Our worsening energy crisis has Mrs F deeply concerned.
To be fair, it’s been brewing for some time. It’s not really my fault that I happened to be enjoying a bowl of salted peanuts, relaxing in my favourite armchair while trying to choose between women’s cricket, a Ryder Cup golf preview or an ancient episode of Flog It on TV, when she blew into the room like a bad-tempered hurricane. I didn’t have time to duck.
I’ll skip details of the subsequent one-way conversation, but the gist of it was that she reckoned if I didn’t show some enthusiastic energy and generate some personal heat through healthy exercise, such as simply remembering where the vacuum cleaner was, she wouldn’t be responsible for the consequences.
She has a point. Some people survived the pandemic by walking or running multiple circuits of their tiny gardens. I survived by exercising my right hand through pressing multiple buttons on the TV remote control.
Hardly surprising then that I sometimes barely have the energy to rip open a new bag of peanuts or snap the top off another can of Diet Coke.
Something has to give. I’ve a bad feeling it’ll be me.
This energy-shortage calamity is more widespread than at Fyne Place, of course. After decades of mismanaging our indigenous energy resources and serially annoying many valuable international partners, Bulldog Britain is reaping the whirlwind as other countries see an opportunity to put our gas at a peep, literally, by holding us to ransom over imported energy supplies.
Politicians spouting soothingly about it have as much chance of success as me trying to convince Mrs F that my personal energy conservation measures are helping save the planet by cutting all non-essential travel and activity out of my lifestyle.
This week’s P&J set out an alarmingly stark choice facing people this winter of whether to “heat or eat”. Mrs F has no doubt which I will choose. I don’t mind the cold.
If only we could talk to our allies, and some of our enemies, with peace-making positivity rather than open conflict in mind.
It’s interesting to note that today, in 1956, the first submarine transatlantic telephone cable system, called TAT 1, was inaugurated. It ran between those internationally celebrated communication centres of Newfoundland and, well, Gallanach Bay, near Oban. OK, so Oban’s communication links are probably more recognised nowadays as a hub for an ageing CalMac fleet, but the pair of ground-breaking GPO cables could carry 35 simultaneous telephone calls.
Those using worldwide satellite internet connections nowadays might be underwhelmed, but it was amazing for its time. TAT 1 even carried the new Washington-Moscow hotline, introduced after dangerous lessons were learned during the 1963 Cuban missile crisis.
I don’t think a nasally-voiced West Highland telephone operator was ever responsible for ringing Washington to say: “You have a reverse charge call from the Kremlin, I’m putting it through…” but it’s a fun thought.
In today’s burgeoning era of mass communication, it’s tragic that traditional Post Offices are disappearing from many communities, though. The row over Spar shops ditching in-store Post Offices is a case in point.
In an outpouring of meaningless weasel words that would have delighted Yes Minister’s Sir Humphrey Appleby, Spar bosses said the move was due to “industry-wide pressures” and that they will be replaced with “additional services and an increased product range”. Might that be profitable hot-food counters, perhaps? Not much consolation in being offered a warm Scotch pie instead of postal services, payments, stamps or cash facilities in lieu of disappearing local banks. Maybe they think we should all send sausage rolls this year rather than Christmas cards?
Sadly, pandemic paralysis has left many folk, including governments, reluctant to keep in touch with each other, preferring instead to go their own isolated ways.
There’s no danger of me losing touch with Mrs F, however, even although communication might be somewhat one-sided at times. Following her energetic outburst, I tried some conciliatory contemporary conversation. “What do you think about this worrying gas shortage?” I proffered. She replied, brusquely, that at the rate I devoured peanuts and Diet Coke, Fyne Place wouldn’t have any problems in that regard.
Harsh, probably, but fair.
