Visitation of the Electric Men
Way back in the mists of the North Cotswolds, I was sharing a rather nice house in the middle of nowhere. Since it was the middle of nowhere, the telephone line was completely knackered and you couldn't even get 2400bps out of it.
BT sent a version of Hale and Pace round. Only they were funny and had a trade to fall back on should ITV's Saturday night schedule take a turn for the significantly worse.
I begin to suspect that this is a function of working for an English once-nationalised utility on the difficult jobs, because the chaps that Western Power sent this morning to replace some electric bits were two thirds of a Bristolian Goon Show.
It turns out that when Bristol Corporation wired up the house in the twenties (presumably adjacent to the instantiation of the National Grid, for which information I must thank the estimable BBC4) they installed three-phase. Presumably on the off-chance that a home-owner might want to install a reasonably sized data-centre under the stairs or a light engineering works in the garage.
They also encased the cable-ends in pitch, which required belabouring with a hammer and chisel. Just as the chap with the hammer had one of the live feeds in his hand, who should arrive but the postman with a cheery walloping of the door.
"Gosh!" we all said. "That was a surprise. What with having a live cable in one hand and everything."
Still, I guess you don't get to still be working on live HT electricity in your fifties if you're excitable and/or careless.
They let me keep the cast boxes, too.
BT sent a version of Hale and Pace round. Only they were funny and had a trade to fall back on should ITV's Saturday night schedule take a turn for the significantly worse.
I begin to suspect that this is a function of working for an English once-nationalised utility on the difficult jobs, because the chaps that Western Power sent this morning to replace some electric bits were two thirds of a Bristolian Goon Show.
It turns out that when Bristol Corporation wired up the house in the twenties (presumably adjacent to the instantiation of the National Grid, for which information I must thank the estimable BBC4) they installed three-phase. Presumably on the off-chance that a home-owner might want to install a reasonably sized data-centre under the stairs or a light engineering works in the garage.
They also encased the cable-ends in pitch, which required belabouring with a hammer and chisel. Just as the chap with the hammer had one of the live feeds in his hand, who should arrive but the postman with a cheery walloping of the door.
"Gosh!" we all said. "That was a surprise. What with having a live cable in one hand and everything."
Still, I guess you don't get to still be working on live HT electricity in your fifties if you're excitable and/or careless.
They let me keep the cast boxes, too.