There was a power-cut here, last night; amusing that only a quarter of our computers (ie. one) actually was immediately stopped by this. There was sufficient time to play a game of Tetrinet before the Lunix machine/firewall/wireless-access-point had to be shut down. At that point I realised we weren't even sure it was a powercut - it could have been a fusebox thing - but no, most of the street was out.
Given that it was 1am, I realised the fault might not have been reported, too, so I found their power-outage number in the phonebook (by the light of the gas fire) and gave it a call. I was connected to the best automated menu system I've ever encountered.To assist us in directing your call, please press zero. (beep)
If there is a life threatening situation, please press one. If you are reporting a power outage, please press two. (beep)
We are aware of power outages in (Suburb We Aren't) and (Suburb We Are). Please select your location. If you are in (Suburb We Aren't) press one. If you are in (Suburb We Are) press two. (beep)
We have a team en-route. This power failure has been caused by (brief static, change of voice) an unknown reason (return to voice). If power is not returned by (change of voice) 2:30am (return to voice) please call again for an update. Which pretty much covered everything I would have wanted from them; 1. "yes we already know," 2. "we're doing something about it," 3. "the cause if known" and 4. estimated time of recovery. Brilliant. Fifty points for AGL.
We know what the cause was, anyway. It was Terroristes - independent artistic French terrorists. No showy crashing planes into buildings for these guys, no, they take more pride in their work than that. No demands, no act-cheapening reasons, just good clean disruption. Following their piece "power outage in two small suburbs" will be the inimitable "supermarket banana stock unexpected exhaustion". But where?
[20:55]
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