought a pack of playing cards, but of course they were French playing cards, so the kings weren't Ks, they were Rs (Rex? Reg? can't remember), and the queens weren't Qs, they were Ds (which is Dames, I remember that). Confusingly I think the jacks were Ks (Knaves?) and the aces were 1s. They were fucked up cards, man.

But they were cards and that was the night that my dad taught us to play poker. It was awesome. We all had little piles of centimes and learnt how the betting worked, and learnt the order of the hands (which dad had written down on a piece of paper) and must've played for hours. I remember the first time I got a straight and how awesome it was scooping in the pot (which must have been all of fifty centimes (actually that can't be right, maybe five francs or something) - anyway, it was about 40p at the time - easily enough for a couple of toy cars from the Mammoth hypermarket, which had an amazing range of toy cars, loads of stuff you never saw in England). I definitely ended up winning that night, although it's obvious in retrospect everyone was letting me win as I was the youngest one there.

Anyway, it was amazing and quite a significant moment in my life. We've played poker as a family ever since. END OF ANECDOTE.

This is awesome, and it all happened before I was even born.

[Matt Morrison]

This leaves me absolutely gagging for some kind of PoCoLo. Where Po is Poker, Co is Countdown cos it's US, and Lo is some unknown location.

[Ben Hunter]

sorry matt no one's going to london this weekend so i'm staying here

[Michael Wallace]

Loving these stories, makes me wonder what I've been missing out on as a kid.

Just got back to the Internet after another power cut (the 4th in 5 days). I spoke to EDF last night and the woman claimed they were trying a "permanent fix". Apparently it takes nearly a month of power cuts before they try and fix it permanently. Encouraging, huh?

[Matt Morrison]

sorry matt no one's going to london this weekend so i'm staying here

Ah, cheers mate. Shame.