Would all South Africans please note that the national electricity supply will be cut off between 7pm and approximately 9.30pm on SABC1, in order to spare us the embarrassment of having to watch yet another shocking display of football from Bafana Bafana as they take on Senegal in the African Nations Cup.
If you have DSTV, you will also be able to avoid watching the game on Supersport 3. Thank you for your understanding and co-operation.
We could use a guy like Benjamin in South Africa right now, but instead, all we’ve got is Alec Erwin, Eskom, and Buyelwa Sonjica. If you haven’t heard of her, that’s not surprising, for she is South Africa’s Minister of Minerals and Energy, and since there isn’t enough energy to mine minerals at the moment, she’s been having a pretty quiet time in office.
Until today, whe she rose in Parliament to offer her apologies for the Minerals and Energy crisis, and to hand out a series of power-saving tips aimed at the populace at large. Here’s the most important one: “Go to bed earlier.”
Even Benjamin Franklin himself would have agreed that this is sage advice, for it was was he who once proclaimed: “Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
So goodnight, everyone, and see you more or less around lunchtime. Thanks goodness the Minister didn’t say anything about getting up earlier too.
The first month of the year isn’t even over, and already he’s taken himself another wife, organised a big bash for Mike Tyson, and come up with the best excuse for abject failure ever to emerge from the mouth of a politician.
Speaking at the University of Zurich this week, the President-in-waiting revealed that the current power crisis in South Africa was an “unintended consequence” of our rapid economic growth since the dawn of democracy in 1994.
In other words, we’ve been doing so well, that you can hardly blame us for screwing up. I am so going to use this the next time I do something stupid after inadvertently doing something smart.
So you think we’ve got problems with power because of the people we’ve got in power?
Pause for a moment to consider the plight of the Palestinian people, victims of a ruthless and relentless power blockade by the Israeli Government.
As this Reuters photograph shows, the Palestinian Parliament is being forced to convene by candle-light because of the power cuts.
You may wonder, then, why they don’t just convene in the day, to which the answer can only be: well, actually, they are convening in the day. That’s why the curtains are closed, and that’s why the sunshine is trying to force its way in.
It’s all some sort of symbolic protest, which is fine when you figure it out, but still: closed curtains are a known fire hazard when there are candles flickering all over the place.
Which is why, if you’re looking for a special spot to get away from the power cuts for a while, you might not want to schlepp to Gaza either.
It seems that the people in charge of the national electricity supply in the United Kingdom, a well-known “First World” country, have seriously understimated the demand for power over the next few years, and there could be a major shortfall around 2012, which is when the 30th Olympic Games are scheduled to be held in London.
This according to a report by Inenco, an energy and environment consulting firm. Ha! Ha! I feel much better now.
Not that I want to gloat or anything, but you have to admit that a series of rolling blackouts in the English capital will at least have one hugely positive side-effect - you won’t be able to see the horrendous dayglo logo pictured alongside.
A nation struggling to overcome its legacy of social upheaval, and rise to claim its place as one of the great emerging nations of the world. We’re talking about South Africa, right? Wrong.
Well, okay, right, but bear with me for a moment, because what I’m really talking about here is one of the world’s fastest-growing and most populous nations…India.
Rigidly-enforced load-shedding has long been an everyday feature of life on the subcontinent, and the critical electricity shortage is only getting worse as the economy grows.
But despite the problems, India still manages to produce more movies than Hollywood, run most of the world’s high-tech call-centres, and manufacture some of the most unattractive cars and trucks known to man. Why am I telling you this? I’m not sure.
Maybe because it’s somehow nice to know that we’re not the only country in the world with a national electricity emergency on our hands.
But mostly it’s to warn you that if you’re thinking of heading somewhere special for a quick holiday break from the power cuts at home, New Delhi might not be such a good idea after all.
But immediately after that, as is my custom, I’m going to wander round the house and re-set all the digital clocks from 00:00 to whatever the time happens to be when I hear the signal.
Unless it is actually midnight, of course, in which case I’ll probably just put a pillow over the clock and go back to sleep. But wait. What if, after the next big power failure, we were to all put our clocks back exactly 10 years?
That would take us all the way back to 1998, which is when President Thabo Mbeki was warned, by means of the White Paper on Electric Energy, that if Government did not make the necessary investments in electricity infrastructure, we would have a national electricity emergency on our hands by 2008, and even worse, he would have to look down at his shoes and mutter the “S-word” in front of the whole nation.
Well, I for one am prepared to give it a try, if only because it is a much more practical and positive solution than anything Alec Erwin has so far been able to come up with.
