The Top 3 Worst Loadshedding Slots

Yes, all of loadshedding is annoying, but as George Orwell once stated:

Some slots are more annoying than others.

An amazingly prescient (and suspiciously specific) man.

Anyone who has experienced rolling blackouts will be in agreement with this and, since several (or more) of the Northern Hemisphere countries are about to give it a go, I thought I’d warn my readers up there about which slots are really going to get their blood boiling (on a hand-lit gas stove, rather than in a kettle, obviously).

Here in SA, our loadshedding slots last for two hours followed by a half hour (dis)grace period for the power to be reinstated. And you might get anywhere between zero and four of these each day, depending on just how scarily precarious our power system is. These slots can – and do – strike at any time, day or night. But some are more irritating than others. Here are the three worst slots for two hours(+) of loadshedding.

At number 3 is 22:00 – 00:30.

Look, you could treat this as being a good opportunity to just go to bed early and get some more sleep. But there’s a reason that you wanted to stay up past 10pm. Maybe it was to do some stuff or – more likely – watch some football. During the summer months here, this slot sits right across all the midweek football matches from Mud Island, and is very frustrating for this reason alone. And then also for several others.

Moving up on second base behind Nicholas van Whats-his-face (applause if you can place that lyric without the use of Ask Jeeves or some such) is 06:00 – 08:30.

Because there is nothing nice about waking up in darkness and having to make tea and coffee, do the packed lunch run, get the kids out of bed and off to school, and get the beagle fed in darkness. Obviously, with the sun rising at about 5:30 here at the moment, the irritation is a little bit mitigated, but overall, this remains almost the most annoying couple of hours of power cuttery.

But.

THE MOST ANNOYING LOADSHEDDING SLOT IS [drum roll]

20:00 – 22:30

Yep. I said it. Look at the smug bastard, sitting right in the middle of your primetime evening enjoyment.
Your happy time of the day. Ruined.

First off, the 8pm start time is a complete git. No matter what time of the year, this will be dark in Cape Town. Even in summer (just). So no escaping without lighting of some sort. Candles, oil lamps, battery LEDs, they all work: it’s just a shlep to have to carry them around with you wherever you go.
Baie frustrasie.
It’s not like 8pm is an acceptable time to just give up on a normal day and go to bed. It’s too early. You’re not 10 years old any more. Your knees have been reminding you of that for a while now.

And then, look at what time it finishes. 10:30pm. What are you supposed to do then? That’s the sort of time you actually do want to think about going to bed, but now you’ve got two hours of missed stuff to catch up on. And even if you were going to stay up for the footy (see above), you’ve missed some (or more) of the game.

This particular loadshedding slot was the devised by Beelzebub Himself, and sent to test us to our very limits. And it did, just yesterday evening. Flipping annoying. Almost so completely infuriating that you’re willing to forgive all the other slots.

Almost.

Anyway, you might have your own opinions on this, but they’re probably not as valid as mine, so I’ll stick with my reasoning and conclusions above unless you can come up with something quite remarkable to support your case. And then probably after that, as well.

More on that thing

The that thing in question being loadshedding. Rolling blackouts. Power cuts. And I’m sorry to go on about it because I know that it’s really not a thing that South African residents need to hear any more about, and it’s probably not a thing thing that is of huge interest to those overseas.

Yet.

But it is completely dominating our lives at the moment, and it occurred to me, as my inner voice breathed a huge sigh of relief that our planned 12 hours of electrical darkness was reduced to “just” 8 yesterday, that I’m clearly suffering from some kind of Stockholm Syndrome. I think that it’s important not to do that. In a semi developed country such as SA, we shouldn’t have to accept 8 hours of no power every day and just be able to turn the other cheek, smile and say “Well, at least it wasn’t 12!”.
We shouldn’t be normalising loadshedding. We should be angry about it.

