Blackout BLUES

On top of everything else, the lights go off

Mr Dear is sometimes seized with a sense of optimism that is quite out of character for a man of his great age. ‘We’ve had the floods,’ he said. ‘We’ve had the virus, and I’m sure I read in the papers that there’s going to be a plague of hornets this summer. Wasn’t an asteroid heading towards us, too? Well, at least nothing else can go wrong.’

A moment later, and with commendable comic timing, all the lights went out.

‘You and your big mouth,’ I said.

It is only when you can’t make a cup of tea, and the house is wreathed in gloom, and rain is beating steadily against the window that you realise that the lockdown could have been worse.

Power cuts – and I speak from long experience here – normally follow a set routine. Here is roughly how they go, what you might call The Five Stages of Power Cut:

1 The Adjustment Phrase