And yet, you hardly ever hear anyone talking about one of the most abundant and fresh-smelling sources of renewable energy on the planet. That’s right, I’m talking about lemons.
Not many people know that lemons are capable of transforming chemical energy into electrical energy, through a process known as “lemontricity”, according to a word I just made up. But don’t take my word for it.
You can prove it for yourself, by conducting a simple experiment with a lemon, a nail, and a copper coin.
Unfortunately, as you will discover, a lemon is capable of producing no more than about seven-tenths of a volt of electricity, so you will need quite a lot of lemons to power the average household.
So in answer to the question in the headline above: sorry, no. Still, there can be no harm in hoarding a few lemons until the electricity crisis is over.
You can always use them to make lemon meringue pie on your gas stove, or even better, you can throw them at Alec Erwin when he knocks on your door to tell you to switch your lights off.
Two held for theft of street lights
Two men have been arrested for possession of aluminium street lights worth over R20 000 in East London, police said on Sunday.
Spokesperson Superintendent Mtai Tana said a member of the dog unit, Inspector Pieter Swanepoel spotted four men near a Honda Ballade at a railway crossing at Quigney - a suburb in East London.
“One was standing next to the driver’s door and three men were on the far other side of the vehicle. Two doors were open and each of the three had an aluminium street light head in his hand. On coming close, the policeman found that the back seat was full of more aluminium light heads.”
But can you go onto eBay and buy yourself some electricity, to power your stove, toaster, desktop computer or electric lawnmower in the event of a national electricity emergency? Shockingly, the answer is no. Until now. Well, okay, just now.
This is because I have had the brilliant idea of putting some of my spare electricity in a can, and selling it to the highest bidder on eBay. (It is a well-known fact that almost everyone bidding on eBay is under the influence of some or other hallucinogenic drug.)
All I have to do is take an empty can, hold it over a plug-point, turn the power on for a while, switch it off, put a lid on the can, write ELECTRICITY on the outside, take a photograph of it, upload it to eBay, and wait.
Payment in American $$$ only, please. Free shipping to South Africa, with small discount for bona fide Eskom employees.
Now he’s back from his Christmas holidays, to tell us that we are in the midst of a national electricity emergency, and that we had better switch off our lights when we are not using them.
Thank you Minister, that is excellent advice. I for one will certainly be switching my lights off, as soon as the power comes back on for long enough for me to turn them on in the first place. Hey, what’s this bolt doing in my fuse-box?
2) Scissor-kicking into the air to play your guitar solo during your audition for “Heavy Metal Idols”
3) Announcing live on national television that the electricity crisis is over at last, and that South Africans can once again look forward to a bright and prosperous future
4) Breaking into your jogging stride on the treadmill at Virgin Active
5) Updating your blo
An Eskom Ou, on the other hand, is someone who currently wishes he lived in the vast frozen wastes of the circumpolar region, stretching from eastern Siberia to Alaska to Greenland.
An Eskimo.......................An Eskom CEO
Unfortunately, the total amount of electricity that our cells can produce is only enough to light a single 40-watt light bulb.
Still, that’s more than you’re going to get from Eskom on pretty much any day of the week. So go ahead and turn yourself on. Remember, you’ve got the power!
In that way, it is similar to a Lexus, except that you don’t need to plug your Lexus into the wall before you go to bed every night.
So next time you see a Prius stuck in the traffic while you’re stuck in the traffic, it would be nice if you could hop out and give the poor oke a push.
After all, it’s not their fault that the power cut out while they were charging their vehicle, or that they didn’t go with their instincts and buy the Tata Indica instead.
Ahem: It has just been pointed out to me by Google that a Prius doesn’t actually need to be plugged into the wall in order to get its electricity. Instead, the car apparently charges itself while you drive, in more or less the same manner as one of those wind-up torches or radios that are frequently touted as the best South African inventions since the Kreepy-Krauly. Damn. I hate it when my misperceptions are corrected by some stupid Internet site.
Standby power is also known as “Vampire Power”, on account of the way it “sucks” the “lifeblood” out of your electrical appliances, and also because it sounds a little scarier when you are trying to convince someone to mend their wasteful ways.
So please remember to switch your computer off at the wall before you go to bed for the night. To be extra sure, you may want to drive a wooden stake through your computer’s Power Supply, or rub a little crushed garlic on the motherboard.
Remember, if enough of us this do this on a regular basis, we should be able to save enough electricty to allow Eskom to continue running the big load-shedding computer that decides which of us are going to be without electricity in the morning.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an urgent game of Solitaire I need to return to.