The courier guy who just came to our door (alerting me to his presence at the gate by a whistle, because the doorbell isn’t working, because we have no electricity, because of loadshedding), was certainly angry:

No, man. I’m so moeg of it. And then your electrical items like your fridge and your TV get fucked up because of it.

There’s nothing quite like an expletive in a Cape Coloured accent to really drive the message home.

That said, there needs to be some balance and understanding as well (whatever your accent). Because the constant anger and stress will do our collective health no good whatsoever, and it won’t make a jot of difference to the situation.

THERE IS NO QUICK FIX. We’ve missed our opportunity to to do that over the last 14+ years.

Meanwhile, our government is doing very little to remedy the problems – some are even exacerbating them – although there was this absolute gem from serial disaster merchant and wannabe ANC leader, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma:

Well, no shit, Sherlock. Thanks for that valuable insight, just 14 years in the making.
What a woman, trying desperately hard to be relevant ahead of the December ANC conference.
So much soundbite. So little action.

Still, even given all the nonsense I have described, those individuals who go out of their way to USE MORE electricity (when they have it), just because Eskom told them not to and they don’t like Eskom, are equal parts irritating and amusing. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. To be honest, I’m sure it’s mainly internet bluster and bravado: surely no-one could actually be that stupid, right?

Love it or hate it [Really?!? -Ed.], we’re unavoidably stuck with loadshedding for the foreseeable future and beyond.
And as is clear from the several hundred words above, my advice is to just get used to it, but also very much, don’t let yourself just get used to it.

I hope that helps.

Flying high

This isn’t a football blog. This is a me blog, but I do like football and so there will be mention of it on here from time to time. And particularly at the moment, given that Sheffield United are top of the table going into the first of this season’s international breaks.

Mmm. Healthy stuff.
It’s early days, but I’m reminded of the line from KonKan’s 1988 dance classic I Beg Your Pardon:

Come along and share the good times while we can

Because there are still 36 games and therefore [kwik maffs] 108 points to play for and it might all go pear-shaped at any time.

So why not enjoy it while we are flying high?

I love this: so much joy in one image. No, not the steward, obviously.

In other news: perhaps an opportunity to get some extra posts done this afternoon, with a massive 4½ hours of loadshedding coming our way. We’ll be without power today – on a Sunday, nogal – for 9½ hours in total. Scary times.

I ‘ll probably do some exercise and get some sleep as well (plenty of time for many activities, after all).
I’m still a bit tired after hula-hooping the night away in a repurposed watermill last night.

As you do.

Loadshedding – now available in California

Indeed.

So let’s add the USA to the ever-lengthening list of loadshedders and near misses:

Dear old SA
Switzerland
UK
China (including Shanghai)
Australia
Finland
USA
We’re currently (no pun intended) in the middle of a 4 day Stage 2 sesh here, due to breakdowns at six different power stations (including Koeberg), and a late return to service for another unit at another power station.

Swiss next?

Loadshedding is very annoying, but we’re coming closer and closer to the realisation that we’re not the only ones who are chronically short of electricity.

As documented, the UK and Australia have come very close. And Shanghai and China were recently rolling their own blackouts. Now, there are warnings that Switzerland – yes, Switzerland with its neutrality, mountains, engineering brilliance, intricate timepieces, army knives and just general perfection – is likely to run out of power this winter.

When Switzerland is struggling, you know that there’s a real problem.

“Repeated, hours-long power cuts”. That sounds awfully familiar.

As I’ve mentioned before, some other country experiencing loadshedding doesn’t make the situation in SA any better. And our loadshedding is for a different reason to theirs (tl;dr – it’s massive, wholesale, unimpeded corruption), but it does remind us to maybe drop a bit of the exceptionalism.

The Alpine grass, despite what you’ve seen in The Sound of Music (that was Austria, I know) (although €707.23 per MWh there, too), is not always greener.

UPDATE: Loadshedding: now with added Finland.