Power Not

Power is something Africa just seems to struggle with. When it comes to political power it is next to impossible to 'turn' off whereas when it comes to electrical power keeping it on seems to be equally impossible.

I sit here at work in darkness with a headlamp on so that I can see what I am typing. For a change, it is not Eskoms fault, one phase in the building supply has literally blown up so two phases work which has lead to some rather wierd goings one. Like, my laptop is still powered but not another plug anywhere. To make things worse, it didn't fail completely but gracefully degraded to a point that the UPS kicked in but that the generator didn't. Darkness in the server room, no das blinkin lights. ^*&^***!

In addition most of northern suburbs Johannesburg was without power for most of the day today while Eskom 'load shed'. I think maybe a ritual execution at dawn of Telkom employees is in order - starting with the top for getting us into this position in the first place. Load shedding sounds like Eskom is having a dump and it is us, those who pay their salaries, that the said dump is landing on. Load shedding also makes it sound like it is a voluntary exercise which it is most definitely not - at least not from my point of view.

Some pictures to illustrate -



We've just been away for the weekend and I think that I have seen the future of lighting in South Africa.



Gas Lights - at least they work and when they don't you know that the cylinder is empty and you should get a new one not some lilly livered excuse like 'load shedding'.