As a worst-case scenario, some pundits are even suggesting that the power shortage could mean that Bafana Bafana will have to play their World Cup final match against Brazil while completely in the dark.
Then again, this will perfectly suit the typical South African style of play, so it may not be such a bad thing after all.
But the point is that South Africa desperately needs backup reserves of electricity to ensure a successful World Cup, which is why I would like to suggest that we all start donating some of our surplus electricity to the organisers, beginning right now.
To get the ball rolling, I am going to be donating the 30 minutes worth of electricity that I would have used to watch “Coconuts” on M-Net last night, as well as the five minutes of electricity I would have used to boil the kettle to make a cup of tea to throw at the screen while watching “Cocounts” on M-Net last night.
So let’s all work together to save some of the energy we have left between load-shedding schedules, and then let’s put it all in a big vat and send it to Danny Jordaan in time for 2010.
Remember, the fate of the first football World Cup to be held on the African continent is in YOUR hands!
When the robot is ORANGE, I break into a sweat because I am never sure whether I am supposed to exercise caution, or proceed at great speed like all the drivers in my rear-view mirror.
And when the robot is RED, I break into a sweat because (see “When the robot is GREEN, above). It is for all these reasons, and more, that I am concerned to learn that solar-powered robots will soon be installed at major traffic intersections across the country.
In theory, this means that traffic will be able to move smoothly during a power cut, allowing everyone to get home in good time to complain about the power cut at home.
But in practise, how are we going to be able to drive around at night? I think the Government needs to take an urgent look at the situation, and start ordering some lunar-powered robots as well.
2) Those guys who hawk DVDs and coat-hangers at traffic intersections, who now have a captive audience for several hours whenever the traffic lights stop working.
3) Telkom, who are now only the second most-despised parastatal in the southern hemisphere.
So here is a handy guide to changing a lightbulb all by yourself. It has been slightly adapted from the actual guide that I found on http://www.eskom.co.za/live/content.php?Category_ID=566 in a rare moment between loads being shed.
How to Change a Light Bulb During Load-Shedding
1) Make sure that the light bulb actually needs to be changed. Often, the light bulb will be fine, in which case you may need to change the Board of Directors of Eskom and the Government instead.
2) Determine whether the light bulb is a screw-in or a bayonet type. If it is a bayonet, remember that you can use it to keep intruders at bay when they break into your property during the load-shedding.
3) Make sure that your household power is completely off before you change the light bulb. The best way to do this is to make sure that you live within the boundaries of the Republic of South Africa, and that your electricity is supplied by Eskom.
4) When attempting to change a light bulb at night, always carry a torch with you. This will allow you to find your way to the kitchen, where you will find a candle and a box of matches in the second drawer on the right. No, not that cupboard, the other one. Good. Now light the candle and look in the third drawer on the left, where you will find a couple of penlite batteries for the torch.
5) When attempting to change a light bulb during the day, it is advisable to use a solar-powered torch.
n. A secret feeling of delight one gets upon discovering that the load-shedding schedule for today will be affecting the residents of Sandton, Benmore, and Hyde Park, rather than the much more humble suburb that you call home.
My suggestion is that Eskom stops supplying electrical power to the city of Cape Town, and diverts it to areas of the country where it is needed for work reasons, such as Johannesburg.
After all, you don’t need electricity to spend all day lying on the beach, or cycling down Chapman’s Peak with your eyes closed.
Still, at least no-one has set the Gautrain on fire yet. That’s probably because work on the Gautrain has come to a grinding halt because of the power cuts.
After all, anything can happen: the cable can snap, the floor can give way under the weight of German tourists, or the roof can give in when Leon Schuster leaps aboard while filming a scene from “Mama Jack”.
However, at least you can rest assured that you won’t be left dangling in mid-air, hundreds of metres above the ground, in strong south-easterly winds, when the cable car comes to a grinding halt as a result of a sudden power…oh.
Still, it could have been worse. At least the cable car wasn’t hijacked when it ran out of power.
The battle for political power between the Zuma and Mbeki camps of the ruling ANC has had the effect of sucking the life out of every other power source in the country.
Hence, we are experiencing a power vacuum in both senses of the word. The solution? A battery-operated vacuum. That would be nice.
A power failure is something that happens when the power fails, for whatever reason. Load-shedding is what happens when the power is deliberately cut off, as a strategic means of conserving electrical power.
It’s just that whenever I see or hear the term “load-shedding”, I can’t help but think of, you know, um, ah, someone going to the toilet. And then I think, yes, but isn’t that exactly what’s happening to the country, as a result of all the load-shedding?
I didn’t say that.
