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?
